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].