Final claims now before judge in King Cove road lawsuit

The state’s lawsuit to force Interior Secretary Sally Jewell to rethink her denial of a road out of King Cove is approaching its crescendo. A motion for summary judgment and opposition to the state’s motion was filed March 9 by the Interior Department in the Alaska U.S. District Court on behalf of Jewell. The Aleutians East Borough, the City of King Cove and area Native groups — with the State of Alaska as an intervenor plaintiff in the case — filed a motion for summary judgment in early February. That was based on claims that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s environmental impact statement and subsequent record of decision regarding the proposed emergency route violate federal environmental law. The next step is likely a ruling on the case from Judge H. Russel Holland. The state and plaintiffs contest that Jewell also violated the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, and the intent of Congress by denying the land swap needed to build the road. The plaintiffs are requesting Holland vacate the “no action alternative” Jewell selected from the EIS. Jewell went public with her decision on Dec. 23, 2013, to deny a swap of 206 acres in the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge for about 56,000 acres of state and Native village King Cove Corp. land on the Alaska Peninsula. The land exchange would have allowed the state to build an 11-mile gravel road to connect King Cove to Cold Bay and its 10,000-foot runway, from where large planes can safely fly those in need of urgent medical care to Anchorage, even in bad weather...more