This alert is from Center for Biological Diversity.  Murkowski is
threatening to block the nomination of Sally Jewell for Secretary of
State if the administration doesn't overturn the decision to not allow
the road.  Quotes from Anchorage and Fairbanks newspapers regarding the
feasability of this expensive, tax payer road to nowhere:  "The proposed
road would run along what's essentially a fjord, he said, with avalanche
danger and erosion potential for the bay. The same wicked winds that
ground airplanes and hovercraft will render a road impassible with snow
drifts, he (Noah Matson, vice president for landscape conservation for
Defenders of Wildlife) said, and make the road as expensive to maintain
as the hovercraft." Important to remind Salazar and Dan Ashe.  Phyllis

ALERT: Victory Nears for Izembek Wilderness, but Your Help Needed to
Finish the Save:  On Feb. 6th, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
released its Final EIS that studied a proposed land exchange and a
20-mile road to be constructed through the Izembek Wilderness in Alaska.
In a great victory for Wilderness, the agency announced its preferred
action is to not approve the exchange and road. A final Record of
Decision is due in early March.
 
But Alaska politicians, led by U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R), have mounted
a furious attack in response, hoping to convince outgoing Secretary of
Interior Ken Salazar to reverse this decision. Murkowski had authored an
amendment to require this study in the 2009 public lands omnibus bill
that designated 2.1 million acres of Wilderness in nine states. Some in
the environmental community supported Murkowski’s amendment as a means to
pass the full bill.
 
Your help is urgently needed now to help counter this intense political
pressure. Please send a short email to Secretary Salazar to encourage him
to push this victory for Wilderness over the finish line. Write him in
your own words, but consider including the following points:
 
1. Support the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s recommendation to protect
the Izembek Wilderness from the disastrous land exchange and road
construction proposal.
 
2. Ask Secretary Salazar to stand firm against the intense political
pressure and to approve the Record of Decision against the exchange and
road as soon as possible.
 
Email Secretary Salazar today at: [log in to unmask] Please also cc Dan
Ashe, Director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service: [log in to unmask]
 

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