The state wants this gravel pit to be permanent.

The state wants to make a gravel pit near the Richardson Highway permanent — and the public has until July 22 to weigh in before the chance disappears for good.

The Alaska Department of Transportation has applied to permanently designate 154 acres of state land near milepost 74, about 76 miles northeast of Valdez, as a material site, along with a five-year contract to pull 100,000 cubic yards of riprap and gravel through 2030. The key word is permanent: if approved, the designation is indefinite, meaning future extraction contracts could follow without another public process. This comment window is the one formal opportunity to shape how the site is operated and reclaimed — not just now, but for whatever digs come after.

This isn't a brand-new pit. Crews have sourced material here since at least 2008, so the request mostly formalizes what's already happening, and it fits a wider pattern of the state expanding gravel sites along the Richardson corridor — a separate site at milepost 16 jumped from 9 to 76 acres in 2024. For DOT&PF, the payoff is a dependable, nearby source of rock to keep the highway maintained.

The tension is who else uses the land. The site sits in Game Management Unit 13D, prime country for moose, caribou, and brown bear that hunters and trappers depend on, and an indefinite designation raises the prospect of extraction continuing and possibly expanding for years. Nearby sit two of Alaska's heavyweights: the Trans-Alaska Pipeline right-of-way runs close enough that the state pipeline office wants Alyeska notified before any blasting, and the Tonsina River, about a mile north, carries king, coho, and sockeye salmon. None of those are flagged as conflicts in the notice — but they're exactly the kind of "multiple land use" issues the state says it's asking the public to raise now, before the designation is locked in.