A federal appeals court on Wednesday denied a conservation group’s request to stop the state from building a nearly 3-mile segment of road in the remote Izembek National Wildlife Refuge on the Alaska Peninsula.
The decision by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is a victory for the federal government, as well as the Dunleavy administration and the King Cove Corp., an Alaska Native village corporation.
It’s a loss for the Defenders of Wildlife, which had sued to stop it.
The state and the village corporation want to quickly build the 2.8-mile segment.
It could be the first part of a proposed 19-mile road through the refuge that would be unpaved and consist of a single lane.
That full project is in legal limbo after conservation groups and three Alaska tribes recently won a separate case to stop it, in a federal district court.
The proposed road segment, though it’s also within the refuge, is located on land owned by the village corporation.
The Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities released a draft statewide transportation plan this week showing that the segment alone, requiring a roughly 125-foot bridge, could cost $21 million.
The full road, if built, could cost $66 million, according to the plan, which is now open for public comment.
The state began constructing the road segment on Sept. 1, just a day after Alaska U.S. District Court Judge Aaron Peterson issued a decision denying the Defenders’ efforts to halt it.
Peterson’s decision led to the appeal by the Defenders of Wildlife.
“The motion ... for injunctive relief is denied,” the appeals court said in a notice Wednesday.
The Defenders of Wildlife expressed disappointment about the appeal court’s decision in a statement Wednesday.
The group said the road segment will reach the doorstep of the refuge’s wilderness area, where refuge protections are higher. The segment will result in irreparable damage to the 310,000-acre refuge, even if the full road is never allowed to be built, the group said.
“Today’s decision unfortunately allows the bulldozers to keep rolling to finish a road that will lead to nothing but more harm to Izembek’s wildlife and wilderness,” said Jane Davenport, senior attorney at Defenders’ Biodiversity Law Center, in a statement. “But the fight is not over, and we will hold the Trump administration accountable in court for its attempts to sell off Izembek — and all our irreplaceable public lands.”
Questions about costs
Residents of King Cove, population 750, have long supported the full road’s construction to reach a jet-accessible airport in Cold Bay, and ultimately, life-saving medical care. In Cold Bay, they could take emergency flights to hospitals in cities like Anchorage, more than 600 miles to the northeast.
Road opponents have long argued that construction of the road will set a dangerous precedent for federally protected lands while endangering important wildlife such as migratory birds sought by subsistence hunters.
Road opponents last month won a major court victory to stop the full project when Alaska U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason tossed out a 2025 land exchange between the village corporation and the federal government, ruling that the Trump administration violated multiple laws when it approved the deal.
In response, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers suspended the permit it had issued for the road’s construction.
The state has said it plans to appeal that ruling.
The state’s newly released draft transportation plan proposes to “construct an approximately 18.9-mile, single-lane, unpaved road connecting King Cove to the Cold Bay road system and all-weather airport. Work includes vehicle turnouts, a bridge, and drainage culverts.”
The plan also proposes to build the “initial, approximately three-mile road package.”
The state has maintained that the road segment does not require a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers permit because fill will not be discharged into U.S. waters including wetlands.
The state last month transported equipment and materials for the road segment on a barge to King Cove.
The road segment could be completed next summer, said Justin Shelby, an administrative operations manager for the state transportation department, in an email this week.
“We will work as long as the fall season allows, then begin again in the spring,” he said. “We anticipate building the bridge in the spring, with final completion later that summer.”
So far, the initial work for the segment has consisted of “marking the alignment, mobilizing equipment for material preparation, and hiring and onboarding employees,” Shelby said.
“The current phase is intended to stockpile materials and construct a haul road in preparation for subsequent road construction,” he said.
He did not immediately have an estimate for costs incurred so far.
Lois Epstein, an Alaska-licensed engineer and skeptic of the road plans who often works for conservation groups and tribes, estimates that the cost of the full road will reach $127 million, nearly double what the state estimated.
Whatever the cost, if the full road is built, it will reduce money available for other transportation needs in Alaska, such as major maintenance for existing infrastructure, she said.
Alaskans would “much rather have their bridges upgraded than than see new projects in areas that are remote and that wouldn’t affect them,” she said.
The state’s rush to get the road segment built could be costly, she said.
The state proposes receiving a 90% federal match for both the road segment and the full road, based on the state transportation plan.
Epstein asserted that the work that has begun this this summer won’t be eligible for a 90% federal match.
“They’re going to get zero federal funding for that because they didn’t get it approved by the Federal Highway Administration,” she said.
Epstein also said that both the governor and the Alaska Legislature need to sign off on the state’s proposed spending on the project, potentially raising questions about whether the road segment can be built.
Shelby said the transportation department is looking at ways to receive a federal match for the state’s efforts so far.
The state is “evaluating with federal agencies whether eligible stockpiled materials could be furnished to a later federally authorized construction project, or whether eligible State contributions could count toward the required non-federal match,” he said.
Shelby said “the current materials and haul-road work” is being funded by the state, and federal reimbursement is not guaranteed.
The state believes its road-cost estimates are accurate, adding that they were prepared by “experienced professional engineers licensed in Alaska,” Shelby said.
He said the road is “a longstanding life-safety and emergency-access need.”
“Maintaining Alaska’s existing transportation system remains a major priority,” he said in the email.
“We also have communities that lack basic connections to essential services,” he said.