behind the campaign for Alaska’s statehood was the impact of large canneries on salmon that used fish traps and wheels to drain returning runs. At the same time, due to the lack of the Territory’s regulatory authority and because federal authorities were under the control of corporate interests, these canneries avoided paying taxes and laws to protect the fishery.
Return to Ekunick’s Time looks at how, as the 49th state to enter the union, Alaska had the benefit of observing the mistakes made by other states that were beginning to experience environmental degradation due to industrial extraction. As such, in the early years after statehood, the State was a leader in creating and enforcing environmental policy which, together with the emerging activism of Alaska Native communities, played a part in the birth of the nationwide environmental movement.
Eventually, however, the lure of the riches, particularly from the discovery of oil in Prudhoe Bay, became too much for Alaska’s political leadership, and over the past 50 years, the extraction industry has dominated state policies. Today, under a series of conservative politicians in power at both the federal and state levels (as championed particularly by the former Trump administration), resource extraction corporations are once again having substantial impacts on water and subsistence resources relied upon by Alaska Native communities.
At the same time, after a campaign led by powerful industrial interests and conservative politicians to discredit the environmental movement, today tribal leaders and everyday citizens in Alaska are hailing a new era of protecting water resources by emphasizing traditional values and management strategies in the face of existential threats from climate change and politics. According to Alaska Native author William Oquilluck, during the time of Ekeunick – the legendary leader of the Inupiat people in ancient times – “the Eskimo’s ancestors did not use their minds like later times when they invented tools, clothes, houses, boats, and weapons. They had no worries about living.”
Could the return to traditional values as a means of addressing the impacts of climate change and mismanagement of natural resources, help to move the needle towards a return to times when Alaska Native people will no longer have to worry about the survival of their traditions and culture?
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The Chugach Regional Resource Commission (CRRC) is an Alaska Native Tribal consortium in south-central Alaska whose Dena’ina, Alutiiq, and Sugpiaq villages and association members have stewarded of the Kachemak Bay watershed for over 10,000 years. CRRC’s mission is to promote Tribal sovereignty and protect subsistence lifestyles through the development and implementation of Tribal natural resource management programs to assure conservation and sustainable economic development in the traditional use area of the Chugach Region.
CRRC Tribes Map
CRRC serves the greater Chugach region of Southcentral Alaska, including Lower Cook Inlet, Resurrection Bay, and Prince William Sound. Within Lower Cook Inlet CRRC will work with area member tribes to establish the Kachemak Bay Watershed Collaborative (Collaborative or KBWC) to protect salmon streams located within the Kachemak Bay Watershed (Watershed). The Athabascan and Sugpiaq communities located within the Watershed rely on a subsistence economy, as they have since time immemorial.
CRRC will engage a diverse group of stakeholders with land ownership or authority within the Watershed, including Federally recognized Tribal entities, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Alaska Departments of Natural Resources and Fish and Game, the municipalities of Homer, Kachemak Selo, Voznesenka and Razdolna, Seldovia and the unincorporated Native village communities of Nanwalek and Port Graham, and conservation organizations.
Many changes related to warming fresh and marine water temperatures impact the subsistence resources. Increasingly common drought conditions and spruce beetle outbreaks in the region threaten the health of the plants and animals rural communities rely upon for subsistence. These changes are happening at a rate no one thought possible even a decade ago. Land management activity within the Watershed can exacerbate such impacts. The Collaborative will work to be more inclusive of tribal and other local communities along with local, state, and federal stakeholders in monitoring, planning, and decision-making within the Watershed. The implementation of risk assessments and planning documents, along with preserving connectivity and non-climate stressor mitigation actions, will ensure better protection and management of salmon habitat in the Watershed.
