Protecting Alaska's Cook Inlet watershed and the life it sustains since 1995.
But seriously, here’s what Power the Future does: they represent the interests of the largest, richest and most powerful corporations on the planet, but they wrap themselves in the shameless veneer of the working man under assault from a fringe band of crazies hell bent on sending us all back to caves and candle light.
Alaska is the most profitable oil and gas province in the world. Yet under current forecasts, Alaska is staring down the barrel of a $1.6 billion deficit for the coming fiscal year. Governor Dunleavy came into office promising to cut expenses to balance our budget. But even if he fired every state employee, he’d still wouldn’t be […]
As Wally Hickle famously stated, Alaska is the “owner state.” It’s past time we started to act like one.
I attended a presentation this week in Homer by Mark Hamilton, Vice President of External Affairs and mouthpiece for the Pebble mine, and it was remarkable on a couple fronts. First, the tone. Hamilton spoke down to the crowd like a seasoned used car salesman, highlighting only the possible benefits of the Pebble Mine, and […]
I spent 38 yrs. managing fisheries from California to the Arctic, and I support Ballot Measure 1. My career included: Salmonid (salmon, steelhead, trout) management as a Pacific and North Pacific Fishery Management Council member; developing amendments to the Forest Practices Act; an advisor in US/Canada Salmon Treaty negotiations and implementation, and reviewer of funding […]
For the past 23 years, Cook Inletkeeper has worked hard for clean water and healthy habitat in Cook Inlet and around Alaska. When we worked alongside residents in Tyonek and Beluga to prevent a coal company from Texas from mining through 14 miles of salmon streams on the west side of Cook Inlet, we witnessed […]
Desperate times call for desperate measures. What else could explain the choice of Randy Bates – former ADFG Habitat Division Director – as a prominent spokesman in folksy TV and video ads for the corporate campaign against Alaska salmon? Inletkeeper had a front row seat for Mr. Bates’ government career, and what we saw explains […]
Calling a person or a group a liar is somewhat taboo, even in our evolving post-fact world, because the accusation is fairly serious. And of course the main difference between a flat out lie and garden variety misinformation comes down to intent: did the speaker know what he or she was saying was untrue, yet […]
It’s no secret the corporate campaign against the Stand for Salmon ballot initiative has amassed more than $10 million to try to stop Alaskans from updating our 60-year-old, one-sentence-long salmon habitat law. But there’s a darker effort unfolding behind the scenes, and it’s not pretty. Pebble, Donlin, ConocoPhillips, British Petroleum and the other big corporations […]
In the lead-up to the long holiday weekend, when Alaskans were distracted with camping and hunting and fishing plans, the Walker Administration quietly issued two decisions which show exactly why we need to pass the Stand for Salmon Ballot Measure 1 to take politics out of our permitting system and to modernize our old, ineffective […]
Every once in a while the truth slips out. Yesterday Kurt Parkan, a mouthpiece for the giant Donlin Gold Mine, laid bare the myth of rigorous permitting in Alaska. “Projects go into the process of getting a permit with the expectation of getting a permit,” Parkan said. Parkan is a special-breed, having worked for the nonprofit […]
Today, the Alaska Supreme Court struck an important provision from the Stand for Salmon Ballot Initiative. It ruled the initiative’s ban on “substantial damage” – including permanent harm to salmon habitat – violated the Alaska Constitution because it amounted to an “appropriation” which impermissibly limited the Legislature’s discretion to make public resource decisions. The Court […]
re·dux: /rēˈdəks,ˈrēˈdəks/adjective, brought back; revived. Late last year one of Cook Inletkeeper’s keen-eyed Boardmembers sent me an obscure public notice for exploration work around Amakdedori Creek in Kamishak Bay on the west side of Lower Cook Inlet. The project didn’t entail oil and gas exploration, so it was unclear who would be poking around Kamishak […]
Alaskans are pushing the Stand for Salmon Initiative because we know our permitting system favors big corporations over everyday Alaskans concerned about fish habitat protection. Here’s a perfect example. In 2009, a group of Alaskans filed an application with the Alaska DNR to reserve water in a stream on the west side of Cook Inlet […]
Most working Alaskans consider $500,000 to be a lot of money. And of course, it is. But not when you’re a giant multinational oil company. British Petroleum recently dropped $500,000 to try to stop the Stand for Salmon ballot initiative, which would update Alaska’s 60-year-old, one-sentence-long salmon habitat protection law. To put that into context, however, […]
Your right as an Alaskan to wild, healthy salmon is under assault. These are strong words, and we don’t take them lightly. But the fact remains that large corporations are now woven into the very fabric of our government and our society, and their corporate DNA is manifesting itself in countless ways, big and small, […]
Did you ever get slapped for doing the right thing? That’s how Cook Inletkeeper feels after the Alaska Oil & Gas Commission (AOGCC) recently announced its final rule on whether Alaskans should get public notice and an opportunity to comment on hydraulic fracking operations in their communities. And make no mistake, the AOGCC’s response is […]
Recent filings with the Alaska Public Offices Commission reveal the many corporations and trade groups opposed to the Stand for Salmon Initiative, which is the ballot measure sponsored by Alaskans to update our 60-year old fish habitat laws. No one should be surprised our corporate “partners” oppose stronger safeguards for our salmon streams, because protecting […]
