Alaska loses lawsuit that challenged the western boundary of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

A U.S. District Court judge in Anchorage has ruled against the state of Alaska in an 11-year-old legal dispute that has significant implications for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and state finances.

On Wednesday, Judge Sharon Gleason ruled that laws and regulations setting the western border of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge are “ambiguous,” but federal regulators made a reasonable decision when they declared the border to be the western bank of the North Slope’s Staines River, rather than on the western bank of the Canning River.

There are 20,000 acres of potentially oil-rich land between the two waterways, and the state of Alaska had sought ownership of the area — sited just to the east of the Prudhoe Bay oil field — for oil and gas drilling.

While the federal governmen