Tilder: The Importance of Decommissioning Plans in Relocation Projects

In Feed it to the Ocean: The Federal Approach to Decommissioning in Alaska Native Climate Adaptation Project, Sophia Tilder (University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Law) highlights the importance of decommissioning existing infrastructure when planning relocation, managed retreat, and protect-in-place (RMP) projects for environmentally threatened Native communities in rural Alaska.

Tilder explains that projects using protect-in-place strategies aim to minimize climate change impact while maintaining the current location of a community’s infrastructure. Conversely, managed retreat and relocation projects move a community’s infrastructure to a safer ground, typically in phases. Tilder argues that decommissioning plans are closely linked to relocation projects and the two should be considered concurrently to ensure proper funding and interagency coordination.

Using the village of Newtok as an example, Tilder discusses the failure of the Council on Environmental Quality to clarify decommission plans as an “in-scope ‘connected action’” of RMP projects under the National Environmental Policy Act. Tilder argues that this lack of guidance has allowed federal commissions tasked with rural infrastructure, like the Denali Commission, to overlook the budgetary needs for decommissioning in their RMP project proposals. In Newtok, the Denali Commission determined that the village needed to be relocated due to waste erosion sites and environmental concerns. However, it did not mention the decommission of its existing infrastructure in its Environmental Impact Statement, nor did it consult the people of Newtok on the issue of decommissioning.

As the first relocation of an Alaskan Native village within the last millennium, Newtok presents a troublesome model for future RMP projects in rural Alaska. In analyzing the Denali Commission’s approach, Tilder finds that a lack of consultation with rural Native populations impairs the community’s ability to protect its interests. Tilder also notes that it undermines Native self-determination and perpetuates reliance on federal agencies by Alaska’s Native communities. Tilder hopes that the Council on Environmental Quality will act quickly to classify decommissioning as a “connected action” included in RMP project environmental review under the National Environmental Policy Act.