Dear Senator [Name],

 

Recently Alaska Senator Dan Sullivan introduced a rider about the Ambler Road to the National Defense Authorization Act. I'm writing today to request that any language about the Ambler Road be removed from the NDAA immediately. 

 

The Bureau of Land Management published a supplemental environmental impact statement in April showing that the Ambler Road would be a food security disaster for 66 Native villages across Alaska that rely on the land for food and the continuation of their 10,000 year old culture. The Road and mines would affect the Western Arctic Caribou Herd migration and wintering grounds as well as habitat for salmon and sheefish. This comes at a time when climate change makes it clear to us that we need to protect what we have, not build an ecological disaster in the upper reaches of one of our nation's remaining pristine rivers. 

 

Senator Sullivan claims that the Ambler Road is a matter of national security and improving our energy independence. But he hides the fact that any minerals removed from the Ambler Mining district would be shipped directly to China for processing. Senator Sullivan also claims that permitting and building the Ambler Road would not affect native lands. But he ignores the fact that a road would have to cross multiple Alaska Native Corporations' lands, impact individuals' allotments, and, as noted in the SEIS, restrict locals' access to their subsistence foods. 

 

[describe your own connection to the region]

 

Thank you for your time and I hope that you will act quickly to remove any language about the Ambler Road from the NDAA.

 

[Name]