Izembek Refuge and Wilderness in Peril

 

Izembek National Wildlife Refuge is a remote area in southwest Alaska (near the end of the Alaska Peninsula, about 600 miles from Anchorage) where the Alaska Congressional delegation has for more than ten years been seeking to build a road to challenge our entire Wilderness Preservation System.  This Congress brought a new twist to the decade-old issue – the delegation’s bill to mandate a land exchange with the state of Alaska, that would allow the small part of the refuge which they covet for constructing a road to go to the state (and thus be taken out of designated wilderness, so that their road could be built.) 

Sierra Club activists had hoped this bill—with its ominous precedent for wilderness nationwide--would die in committee, but a last-ditch maneuver by Alaska junior Senator Lisa Murkowski, as a member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, has now put it back on the table.  Senator Murkowski used procedural tactics to assure this bill got included in the Sept. 11 Committee mark up, and, since she had the vote of Sen. Daniel Akaka (D-HI), the majority in the Committee failed to defeat the measure.  Due in part to efforts by committee majority staff, the bill was amended in mark-up to require that a road could not automatically result from the land exchange; a full public involvement process according to NEPA (The National Environmental Policy Act) would first need to be followed. 

However, this minor procedural improvement would be unlikely to alter the final result—a road across wilderness.  Sierra Club remains adamantly opposed.  Along with other bills marked up on the same day, the Izembek bill was attached, to the large omnibus package of lands bills – mostly good – that Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee chairman Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) has prepared.

Sierra Club will continue to work with our champions in Congress to oppose Izembek’s continued inclusion in the omnibus public lands and wilderness bill that is likely to be taken up by a November “lame-duck” session of Congress, after the election. 

You can help by contacting your senators before the lame duck session gets underway.

 

Here are a few talking points for letters – for further information and more details about the ecological values of the Izembek wilderness, contact Vicky Hoover, (415)977-5527, [log in to unmask].)

 

**The land swap would sacrifice quality—206 acres of critical, internationally recognized wildlife habitat—for quantity. The 61,000 acres of proposed exchange land does not offer comparable habitat for the important wildlife species of the Izembek Lagoons Complex.

**A road through Wilderness is not compatible with the purposes for which Congress created the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge: to conserve fish and wildlife populations and their habitats; to fulfill U.S international treaty obligations (such as the four migratory bird treaties and the Convention on Wetlands of International Importance); to provide for continued subsistence by local residents; and to ensure water quality and quantity within the refuge.

** The globally significant wildlife values of Izembek National Wildlife Refuge should not be compromised. A road would pose serious threats to the vast waterfowl and shorebird populations, to the Alaska Peninsula caribou herd, wolves, and extremely high densities of brown bears. 

** Taking lands out of Wilderness designation for a road would set a terrible precedent for America’s National Wilderness Preservation System, which is intended to provide permanent protection.

                WHAT YOU CAN DO:

Please contact your Senators and urge them to do anything they can to have the Izembek land exchange/roads bill removed from the omnibus public lands measure.  This bill is bad for Wilderness and bad for America; the road would cost a lot of money and is not needed, as the present hovercraft system for native community medical evacuation is working.   If this area can be taken out of wilderness for a development scheme, then no designated wilderness area in our country is safe from attack. To reach New Mexico’s Senators: