Save the Colville River from Oil Drilling

Colville River | Photo by The Wilderness Society

Alaska’s Colville River, called Kuukpik in the language of the native Iñupiaq people, is one of the wildest in the country. The river’s high bluffs provide nesting habitat for an extremely high number of raptors, particularly peregrine falcons, rough-legged hawks and gyrfalcons. Numerous species of fish, including Arctic grayling, salmon and broad whitefish, find a home in this special place.

To Arctic residents, the river is an important transportation route to access subsistence resources and culturally important sites. Because of the significance of these values, the Bureau of Land Management established the Colville River Special Area more than 40 years ago.

Now the Trump Administration is proposing to remove conservation protections for the protected portions of this beautiful wild landscape, opening previously closed areas to oil and gas development.

Tell the Secretary of Interior to protect the Colville River and Teshekpuk Lake Special Areas, and the Western Arctic’s unique and fragile landscape.

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Acting Secretary

David

Bernhardt

Department of the Interior

Dear Acting Secretary David Bernhard,

America’s western Arctic in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A) is one of the most intact and wild ecosystems in the world.  It is home to caribou, wolverines and millions of migratory birds. It serves as the annual calving grounds for the Teshekpuk Lake and western Arctic caribou herds, contains some of the highest densities of shorebird nesting in the circumpolar Arctic, and provides key denning habitat for polar bears. It is like no other place on earth, and it is being dramatically impacted by climate change. Local tribes use this area for its subsistence values and culturally important areas.

The Colville River runs through the NPR-A, and American Rivers listed it among America’s Most Endangered Rivers® of 2018, due to the threat of oil and gas development to the Colville River and Teshekpuk Lake Special Areas .

I urge you to maintain the protections of the existing Colville River and Teshekpuk Lake Special Areas, and to protect remaining subsistence use areas. Opening these areas to oil and gas development threatens globally-significant habitat, important subsistence and cultural resources, and the exceptional lands of the western Arctic.

Thank you for your consideration of this matter.

Sincerely,

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