Take Action: Wild Salmon Still Need Water
— Sue Mauger
Wild salmon define who we are as Alaskans; they shape our cultures, feed our families, and support our local economies. Yet today, Alaska’s laws and rules contain few hard and fast safeguards to protect the water and other habitats salmon need to thrive.
More specifically, there is no requirement to retain sufficient water in our lakes and streams for salmon when a company wants to appropriate that water for industrial or other use. The only way currently to ensure salmon have sufficient water in a stream or lake is to secure a water right called a reservation of water.
A reservation of water is a water right that protects specific flow or lake level use, such as for the protection of fish and wildlife habitat, migration, and propagation. It sets aside the water necessary for these activities and prevents later water users from appropriating water that may affect the instream or lake activity. – Alaska’s Water Law, Alaska Statue: AS 46.15.145
Under the current regulatory scheme, an applicant for a water reservation must provide much more information to demonstrate that water should be left in a waterbody to protect fish and wildlife habitat than is required for a company to take water out. The Alaska Department of Natural Resources (DNR) requires rigorous data to support a reservation request, which may take years to collect. In contrast, applications for both a water right and temporary water use permit need only provide minimal information and descriptions about the water use and neither process requires data to demonstrate that the water withdrawal requested will not harm fish and wildlife habitat.
Cook Inletkeeper has been fighting this biased process for decades. Now, DNR has started another scoping process to ask the public for their input before the Department undertakes the task of revising the reservation of water regulations.
We need your help! Please send your comments to:
Alaska Department of Natural Resources
Division of Mining, Land & Water
Program Support Section
550 W. 7th Avenue, Suite 1070
Anchorage, AK 99501-3579
Or by Comment Portal: https://dnr.alaska.gov/mlw/comment/
Or by Email: dnr.water.regulation@alaska.gov
The comment period deadline has been extended to October 29, 2024 at 5 PM.
TALKING POINTS:
- Our wild salmon, under a myriad of freshwater threats, must have sufficient water to spawn, incubate, rear and migrate.
- Although the current process to reserve water in fish streams, rivers and lakes is time-consuming and expensive, DNR must not make changes to the existing regulations if they in any way weaken or reduce the current ability to reserve adequate water for fish and wildlife.
- The burden to protect reservations of water should fall on the company that wants to take water out of a fish stream, river or lake; not every day Alaskans who want to ensure healthy salmon runs for years to come.
- Reservations of water must be on equal footing with other appropriation of water categories to withdraw, divert and impound.
- Alaska Native Tribes must be consulted on any management action that could impact their traditional lands and their citizens. If DNR has not initiated formal government-to-government consultations with tribes regarding this request for input, the Department must offer such consultations to both allow the state to benefit from traditional knowledge and ensure that concerns from tribal nations are understood and considered.
To learn more about the state’s effort to revise water management regulations, please check out: https://dnr.alaska.gov/mlw/water/regrevision/