"King Cove"

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland says she’s still undecided on the proposed 11-mile gravel road that would link the Southwest Alaska village of King Cove with the nearby community of Cold Bay.

Haaland took a tour of the village Wednesday during her first visit to the state. At a news conference Thursday in Anchorage, Haaland said the trip was an opportunity to hear from the community first-hand.

“I know it’s been a decision that’s been in the atmosphere for the last three decades,” Haaland said. “I wanted to go to hear, to visit with the community, to see the geography and understand the challenges they face.”

A member of the Laguna Pueblo tribe from New Mexico, Haaland is the first Indigenous person to lead the Interior Department.

The King Cove road has been discussed for decades. The predominately Aleut residents of King Cove, as well as Alaska state and federal lawmakers, have long pushed for the road. They say it’s a safety issue. The road would connect the village to Cold Bay’s all-weather airport and emergency flight services for evacuating patients. But the road would go through the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge, which environmentalists oppose due to the potential impact on birds on those federal lands.

Haaland was in King Cove with U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowksi and Gov. Mike Dunleavy. During her trip, she said, she heard from residents about the importance of the road due to various transportation and medical challenges. As of now, she said, she’s made no decision on the road project.

“I can say that I’m still in a learning process at the moment, and I don’t have anything else to announce today about that decision,” Haaland said.

In a statement from the Aleutians East Borough, which includes King Cove, village health care provider Bonita Babcock described the medical necessity of the road to Haaland.

“We’re not asking for a lot,” Babcock said. “We’re just asking for the federal government to care about our people enough to permit a dirt road across our ancestral land so that we can get our patients over to a medevac plane.”

Haaland has long championed environmental protection for federal lands. During her confirmation process last year, she committed to meeting with residents of King Cove to talk about the road project.

Last month, a federal court ruled in favor of a Trump-era decision to approve a land exchange between the federal government and King Cove’s village corporation that would allow for the road to proceed. The ruling reverses a 2020 federal court decision banning the exchange. President Biden’s administration defended the land exchange agreement last March.

The final decision on approving the exchange now rests with Haaland. She said the land agreement is pending legal review and a decision could come in the near future.

A federal appeals court last week reversed a decision that had impeded construction of a road through the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge.

The proposed road would stretch 11 miles through the wildlife refuge on the Alaska Peninsula, connecting the communities of King Cove and Cold Bay.

The project has been held up in the courts since 2020, when a judge blocked a land exchange necessary for the road’s construction.

But the court decided last Wednesday to reverse that judge’s decision that prevented the swap between King Cove’s Native corporation and the federal government.

Supporters of the road say it will save lives. The small airport in King Cove is closed due to weather around 100 days a year, on average. Advocates say connecting King Cove to the much larger airport in Cold Bay would make emergency medical care more accessible for residents of the small community in the Aleutians East Borough.

Several environmentalist groups have filed lawsuits to stop the road. They say the road would tear through delicate ecosystems that protect wildlife.

Randi Spicak, the public lands director at the Center for Biological Diversity, called the ruling “devastating” and said that it “sacrifices a globally important wetland that’s vital to millions of migrating birds, fish and caribou.”

Sen. Lisa Murkowski applauded the court’s decision. In a statement, she urged the Biden administration and Interior Secretary Deb Haaland “to do the right thing and join our fight to secure a short, gravel, one-lane, life-saving road for King Cove.”

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland hasn’t taken an official position on the project. She says she is making plans to visit the two Alaska communities. She had initially planned to visit in summer 2021, but postponed due to concerns over the COVID-19 pandemic.

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland has postponed a trip to Alaska this month, citing the state’s COVID-19 rate.

“Out of an abundance of caution given rising COVID rates and in consultation with Alaska Native, local and federal leaders, the Interior Department today postponed the Secretary’s visit to Alaska until later this year,” the announcement on Wednesday said. “This visit is critically important to the Secretary and to the mission of the Department, and the kind of robust community engagement desired would not be possible given health and safety concerns throughout the regions.”

Haaland was due to visit in mid-September, particularly to meet leaders in King Cove. They want to build a road to nearby Cold Bay and its all-weather airport. But the road would go through the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge and President Obama’s Interior secretary blocked it. Haaland has promised to meet with local leaders before committing to a position.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski says the Interior Department is holding up aerial survey work that would advance a road in the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge.

Murkowski raised the thorny issue of the King Cove road at a hearing Tuesday with Interior Secretary Deb Haaland.

“Your department was working with the state. They were working with us for six months to shepherd these permits,” Murkowski said. “And not once was there any indication – any indication – that these permits would not be issued or that there was a problem for the basis of the permits.”

Haaland said she would find out more and respond to the senator.

Alaska Department of Transportation spokesman Andy Mills said its contractor is waiting for special use permits to mark wetlands and identify cultural resources with the aid of a helicopter. It’s already completed a survey of a bridge site for the proposed road, he said.

