Murkowski Joining Alaska National Guard on Little Diomede Trip
Senator Visiting Community as AK National Guard Divests Armory, Returns to Village Corporation
ANCHORAGE, AK – Senator Lisa Murkowski is going to Little Diomede Island in the middle of the Bering Strait this Friday to get a first-hand look at the community’s challenges and military infrastructure needs. The first U.S. Senator to visit the island since Senator Ted Stevens, Murkowski will join Major General Thomas Katkus, Adjutant General of the Alaska National Guard, and Rear Admiral Thomas P. Ostebo, Commander of the Seventeenth District United States Coast Guard to survey the island and assess the conditions there.
During the trip, Major General Katkus will be finalizing plans to divest the Alaska National Guard armory facility located on the island. An environmental impact statement and inventory will be conducted, which are the last steps before the valuable property can be divested to the community’s village corporation, the Diomede Native Corporation.
“Alaskans and our men and women in uniform are a tight-knit family, and like family members we all look out for one another,” said Murkowski. “In this case, the National Guard knows space is limited on the island, so it’s returning a great piece of property to the Little Diomede residents who need it. I look forward to meeting with the Alaskans there and hearing their thoughts and concerns directly.”
(Little Diomede is less than a half-mile from the International Date Line, and less than three miles from its island neighbor Big Diomede, which belongs to Russia.)
