Permit granted to survey area for construction site

Walker cites need for road to Cold Bay airport for medevac emergencies

Federal officials have issued a permit that allows for a state of Alaska to survey to determine what would be the least impactful route for an emergency medical route between the Alaska Peninsula communities of King Cove and Cold Bay.

Gov. Bill Walker said on June 26 that the state Department of Transportation survey work, based on the environmental review completed in 2013, was expected to be completed by mid-July.

“For far too long, King Cove residents suffering from medical emergencies have had to brave harsh elements just to get health care,” Walker said. “They travel by boat or helicopter – often in inclement weather, to access the Cold Bay airport in order to be medevaced out. Our fellow Alaskans deserve better than that.”

“We are pleased, very pleased, very thankful,” said Della Trumble, finance manager for the King Cove Corp., the Alaska Native village corporation for King Cove.

“We know it’s still not a done deal, but it is a step in the right direction.  We have a bunch of irons in the fire, so one of them has to work.”

Residents of King Cove, home of a year-round processing plant owned by Peter Pan Seafoods, have been fighting for 35 years for proposed road corridor linking their city to the all weather Cold Bay Airport. Their goal is for a land route providing critical access to medical facilities in Anchorage in emergency situations.

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Environmental entities, including The Wilderness Society, oppose the proposed route through designated wilderness in Izembek National Wildlife Refuge, contending that the road would result in adverse impact on waterfowl habitat.

“Like other national wildlife refuges across the country, Izembek is under attack from those who want to take over federal public lands and return them to state control for road construction and resource development,” said Nicole Whittington-Evans, Alaska regional director for The Wilderness Society. While proponents of the road cast the project as one of life saving, the purpose has been for commercial and socioeconomic opportunity, she said.  Whittington-Evans also cited a 2015 U.. Army corps of Engineers report saying there are other transportation alternatives to the road, including an ice capable marine vessel.

The Aleutians East Borough notes on its website that there are already more than 14 miles of roads traversing the Izembek Wilderness and another 35 miles in the Izembek Refuge dating back to world War Two, when thousands of GIs traveled extensively throughout the area. Residents of King Cove believe a road is the only viable and practical solution, borough officials said.

In fact flights from King Cove’s unpaved airstrip are often delayed or canceled because of thick fog or stormy weather, including gale force winds, making hazardous even a three hour trip on a fishing tender between the two communities.

Alaska’s congressional delegation has supported the road project, however, and legislation moving through the House and Senate would authorize

a land exchange to facilitate construction of that road.

Both measures would allow for up to 43,093 acres of state of Alaska land to be transferred to the federal government and added to Izembek National Wildlife Refuge as designated wilderness in an equal value land exchange.  In return, the state of Alaska would receive 206 acres of federal land to construction an 11-mile one-lane non-commercial gravel road segment. The corridor would account for about 0.06 percent of the 315,000-acre Izembek refuge.

In 2009, Congress and President Obama approved the road and a massive land swap of 61,000 acres from the state and the King Cove Corp. in exchange for a single-lane gravel road corridor to the Cold Bay Airport.

Then, on Dec. 23, 2013, Interior Secretary Sally Jewell rejected the plan. On June 4, 2014, King Cove tribes, the village corporation, the city and the borough sued Jewell and other federal officials over the road issue.

In June 2015, the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior Environment and Related Agencies approved language from Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, directing Interior to do an equal value land transfer that would allow for the road to be constructed, but the language was not included in the year-end budget deal agreed to by Congress.

In September 2015, U.S. District Judge H. Russel Holland ruled against the King Cove Group, determining there was no violation of the National environmental policy Act or Omnibus Public Lands Management Act involved in Interior’s decision. Holland acknowledged that Jewell’s decision was based on the environmental impact of the road, rather than public health and safety impacts.

The latest effort in support of the road, led by Alaska’s congressional delegation, mandates a land exchange necessary for construction of the road.

Whittington-Evans said The Wilderness Society and its partner organizations would continue to fight “the Trump administration’s assault on America’s public lands.”

Trumble, meanwhile, said she remains optimistic that a road will be constructed.

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