Judge vacates Izembek land exchange for King Cove road

A federal judge has vacated the land exchange that cleared the way for the proposed King Cove–Cold Bay road through the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge, putting a major legal obstacle back in front of one of Alaska's longest-running road fights.

U.S. District Judge Sharon Gleason set aside the October 2025 land exchange between the Interior secretary and King Cove Corporation, the deal at the center of three related federal lawsuits over the route. Her order came in Anchorage on Monday, the same day Alaskans were voting in the primary.

The timing landed hard for a project that, only weeks ago, looked close to breaking ground. As Alaska News previously reported, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued the last major federal permit in July, and this month road materials arrived in King Cove as workers prepared for construction. The ruling sets aside the approval all of that was built on.

King Cove residents and Alaska officials have pursued this road for decades, backed by an $18 million state commitment and federal highway support. Their argument is a matter of survival: the community sits on the stormy Alaska Peninsula, its small airport often grounded by weather, and a road to the all-weather airport at Cold Bay would give residents a reliable way out in a medical emergency.

The route would cross land Congress set aside as protected refuge and wilderness, used by migratory birds and other wildlife. Conservation groups and several Alaska Native plaintiffs have fought it on those grounds, and it was their claims Gleason found persuasive.

The judge did not hand either side a clean victory. She sided with the plaintiffs on claims under Title XI of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the law governing the national wildlife refuge system, and with the government on others, including under the National Environmental Policy Act. It was enough to vacate the exchange, but a mixed decision, not a wholesale rejection of the government's actions.

The decision reopens the legal question but settles nothing politically. It does not end a dispute that has already moved through Congress, multiple presidential administrations, and years of court fights. For King Cove, the road is an emergency route, a way to reach an all-weather airport when storms cut the community off and a medical flight cannot get in. For the challengers, the case tests whether federal agencies can trade away protected refuge and wilderness land for a road Congress has repeatedly debated but never directly authorized through the refuge.

For now, the exchange is undone, the permit that followed it rests on ground the court has pulled away, and a fight that has run for decades has been handed one more chapter.