King Cove finally gets its road, and the lawsuits are still coming

The 19-mile gravel road King Cove has wanted for decades cleared its last federal hurdle Friday, when the Army Corps of Engineers issued the permit the state needed. Construction is expected to start within 30 days.

For the roughly 870 people in King Cove, the road is about getting out. Storms routinely shut down flights and boat crossings, and medical evacuations have been delayed or scrapped as a result. The gravel route would give residents a ground link to Cold Bay, which has one of the longest all-weather runways in Southwest Alaska.

The road runs through the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge, and that is the fight. Under an October land exchange, the Interior Department gave King Cove Corporation 490 acres of refuge land for the corridor; the corporation handed back 1,739 acres and gave up claims to 5,430 more.

Three lawsuits filed in November are still pending. Conservation groups argue the road would cut through designated wilderness and damage world-class bird habitat. The tribal plaintiffs — the Native Villages of Hooper Bay, Paimiut and Chevak — are Yup'ik governments in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, hundreds of miles north, and their concern is the birds: emperor geese and black brant that feed on Izembek's eelgrass and then fly north to feed their families.

King Cove's own Native institutions are on the other side. The Agdaagux Tribe, the Native Village of Belkofski and King Cove Corporation have all pushed for the road.