The Biden Administration and Secretary of Interior Haaland are ready to destroy one of the primary protections of the 1964 Wilderness Act. The Biden Administration, with the apparent support of Secretary of Interior Deb Haaland, has sided with some Alaskan Natives and the previous Trump administration to approve the construction of a road through the designated Wilderness of Alaska’s Izembek National Wildlife Refuge.
Roads are not permitted in designated Wilderness Areas. To get around this limitation, the administration will allow a land exchange along the proposed route, essentially making it private land so road construction can proceed.
In theory, only Congress can modify Wilderness Area boundaries. Congress has done this in minor situations to adjust boundaries. However, allowing a Secretary of Interior to override wilderness designation is a huge threat to Wilderness throughout Alaska and perhaps even in the lower 48 states. It doesn’t take much imagination to see how a Trump Secretary of Interior might use this precedent (if allowed to stand) to authorize roads in many designated wilderness areas.
The Biden administration supports the Aleut villagers in King Cove’s efforts to construct a road to an all-weather airstrip in Cold Bay. The villagers argue they need a road to transport medical emergencies to the Cold Bay airstrip.
Some opponents of the road allege the proposed route has more to do with economic opportunities than medical emergencies. The original justification for the road was more financial. In 1994, King Cove passed a resolution saying the road would “link together two communities having one of the State’s premier fishing ports/harbors (including North America’s largest salmon cannery) in King Cove with one of the State’s premier airports at Cold Bay.”
The Peter Pan Processing plant in King Cove is Alaska’s biggest salmon and seafood processing operation. The route would make getting workers in and out of King Cove easier. But it would also reduce the costs of shipping fish. Peter Pan must load fish on a boat and transport it by sea to Cold Bay, where it is loaded on another truck to be transported to the airstrip.
However, twenty years later, the justification was changed to the medical emergency rationale.
To find an alternative to the road, the federal government contributed $37 million (a taxpayer subsidy of over $56,000 per King Cove resident) for an improved medical clinic in King Cove and the purchase of a hovercraft and improved dock facilities that could link both communities by water. The hovercraft only operated for three years before the Borough shut it down, arguing it was too expensive and failed to work in high winds. However, during its three years, the hovercraft successfully transported 22 medical evacuations.
Although this argument has some legitimacy, a review of the proposed road found that harsh weather and blowing snow on the treeless tundra could be as much a barrier to transportation as relying on the ferry.
Villagers have latched on to the idea that a road would provide safe passage between King Cove and Cold Bay. However, a doctor who oversaw medical evacuations in King Cove for 15 years said traveling almost 40 miles on the gravel road during 60 mph winds and blinding snowstorms would be “suicidal” for patients and rescue teams.
“Should the road happen, I foresee all sorts of calamity,” said Dr. Peter Mjos, the Eastern Aleutian Tribes’ medical director until 2002. He retired from practicing medicine in 2015.
Anyone driving a highway on the Great Plains during a blinding blizzard can appreciate how operating an emergency vehicle on a road through a treeless tundra in stormy weather could be perilous.
Former President Jimmy Carter filed an Amicus Curaie brief in support of continued wilderness designation and refuge protection. Carter, who in 1980 signed the ANILCA into law, argues that allowing a road to be constructed across the Izembek NWR Wilderness could “undercut” the purposes of the Act and set a dangerous precedent that could threaten Wilderness and conservation lands across the country.
It seems to me that “medical emergencies” is a red herring. While there may indeed be a few times when alternative means of transport are unavailable, I do not believe this is the real reason for the road. The main motive is to create economically viable alternatives for seafood transport.
Previous administrations, including the Clinton and Obama administrations, have opposed the land trade and road. However, the Trump administration came out in favor of the road.
Izembek is particularly important for Pacific Black Brant; 98 percent of those small geese spend part of the year there, feeding on the world’s most extensive eelgrass beds, their dietary staple. The area also supports about half the world’s Emperor Geese and a substantial percentage of the threatened Steller’s Eider population. The refuge supports one of the densest populations of grizzly bears on the Alaskan Peninsula and wolves, foxes, caribou, and even walruses.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service concluded that allowing a road through the refuge would “degrade irreplaceable ecological resources.” It also would jeopardize the global survival of a migratory sea goose, the Pacific black brant, the emperor goose, and other waterfowl.
Izembek is recognized as a Wetland of International Importance, and Izembek lagoons are also considered an Important Bird Area (IBA) of global significance.
A 2013 Record of Decision on a Final EIS that reviewed the potential impact of the road concluded:” Construction of a road through the Izembek NWR would lead to significant degradation of irreplaceable ecological resources.”
However, some native groups in Alaska have recently come out in opposition to the road. Other Alaskan native groups support the land exchange, likely because they believe they could use the precedent to further their economic interests.
Local governments support it, including the Agdaagux Tribe of King Cove, as does the King Cove village corporation. The National Congress of American Indians, the statewide Alaska Federation of Natives, Alaska’s Congressional delegation, and the state of Alaska favor the road.
For instance, NANA Corporation, representing native people in Northwest Alaska, is currently trying to obtain permission to build a 211-mile road across the southern Brooks Range, including through the Gates of the Arctic National Park, to its mining claims in the Ambler Mining District. NANA filed a brief prepared by Lewis and Clark Law School’s Western Resource Law Center to support the land exchange.
The Lewis and Clark Law School’s support for the road, which was previously strongly aligned with environmental protection, is an excellent example of how WOKE politics has infected traditional allies of wildlands protection. (I use the term WOKE to designate policies that put Identify ahead of all other considerations, though initially, I recognize it meant being aware of inequities in society)
The Biden Administration says the new agreement requires that the road be closed to commercial use. However, the same ploy was used to garner support for the Pipeline Haul Road (now known as the Dalton Highway).
This land exchange and road construction are much bigger issues than this proposal. I am confident that the decision if a road is built will be used in many future attempts to open designated Wilderness to road access. For instance, access to “critically important minerals” or to permit “fire management” and any other excuses could be used to degrade wilderness preservation values.
The decision by the Biden administration feeds into the growing effort by lefty WOKE academics and some organizations (formerly known as wilderness advocates like the Sierra Club, The Wilderness Society, and many others) to denigrate wilderness as “cultural genocide,” colonialism, and other canards that put human interests, especially if it involves tribal concerns, ahead of ecological integrity and wildlands preservation,
Leave a Reply