Votey McVoter Face
If you don’t do it for the sticker, than do it for democracy, civil rights, and the future of wild salmon – you know, because those things are important too.
Healthy Habitat
Stand For Salmon: The Long View
Written by Sue Mauger, Science Director We live in, play around and benefit from a salmon landscape. Wild salmon unite and define us as Alaskans. We pride ourselves in living differently up here, but we are making the same mistakes that others made across the world when they chose incompatible development over salmon. Stand for […]
Former U.S. Commissioner to Anadromous Fish Commission Says “Vote YES on 1!”
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 […]
SALMON EXPERTS URGE ALASKANS TO SUPPORT BALLOT MEASURE 1
Today Cook Inletkeeper released a statement from 58 retired state and federal agency scientists and managers who strongly support the Stand for Salmon Ballot Measure 1. Taken together, these experts have more than 1500 years’ experience managing and overseeing salmon and salmon habitat In Alaska. “Exxon, Pebble and the other corporations are smothering Alaskans with […]
Our Swimming Permanent Fund
On the same day PFD dividends hit bank accounts this year, I thawed a filet of silver salmon from the Kenai River. I remember feeling so grateful with that particular fresh, beautiful fish in my hands this August. With the sockeye fishery closed just weeks before, I started to wonder what our freezer would look […]
The Perfect Mouthpiece for the Corporate “NO” Salmon Campaign
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 […]
When is a Lie a Lie?: The Corporate Campaign Against Alaska Salmon
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 […]
Last Week the Walker Administration Proved Why We Need the Stand for Salmon Ballot Measure 1
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 […]
Walker Administration Rejects Salmon Protections, Weakens Law
ANCHORAGE— The Alaska Department of Natural Resources bowed to corporate pressure late yesterday evening, after the court ordered deadline, and rejected efforts by Alaskan citizens to protect wild salmon in the Chuitna River watershed on the west side of Cook Inlet. “It’s been 9 years since we filed papers to reserve enough water in Middle […]
Alaskans Should Be In Charge, Not Private Energy Companies
Did you know that in the Cook Inlet, oil & gas operators can legally dump toxic waste into coastal fisheries? That’s right – Oil & gas corporations are allowed to dump over 100,000 gallons of oil and grease and over 835,000 pounds of metals such as mercury, nickel, copper, manganese and zinc into the Cook […]
The Walker Administration & Big Mining Corporations Get What They Wanted: Permission to Destroy Our Salmon Habitat, Forever
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 […]
Civics in Action: Fisherpoets Talk Habitat in Juneau
In March, Cook Inletkeeper’s Central Peninsula team had the opportunity to travel to Juneau along with three Alaskan fisherpoets to meet with our elected officials. Here are reflections on the trip from two fisherpoets, both lifelong Alaskans who made the trip to Juneau for the first time. Commercial fishing in with my father in Cook […]
Pebble Redux
Submit Your Public Comment by June 29th 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 […]
The Corporate War on Salmon – Part IV
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, […]
Pebble: When NO means NO
>> Submit your Public Comment Here << Since day one, your opposition to the Pebble open pit mine in the headwaters of the richest sockeye fishery in the world has run strong. You showed up to public hearings, you wrote comments, you voted at the ballot box. The message was always clear: the risks […]
The War on Alaska Salmon: Conflicts of Interest & Corporate Influence Infect Wild Salmon Protection
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, […]
The Corporate War on Salmon: Part 2
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 […]
Alaska’s Corporate War on Salmon
These Corporations Have Rigged the Salmon Protection System By Bob Shavelson, Advocacy Director I’ve been working on water quality and salmon habitat issues in Alaska for over 20 years. And over all this time, I’ve learned a few painful but obvious lessons. First, our governments have stopped trying to protect our fish habitat. Yes, we […]
Sharing Stories and Building Trust
The Mat-Su Basin Salmon Habitat Partnership held its 10th annual Salmon Science and Conservation Symposium this month in Palmer. Cook Inletkeeper’s Science Director had the honor of offering welcoming remarks to the crowd of salmon enthusiasts from local government, business, federally recognized tribes, scientists, nonprofits, subsistence fishery users, commercial fishing industry, sportfish groups and concerned […]
Tracking Thermal Stress in Salmon Streams
Our paper: “Summer temperature regimes in southcentral Alaska streams: watershed drivers of variation and potential implications for Pacific salmon” has just come out in the Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences. We posed some specific questions: Which streams run hot? Which streams run cold? And does that change year to year? We also considered […]
Film Premier: Super Salmon
Inspired by the Patagonia-sponsored film Damnation, the Susitna River Coalition decided to fund the creation of a film that told the story of the fight against the Susitna-Watana Hydroelectric Project. Thus Super Salmon was born, directed and created by Alaska filmmaker Ryan Peterson with the support of Patagonia. The film follows the incredible journey of […]
The Mining Industry Wants it Both Ways
The Pebble Partnership has grabbed headlines recently by attacking an EPA scientist and claiming EPA somehow violated federal law by communicating with Alaskans. It’s all a phony story, of course, to pump up fear around the bogey man of “federal overreach.” But there’s a healthy dose of irony here, because while the Pebble people are […]
Shape the Future of Kachemak Bay
What’s Happening: The Alaska Department of Fish & Game (ADFG) is revising the management plan for Kachemak Bay and Fox River Flats Critical Habitat Areas. This process is now in the “scoping phase,” which means ADFG is looking for the issues it should address in the management plan revision. Scoping comments are due November 4. […]
Help Stop Exxon from Running our Foreign Policy
Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson had his first confirmation hearing for the Secretary of State position before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday, January 11. Now it’s time to tell our Senators Lisa Murkowski & Dan Sullivan to oppose this reckless nomination. Alaskans have a long history with Exxon. More recently, we’ve learned Exxon […]
