Posted on 02/06/2013 7:45:19 AM PST by thackney
The federal government said Tuesday it rejected a plan to build a road through a wildlife refuge that would have given a small Aleut village in Alaska better access to medical care.
Villagers in remote King Cove had sought the one-lane gravel road for transporting emergency medical patients to an all-weather airport in Cold Bay, but the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said it will choose the "no action" alternative to a proposed land swap for a road corridor bisecting Izembek National Wildlife Refuge.
The decision is a victory for environmental groups that submitted thousands of public comments protesting the road. They said patients can be transported by boat and avoid the refuge on the Alaska Peninsula at the head of the Aleutian Islands.
...
In the past 30 years, a dozen deaths have been attributed to the lack of a road, including four people who died in a 1981 airplane crash during an attempted medical evacuation.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service concluded a road could cause irrevocable damage to the refuge that protects the watershed of several large lagoons, including the 150-square-mile Izembek Lagoon, which provides one of the world's largest beds of eelgrass for Pacific brant, endangered Steller's eiders and other migratory birds.
...
Fishing boats that have tried to transport patients have been turned back by bad weather.
(Excerpt) Read more at adn.com ...
Reminds me of the dead fire fighters burned to death because water copters were not allowed to dip for water in some “protected pond”
One single lane gravel road is not going to destroy Alaska’s wilderness. This is just plain stupid.
Why don’t they just move the village?
Why not allow reasonable development instead of holding the land hostage for environmentalists that will never visit it?
There is about 175 million acres in Alaska closed to development. Don’t you consider that a bit excessive versus allowing a single lane gravel road between existing population areas?
I believe that is the agenda, UN Agenda 21.
Indeed. When I read "environmental groups that submitted thousands of public comments protesting the road." I wondered how many of 'em actually LIVED in that area.
Perhaps the Fish and Wildlife Service should restrict comments to only those who live in or around the area affected. Yeah, right.
Build the damn road. Human lives are at stake. What is the matter with these people?
Do the hypocrites at USFWS never build roads in wildlife refuges? How do they gain access to the refuge to do ecological studies?
— Oh, how I would love to see one year’s Climate Change conference held in King Cove during a storm. A road would be built for the first sick leftie.
— I wonder if the road was going to be called Route 47? If so, it was probably just a reflex reaction: gotta ban any AK-47.
They should build whatever they need. Any Federallies or Greenies show up, feed them to the bears.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
