"King Cove"

For now, that leaves in place a federal judge’s decision blocking a land exchange for a road through the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge.

The Trump administration is appealing a court ruling that blocked plans to build a long-sought road through the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge.

A federal judge has thrown out the Trump administration’s land exchange agreement for the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge. The arrangement was intended to allow for a road to connect King Cove to Cold Bay.

A road through a national refuge in Alaska is meant to be for medical evacuations. But a little-known loophole lets it move fish, not just patients.

“What the secretary failed to do was any environmental analysis, any public process related to this actual exchange of lands,” attorney Katie Strong said at the environmental law firm Trustees for Alaska.

It’s a major turning point in the dispute over a roughly 12-mile road that would be mostly, or entirely, built on what’s now a federally protected wilderness in the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge.