Channel surfing the other day took me to a Heritage panel discussion on C-Span. The speaker told the story about that road in Alaska the construction of which was blocked by the Dept of Interior. I can't find the C-Span video, but here's something even better, a link to a 2014 article directly on point. Feds to Alaskans: No road for humans, lots of land for animals.
The small town of King Cove, Alaska, doesn't have a hospital or an all-weather airport. And medical emergencies that occur during inclement weather go untreated. All they wanted was an 11 mile gravel road connecting their city to Cold Bay which does have an all-weather airport so patients could be flown the 625 miles to Anchorage.
President Obama's Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said nope. Here's the part that will make you cringe:
“She stood up in the gymnasium and told those kids, ‘I’ve listened to your stories, now I have to listen to the animals,” Democratic state Rep. Bob Herron told a local television station. “You could have heard a pin drop in that gymnasium.”
The idea that animals couldn't cross a one lane gravel road is preposterous. Fortunately, there was a regime change in Washington. And a couple of weeks ago this comes out: Interior Department will take new look at Alaska’s King Cove road project shelved under Obama.
Now that's progress. The Department of Interior should certainly be familiar with draining the swamp. Perhaps the suggestion that it be applied to them was an inspiration.
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1:46 PM 4/23/2017
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