ProPublica has been doing a great job documenting Sarah Palin’s insatiable appetite for federal pork. Their latest dispatch concerns the $26 million Road to Nowhere, a dead-end gravel road that was supposed to connect to the aborted Bridge to Nowhere.

The project was still in the works when Palin congratulated herself at the RNC for refusing federal money for projects that don’t serve the public interest:

But a gravel road on an Alaskan island with 50 inhabitants doesn’t serve the public interest, critics say. "This project isn’t satisfying any specific transportation purpose or any public need," said Keith Ashdown of Taxpayers for Common Sense.

As ProPublica reported last week, Palin’s administration is still planning to link Ketchikan (pop. 7,400) to its airport with the help of as much as $73 million in federal funds earmarked by Congress for the original "Bridge to Nowhere" project.

Palin declared in her acceptance speech she had told Congress, "’Thanks, but no thanks’ to that Bridge to Nowhere," adding that if Alaska were to build such a project, the state would do so "ourselves." The campaign did not respond directly when asked by ProPublica whether Palin knew Alaska was still planning to use federal money to connect Ketchikan and Gravina Island.

The project is still a going concern. So much for earmark reform.