Murkowski said all seemed fine until early July. Then, she said, the Interior Department decided to withdraw a memo issued in the final days of the Trump administration that provided the legal basis for granting the permits.

“So now the department is shifting this whole process for these permits by telling the state that Fish and Wildlife now needs to do a refuge compatibility analysis and a minimum requirements analysis which may require public comment and review,” Murkowski said at the hearing.

A road through a portion of the Izembek refuge was first proposed decades ago. Conservation groups fiercely oppose it, saying the area is important to migrating waterfowl and other wildlife. The residents of King Cove say the road would save lives by giving them access to an all-weather airport in Cold Bay.

Under the Trump administration, the Interior Department initiated a land trade for the road corridor. A lawsuit over that process is now pending in a federal appeals court.

Haaland pledged to visit with King Cove residents before taking further action. The visit is expected in September.

Unalaskans could see a significant boost in internet service by late 2022 if GCI completes work to lay fiber cable as planned.

The telecommunications company launched a marine survey as part of its AU-Aleutians Fiber Project last month. That work will take place into the summer, according to GCI senior manager of corporate communications and community engagement Jenifer Nelson.

“What they will do during the marine survey is really x-ray the ocean floor of our proposed route to make sure that it is the best possible route — identifying places where the fiber can be buried,” Nelson said. “So it’s really establishing the blueprint for the construction of the house.”

GCI is partnering with a Matanuska Valley-based geophysical and geotechnical surveying company, Benthic GeoScience Inc., to chart the subsea floor along the fiber’s 860-mile proposed route from Kodiak to the Aleutians.

When it eventually arrives in Unalaska, Nelson said each individual home and business will be connected to the fiber. Customers will have access to one gigabit internet speeds, which GCI says is among the highest level of internet speed available to consumers in the U.S.

That’s a major improvement for the island and for other communities along the Aleutian chain, where connectivity and bandwidth can often be unreliable or difficult to come by.

Nelson — who is from King Cove — said she understands the struggles of having poor connectivity and looks forward to bringing faster communication and more accessible internet access to the region.

“I’m just really excited for the day when somebody turns on their cable modem for the first time and can experience one gigabit speeds with unlimited data,” she said. “And you can just stream and stream and stream to your heart’s content.”

Unalaska will be the first community to come online through the project, according to Nelson. The next stop will be Akutan, then more communities along the peninsula, and eventually Larsen Bay on Kodiak Island.

John Burnett is the GCI AU-Aleutians senior program manager and has been on the island for about two months, surveying local sites and helping develop plans for where the fiber will be laid when it reaches Unalaska. He said he’s working to find the best path for the fiber to travel locally, from the sea to each Unalaska home or business.

“The first phase of this will be coming through and entrenching a mainline fiber in the ground, in the city easements and road right-of-ways,” Burnett said. “But then the next phase will be running what we call a ‘drop’ — that’s the fiber line that goes from the main trench to a home or a business.”

Before those drops are placed, Burnett said he’s working with property owners to choose the most ideal route for each individual or company.

“I spent a lot of my time talking initially with business owners to make sure that we agree on the routing of that drop,” Burnett said. “We want to minimize conflicts with things they have in their property.”

He said that includes things like landscaping and native plant life.

“I lived in Kodiak for a long time,” he said. “And we had a similar project done at our house and my wife said, ‘You know, I don’t care what you do, just don’t go through my salmon berries.’ And they did. So I’ve been there, and don’t want to do that again.”

The timeline for when exactly they will start digging is not yet set. But as the fiber is being laid in the ocean floor, Burnett said GCI plans to start laying the conduits on the island for when the fiber eventually arrives. He said the fiber distribution will begin near the airport.

While the digging process is unavoidable, Burnett said they are working to make it as seamless as possible. Part of his job is to address questions or concerns locals have, and he’s eager to keep the community informed.

According to Nelson, pricing for the internet service hasn’t yet been determined, but the goal is to offer the same plans as those in urban areas like Anchorage.

GCI’s AU-Aleutians Fiber Project is estimated to cost almost $60 million. GCI is paying for over half of that, and the remainder is being funded through a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s ReConnect Program, which is intended to help boost connectivity in rural areas.

A Biden administration nominee says the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is likely to allow a road corridor survey in the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge this summer.

The road would connect King Cove to Cold Bay, which residents say could save lives in a medical emergency. Cold Bay has a massive runway where pilots can land under instrument flight rules, while weather often impedes access to King Cove.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski raised the subject Tuesday at the confirmation hearing of Shannon Estenoz to be assistant Interior secretary for Fish, Wildlife and Parks. Murkowski said the state of Alaska needs a green light soon to get the work done during the summer field season. Estenoz suggested it was possible.

“Fish and Wildlife is processing that special use permit. I think that there’s every intention to issue it,” Estenoz said.

The road has been a goal of the Alaska delegation in Congress for decades. Democratic administrations tend to side with environmental groups, who argue a road would damage valuable habitat in a wilderness area designated for the highest level of federal protection.

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland has agreed to meet with the people of King Cove to discuss it.