Protecting Alaska's Cook Inlet watershed and the life it sustains since 1995.
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 […]
Alaskans fighting the Pebble mine have largely focused their ire on Senator Lisa Murkowski, because she’s the more moderate politician and someone who might actually do something. Dan Sullivan, on the other hand, has largely escaped scrutiny, because Alaskans know he’s a shameless toady for the billionaire Koch dynasty and deep in the pocket of […]
Today, Cook Inletkeeper joined four Native Tribes in a legal challenge to the Dunleavy Administration’s decision to let Donlin Gold build a 315 mile-long gas pipeline across hundreds of fish streams from Cook Inlet to Donlin’s mine site next to the Kuskokwim River. Lawyers from Earthjustice filed the lawsuit in Alaska Superior Court in Anchorage […]
The Iditarod is truly the Last Great Race. But it has also struggled for funding in recent years, and in 2016, it capitulated to major sponsors – including Donlin Gold – to install a “gag rule,” which prohibits mushers from criticizing race sponsors, among others. Rule 53 of the Iditarod Official 2020 Rules states: “All Iditarod mushers will be held […]
In 1984, a cyanide gas leak from a Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India, killed and maimed hundreds of thousands of people in what’s been called the world’s worst industrial disaster. Less than a year after the Bhopal disaster, a Union Carbide plant in Institute, West Virginia, suffered another chemical leak which sent dozens of […]
This is the second piece in a series of Inletkeeper’s staff reflections from their experience at the Alaska’s first-ever Just Transition Summit Alaska’s Just Transition is about getting from where we’re at to where we want to be. We’re in a single revenue source, fossil-fuel based economy that is unsustainable for workers and the environment. […]
It’s safe to say Mike Dunleavy is the least popular governor in state history, and for good reason. He ran for office on a wave of dark money, with the phony promise every Alaskan would get a $6,700 PFD check. Then he locked arms with the billionaire Koch Brothers and their front group Americans for […]
In the 1960’s and 1970’s, Americans joined together to secure some of the best air, land and water protections in the world. Then the pendulum started to swing back, with billions of dollars from corporations, think tanks and phony “astroturf” groups pushing an aggressive anti-consumer, anti-environment agenda. Today, from Koch Industries to Exxon, and from […]
Hilcorp’s seismic air gun blasting program started in full force this past weekend, with the seismic vessel Polarcus Alima running transects across some of the most important fish and whale habitat in Lower Cook Inlet. You can get an update on Hilcorp’s daily seismic blasting plans here, and you can call-in every morning at 10:00 […]
As fishermen left the Homer Harbor Monday morning (September 9) to longline halibut in Lower Cook Inlet, the 273’ seismic vessel Polarcus Alima darkened the horizon in Kachemak Bay. The vessel had turned off its AIS vessel tracking system after leaving Japan last week, but local fishermen and whale scientists quickly spotted the giant vessel […]
Seismic air guns used for oil and gas exploration produce the loudest underwater noise next to explosions and warfare, and they can have devastating impacts on marine life. As a fisherman from Newfoundland put it, “Whenever a seismic boat goes past and we drop our gear, the fish aren’t there. Any fisherman, or fisherman worth […]
Pebble Mine, Brown Bears & the Climate Crisis For the past year, Inletkeeper has been studying the brown bears in Lower Cook Inlet, to understand the potential impacts on bears and the bear viewing industry from the proposed transportation corridor and export terminal from the Pebble Mine. Lower Cook Inlet boasts the highest concentration of […]
Climate Crisis Sends Stream Temperatures Off the Charts As Alaskans suffer through the smoke, haze and danger of a record-breaking heat wave, Alaska’s salmon are suffering too. On July 7th, stream temperatures topped 81.7 F (27.6 C) in the Deshka River, a major salmon stream on the west side of Cook Inlet in the Mat […]
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEJuly 10, 2019 HEAT WAVE HITS COOK INLET SALMON STREAMSClimate Crisis Sends Stream Temperatures Off the Charts (PDF Version Here) HOMER, AK— As Alaskans suffer through the smoke, haze and danger of a record-breaking heat wave, Alaska’s salmon are suffering too. On July 7th, stream temperatures topped 81.7 oF (27.6 oC) in the Deshka River, […]
Cook Inletkeeper today called-out the Dunleavy Administration for weakening a key Clean Water Act permit that will allow the oil and gas industry to increase toxic dumping in prime salmon, halibut, and beluga whale habitat. The proposed permit covers oil and gas production wastes from offshore platforms and other facilities in Cook Inlet. [Read comments […]
New study shows bear viewing industry supports nearly 500 jobs and more than $34 million in sales annually See Report Summary here & Full Report here. We’re getting tired talking about what a stupid idea it is to put a giant, toxic hole in the headwaters of the world’s greatest sockeye fishery. We’ve grown uncomfortably […]
UPDATE: February 2020. The Alaska Miners Association failed to secure passage of legislation to prevent Alaskans from protecting our most important water resources last session. So, what’s a well-heeled mining trade group with a fancy lobbyist to do? Keep pushing. Now, the Alaska Mining Association has amended the original legislation (HB 138), with a tried […]
Court Dismisses Pebble’s Bogus Effort to Silence Fishermen Dunleavy Administration Wastes State Money on Frivolous Lawsuit In April we wrote about Pebble’s ham-fisted attempts to silence Bristol Bay fishermen with a frivolous lawsuit (see below). Today, the Alaska Superior Court agreed that Pebble’s lawsuit had absolutely no merit, and it dismissed the case. If you’ve […]
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 […]
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 proceeding […]
< 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 […]
Since Pebble reared its head more than 15 years ago, its supporters have told many lies.
Our conclusion: the Pebble EIS is a bad joke. It’s incomplete. It’s unscientific. And for every Alaskan who cares about Bristol Bay, it’s wholly unacceptable.
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
