Protecting Alaska's Cook Inlet watershed and the life it sustains since 1995.
Cook Inletkeeper has been fighting alongside our supporters for our collective vision of Cook Inlet for the last 27 years. This vision has focused on clean water, healthy salmon, and strong communities. One central theme of this fight has been limiting oil and gas development and corresponding pollution. That vision is still central today. Inletkeeper’s […]
It’s salmon season in Alaska and that means people all over the State are putting on their waders or grundens, pulling out their nets and poles, and heading out to our salmon waters at all hours of the day and night. In our watershed, Dena’ina, Alutiiq and Sugpiaq people have been in relationship with salmon […]
If you are like me, you feel like we just celebrated Lease Sale 258 in Lower Cook Inlet being taken off the table. Unfortunately, as many of you are only too familiar with, we are again facing a proposed lease sale in Lower Cook Inlet.  President Biden and the Department of Interior proposed a five-year plan […]
How many times do we have to say NO to a bad project that would harm Alaskans? Most Alaskans know the main storyline of the decades-long Pebble Mine saga: Geologists discover the pebble deposit in 1987; A series of foreign companies thought it would be easy to dig a giant pit and mine the headwaters […]
On Monday, I saw a helicopter pilot I hadn’t seen in 14 years. Stan piloted my first trip in Bristol Bay to sample small headwater streams near the Pebble deposit. Seeing Stan brought up a flood of memories and names of people who have contributed to the decades of work to protect Bristol Bay, each […]
Alaska’s bears and salmon are inextricably linked. During the summer months, while Alaskans are filling our freezers with salmon, the brown bears on the Alaska Peninsula are storing up their salmon for the winter. Bears of the Alaska Peninsula are incredible — eating dozens of salmon and gaining up to 4 pounds a day. The […]
By Kayla Walsh, Alaska Conservation Foundation Intern What brings a city girl like me to Cook Inlet, a place I hadn’t heard of just 6 months ago? Well, I started a graduate program in Conservation Medicine and I’m here to learn all about it from the real experts: Alaskans! I’ve been asked what Conservation Medicine […]
On May 26, we started what we hope will be the LAST comment period advocating for strong protections under the Clean Water Act to defend Bristol Bay from destructive mining by a Canadian company. Many of you have been with us in this fight for years and years. Bristol Bay Native Corporation put together a […]
The blue lines on topographic maps necessarily under-represent the complex movement of freshwater across floodplains, through wetlands and gravel bars. For a juvenile fish, the blue lines are experienced as a maze of currents, temperature, food and hiding places, while a migrating adult salmon wends its way along the blue lines of riffles and pools […]
I stood at the finish line of the Mouth to Mouth Wild Run & Ride at the end of Cannery Road in Kenai, on an extremely cold February afternoon (the race is still over three months away). There was a mean wind that bit at any exposed skin, making my eyes water. I quickly wiped […]
Salmon and agriculture are two of Alaska’s most important renewable resources. Alaska’s agricultural sectors are growing faster than any other state in the nation. With the formation of both the Alaska Grown Caucus in the Alaska Legislature and the announcement by the Governor of the Food Security & Independence Task Force, farming is poised to […]
This year will mark 50 years since Congress passed and enacted the Clean Water Act (CWA) after our nation’s rivers literally caught fire. This disregard of pollution was not unique to the Lower 48 as Alaska fishermen were finding blobs of oil floating in the ocean from passing tankers. While the Clean Water Act isn’t […]
Cook Inletkeeper has been keeping a watchful eye on the west side of the Susitna River for years. When the state of Alaska permitted a 315-mile right-of-way for a gas pipeline to fuel the proposed Donlin Gold Mine, cutting a massive swath from Cook Inlet, over the Alaska Range to the mine site, we joined […]
Salmon are no canaries. They have robust life-history strategies and diverse habitat needs. If we keep their freshwater habitat cold, clean and intact and their marine food web stable without large blobs of warm water, wild Pacific salmon will persist and continue to contribute to global and local food security. Their greatest vulnerability is that […]
You look at seed catalogs in December. You buy snow blowers in June. You mend nets in August. You prepare for your future guided by your hopes for the future. So let’s all brush aside the fog of uncertainty clouding our vision over these last 18 months and prepare for the future we want in […]
I’ve never been a fan of scary movies. All the anticipation and fear of knowing that bad things are around the corner – and there’s nothing to do about it – is not my idea of fun. I think that’s why I’ve been committed to monitoring salmon stream health during this time of rapid change. […]
I am incredibly honored by Bob, Sue, and of your trust as I step into the role Bob has, seemingly effortlessly, managed for so many years. As I inherit the “Inletkeeper” title from Bob, I’d like to share my vision for the future of the Cook Inlet watershed in the decades ahead: Alaska’s economy has […]
