While the State of Alaska mobilizes to break ground on a road passing through its smallest national wildlife refuge, various environmental groups are trying to halt construction.
Friends of Alaska National Wildlife Refuges, along with the Alaska Wilderness League, National Wildlife Refuge Association, Sierra Club and Wilderness Watch, filed a motion Friday asking the court to stop all road building activities in the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge. They’re asking for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction that would prevent the state from beginning any “ground-disturbing activities” in the Eastern Aleutian refuge, while their recently filed lawsuit moves through the legal system.
The suit is one of two filed in late July with the U.S. District Court in Anchorage. Plaintiffs want to revoke a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers permit issued earlier this month that would allow construction on the roughly 19-mile road stretching between the communities of King Cove and Cold Bay.
The Homer-based nonprofit said the Corps violated various federal laws including the Clean Water Act, the National Environmental Policy Act and the Administrative Procedure Act, among others.
In the other complaint, the western Alaska tribes Native Village of Hooper Bay, the Native Village of Paimiut, Chevak Native Village, along with the Center for Biological Diversity, say the Corps didn’t perform adequate environmental evaluations before concluding that the road wouldn’t have significant impacts and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s biological opinion failed to meet certain consultation requirements outlined in the Environmental Species Act.
Several of the plaintiffs, including Friends of Alaska National Wildlife Refuges and Hooper Bay’s tribal government, also named the Department of the Interior and the King Cove Corp. in previous lawsuits, claiming the national agency violated the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, Administrative Procedure Act and National Environmental Policy Act when entering into a land exchange agreement with King Cove’s Native corporation in October.
The Eastern Aleutian community of King Cove is home to about 800 residents, according to 2020 census data. It sits off the road system and has a short gravel airstrip that is often inaccessible due to weather.
But just around the corner, across a narrow isthmus, sits a neighboring, larger airport in Cold Bay, which would be accessible with the new road. King Cove community leaders have fought for the road for decades and say it could provide essential access to emergency medical care.
On the other hand, critics say it would endanger key subsistence species, like migrating geese.
According to the complaint filed by the Hooper Bay tribal government, the road would lead to increased harvests of black brant, emperor geese, and cackling geese in the refuge, putting them at greater risk of population declines. Pacific brant and emperor geese migrate to the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, where they are a significant subsistence resource.
The state said in a statement from July 10 that it planned to immediately begin moving equipment and supplies for construction on the road. The state is securing a materials supply contract with a subsidiary of Aleut Corporation — a regional Native corporation — but won’t break ground before Aug. 8, according to a permit notice.
Friends of Alaska National Wildlife Refuges has asked the court to respond to its motion by the end of August.
