If you’re a semi-conscious Alaskan, you probably know by now the billionaire Koch brothers have their hands around the throat of democracy in the Last Frontier. You may recall how the Koch Brother’s front groups – the Alaska Policy Forum, Power the Future, and Americans for Prosperity- Alaska Chapter - waged an out-and-out war to kill...
Featured photo: Michael Melford The Army Corps of Engineers began their public hearings in Naknek, AK on Monday for the Draft Environmental Impact Statement regarding the proposed Pebble Mine Plan. At the same time that residents from rural Alaska make arrangements to speak out at these public hearings, our State Legislature in Juneau is...
< Submit your Public Comment online here > When I interviewed for my job with Cook Inletkeeper in 1995, the hiring committee handed me a draft Clean Water Act permit for oil and gas discharges in Cook Inlet, and asked me how I would change it to reduce pollution. Twenty four years later I still don’t have an answer. The permit covers oil and...
The Pebble people are pulling out all the stops. With the Trump and Dunleavy Administrations in power, Pebble knows now is the time to ram through a giant open-pit mine in the headwaters of the richest sockeye salmon fishery in the world. But Pebble knows a strong majority of Alaskans oppose the mine. They also know the facts and science...
We’ve reviewed dozens of Environmental Impact Statements over the years. And while they’re not our preferred bedtime reading, we were looking forward to seeing what the federal Army Corps had to say in the recently released Draft EIS (DEIS) for the proposed Pebble Mine. Our conclusion: the Pebble EIS is a bad joke. It’s incomplete. It’s...
With the recent release of the draft Environmental Impact Statement for the Pebble mine in record-fast time, Alaskans have been dismayed at the slapdash efforts of our federal and state governments to ram through a thin and incomplete review for a giant gold mine in the headwaters of Bristol Bay. And one of the gravest oversights in the...
The proposed Pebble mine in southwest Alaska stands out for a variety reasons, including the fact it would be the first large-scale, open pit mine in the headwaters of the Bristol Bay - the richest sockeye salmon fishery in the world. But with the recent release of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the project, Pebble gains...
Act NOW to Protect Salmon Habitat – Comments Due March 22 BACKGROUND: The proposed Donlin mine along the banks of the Kuskokwim River in southwest Alaska would be a massive open gold mine. To power the facility, Donlin plans a 315 mile-long natural gas pipeline from Cook Inlet through the Skwentna, Yentna and Kuskokwim...
BACKGROUND: In January 2019, Governor Dunleavy lopped-off $20 million in education funding in the state’s supplemental budget – an amount approved through bipartisan negotiations in the Alaska House and Senate last year, and money school districts relied on in their budgets through the remainder of the fiscal year. But the real...
Few people noticed a recent op-ed by a guy named Rick Whitbeck, who holds himself out as the Alaska Director for a group he calls Power the Future. The piece was unremarkable for the most part, but it caught my eye for its unhinged and juvenile attacks on anyone who cares about clean water, healthy salmon and wild Alaska. Then I started to...
