Izembek: A National Wildlife Refuge System Gem
Most people have probably not heard of the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge. Small by Alaska standards, this 315,000-acre refuge is comprised almost entirely of Congressionally-designated wilderness land. Located at the southwestern extreme of the Alaska mainland, Izembek is a remote, breathtaking landscape at the end of a peninsula separating the Pacific Ocean and the Bering Sea. I had the privilege of visiting this world-class wetland this summer.
First federally protected by Public Land Order in 1960, Izembek is a wetland of international importance — the very first area in the country designated as such under the Ramsar Convention in 1986. The entire world population of Emperor geese migrates through the refuge each spring and fall, and virtually the entire world population of Pacific black brant molt here as well. Threatened Steller’s eiders visit the Refuge each fall, along with tens of thousands of other migratory birds.
Izembek’s eelgrass beds are among the largest in the world; they support all of this bird life and feed the productive fisheries of the Bering Sea. There are five species of salmon; furbearers such as wolf, fox, and wolverine; and large mammals such as caribou and moose. Oh, and Izembek is also home to some of the densest populations of brown bears in all of Alaska — and I got to see a few of them up close (but not TOO close)!
Izembek has immense value to wildlife. Its land manager, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, is charged with protecting the biological integrity and diversity of its incredible fish and wildlife species. As a wilderness area within a National Wildlife Refuge, it is appropriately afforded maximum protection from the impacts of human development, so that it can continue to fulfill its national and global ecological functions undisturbed. Or at least it WAS afforded maximum protection . . .
The Making of a Controversy
The natural wonder that is the Izembek Refuge includes a narrow isthmus separating two lagoons, the Izembek and Kinzarof Lagoons, that are among the prized features of this remarkable landscape. Both lagoons contain the eelgrass so important to the ecosystem, and because they lie on opposite sides of the Alaska Peninsula they can offer different amenities, allowing wildlife to choose the right habitat for the prevailing conditions. The isthmus also lies in the land path between two tiny towns, King Cove and Cold Bay (current pop. 900 and 100, respectively). King Cove was established in 1911 when a cannery was built there; Cold Bay in the 1940s when an airfield was built there for military purposes during World War II.
In the 80 years since, three storylines impacting this area have traveled on a collision course. First, the ecological significance of the Izembek area became recognized and protected, starting in 1960. Second, the town of King Cove — unincorporated in 1911 — was chartered in 1947 and slowly grew, along with its cannery, now called Peter Pan Seafoods (owned by Maruha Capital Investments Inc. of Japan — the largest seafood company in the world). Third, after the war, the Cold Bay airfield evolved into an active, if tiny, civilian airport. Today a 10,000-foot runway accommodates flights to and from small surrounding communities and the city of Anchorage, some 626 air miles away.
By the 1980s the large cannery was looking to move substantial amounts of seafood to Asian markets and sitting not so far from an airport in Cold Bay that could reliably do so. (The same is not true of the small airport in King Cove.) Interest in connecting the two tiny towns by road grew in some quarters, but the passage of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) in 1980 had designated most of the Izembek Refuge as wilderness, prohibiting road construction.
Finding Compromise
Considerable negotiations ensued, culminating (so we thought at the time) with the passage of the King Cove Health and Safety Act of 1998, which provided $37.5 million — mostly for construction of a road to a terminal for a brand new hovercraft, as well as upgrades to the health clinic in King Cove.
But wait, how did health and safety issues get involved, you ask? Good question. After unsuccessfully arguing that a road was needed to move seafood to market, road proponents led by the Alaska Congressional delegation of Senators Ted Stevens and Frank Murkowski, and Representative Don Young started to emphasize the perils associated with getting from King Cove to a fully-equipped hospital in the event of a medical emergency. It is true that the area experiences some truly heinous weather, with forbidding high winds, rain, snow, fog, and ice conditions not uncommon. It is also true that getting from most anywhere in rural Alaska to a fully-equipped hospital for an emergency is challenging.
