Efforts are under way to build a gravel road that could help an imperiled Western Alaska village move to higher ground.

Shishmaref, a barrier island village of about 600 on the northern Seward Peninsula, is losing land to the Bering Sea because warmer temperatures have reduced the length of time the village is protected by shorefast ice.

The village could have less than 10 years left, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Work on the road started earlier this month when state officials operating a drill rig on skis began piercing holes in the frozen earth on the mainland south of Shishmaref. The state is assessing quality of permafrost, rock and soil to determine the best route, state transportation planners said.

The road will likely travel about 20 miles, starting at the edge of Shishmaref Inlet, said Tony Weyiouanna, a transportation planner with Kawerak, the social service provider for Alaska Natives in the Bering Strait region.

It would end at Ear Mountain, where the village hopes to extract gravel and rock that can be used for construction and a seawall protecting the existing village. Along the way, the road will pass Tin Creek, near a site on a tundra plain where residents hope the village will be rebuilt, Weyiouanna said.

The state’s exploratory work taps into a $4.7 million road fund, Weyiouanna said. Most of the fund, about $4.2 million, comes from a Congressional earmark approved in 2005 for federal highway money.

The state provided an additional $500,000, he said.

The exploratory work is "an important part of the puzzle to pay for this relocation project," Weyiouanna said.

The village, which hasn’t chosen a name for the proposed site, hopes to move as soon as money is available to begin building an airport, barge landing, houses and other facilities, Weyiouanna said. Residents hope the state and federal government can pay the entire cost for the move.

In case they won’t, villagers intend to create a comprehensive relocation plan that includes a cheaper option with the Shishmaref tribal government paying for as much of the work as possible.

Weyiouanna, a Shishmaref resident who spends much of his time seeking federal and state grants for the big move, said money will be left over from the drilling that can be used for road design and possibly some construction. The exploratory work is no guarantee a road will be built.

"We’ll have to go back to the state or Congress for actual construction money," he said.

The road could cost more than $30 million to build, said Ethan Birkholz, northern region planning manager for the state Department of Transportation

And that could be just the beginning.

Creating a new village could cost as much as $200 million, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers estimated in 2006. That’s more than $300,000 for each Shishmaref resident.

At the same time, another $25 million is needed to build 3,000 feet of seawall and further protect the existing village from the Bering Sea, the Corps reported.

The Inupiat village has lost hundreds of feet of land in recent decades, with the biggest storms swiping more than 100 feet at a time, according to a Website created by the village’s relocation committee.

While 186 Alaska villages face flooding and erosion problems, Shishmaref joins Newtok and Kivalina, both in Western Alaska, as the most threatened. The Corps gave the three villages a 10- to 15-year lifespan in 2006.

Shishmaref voted in 2004 to move to the Tin Creek site, Weyiouanna said. If the road is built, villagers must cross six miles of water in Shishmaref Inlet, either by boat or snowmachine in winter, to reach the road, he said.

Alaska villages have historically been built at locations that offer easy access to hunting and fishing. The Tin Creek site doesn’t offer great fishing – the creek is too thin for nets, he said.

But the proposed village site is a few miles from the inlet, so hunters won’t be far from the bearded seal, Shishmaref’s staple food, he said. It’s also not far from Serpentine River, where villagers hunt for duck, moose and caribou and pick berries, he said.

Building a road will require a permit from the National Park Service, because a section of it will cross the 2.7 million acre Bering Land Bridge National Preserve. Ear Mountain is outside the preserve.

The National Park Service recently granted a waiver for the drilling – the snow is deep enough and the drill rig is small enough that the tundra won’t be affected, said Bud Rice, with the National Park Service. Rice will be on hand to monitor the drilling in the refuge, he said.

Rules in preserves are generally more permissive than in national wilderness areas or national parks, and there’s a good chance the waiver for the road construction will be granted. It would require approval of Marcia Blaszak, Alaska regional director.

"We’re talking about the survival of a village," he said.

Alex DeMarban can be reached at (907) 348-2444 or (800) 770-9830, ext. 444.