Interior looks at land swap to allow road through wildlife refuge
THE INTERIOR Department is preparing to set aside a decades- old ban on development in federally protected wilderness areas by pursuing a controversial proposal to build a nearly 12-mile road through a wild-life refuge in Alaska.
The project in the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge has long been a priority for Alaska officials, who say it is a “lifesaving” link needed to connect a remote Aleutian Islands town of 925 people with the rest of the state. The proposal, which entails turning federal land over to a tribal corporation, fits neatly with the Trump administration’s broader goal of giving more control to local communities like King Cove.
Yet environmentalists, several native Alaskan tribes and other critics warn that the road could disrupt the habitat for a variety of animals, most notably migratory birds that use the refuge as a crucial stopover on their marathon journeys along the Pacific Coast of North America. And allowing the project would violate the founding principle of federal wilderness - areas that are to remain pristine, off-limits to vehicles – and set a precedent that could endanger other refuges, opponents say.
“If they can pull this off in Alaska, the entire Lower 48 is at risk,” said Defenders of Wildlife President Jamie Rappaport Clark, whose group obtained documents detailing Interior’s efforts under the Freedom of Information Act.
Those documents, primarily internal agency emails, reveal how much discussion is intentionally taking place out of public viewas federal, state, local and tribal officials work to approve a land exchange. Were the targeted terrain owned by the King Cove Corporation, that would clear the way for construction through the refuge to join up roads on either side.
The one-lane stretch of gravel would bisect an expanse of tundra, lagoons and other waterways that provides a vital feeding ground for migrating birds as well as bears, caribou and other species. Izembek was created by President Dwight Eisenhower in 1960, and two decades later Congress designated all but 15,000 of its 315,000 acres as wilderness. In spring and fall, nearly all of the world’s population of emperor and Pacific black brant geese stop to devour the refuge’s eelgrass beds for sustenance. In winter, tens of thousands of the threatened Steller’s eider sea ducks stay and moult there.
But Aleutians East Borough communications director Laura Tanis, whose local government assembly encompasses King Cove, described the road as an issue of equity.
“The residents of King Cove are Americans,” Tanis said. “They deserve what virtually all Americans have: The certainty and the peace of mind that when they need to travel for medical emergencies, scheduled medical appointments, school sports and other activities, they can count on getting to their hub airport safely, reliably and affordably.”
The 1964 Wilderness Act bars new roads and the use of motorised vehicles in areas designated under the law except in rare instances - such as to provide access for the development of existing mining claims - and there appears to be no precedent for the executive branch permitting those activities for other reasons. The Wilderness Society and other groups successfully blocked the Forest Service last year from authorising four miles of road construction in Montana’s Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness to access a long- dormantgold mine.
Congress, though, has always enjoyed broader latitude because of its legislative role. Law makers in 2014 authorised minor adjustments to a wilderness boundary in Washington’s North Cascades National Park so a proposed road could be rerouted farther away from a flood-prone river. Nothing has been built yet.
The question of how best to address the needs of tiny King Cove, located on the tip of the Alaska Peninsula, has been politically fraught for decades. Residents have lobbied federal officials to develop a road through the Izembek refuge so they can travel by land to a major regional airport in neighbouring Cold Bay.
Between 1980 and 1994, 12 people died during medical evacuations en route to that hub airport, and while no residents have died since, local leaders say there have been many close calls.
The issue temporarily held up the 2013 confirmation of Sally Jewell as interior secretary in the Obama administration after Lisa Murkowksi, R-Alaska, threatened to not allow a vote unless Jewell agreed to authorise the road. — WP-Bloomberg