newsminer.com

The state of Alaska and the King Cove village corporation presented such a good deal to Congress this year that members must have temporarily gagged on its sweetness.

The state offered to give the federal government 43,000 acres of land adjacent to the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge, near the western end of the Alaska Peninsula. The King Cove corporation offered up to 18,000 more, for a total of 61,000 acres. In return, they asked Congress to give the state about 206 acres on which would be built a short, narrow ribbon of road between King Cove and the nearby town of Cold Bay.

Progress has been halting, but, in mid-November, Congress will likely take up the bill that authorizes this deal. Members should pass the bill, which is part of a larger package of land-related measures, and feel good about doing so.

King Cove, a community with about 800 people, needs the road so residents can benefit from Cold Bay’s enormous runway, which is located about 25 miles to the west and is now used mostly by the few dozen residents of the area, visiting tourists and hunters. King Cove’s small runway is tucked dangerously in the mountains and is plagued by high winds, making it frequently unusable. A hovercraft that runs from King Cove to Cold Bay (purchased with federal money granted as a consolation prize the last time Congress said “no” to a road) is bankrupting the Aleutians East Borough and has been defeated by the weather as well.

The hitch in the road deal always has been that the path between these communities must follow an isthmus within the Izembek refuge, including the part designated as official wilderness. Rich eel grass beds, essential food for black brant geese and other waterfowl, lie in the lagoons to the north and south of the isthmus. Environmental organizations worry about the road’s impact on these beds and can’t accept the precedent that would be set by approving the road intrusion into the refuge.

So they’ve lobbied Congress hard to prevent the road. But, unlike in previous years, they lost at each stage in the process. The House Natural Resources Committee approved the exchange. So did the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

The Senate Energy version offers a number of concessions that could still doom the road. The revised bill only authorizes the exchange; it leaves the final decision up to the Secretary of the Interior.

This is progress, but opponents of the road are working hard to halt it. The New York Times called the legislation “another Alaska boondoggle and a surefire environmental disaster” in a Sept. 18 editorial.

The editors said “American taxpayers should not spend a dime on this project.” Of course, that’s not a decision Congress makes. Congress gives Alaska a share of federal highway dollars; the state, just like every other state, decides how to spend them. As we saw with the proposed Ketchikan-Gravina Island bridge, members of Congress are loath to start blocking specific projects. (They repealed the earmark that directed the money to the bridge, but they didn’t take back the money or block the state from using the money on the bridge if it so desired.)

It’s hard to imagine how the road could qualify as an environmental disaster, especially given the offsetting environmental benefits from preserving in perpetuity the vast acreage now in state and Native corporation hands. Hunters and tourists have used similar roads in the Izembek refuge for decades without triggering a “surefire environmental disaster.” No commercial traffic would be allowed on the new road, under the latest Senate version of the bill. And the road’s shoulders would be cabled so no one strays off it.

A one-lane, roped-off gravel road, hosting an occasional car and located well away from the eel grass beds, will make little difference to the waterfowl and landscape of the Izembek refuge. But it will make a great difference to the people of King Cove.