Project location
The 4,926,794-acre Watershed is made up of five small watersheds located in the Kenai Peninsula Borough within the state of Alaska and encompasses the municipalities of Homer, Kachemak Selo, Voznesenka, Razdolna, Seldovia, and the unincorporated Alaska Native village communities of Nanwalek and Port Graham. The United States Geological Survey (USGS) Hydrologic Unit Codes (HUC) in which the group will work are: Cook Inlet, Stariski Creek-Frontal Cook Inlet, Fox River, Sheep Creek and Quiet Creek-Frontal Kachemak Bay Watershed HUC ID #s: 1902080000, 1902030108, 1902030110, 1902030109 and 1902030111 respectively.
Technical project description
There is currently is no group focused specifically on this Watershed, although a diverse array of stakeholders, including livestock grazers, tourist and recreation groups, industry, environmental organizations, recreation advocates, universities, land use, tribal, state and federal entities, municipalities and the general public utilize the area. This Watershed group will also help fill a planning gap left by the elimination of Alaska’s Coastal Zone Management program.
There are several ongoing or previous watershed planning activities, projects, or efforts related to the Watershed that the Collaborative will build upon, including:
The Kachemak Bay Fox-River Climate Risk Assessment analyzes current threats to salmon habitat within a portion of the Watershed, addresses salmon habitat connectivity and climate resiliency for the entire Watershed, and works with federal and state resource agencies to enter into cooperative agreements for management of salmon habitat on a watershed basis;
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game Fox River Flats Critical Habitat Area (FRFCHA) management plan addresses regulatory management goals for the FRFCHA and includes managing the area to 1) maintain and enhance fish and wildlife populations and their habitat; 2) minimize the degradation and loss of habitat values due to fragmentation, and; 3) recognize cumulative impacts when considering effects of small incremental developments and action affecting critical habitat resources.
The Kachemak Heritage Land Trust’s (KHLT) Krishna Venta Conservation Management Plan addresses working collaboratively with state, federal, and local entities as KHLT purchases and negotiates conservation easements on private lands for the purposes of management and protection of fish and wildlife habitat of KHLT’s 160 acres in the FRFCHA;
The Kenai Mountains To Sea – Land Conservation Strategy to Sustain Our Way of Life on the Kenai Peninsula calls for the creation of contiguous “green” corridors along 20 inter-jurisdictional anadromous streams, most of which originate on the Kenai Refuge. Such protection will increase the resiliency of these streams and the marine habitat into which they feed from the effects of a rapidly warming climate while ensuring that large piscivores such as brown bears and wolves persist to transport marine derived nutrients onto the landscape;
The Department of Natural Resources’ Kachemak Bay State Park and Kachemak Bay State Wilderness Park Management Plan addresses management of the 371,000- acre Kachemak Bay State Park and Kachemak Bay State Wilderness Park (State Park);
The Cook Inlet Keeper State of the Inlet watershed restoration plan within the Watershed captures threats and community-specific concerns and ideas to help direct CIK’s watershed-based organization as the plan future projects.
Join the Collaborative:
If you are a federal, state, or tribal entity, conservation group, or anyone else interested in the welfare and sustainability of Kachemak Bay, please join our Collaborative. If you have any questions please contact Hal Shepherd halshepherdwpc@gmail.com
An ambitious effort to quantify climate-driven impacts on both glacially-fed coastal ecosystems and Alaska’s fire-prone boreal forest is under way. A new round of funding through the National Science Foundation’s Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) was awarded in October 2018 to collaborating faculty at UAF, UAA and UAS. The 5-year, $20-million-dollar project, entitled Fire and Ice: Navigating Variability in Boreal Wildfire Regimes and Subarctic Coastal Ecosystems, is now prepping for a second summer of field work.
In Kachemak Bay (south-central Alaska) and Lynn Canal (south-eastern Alaska) researchers are evaluating changes in ocean temperature and chemistry in both glacial and non-glacial coastal ecosystems. Stream monitoring, including temperature, sedimentation, and flow measurements began in the spring of 2019 and will continue throughout the granting period. Additionally, researchers are collecting isotope measurements to help identify the sources of water in a given stream (e.g., glacial, snow-melt, groundwater or rainfall). The data will contribute to a greater understanding of the freshwater input into Alaska’s estuarine systems and the effects of continued climate change on these highly-productive ecosystems.