Lease ART Sale 258 Update: Thank you all for a successful Art Sale 258 and Draft Environmental Impact Statement comment period! We are able to do this work because of member support from concerned citizens like you. Please donate today to protect Cook Inlet for our future generations. In the world we wish to inhabit, there is no […]
Fat Bear Week brings the wonder and joy of our Cook Inlet bears to people around the world! This year–for the fourth time!!–Otis (or brown bear 480) was crowned king! Otis–relying on the amazing rich nutrients in Katmai–ended the season weighing over 1,000 pounds. Not the largest bear of the bunch but a survivor! Otis […]
Over the last fifty years, U.S. waters have been affected by almost 50 oil spills over 420,000 gallons. A few of the most famous are: Santa Barbara, California (1969): 3 million gallons spilled from an offshore platform blowout creating a 35 mile long oil slick. Exxon Valdez, Alaska (1989): 10.8 million gallons spilled from a […]
Last week we asked you – our Inletkeepers – to stand up for Lower Cook Inlet and say “no” to the proposed oil and gas lease sale in Lower Cook Inlet. If you haven’t already signed the petition, please do so at inletkeeper.org/ls258 – and then share with 5 friends (or five more friends!)! Many […]
Central to most Alaskan’s plates are salmon and other foods from the sea. It’s hard to visit Kachemak Bay without also enjoying fresh oysters or beer-battered fish. Halibut and salmon are common freezer staples all year long. It’s hard to imagine Alaska without this plentiful bounty. Given our high food costs, many Alaskan families supplement […]
You are Inletkeeper – and NOW is a critical time to stand up for Cook Inlet. Last Friday, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) released the draft Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed oil and gas lease sale in Lower Cook Inlet. We now have 45 days to explain to our government why this […]
At Inletkeeper, we often talk about the “myth of rigorous permitting.” And the state has provided us with a perfect example of what we mean with their water quality certification of the proposed Donlin Mine. The Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation’s (DEC) mission is “conserving, improving, and protecting Alaska’s natural resources and environment to enhance […]
Through the Central Kenai Peninsula’s Community Compost project, we’ve learned just how much organic matter matters in our watershed. At number three out of the top 100 solutions to reverse global warming (drawdown.org), reducing food waste will take a huge bite out of methane emissions, something cold-water fish like our beloved salmon will appreciate. A […]
Cook Inletkeeper works to ensure our state government protects our wild salmon. We fought the state when it authorized the industry to destroy 11 miles of Alaskan salmon streams for the proposed Chuitna Coal Mine. Our Government and industry repeatedly claim that they would never trade one of Alaska’s resources (salmon) for another (coal). Yet […]
The fact that fish need water and that Alaskans love their fish should not be controversial. But the House Fisheries Committee held a meeting to learn about the Department of Natural Resources’ (DNR) proposed changes to the regulations that allow Alaskans to keep water in streams for fish. Although DNR refused to show up, Cook […]
Alaskans are blessed with an abundance unlike anywhere else. And that abundance translates to a richness of life we all savor. It’s hard to find anyone who voted for Trump or Biden who disagrees: we all love Alaska. So, why are we squandering this rich legacy for short term profit? And why are we allowing […]
By Claire Babbott-Bryan, Climate Change and Wild Salmon Intern I’ve been a water nerd my whole life. It began, as it so often does, with the third-grade interdisciplinary river unit. In English class, we wrote poetry personifying the local biota. In art, we crafted ceramic salmon plaques. My favorite was science class, where we learned […]
Conservationist and ecologist Aldo Leopold published his pivotal essay Land Ethic in 1949. Central to this essay is a call for honoring our moral responsibility to the natural world, by caring not only about ourselves, but also the land, and the inseparable relationships between them. Land Ethic demands thinking and action beyond our own immediate […]
As Alaska girds for a future without the wave of petrodollars that fueled our early years, it’s time we decide how best to protect and develop the incredible natural resources that make the Great Land unique. A new report makes clear that hard rock mining will not fill the fiscal gap left by flagging oil […]
On January 15, the Dunleavy Administration welcomed-in 2021 with new proposed rules to strip Alaskans of our rights to keep water in our streams and lakes to protect our fish (see original post, below). Now, in response to strong public pushback, the Alaska Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has extended the public comment period until […]
In my early years learning about the ecology of streams, I spent a few summers in the sagebrush country of southeastern Oregon. I was studying desert springs measuring water chemistry, collecting bugs and identifying plants associated with each little oasis. I was discovering the complex connections of the natural world at a very micro-scale. I also learned […]
How do we value the land? This is the conversation the Homer Drawdown community has begun to explore. The most emphasized valuation of land is based on its market value. Of course, the worth of land cannot wholly be captured by monetary figures. The way the land feeds our soul, renders our way of life, […]
