For decades, the community of King Cove has lobbied for a road through the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge to nearby Cold Bay. Proponents say it’s critical for the remote community to have a more reliable way to evacuate medical patients. Meanwhile conservation groups contend it would devastate critical wildlife habitat.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently issued a draft environmental impact statement for the project, but a final decision about whether it should move forward is still more than a year out. In the meantime, King Cove is already building a hovercraft terminal on the edge of the Refuge and a road out to it - but there are a few kinks in that plan.

In 1998 the Clinton administration shot down the idea of building a road through Izembek on conservation grounds, instead opting to give King Cove a $37 million grant to improve the local clinic and airstrip. The grant also covered the purchase of a $9 million hovercraft to transport medical patients and other passengers to Cold Bay by water for those times when the airport was weathered-in.

Although the hovercraft was supposed to be a substitute for the road, that plan didn’t last long. The Aleutians East Borough acquired a hovercraft in 2007 but administrator Sharon Boyette says operating it was too expensive for a borough with fewer than 3000 residents. So in November 2010, the borough put the hovercraft in storage.

“That hovercraft won’t run the King Cove – Cold Bay route again. I think a three year period of time trying to get the costs down and the revenues up is a significant investment on the Borough’s behalf.”

Boyette says the borough is planning to move the hovercraft down to Akutan for use at the airport that’s scheduled to open in that community this summer. Even so, the Department of Transportation is continuing construction on a new road out to a new hovercraft terminal that’s being built in King Cove this summer. The borough got $15 million for the road from the Alaska Legislature in fiscal year 2011. This year, they’re asking for another $4 million, even though the road will end in a hovercraft terminal to nowhere. Boyette says that’s because the borough hopes that eventually the road can be extended through the refuge.

“What we have said now regarding that road is that our Plan A is that the EIS will be successful, that the secretary of the Interior will see the public benefit and allow us to build the road all the way through to the airport in Cold Bay.”

Boyette says even if the Izembek road doesn’t go through and even if the hovercraft remains out of service, the road to the terminal won’t be a road to nowhere.

“Plan B right now is in development, but a vessel that we think has great promise and would use the exact same facilities on the northeast corner and on the Cold Bay side that the hovercraft would use, or has used, is a landing craft.”

In the recently released draft environmental impact statement, the hovercraft is still listed as one of the five options under consideration. Fish and Wildlife spokesperson Bruce Woods couldn’t say how the borough’s decision to use the hovercraft in Akutan would affect the EIS process.

“I haven’t heard that there is a lack of a hovercraft yet.”

Woods says the final EIS will consider all alternatives. Meanwhile the King Cove Corporation has been enthusiastically pushing for the road, saying it's vital for emergency response. If the Secretary of the Interior approves the project, the corporation has agreed to trade 13,000 acres of their lands in addition to 43,000 acres of state lands for the 200 acres of federal refuge lands required to build the road.

The idea of expanding the refuge doesn’t entice conservation groups though. Audubon Alaska spokesperson Beth Peluso says it’s a question of quality over quantity.

“The exchange lands aren’t really comparable. You can just tell those animals, ‘hey, by the way, you have to eat over here now.”

Peluso says Audubon will continue to advocate for alternatives to the road. She didn’t know that King Cove had shelved the hovercraft option because of operational costs.  

No matter what, it looks like King Cove is building a road to the edge of the Refuge and a hovercraft terminal, whether they have something to put in there or not. But they’ll still have to wait a while for a decision on the road to Cold Bay. Fish and Wildlife is accepting public comments on the draft environmental impact statement through May 18 and expects a final decision by early next year.