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What's At Stake?

Help Save Internationally Important Wetlands

Why a road through Izembek National Wildlife Refuge wilderness is a bad idea:
  • The proposed road would cut through the biological heart of the Izembek Refuge. Izembek's cold-water lagoons and internationally significant wetlands are critically-important stopover habitats for migrating waterfowl. Virtually all of the Pacific population of Brant stop at Izembek to feed and rest. The Refuge also is home to Tundra Swans, Emperor Geese, and threatened species such as Steller's Eiders. Plenty of mammals use the refuge too, including caribou, brown bears, wolves and wolverines.
  • The proposed road is not needed. The Alaska congressional delegation claims the road is necessary to address the health and safety needs of King Cove. In fact, those needs were met by Congress in 1998, when it passed the King Cove Health and Safety Act. That legislation provided $37.5 million to upgrade King Cove's medical facilities, purchase a hovercraft to provide regular ferry and emergency medical service between King Cove and Cold Bay, construct new marine terminals, and build a road between the town of King Cove and the hovercraft terminal. This law specifically prohibited a road through Izembek's federally protected Wilderness.
  • The hovercraft is working. Hovercraft service began full-time operation on August 7, 2007. By all accounts, the hovercraft service has quickly and safely met every medical evacuation need of the King Cove community, successfully completing 32 medevacs to Cold Bay.
  • A road through Wilderness is not compatible with the purposes for which Congress created the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge. The Refuge was created to: conserve fish and wildlife populations and their habitats; fulfill the United States' international treaty obligations (such as the four migratory bird treaties and the Convention on Wetlands of International Importance); provide for continued subsistence by local residents; and ensure water quality and quantity within the Refuge.
  • The wildlife values of Izembek National Wildlife Refuge are globally significant and should not be compromised.

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