The decadeslong battle over a proposed gravel road though a federal wildlife refuge in Alaska is taking another sharp turn.
The Trump administration is planning to ditch the land swap proposal for the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge offered last year by the Interior Department under then-Secretary Deb Haaland.
Instead, Interior plans to authorize a new agreement for a road corridor, that would eventually allow King Cove Corp. — an Alaska Native corporation — to build a roughly 10-mile-long gravel road through the refuge, according to a Fish and Wildlife Service document reviewed by POLITICO’s E&E News and Gary Hennigh, the city administrator for the town of King Cove who is directly involved in the negotiations.
This new proposal — which is not finalized — would require the local corporation to give up far less land in exchange for the refuge land used to build the road. The road has long been sought by residents of the coastal community of King Cove, because it would allow them in harsh winter months to get to an all-weather airport in Cold Bay, from which sick or injured people can be flown to hospitals hundreds of miles away.
