For the fifth time this year, the Coast Guard performed a dangerous rescue operation out of King Cove. On Monday night, a fisherman’s eye was injured while on board the Seattle-based processor near Unimak Island in the North Pacific Ocean. The safest deep water port was King Cove on Alaska’s Aleutian Chain. However, there is no ophthalmologist on King Cove, and as many Alaskans know, the road that could have been used to transport the fisherman to the all-weather airport in Cold Bay, from where he was eventually medevaced to Anchorage, has been blocked by the Interior Department and by environmentalists.
The fisherman made it to King Cove at 11:30 a.m. Due to high winds and seas, the Coast Guard didn’t make it to King Cove until 3 p.m.
U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski has been fighting vigilantly to get the Interior Department to allow the road, which would cut through a slice of a wildlife refuge. According to her office, each Coast Guard transport costs as much as $210,000.
Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com
This is environmental protection taken to the point of lunacy. Environmentalists like these pigeonhole all of their ilk into a “fringe” box and make it harder and harder to take any of them seriously.
The Obama administration’s position on the King Cove Road infuriates me. This alone is reason to not support Democrats for federal office – – they are owned by liberal greenies who are more interested in saving a couple of birds than human life. I am proud of Sen. Lisa on this issue. Wish that Begich would help her but I’ve given up on him long ago.
I remember that Senator Proxmire created something called the “golden fleece awards” and handed them out to to spotlight government waste and absurdity. If he were still in the senate, I would like to believe that he would give one to the Department of Interior.
I would also like to commend Senator Murkowski for her tenacity on this issue. Ultimately, you will win. Without question, you are on the right side of this issue.