Judge asked to rule by Aug. 31 on whether King Cove road work can begin

A federal judge has been asked to decide by Aug. 31 whether work can begin on the King Cove road. The state has told the court construction will not start before Sept. 1.

Conservation groups suing over the road's federal wetlands permit want the court to bar the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from letting the state, its contractors or anyone else disturb ground under that permit until the case is decided on the merits. The motion is fully briefed, with the state and the Corps opposing it.

Judge Aaron Christian Peterson consolidated two lawsuits Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Anchorage.

The first, filed July 22 by Trustees for Alaska, comes from five conservation organizations: Friends of Alaska National Wildlife Refuges, Alaska Wilderness League, the National Wildlife Refuge Association, the Sierra Club and Wilderness Watch. They argue the permit violates the Clean Water Act's wetlands provisions along with federal environmental, Alaska lands and wilderness law, and they want it thrown out.

The second, filed a day later, comes from the Native Village of Hooper Bay, the Native Village of Paimiut, Chevak Native Village and the Center for Biological Diversity. Those villages sit roughly 600 miles from Izembek. Their citizens hunt black brant and emperor geese that fatten at the refuge in spring, and again before the birds fly south in fall. Their complaint adds Endangered Species Act claims and argues the Corps, Interior and the Fish and Wildlife Service have each previously found a road would cause irreversible damage, and that a ferry would meet the same need. Only the conservation groups sought the injunction.

The Corps issued the permit July 9, the last federal approval the road needed. It runs five years and allows fill on just over five acres of wetlands, about 40,000 cubic yards of gravel, for an 18.9-mile single-lane gravel road to Cold Bay. Interior conveyed a 484-acre corridor through the refuge isthmus to King Cove Corporation in October 2025.

King Cove Corporation and the City of King Cove joined the case as defendants this month, followed by the State of Alaska. King Cove leaders say the road is essential for safe and reliable emergency medical access, and that ferry and hovercraft alternatives studied in earlier federal reviews failed to meet that need. The King Cove airstrip is closed by weather more than 100 days a year. Cold Bay's is closed about 10.

A different judge vacated that October land exchange on Monday, in a separate case. The docket here shows no filing about it.