State proposes five-year extension of Arctic Slope Telephone lease at Deadhorse Airport

A rural North Slope telecommunications provider would keep its equipment on Deadhorse Airport land for another five years under a lease extension the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities proposed Friday. The department cites a statute that lets it grant the extension without competition.

Arctic Slope Telephone Association Cooperative Inc. would retain its communications building, shop and antenna tower on the airport land. The member-owned cooperative provides local, long distance and broadband service to villages and oil fields across the North Slope, according to its corporate description.

The lease covers about 50,000 square feet at an annual rent of $14,250 plus associated fees. The authorized use is non-aeronautical.

Continued access to the site matters beyond the paperwork. Cooperative members in remote villages and industrial areas depend on the utility for telephone and broadband service. North Slope oil field operators and support contractors rely on Deadhorse Airport land and non-aeronautical facilities such as communications infrastructure for field operations, logistics and emergency access.

Noncompetitive Extension Process

The application is filed under a state aviation land statute, "which allows the Department to grant the proposed lease term extension without competition," the notice says. The department identifies the lease as ADA-72054 on Lot 5A, Block 60.

How to Comment

Written comments must be received by 4:30 p.m. Aug. 31, 2026. Under the department's usual practice for Deadhorse lease extensions, it decides afterward whether to extend the lease and sends the decision only to those who submitted written comments or objections.

The extension is one of several Deadhorse lease actions in the department's Northern Region notice stream this summer. The department manages roughly 1,500 active land use agreements across 235 rural airports.