Izembek Refuge Road / Land Exchange Update

04/08/2023 – Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland withdrew a land exchange between the Interior Department and King Cove Corporation authorized by Secretary Bernhardt in July 2019. The Department determined the 2019 land exchange contained procedural flaws and was not consistent with Departmental policy. It was entered into without public participation and did not analyze potential effects on subsistence uses and habitat. The Department intends to initiate an environmental analysis that will include robust nation-to-nation consultation and consider, among other things, the 2013 land exchange considered by Secretary Sally Jewell and a subsistence evaluation under Section 810 of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA). In 2009 Congress directed the Secretary of the Interior to analyze a land exchange through the Izembek Refuge and the Izembek Wilderness. The proposal would have transferred approximately 200 acres within the refuge to the State of Alaska for a single-lane gravel road between the communities of King Cove and Cold Bay, Alaska and. “shall be used primarily for health and safety purposes and only for noncommercial purposes.” In exchange, the Service would receive approximately 43,000 acres of land owned by the State of Alaska (to be designated wilderness), and approximately 13,300 acres of land owned by King Cove Corporation. King Cove Corporation would also relinquish 5,430 acres of selected lands within Izembek Refuge. In December 2013, Secretary Jewell issued a Record of Decision declining the land exchange. On July 3, 2019, Secretary Bernhardt signed a memorandum approving a different land exchange between the Interior Department and King Cove Corporation. The 2019 exchange did not prohibit commercial use of the road, authorized gravel mining within the Refuge, and had far less land coming to the Refuge in the exchange. A federal district court in Alaska vacated the 2019 exchange due to several legal flaws, including that Secretary Bernhardt failed to properly justify his change in policy and rejection of Secretary Jewell’s prior conclusions. Here is a link to an article with some more details from the Anchorage Daily News.https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/2023/03/14/interior-secretary-withdraws-land-exchange-but-signals-support-for-road-through-alaskas-izembek-national-wildlife-refuge/