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WATERSHED ACTION PROGRAM
(ADVOCACY)
Inletkeeper’s Watershed Action Program focuses on two fronts: promoting good
public policies that enhance, protect and restore habitat and water quality;
and ensuring that individuals, industry and agencies are accountable for
habitat, water quality and human health in Cook Inlet. Watershed Action
projects include:
Watershed Watch
Project: Watershed Watch
focuses on protecting the ecological integrity of salmon streams,
wetlands and coastal watersheds. Through Inletkeeper’s “eyes and ears”
network, citizens report incidents of pollution and habitat destruction
to Inletkeeper’s toll free hotline. Inletkeeper conducts site investigations to
take photos and samples, reporting the incidents to government
regulators, and assuring appropriate agency response. Inletkeeper recently
responded to wetlands violations, harmful coastal development projects,
chemical spills, and more.
Inletkeeper also comments on development proposals and presses for thoughtful
policy changes. In the face of recent state and federal efforts to
roll-back various water quality and coastal protection laws, Inletkeeper is
working to preserve the basic standards Alaskans deserve and expect. In
2004, Inletkeeper published a report about environmental enforcement problems
under the Murkowski administration. Additionally, Inletkeeper challenged
proposals by the administration to increase pollution by allowing mixing
zones in Alaska’s salmon streams; weighed in on the Port of Anchorage
Expansion project which could fill approximately 135 acres of tidelands, and
succeeded in a legal challenge against the U.S. Department of Defense over
bombing activities at Eagle River Flats that harm water quality and pose
hazards to wildlife and residents.
Currently, Inletkeeper is launching a Beluga Watch Project to raise public
awareness about, and protections for Cook Inlet’s depleted beluga whale
population. Inletkeeper is also working with a coalition to address the
environmental impacts posed by the proposed Pebble gold-cooper-molybdenum
mine on Cook Inlet’s west side.
Inletkeeper’s Watershed Watch Program also provides tools and information to help
citizens take watershed protection into their own hands. Inletkeeper holds
citizen workshops, provides Geographic Information System (GIS) mapping
services, and distributes clean boating tide books and posters.
Stop Toxic Oil Pollution Campaign (STOP): · STOP
works to shift Alaska’s oil and gas discussion from energy
consumption to energy conservation and use of renewable fuels. STOP’s goals
are to: 1) eliminate toxic discharges into Cook Inlet fisheries from
offshore oil and gas facilities; 2) ensure best possible performance for the
Inlet's oil and gas, shipping and pipeline operations; 3) stop or alter
state and federal oil and gas lease sales to protect water quality and
sensitive habitats, and establish “no rigs” zones in sensitive marine and
terrestrial systems; and 4) create long-term, sustainable jobs and energy
from renewable energy sources.
Inletkeeper’s oil and gas strategies include researching and publicizing industry
performance, discussing the industry’s performance with decisionmakers,
identifying and remedying policy deficiencies, serving as a technical
advisor to Cook Inlet communities, and speaking to diverse constituencies
and the media. In 2004, Inletkeeper published the latest figures on the risks
from Cook Inlet’s aging pipelines to fish habitat and petitioned U.S. EPA to
require stricter standards for protecting Cook Inlet fisheries.
Inletkeeper is
currently reviewing toxic discharges from Cook Inlet’s offshore oil and gas
platforms prior to EPA’s reissuing a discharge permit for these operations,
and is collaborating with the Cook Inlet Tribes to begin a process to
amplify the Native voice on Cook Inlet oil and gas issues. Inletkeeper has also
played a central role countering coalbed methane development. This work, in
part, lead to industry returning 235,500 acres of land leased in the Mat-Su
Valley back to the state in 2004. To continue work on this important issue,
Inletkeeper will hold four landowner rights workshops this winter.
CARING FOR COOK INLET PROGRAM
(MONITORING)
Inletkeeper’s Caring for Cook Inlet Program fosters responsible stewardship in
Cook Inlet residents, and empowers citizens with the scientific tools needed
to protect watershed health. As part of this program, Inletkeeper encourages the
public to take a hands-on role in collecting and disseminating reliable data
on water quality in Cook Inlet. Inletkeeper’s monitoring program includes:
 Citizen
Environmental Monitoring Program:
In
1996, Inletkeeper developed Alaska’s first scientifically defensible volunteer
water quality monitoring program. Inletkeeper’s efforts have been held up as a
model by the state, and have spawned monitoring in Native villages, on the
Kenai River, in the Anchorage Bowl and the Mat-Su Valley.
Inletkeeper
provides information, technical services and quality assurance to Cook Inlet
monitoring groups, and is leading the way toward the most consistent,
credible, and coordinated citizen monitoring effort in Alaska.
Inletkeeper and
its partners have trained more than 500 volunteers who monitor nearly 150
sites throughout the watershed. Water quality information collected by
citizens is managed and analyzed in a relational database, and Inletkeeper has
been working with the state to finalize a comprehensive data management
system where all groups and agencies can enter and share data.
Inletkeeper’s
annual water quality reports, which analyze nearly seven years of
citizen-collected data in Kachemak Bay, are currently available on
Inletkeeper’s
web page.
Inletkeeper also performs biological monitoring
by training volunteers to collect aquatic invertebrates (such as fresh water
insects) that serve as indicators of stream health. Additionally,
Inletkeeper
oversees Alaska’s first wetlands monitoring program by training volunteers
to collect data from wetlands within the Anchor River watershed.
In 2003, Inletkeeper released a statistical
analysis report on the Citizens’ Environmental Monitoring Program, which
found that CEMP is meeting the goals and standards set for state-wide and
national monitoring programs, and that there is enough citizen-collected
data to provide information to help understand and protect water quality.
Over the past year, Inletkeeper has been working to implement the recommendations
outlined in this report on how to refine and improve citizen monitoring
efforts.
In 2004, the Department of Transportation
and a private contractor Quality Asphalt Paving contracted with the Homer
Soil and Water Conservation District and Cook Inletkeeper to monitor
streams along the 12.2 mile East End Road Construction Project in Homer.
This project has stood out as a model of how agencies, contractors and
citizens can work together to monitor water resources.
Lower
Kenai Peninsula Watershed Health Project:
Inletkeeper partners with the Homer Soil and
Water Conservation District on an in-depth water quality study to better
understand the ecological effects of land-use activities on the area’s
valuable salmon streams. Keeper's Stream Ecologist monitors water quality
on four salmon streams on the lower Kenai Peninsula: Anchor River, Deep
Creek, Ninilchik River, and Stariski Creek.
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