In any event, securing safe transport from King Cove to Cold Bay, thus allowing subsequent air travel from Cold Bay to Anchorage for emergency medical care, became the stated reason for the road. Because it’s illegal to build a road through wilderness, the parties settled on the hovercraft as an alternative — and much faster — way to provide the King Cove-Cold Bay leg of the journey. And it did. For the four years that it operated, the hovercraft safely transported every person who needed it for medical purposes and served as a general commute vehicle as well. The compromise worked.
Or Not
The Aleutians East borough, in which these tiny towns are located, was subsidizing the commuter enterprise and grew uncomfortable with the price tag, which it said reached about $800,000 per year. Service was discontinued, and the hovercraft moved to another town. The $37 million road to the hovercraft terminal — a road that ultimately wound up costing closer to $50 million — was built anyway. Why? Another good question.
As you can see on the map above, the proposed hovercraft terminal site is on the way to Cold Bay. (The hovercraft operated out of Lenard Harbor when it was in use; the more northern launch site was selected due to the presence of more protected waters farther north in the bay.) That is, the road to the hovercraft terminal could also serve as a substantial portion of a road all the way to Cold Bay — which some of course wanted all along. So despite removing the hovercraft from service and with no intention of resuming it, the Borough proceeded with the “hovercraft access road” at significant federal taxpayer expense.
In 2009, Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski, picking up one of her father’s causes, revived the debate in Congress and was able to include language in the Omnibus Public Land Management Act that would allow the road to be built upon a determination by the Secretary of Interior that doing so would serve the public interest.
Considerable investigations ensued, including preparation of an exhaustive Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) that evaluated the social, economic, and environmental costs and benefits of building the road, with Interior Secretary Sally Jewell ultimately concluding in December 2013 that the costs outweighed the benefits and that ample non-road transportation alternatives were available between the towns. A federal court upheld that decision in 2015.
Still Not Over
At that point, Congress, multiple Presidential administrations, and a federal court had considered the issue, and none had determined that constructing the road was advisable. Then the November 2016 election occurred. The new Interior Secretary, Ryan Zinke, without explanation or analysis took the opposite view of the road proposal and authorized a land exchange agreement under ANILCA. Under the terms of the exchange, King Cove Corporation would acquire the lands needed for the road — lands in the heart of the Izembek Refuge — from the Fish and Wildlife Service in exchange for other lands. Just like that. With the stroke of a pen, no more wilderness so no more problem with building the road. Right?
Not So Fast
Wrong. Defenders immediately challenged this land exchange in federal court on a number of grounds. First, ANILCA’s land exchange provision only authorizes exchanges that promote ANILCA’s conservation purposes; this exchange contravenes those purposes, as thoroughly explained in the 2013 EIS. Second, an entire Title of ANILCA, Title XI, sets forth a detailed process that any applicant seeking to build a road in a federal conservation unit must follow. If King Cove Corporation wants to build a road through Izembek wilderness, then it needs to go through the Title XI process. The Interior Department can’t bypass all those details — which include Presidential and Congressional approval of the road, incidentally.
There’s more to the lawsuit, but you get the idea. The Trump Administration and Secretary Zinke have again stepped out of line — way out of line — on a public lands issue of national and international importance, attempting to give away our public natural wealth to benefit private individuals and companies. The new Interior Department has demonstrated no understanding of the ecological values of Izembek. It has offered no explanation of how it arrived at the opposite and perplexing conclusion that trading away the heart of a wilderness area in a spectacular, renowned National Wildlife Refuge so that a road can be built through it somehow furthers the purposes of that Refuge.
Update: On March 29, 2019, in a win for conservation, the U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska voided the Trump administration’s agreement to trade away internationally recognized, congressionally designated wilderness wetlands in Izembek National Wildlife Refuge to a private corporation. The administration’s illegal land deal, signed by then-Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke in January, aimed to remove federal land from public ownership to facilitate construction of a costly, unnecessary and destructive road through the heart of the refuge. The court’s decision to reject the nefarious deal came in response to a lawsuit filed by Defenders of Wildlife and eight partner organizations. This decision preserves congressionally designated, globally important wilderness wetlands from the Trump administration’s rash and illegal scheme to bulldoze a road through Izembek National Wildlife Refuge.
