A new land exchange agreement aimed at constructing a road through a national wildlife refuge has been signed by an Alaska Native corporation and the Interior Department, village community leaders announced Wednesday.
The exchange would trade land owned by King Cove Corp. for property of equal value in Izembek National Wildlife Refuge, an internationally recognized habitat for migrating waterfowl near the tip of the Alaska Peninsula.
King Cove spokeswoman Della Trumble said the exchange could lead to a long-desired land route to Cold Bay, which has an all-weather airport and access to emergency flights.
“We are so thankful that the Department of the Interior supports the needs of the Aleut people as well as the other residents of King Cove to help solve our life-threatening transportation problem,” Trumble said.
National environmental groups say the safety issue is a smoke screen to create a road that would eventually be opened to commercial traffic. They say King Cove, a fishing community of 925 people, has other means to emergency services. Environmental groups successfully challenged a previous land exchange agreement and vow to do so again.
“Just months after being halted by a federal court, the Trump administration has cut a second backroom deal with a private corporation to carve an illegal road through the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge,” Jamie Rappaport Clark, president and CEO of Defenders of Wildlife, said in a prepared statement.
Congress created the 486-square-mile (1,258-sq. kilometer) refuge in 1980. Izembek Lagoon holds one of the world’s largest beds of eelgrass, a rich food source for Pacific brant geese, endangered Steller’s eider sea ducks and other migratory birds. A road would split an isthmus as narrow as 3 miles (4.8 kilometers) on the southern border of the lagoon.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2013 concluded that a road would cause irrevocable damage to the Izembek watershed. Former Secretary Sally Jewell rejected a land exchange.
President Donald Trump’s first Interior secretary, Ryan Zinke, reversed course. He signed a new land exchange deal and made plans for the road. However, U.S. District Court Judge Gleason in March ruled that Zinke had acted illegally. She said an agency may not simply discard prior factual findings without a reasoned explanation.
Email messages requesting Interior Department comment sent Tuesday and Wednesday were not returned.
Trumble said the latest land trade would be would be similar to three other exchanges in which the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service swapped land with three village corporations within the Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge.
The proposed one-lane gravel road of about 12 miles (19.3 kilometers) would hook into historic military roads within the refuge, Trumble said. King Cove flights are grounded by dense fog, high winds or storms 30% of the time, she said, and since 2014, 101 emergency medical evacuations have taken place, including 21 by the U.S. Coast Guard.
Congress in 1997 addressed the King Cove transportation issue with a $37.5 million appropriation for water access to Cold Bay that included a $9 million hovercraft. The Aleutians East Borough, the regional governing body, took the vessel out of service after deciding it was too expensive and unreliable.
Rappaport Clark said the federal government has spent more than $50 million to upgrade access to quality medical care King Cove and the road would cost $30 million more.