This past week, the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council sent shockwaves across Alaska when it abruptly closed commercial salmon fishing in the federal waters of Lower Cook Inlet. The closure resulted from the State of Alaska’s blanket refusal to work with the federal government to co-manage the salmon fishery in Lower Cook Inlet. The irony […]
On the day before Thanksgiving, Alaskans woke to astounding news: the Army Corps rejected a major permit for the Pebble mine. Never before had the Army Corps rejected a major permit for a large oil, gas or mining project in Alaska. Never. And it only came about after years and years of relentless pressure from […]
When I was young and my mom thought I was running with the wrong crowd, she had a simple admonition: if you lay down in the gutter, you get up dirty. That was long ago. But today, when I look at our industry “partners” in Alaska, it feels like we’re wallowing in the gutter. While […]
This summer we shared our latest paper on the importance of freshwater conditions for Cook Inlet Chinook Salmon and highlighted how important it is to understand stream-specific responses to climate change for better management of our valuable fisheries. Now we’d like to put the spotlight on other important research going on that is helping us […]
Forty-five years ago a group of Alaskans with a passion for Cook Inlet took on the oil and gas industry. And in a remarkable David and Goliath battle, they prevailed. Thanks to this small but dogged group of fishermen, scientists, artists and activists, the epic view across Kachemak Bay – and the remarkable resources of […]
In late September, the “Pebble Tapes” dropped like a bomb on the Pebble Partnership, blasting public relations shrapnel through the Canadian corporation that will draw blood for a long time. As Pebble staggers through the smoke and fog of the Pebble Tape’s fallout, it’s engaging some tried and true corporate strategies for damage control. But […]
Another hardrock mine has reared its head in Cook Inlet, and it’s raising big questions from local property owners, fishermen and businesses. In late August, Inletkeeper flew to the west side of Cook Inlet to meet with local residents and representatives of High Gold – the junior Canadian mining interest currently exploring the Johnson Tract. […]
Over the past five years, as we’ve developed our local foods programming, the value of building and supporting local food systems has become increasingly clear in our work to protect the Cook Inlet watershed. The United Nations refers to food, energy and water as the “nexus” of sustainable development: food production requires both water and […]
Talk is cheap, but numbers don’t lie. Northern Dynasty Minerals (NAK) – the junior Candian mining interest behind the proposed Pebble mine – did its damndest to hype its stock in the lead-up to the much-anticipated release of its Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) earlier this month. And while it came as no surprise the Army […]
Massive spending on lobbyists gives foreign mining interests unfair advantage over everyday Alaskans A new compilation by Cook Inletkeeper from U.S. Senate Lobbying Reports shows the Canadian mining interests behind the proposed Pebble mine have spent more than $15 million since 2007 on high-priced lobbyists to buy their way to federal permits. And since 2017 […]
Mike Dunleavy recently flew all the way to the east coast to stand by Donald Trump as he gutted rules under the nation’s “environmental magna carta” – the National Environmental Policy Act. Of course Mike Dunleavy has contorted himself in any number of ways to coddle a President who’s handling of the COVID pandemic has […]
A new study – led by University of Alaska researchers and in collaboration with Cook Inletkeeper – provides the first evidence that declines in many of Alaska’s Chinook salmon populations can be attributed in part to climate-driven changes in their freshwater habitats.
First impressions are often telling. Inletkeeper first met with Northern Dynasty in Homer in 2005, before the Candian junior mining interest – which had never before developed a mining project – formed the Pebble Limited Partnership. The meeting was cordial but somewhat fraught, because Northern Dynasty had recently announced plans to dig a massive hole […]
TAKE ACTION NOW: https://inletkeeper.org/hilcorpdumping/ CHECK OUT OUR SHORT VIDEO: www.youtube.com/watch?v=AT5Fqlfbubs In today’s increasingly greedy world, oil and gas companies will go to just about any length to make as much profit as possible. And Texas-based Hilcorp is the poster child for profits at any cost. Since it gobbled up the lion’s share of oil and […]
Government bureaucrats love to highlight Alaska’s work protecting our environment, because it helps sell the idea that Alaska’s “open for business.” The big mining, oil and gas corporations also like to tout Alaska’s green bona fides, because it helps insulate them from public criticism. There’s only one problem: it’s all a lie. That’s because Alaska’s […]
When Pebble’s draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) came out last year, it was widely panned as a superficial nothing burger, designed simply to push the project to the next stage of the process. How bad was it? So bad that agencies reporting to Donald Trump and Mike Dunleavy had this to say: The Department of […]
