Biden endorses Trump-era land swap in Alaska wildlife refuge

The Biden administration endorsed a land-swap deal Wednesday that could allow a controversial road to be built through the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge, a vast wild area in southwest Alaska.

The Interior Department’s decision drew praise from Alaskan officials, who have sought for decades to connect the remote town of King Cove with an airport that could be used for emergency medical evacuations. But it disappointed environmental and Indigenous advocates, who have warned that the proposed road could threaten vulnerable species, harm Alaska Natives’ hunting practices and undermine President Joe Biden’s environmental legacy.

The decision is not final, and President-elect Donald Trump will have the last say over the land-swap deal, which he originally approved in 2018. Environmental and tribal leaders had lobbied Biden officials to block the deal before Trump returns to the White House in January.

The proposed gravel road would connect King Cove, a fishing community of roughly 925 people, with the closest regional airport in Cold Bay. Before the road could be built, Interior would need to transfer hundreds of acres of land inside the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge to a tribal corporation. In exchange, thousands of acres of shoreline would be added to the refuge.

In a draft supplemental environmental impact statement released Wednesday, Interior and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service outlined several options for the land swap. The “preferred option” calls for transferring 484 acres of federal land to King Cove Corp., an Alaska Native corporation, and adding 1,739 acres to the refuge. It envisions the construction of an 18.9-mile, single-lane gravel road that would be off-limits to commercial vehicles.

The question of how to treat King Cove, located on the southern tip of the Alaska Peninsula, has vexed federal officials for three decades. The Clinton administration helped broker an agreement to spend more than $50 million on a hovercraft that traveled between the village and Cold Bay, saying it would help residents and seafood processors access the airport. But the Aleutians East Borough, which includes King Cove, could not operate the hovercraft about 30 percent of the time because of heavy seas and local funding shortages.

In the spring and fall, virtually the entire population of emperor geese and Pacific black brant geese converge on the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge, devouring its eelgrass beds before continuing their long migrations. In the winter, tens of thousands of Steller’s eider sea ducks stop there to molt.

The Trump administration originally approved the land-exchange deal in 2019. But Biden officials withdrew the agreement in March 2023, saying the previous administration had not adequately studied how a road could damage sensitive ecosystems and tribes’ subsistence lifestyles.

At the time, however, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland did not rule out some form of a future land swap, signing a legal brief that stated, “This decision does not foreclose further consideration of a land exchange to address the community’s concerns, although such an exchange would likely be with different terms and conditions.”

Leaders of King Cove Corp. have argued that a road would help sick or injured residents access an all-weather airport, where they could be flown to hospitals hundreds of miles away. They contend that boat and helicopter travel to their community is difficult, especially for the elderly and when it snows.

But tribes from across southwest Alaska have passed at least 20 separate resolutions opposing the land swap and road. Some tribal leaders have also personally appealed to Haaland, the first Native person to serve as a Cabinet secretary.

Edgar Tall Sr., chief of the Native Village of Hooper Bay, said he worries that construction of a road could damage critical habitat for the Pacific black brant and emperor goose. The two migratory birds have been central to his tribe’s diet and culture, he said, especially after a recent crash in salmon populations.

“The migratory birds that stop over to rest and feed in the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge could suffer major cumulative impacts from this land exchange and road, which in turn would severely harm our tribe and many others,” Tall said in a statement.

Estelle Thomson, president of the Native Village of Paimiut Traditional Council, said a road could also worsen climate impacts in this remote region, which is warming roughly three times as fast as the global average. Construction activities could melt permafrost and release massive amounts of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, she said.

“You’re going to be tearing up land that is already experiencing drastic changes,” Thomson said in a phone interview. “The amount of methane that’s already being released by the thawing permafrost is terrifying.”

Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), who has long advocated for the road, said critics of the project appear to be prioritizing birds over people. He said at least 18 residents of King Cove have died because they could not receive medical attention in time.

“Somebody died this summer. People die,” Sullivan said in an interview Wednesday. “They don’t give a s---. They keep talking about the birds.”

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), another longtime supporter of the project, said she spoke with Haaland on Wednesday morning and thanked her for approving a “life-saving road.”

“We must now finish the job by finalizing the process so that a road can be built as soon as possible,” Murkowski said in a statement.

Many environmentalists have voiced support for alternative methods of connecting King Cove to the regional airport, such as by ferry, helicopter or hovercraft. Cold Bay received a federal grant last year totaling more than $43 million to replace its sole existing dock with a new one.

A ferry “would be viable, reliable and arguably better than a road during inclement weather,” said Nicole Whittington-Evans, who directs the Alaska program at Defenders of Wildlife, a conservation group.

Alaskan officials and their allies have rejected this suggestion as impractical.

“I’ve taken the boat ride from King Cove to Cold Bay on a moderate weather day, and it’s an extremely rough ride - it’s the northernmost part of the North Pacific,” said McKie Campbell, a former Energy and Natural Resources Committee staff director for Murkowski. “And when you finally get to Cold Bay, you either climb up a vertical steel ladder or have to be winched up in a basket, which is a tough way to get med evacs up.”

Izembek has enjoyed federal protections since Jimmy Carter signed the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act in 1980. The law, one of his signature environmental achievements, conserved more than 100 million acres of federal land in Alaska, including national parks, wilderness areas and other sites.

Carter, who entered home hospice care in February 2023 and turned 100 last month, took the unusual step of filing a legal brief last year criticizing the land-exchange deal. He warned that the deal could not only violate the 1980 law but also set a dangerous precedent that could be used to lift protections for public lands across Alaska.

“As Carter is in hospice thinking about his life and legacy, this is something that’s important enough to him to take action on,” said Desirée Sorenson-Groves, president and CEO of the National Wildlife Refuge Association. “That says a lot.”