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Kuukpik permitting Nuiqsut spur road
Kristen Nelson Petroleum News
A project related to ConocoPhillips Alaska’s development of CD-5 in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska is in the permitting process with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Kuukpik Corp., the village corporation for Nuiqsut, is permitting the 5.8 mile Nuiqsut Spur Road which would connect the village of Nuiqsut with the proposed CD-5 road.
The Corps said the road would provide increased subsistence user access to subsistence resources, provide mitigation for potential impacts from CD-5 development and future satellite oil development and allow villagers the opportunity for increased employment and business opportunities at the nearby ConocoPhillips Alaska-operated Alpine development.
The project includes a storage pad to meet the existing needs of a Kuukpik Corp. subsidiary, Nanuq Inc., “for locating a concrete batch plant, aggregate stockpile, and storage of equipment and an exploration camp,” the Corps said.
The projects require a Corps permit for placement of 455,000 cubic yards of clean gravel fill material onto 51 acres of wetlands.
The spur road would connect the existing Nuiqsut Dump Road with ConocoPhillips Alaska’s proposed CD-5 access road. The 0.8-mile Nuiqsut Dump Road would be improved to match the new spur road width and surface. The 10-acre storage pad would be at the junction of the spur road and the CD-5 access road.
2008 MOA In a 2008 memorandum of agreement with the Native Village of Nuiqsut, ConocoPhillips Alaska “agreed to provide substantial financial, design, and permitting assistance to construct the Spur Road,” the Corps said. The road would mitigate loss of hunting areas resulting from Alpine satellite development.
Material for the road would come from the ASRC/Kuukpik Colville River gravel mine.
Several proposed mitigation measures are part of the road-pad permit application: use of recent habitat mapping to site road away from higher value areas with most road construction, except for culvert installation, taking place in winter from ice roads; minimization of road width from 30-32 feet wide to 24-feet wide with culverts installed to minimize drainage interruption or changes to normal surface flows; and compensatory mitigation which involves Kuukpik Corp. putting into preservation status a 76.5-acre parcel in the Fish Creek drainage some 14 miles north-northwest of Nuiqsut. The Corps said the parcel is within NPR-A, may contain mineral resources, but is used for insect relief by caribou and is a high-density nesting area for shore birds and waterfowl. Traditional Inupiat subsistence uses would be allowed on the parcel, the Corps said.
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