I am an Associate Professor at the University of Minnesota and have conducted research at the Toolik Field Station in the past. I also currently advise a graduate student who is conducting research there. I was dismayed to learn about a bill pending in the Alaska State Senate that would repeal restrictions on the use of ATVs and off-road vehicles within a 5-mile corridor surrounding the Dalton Highway.

Having traveled in the Anuktuvuk Pass region, I have witnessed just how destructive ATV travel can be in sensitive tundra regions. These vehicles rip up the tundra vegetation and cause extensive melting of permafrost, essentially resulting in muddy, unvegetated scars on the landscape that will not recover. Areas where vehicles passed even a single time in the 1970s are still visible today as having distinct plant cover from the surrounding tundra.

ATV use in the region of Toolik Field Station would be devastating to the research that goes on there, potentially compromising ongoing studies as well as destroying the potential for future studies. This research station is the premier arctic scientific research station in the US. Thus, the scientists who work there make a substantial scientific contribution to the understanding of arctic systems worldwide. They also make a substantial financial contribution to the state, directly through the user fees that are paid by research grants and by the National Science Foundation to the University of Alaska, and indirectly, by supporting the economy of Fairbanks and the North Slope (through air travel, vehicle rental, hotel accommodations, etc.).

If scientists working at the Toolik Field Station knew that their research would potentially be compromised by ATV travel, they would likely take those research dollars elsewhere. Although safeguards that protect particular regions from ATV travel might be legislated, they will be nearly impossible to enforce. I have witnessed how thinly BLM officers are stretched already on the
North Slope, in the form of illegal hunting along the Dalton Highway.

ATV use along the entire Dalton Highway would be devastating for the region, causing irreparable harm to this fragile landscape.

I urge you to vote against opening up the Dalton Highway corridor to ATV and off-road vehicle use.

Please include this email in the official committee record on this bill.

Sincerely,

Sarah E. Hobbie, Associate Professor
Dept. of Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior
University of Minnesota
1987 Upper Buford Circle
St. Paul MN 55108

http://www.cbs.umn.edu/labs/shobbie/

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