Throughout Alaska’s extensive boreal forest, Fire and Ice researchers are investigating fire activity and associated climate-related impacts. Data will contribute to improved community risk-assessments through modeling to predict lightning probabilities, assess available fuels, and evaluate seasonal climate forecasting in order to better predict fire risks and severity.
The community water supply of the Village of Nanwalek, located within the Kachemak Bay watershed, was impacted by drought in Southcentral Alaska over the past month requiring the village to have water flown in to off-set the water shortage. Late last month, the village’s reservoir was drying out so rapidly, that the city had to shut the water off at 9 pm every night and leave it off until 9am every morning.
As the water situation continued to deteriorate, a member of the Nanwalek city council searched for an alternate potable water source on Google Earth and located one on nearby St. John Mountain. Then the city dug a trench from the new water sources to the city’s reservoir so the new source could replenish the reservoir. After a month with out rain, on August 20 it finally came to Nanwalek and the village is waiting to see if rain and new water supply will address the water shortage for now.
According to the Leo Network Newsletter for August, as of the end of August, the Kachemak Bay Mountain Range that surrounds Nanwalek was devoid of snow pack and the “total precipitation June 1 to August 20, is only 1.01 inches, far below the average of over six inches for June – August.”
Similarly, dry weather and low snowpack have reduced the amount of water in Lily Lake which is the main source of water for the town of Haines, to historically low levels this summer. The municipal water department is working around the clock to keep water flowing down the line. But the amount of water in the lake is not keeping up with demand.
In the end of August myself, my wife Jessica and our neighbors were dropped off at the Jakolof Bay public boat dock by the water Taxi with our sea kayaks. We paddled to the head of the Bay where we beached the kayaks to walk a short way up the mouth of Jakolof Creek, to view several pools full of stranded Pink Salmon and some minnows probably Coho Smolts resulting from extremely dry conditions in the Kachemak Bay Watershed this summer. After leaving the mouth we walked along the road to the Red Mountain trail head until it connected with the Creek again about 2/3 of a mile up from the mouth were the Creek was bone dry for as far as the eye could see.
Unusually hot and dry weather this year as resulted in Jakolof Creek running completely dry starting in mid-July all the way up to the switchbacks and is still receding. Similarly, portions of nearby Kingfisher Creek are currently running dry.
As of this writing, all that remains of the creeks are intermittent pools of water containing stranded Coho smolt and some pinks, dogs, and Dolly Varden which are dying in these rapidly receding pools. Some small bears, eagles, and other birds are feeding on these fish but there are still many that are not getting used. According to Michael Ophiem, environmental program Director for the Seldovia Village Tribe: “We will certainly see the damage done in the upcoming years. This run of fish has been used for a resource for those who live in the area for many years. Some people who don’t have access to boats to get to other fishing sites are more heavily reliant on this run than others.”
This is the second time in 4 years that Jakolof Creek has dried up resulting in a mass die-off of all of the fish in the system at the time. Because streams within the Kachemak Bay Watershed are primarily fed by snow melt, they are extremely sensitive to winters with little snow and followed by hot dry summers which, like Jackolof can result in no water being available at critical times for fish and wildlife or too much water during winter months that can cause flooding or scouring of stream beds.
According to Micheal Brubaker, Editer of the Leo Network newsletter in regards to the Creek, “another year with a lost generation of salmon and other fish. The one difference this year is that the returns (at least so far) of pinks are smaller and the creek appears to have dried up two weeks earlier. This raises concerns not only about the future of this stream as a salmon spawning location but also about food security for the area….”
behind the campaign for Alaska’s statehood was the impact of large canneries on salmon that used fish traps and wheels to drain returning runs. At the same time, due to the lack of the Territory’s regulatory authority and because federal authorities were under the control of corporate interests, these canneries avoided paying taxes and laws to protect the fishery.
