On November 12, Wilderness Watch and our allies sued the Interior Department and King Cove Corporation in U.S. District Court for signing a land exchange agreement with the sole purpose of facilitating the construction of a 13-mile road through the protected tundra and wetlands of the world-renowned Izembek Wilderness and National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska.
If built, the road through the Izembek Wilderness would be catastrophic for the critters that live there and would essentially cut the 307,982-acre Izembek Wilderness in two.
Located near the tip of the Alaska Peninsula in southwest Alaska, the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge—over 95 percent of which is designated Wilderness—is a remote stretch of land where a quarter-million migratory birds, including virtually the entire population of Pacific black brant, congregate each fall.
Nearly 7,000 caribou make their annual trek into the Wilderness where they overwinter, and hundreds of sea otters swim with their young in the Izembek Lagoon, occasionally in the vicinity of migrating orcas, gray whales, minke whales, and Steller sea lions. Massive brown bears—as many as nine per mile—lumber through Wilderness streams during peak summer salmon runs.
A road over the narrow Izembek isthmus from King Cove to Cold Bay has been considered many times, and the Interior Department has repeatedly found that a road would cause long-term and irreparable damage to Izembek’s unique and ecologically important habitat. A federally funded hovercraft was provided to the King Cove community as a viable alternative to a road, and it successfully completed all requested medical evacuations during its operation. Despite performing how it was intended, the hovercraft operation was suspended in 2010 by the local Aleutians East Borough and sold.
The road has been proposed for decades. Initially it was justified to connect the village of King Cove and its large fish cannery with an all-weather airstrip in Cold Bay. When that rationale failed, the argument became one of medical necessity—that the road would provide emergency medical evacuations for King Cove residents. But numerous studies, including by the Army Corps of Engineers, have shown that marine-based transportation alternatives provide cheaper and more reliable options for medical emergencies, and in fact the federal government recently committed more than $40 million to upgrade the dock at Cold Bay specifically for medical needs.
The Native Village of Hooper Bay has also long opposed a road through Izembek, and dozens of other tribes and tribal entities in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta have passed resolutions opposing a land swap and road, noting the importance of Izembek to critical food resources and traditions.
Wilderness Watch and our allies sued over several similar land exchanges from the prior Trump term. Former Secretary Haaland withdrew a 2019 deal negotiated by Secretary Bernhardt. Haaland identified legal problems in the 2019 land exchange and initiated an environmental review process in 2023. Interior released a draft environmental impact statement in 2024 that proposed a land swap. That process was never completed.
The land exchange also further threatens federally protected lands across Alaska—including over 57 million acres of Wilderness—by allowing an agency appointee to single-handedly trade land in national parks, refuges, or other conservation areas to benefit private interests.
Wilderness Watch is joined on this lawsuit by Friends of Alaska Wildlife Refuges, the National Wildlife Refuge Association, Alaska Wilderness League, and Sierra Club. Law firm Trustees for Alaska is representing our coalition. Click here to read the complaint.
Better alternatives exist for providing safe transport for those experiencing medical emergencies from King’s Bay to the airport in Cold Bay that don’t compromise protection of the Izembek Wilderness and National Wildlife Refuge.
While we wish we didn’t need to file this lawsuit, we are deeply grateful for all of you who have written letters and provided support to protect the Izembek Wilderness over the years. Together, we’re going to win! |
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Help us protect Izembek and Wilderness around the country. A generous member has pledged to DOUBLE all first-time donations up to $10,000 this year. |
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