King Cove Road
struggle goes on    

CREDIT REP. DON YOUNG with continuing the good fight to give the 900 residents of King Cove a decent land link with Cold Bay. He's up against the usual environmental lobbies, headquartered in Washington, D.C., who don't give a hoot about the people who live in King Cove.

The issue is so simple that you wouldn't think an act of Congress would be required. Cold Bay, which has a decent, all-weather airport, is 20 miles from King Cove, which doesn't have a decent airport.

The weather out there can be awful, as Alaskans know — a fact which apparently isn't known in the plush offices in the nation's capital. The only way for those in King Cove to get to Cold  Bay is by boat or small plane, which is fine, perhaps, when . . .

(cont'd from front page) the weather is passable — but it's risky at other times.

If a medical emergency arises when the weather socks in flying and the storms make a trip by water a dangerous prospect, a life can be in peril.

A connecting road, which might be 30 miles long, would have to be routed through a little slice of the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge — at most, 206 acres. In exchange for that, however, the state would give to the federal government 61,723 acres that will be added to the wildlife refuge.

Of those lands, 45,493 acres would be designated as permanent wilderness — and the state also will designate Kinzaroff Lagoon, adjacent to Izembek, as a state game refuge.

Talk about a win-win deal.

But the professional greens are raising a ruckus, and have been for years in a continuing effort to block this land exchange and give the people of King Cove a safety valve in times of bad weather.

Good for Don Young to fight on for Alaska.

It's time for the rest of the Congress to rally around the flag.