Welcome

Got Caution? Or Where is the Safety Factor?

Wayne Jenkins — 2012-02-17T19:58:17Z

The later portion of a many-thousand year relationship between people and salmon is a story of repeated failure. Since humans stepped from our hunter gatherer/agrarian beginnings into the homo-industrialous era, most populations of wild salmon in the northern hemisphere have declined or disappeared. As our knowledge and ability to manipulate the world increases, so too do our impacts on this most useful of fish. Presently, Atlantic salmon are barely holding on, and healthy runs of Pacific Salmon have been decimated in their southern range. Only Alaska in the US and Kamchatka in Russia support healthy populations. What’s up with that?

We understand in great detail the biology of salmon. We understand the importance of salmon as a quality food, as a job creating resource, as a thrilling opportunity for recreation and as key part of the very mechanisms that make life possible.

We know what causes decline and extermination of salmon runs. We know a certain number of salmon must be allowed to return to the place of their birth to reproduce and that they require clean cold water. We know we cannot over harvest them, block their passage upstream or pollute their rivers if we want to continue using and enjoying them.

And yet, even with what should be more than adequate knowledge, we continue to fail to protect salmon and their habitat and therefore the future good they can provide us and the world. What gives?

Are salmon, and people sharing the same landscape, mutually exclusive?

I just finished reading David Montgomery’s book Salmon: King of Fish and in it he shares an interesting insight that addresses one reason why we continue to fail in our care of salmon. Our failure is in our approach to managing complex systems, which we do not fully understand or control. Lacking full understanding and this certainly applies to salmon and most other natural systems, the wise management approach would include caution as an active principal. We need to design into our use and manipulation of nature a “safety factor”. Good management would include “generous margins of safety” that would avoid tipping points and disaster. The same reasoning supports wearing a seatbelt while driving or leaving appropriate space between you and the car in front of you or saving money for a rainy day.

So, this seems simple enough. Why aren’t we practicing principals of caution when it comes to something so important and fundamental as protecting salmon?

This cautionary principal runs head-on into the prevailing economic practice of our age, profit above all else. Our failure to use caution in our approach to natural systems that support us indicates a fundamental disregard for our and our children’s future. Our infatuation with short-term outcomes and profits will be our downfall. Until the wisdom and practice of “precaution” supplants our allegiance to rapid, short-term growth, salmon and there habitat will continue the hundred and fifty year march to destruction.

Can we turn this around? We know how to manage ourselves in relation to salmon and other fish species. The choice is ours and clear: protect habitat that supports our basic needs or continue to repeat the failing approaches of our past ensuring a bleak, salmon-less future. Got caution?

Coal and Your Health Lecture Series

Dennis Gann — 2012-02-11T01:35:00Z

Alaskans have a great opportunity to learn about coal’s impacts to our health during the upcoming Alaska Lecture Tour: Coal and Your Health, February 14th-17th. Alaska Community Action on Toxics is bringing Dr. Alan H. Lockwood to Alaska to discuss the growing body of evidence linking coal development to human health risks. Dr. Lockwood is the principal author of the Physicians for Social Responsibility report "Coal's Assault on Human Health" which describes the devastating impacts of coal on the human body.

It’s important for Alaskans to understand the health impacts of coal because Alaska has a lot of coal; according to the Alaska Department of Natural Resources the State has 17% of the world’s coal resources; second most in the world. Cook Inlet is surrounded by coal deposits including the entire western half of the Kenai Peninsula—everywhere from Hope to Homer is underlain with coal. The booming Asian economies in China and India are driving demand to develop many coal fields in the Cook Inlet watershed including the proposed Chuitna coal strip mine in the Kenai Peninsula Borough, several proposals in the MatSu Borough are in various stages of permitting and the Alaska Mental Health Trust is actively marketing large tracts of Trust land for future coal development; all driven by demand from Pacific Rim Countries.

It’s also clear that coal has one of the dirtiest and most destructive life-cycles of any fossil fuel; extraction, shipment, combustion, and waste disposal all have significant environmental, health, and economic consequences including global warming, smog, premature deaths, increased risk of asthma and loss of wetlands and salmon habitat.

Combustion alone has devastating impacts to our health; coal fired power plants are the largest source of human-caused mercury emissions in the U.S. Fortunately, the Environmental Protection Agency has taken action to address some of the health impacts associated with burning coal; the Mercury Rule announced in December, establishing national standards for U.S. power plant emissions, combined with the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule issued earlier in 2011 are estimated to prevent 46,000 premature deaths and save American families $380 billion in the form of healthier lives and reduced health care savings.

However, shipping coal to foreign countries does not protect us from serious consequences as coal emissions, whether mercury, particulate, or carbon dioxide, don’t respect political boundaries; emissions from Asian coal fired power plants are transported via atmospheric and oceanic currents and are deposited in Alaska, then through bio-accumulation these powerful toxins end up in our food supply.

Learn more about the impacts of coal on our health at the Coal and Your Health Lecture Series at these Cook Inlet watershed locations:

Anchorage, February 14, 2012

Out North Theater, 3800 DeBarr Rd.

