Cook(ing) the Inlet Books

Does anyone lament the loss of the snow geese that used to use the flats as a feeding ground on their yearly migration? KSRM used to have a contest to spot their first arrival in the spring. And what about the caribou? I didn’t see a single one there this past summer.

It wasn’t too long ago that you could often spot beluga whales in the lower Kenai. You still might get lucky and see a few come up the mouth chasing hooligan or salmon, but it’s obvious that their numbers are way down.

NOAA may list the Cook Inlet belugas as endangered and designate Cook Inlet as critical habitat and the local pols are pounding their chests in protest.

Dave Carey and Pat Porter have called for public hearings on the Kenai. NOAA says it doesn’t have the resources to do so, but you can do so electronically here. The comment period is over on January 31, 2010. The National Marine Fisheries Service will present information on Jan 14 at KCHS about the process and the current state of the whales.

The Kenai Borough accepted a $700,000 grant from NOAA this summer to help study the whale and habitiat. No word from Mayor Carey just how that money is being spent. Of course, for anything meaningful to be learned, that amount of money would barely get ideas off of the board. Is the Kenai Borough really the proper venue needed to conduct serious research?

Mike Chenault is one of many state legislatures in a panic about the proposed listing. Not surprisingly, Don Young’s opinion is worth more than any scientific finding. Governor Parnell is threatening to sue the feds.

The Mayor of Anchorage is on the soapbox too. But I hope you all read Kenai Peninsula College's Alan Boraas’s ADN op-ed piece about the absence of sewage treatment in Anchorage. Maybe Mr. Sullivan should be a bit more concerned about what Anchorage flushes into the inlet. Or maybe that is why he is a bit worried.

What do all of the Pols have in common? Let's see...they want to discount every study that has concerns about the beluga population, they want to treat Cook Inlet as Anchorage's toilet, and they want the inlet to be the industrial waste dump of the oil and coal industry. Yes, these are the people we elect. Are these also the people that we are?

And the benefit of their reactions? Well, I'm still working on that. Best I can figure out is that they each think the critical habitat listing will be the end of development in the area. And unless we continue to pollute and destroy, that Alaska won't be a worthwhile place to live.

That is speculation and there is a difference of opinion. Do read G. Haskett's, the regional US F&W Director's piece in the ADN as well as Alaska's War On Science by Rick Steiner.

What's wrong with expecting industries and municipalities to be clean? Those of us who have been around for a few years and still have a functioning memory remember the flaming Cuyahoga River, the Bhopal incident, and closer to home, the Exxon-Valdez oil spill. I could devote the entire blog to industrial accidents and never cover them all.

Alaska is hardly the pristine place of imagination, but it is the best place we have left. Really - where else is there on the planet? Do we really need to destroy what we have?