ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — The federal government has rejected a plan to build a road through an Alaska wildlife refuge to give a small Aleut village better access to medical care.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says it won't approve a land exchange that would have allowed construction of a road through Alaska's Izembek (EYE'-zem-bek) National Wildlife Refuge.
The agency concluded a road could cause permanent damage to wetlands used by migratory birds, including some that are endangered.
The nearly thousand people who live in the village of King Cove want the 9-mile road to give medical patients a land link to nearby Cold Bay and its all-weather airport.
Environmental groups strongly protested the road.
The land exchange would have given the federal government 56,000 acres in exchange for land for the road.