6:30 pm Reception/7:00 pm Presentation

Palmer, February 16, 2012

Palmer Train Depot, 510 S. Valley Way

6:30 pm Reception/7:00 pm Presentation

Homer, February 17, 2012

Islands and Ocean Visitor Center, 95 Sterling Hwy

6:30 pm Reception/7:00 pm Presentation

Or Join via teleconference:

“Coal’s Assault on Human Health” will be held from 9:00 AM to 10:00 AM Alaska Time, Wednesday, February 15, as part of the Alaska Collaborative on Health and the Environment teleconference seminar series. Guest presenter Alan H. Lockwood, MD from Physicians for Social Responsibility will discuss the growing body of medical evidence linking coal development to human health risks. For more information, or to join this free call and receive the dial-up instructions, please RSVP to Alaska Community Action on Toxics at heather@akaction.org or 907-222-7714

The Cook Inlet Watershed, Inletkeeper and Me

rob@inletkeeper.org — 2012-02-06T20:15:00Z

My name is Rob Ernst and I have been on the board of directors of Cook Inletkeeper for over ten years. I joined the Inletkeeper effort for a number of reasons, perhaps the greatest of which is my love for Cook Inlet, its watershed and the life it sustains. My life and that of my extended family depend upon the bounty of this wonderful place. Like everyone in Cook Inlet, I am embedded in an ecosystem which water makes possible. Most of my life has been spent in Nikiski, having moved here at age five.

Now, 44 years later, my wife, daughter and I live in a house just a quarter of a mile from where I grew up. We can view the lake of my childhood out our front window. A lake whose water still sustains us with fresh rainbow trout and a place to dunk after a sauna. All summer long, loons patrol the lake, terns swoop and scoop out minnows for food and various ducks hang out until the fall. Trumpeter swans make a stop here on their way south at the end of summer. Beavers and muskrats thrive on and near the shoreline… all because of the clean water of this healthy lake. It is beautiful place in which to live and grow up.

If you follow the little outlet steam on the north end of the lake you will find that it flows through the woods into Bishop Creek, a small river that connects my immediate, local watershed to Cook Inlet. On its way to the Inlet, Bishop creek drains forested hillsides and vast swampy wetlands. With a strong run of sockeye salmon and rainbow trout, it provides food for the local black and brown bears, sustaining large populations of both year round. Moose feed in the riparian habitat and lynx prowl the surroundings for snow-shoe hares. Again, this biological diversity and richness is sustained by clean water and healthy wetlands.

As Bishop Creek progresses to the Inlet, the circle of life comes to its next connection. Fish that have spawned in the creek and the lakes it drains, enter the cycle of life that my family and I are linked to, a cycle that has provided us with abundant harvests and material wealth for generations.

As a commercial fisherman for nearly 30 years, the richness of Cook Inlet has provided my family a living and a lifestyle which would have been impossible anywhere else. We are directly connected to Cook Inlet both physically and spiritually. My time on Cook Inlet as a commercial fisherman has given me many precious memories over the years. I remember seeing hundreds of beluga whales while anchoring on the west side 20 years ago. I remember sitting on a school of salmon so huge that you could see countless jumpers in the air everywhere I looked--I could actually smell fish in the air because there were so many.

Living in the Cook Inlet watershed has been a lifelong privilege for me, and participating in the circles of life that its water sustains has been a central theme of my existence. Protecting the cleanness and purity for my children and future generations are truly worthy endeavors and Cook Inletkeeper has been and is the organization that puts this goal first, allowing me to participate in the fight to protect the health of this rich watershed which I love.

Creative Giving

Susanna Sharp — 2012-02-01T20:45:00Z

Our members support us in so many ways—and this means everything to us. Your support says we’re doing something right and that we need to keep on doing it.

We value it all—the volunteer time in our office and at special events, the donations and discounts for venues and food and other support for special events and, of course, the funds so generously donated year after year. Member support translates to “unrestricted funds,” which differs from other private and public funding we receive that is committed to a particular program or project. Unrestricted funds allow us to pay the phone bill and buy paper, attend conferences and meetings, and generally keep our office running.

Occasionally we receive unusual gifts at Cook Inletkeeper that translate to a substantial unrestricted donation. In recent months, individuals have generously donated a car valued at more than $5,000 and a one-ounce gold coin, which at this posting is valued at more than $1,800. We even received a gently used refrigerator for the Homer office.

We’d like to remind you that there are many ways to support our work!

If your business supports watershed protection, let’s talk about ways you may encourage your patrons to support our efforts while showing them that your business values clean water. Or you may wish to sponsor our tidebook that highlights clean boating and healthy fisheries. Contact us to learn more.

If you prefer to give something in lieu of cash, we welcome airfare or donated flights, food and lodging for meetings around the watershed, fuel for the hybrid and the skiff. We can accept gifts of stock or property—and of course we appreciate your gold and fine working vehicles.

Our work continues because of your support, and we thank you.