KDLL - Kenai

Seven Steller sea lions were shot near Cordova last month, and investigators are offering a reward for information that could lead to the shooter.

A statement from NOAA fisheries said the sea lions were discovered in the Copper River Delta near Cordova on May 16, by members of the agency’s protected resources division. The Copper River commercial fishery opened just a day earlier. NOAA says the sea lions appear to have been shot with no evidence of an attempt to harvest or salvage them.

Steller sea lions are federally protected under the Endangered Species Act, and killing marine mammals like sea lions is also a violation of the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

NOAA is offering a $5,000 reward for any information leading to a “civil penalty or criminal conviction” in the shootings. You can call the investigating agent at (907) 250-5188, or NOAA’s Enforcement Hotline at (800) 853-1964.

A NOAA law enforcement spokesperson declined to comment further on the ongoing investigation.

Thousands of Alaskans will flock to Anchorage in July with art, dishes, clocks and jewelry in hand, hoping to find out if their personal treasures are secretly valuable. The popular PBS program Antiques Roadshow is coming to Alaska for the first time ever this summer, and some locals plan to present their items to professional appraisers.

One of those hopeful collectors is Kenai local Sarah Pyhala, who is bringing the appraisers a family heirloom, and some art.

“It sounded like their interest was in things that made it to Alaska, from people who were traveling, or moving up here,” she said.

The process for getting a spot on Roadshow required antiquers to enter a lottery, which Pyhala did in January. Each ticket holder can bring two items, or sets of related items called lots.

“And then there are 3000 people that have been awarded tickets, and you can each bring two items,” she said. “So there’s up to 6,000 items that they may be appraising that day.”

Pyhala has picked out two lots: her first is a pair of paintings from Japan, done on silk and framed under glass.

“I remember them being on the wall of my neighbor’s house growing up, and she would have me over for tea and cookies, and I would see them. And when she moved out of her home, her estate sale basically had them up for I think $10. And my mom was over there and she purchased them,” she said. “So it will be interesting to see what, if anything, they’re worth.”

The second item is a stereograph, an antique piece of entertainment technology. It’s like a viewfinder, and the user places a slide with a duplicate image in front of a pair of goggles, which makes the image appear 3D.

The stereograph, patented in 1904, was passed down to Pyhala through her family.

“My great grandparents lived in North Dakota, and during the dust bowl era they were farmers. In 1933, they took their horse-drawn carriage, loaded it up with their four kids at the time, and moved from central North Dakota into Minnesota. This is one of the things they brought with them, which I thought, of all their worldly possessions, was kind of a strange thing to take with them,” she said. “But I’m told that it was similar to a television for them, and it was their entertainment. So in that regard, it made a lot of sense that they would have taken it with them.”

Her stereograph comes with 67 slides, with an array of scenes from places like Rome, Monte Carlo and the U.S. Capitol. One of the slides features what was at the time called “Brush Alaska” and shows men in snowy woods in rural Alaska in 1900, which Pyhala hopes the appraisers will like at the Roadshow.

But she doesn’t have any illusions about her lots being highly appraised — she’s just happy for the chance to go. She said the antique owners will show up in waves early in the morning on July 11 and stand in long lines, waiting to be assigned to one of 20 appraisers.

“If they think that what you have is notable, they’ll take you aside and you have to go through a whole makeup change for the filming,” she said.

Because of the long day of standing, Pyhala said it’s difficult to have a heavy item that you might have to lug around for hours. But with her lightweight items, she’s not too worried about her stamina.

She said she’s been watching old episodes of the show to figure out what to wear. It might be for naught, though: of the 3,000 attendees, only about 50 end up on TV.

Perched high above Kachemak Bay, Scott Waterman’s house in Homer is a museum of energy-efficient technology. A heat pump hangs on the side of his garage. Out front, a hulking row of blue solar panels angle toward the high April sun.

Waterman, a retired energy programs manager, has been building his setup for more than a decade. But, he said, today there are more people considering upgrades of their own.

“There are lots of people, now, thinking about how they can use solar to not necessarily just lower their costs of utilities, but to avoid the volatility,” he said.

That volatility is going to be inevitable as heating and electric utilities from Homer to Fairbanks — an area known as Alaska’s Railbelt — have to reconsider where they’re getting their power.

For a long time, they’ve sourced most of it from Cook Inlet natural gas. But now, for the second time in just over a decade, utilities and lawmakers in Southcentral Alaska are talking about importing liquified natural gas amid looming gas shortages in Cook Inlet.

Oil and gas producer Hilcorp — which has a sort of monopoly in Cook Inlet and provides some utilities with as much as 85% of their gas supply — recently warned that it won’t commit to signing new gas contracts, and few other companies are interested in looking for more gas in the inlet. That means Alaskans will likely have to pay more — maybe even a lot more — in a state that already has some of the highest energy costs in the country.

“That’s worrisome,” said Waterman, who worked for years with low-income renters at the Alaska Housing Finance Corporation. “If that’s a trend that continues, many, many people are going to have hard times making the choice as to whether to pay their power bill or buy groceries for their children.”

Years of warning

The impending gas shortages have loomed for decades.

Newspaper headlines in the 1990s warned that there wasn’t enough gas production in Cook Inlet to keep business going forever, and the state has long forecasted that demand for gas in Southcentral would outpace supply without more production. The most recent numbers estimate that could happen as soon as 2027.

Still, over the years Alaska has largely remained dependent on natural gas, building storage facilities to hold more and subsidizing production through big legislative packages.

“And we just have put all our eggs in that basket, ever since,” said McKibben Jackinsky, a retired oil and gas journalist in Ninilchik, on the southern Kenai Peninsula.

She said Alaska has always known natural gas was a bridge between other hydrocarbons and greener sources of energy, and that Cook Inlet wasn’t going to have gas to last a lifetime. Now, she said Hilcorp wants to drill on her property as it looks for more gas to meet its contracts.

“It’s the one leg under our stool and when it moves, we just collapse,” she said. “ And we can’t see beyond that, you know? We can’t see beyond developing something else that will sustain us, truly, without having to have this fear put in us every few years about running out.”

Alaskans aren’t going to freeze, or face blackouts.

What’s at stake here is cost. In the short term, utilities are considering new Cook Inlet gas supply contracts and imports of liquified natural gas, or LNG, which will be more expensive for Railbelt customers.

To get that LNG, utilities could go out to the spot market — where gas can be purchased for immediate delivery, but where it can be more than twice as expensive as what they’re paying now. The price is much more volatile, too. The other option is utilities will have to lock into longer-term contracts, if they can get them. How much those contracts would cost is unknown, since Alaska has never before had to import gas.

So — with decades of warning, how did Alaska get here?

“I just think it’s a human nature thing,” said Peter Micciche, mayor of the Kenai Peninsula Borough and former manager of the liquified natural gas plant in Kenai.

“We get very comfortable very quickly when things seem solved,” he said. “And we have a very difficult time having a long-term comprehensive plan and when we mobilize, and when we don’t.”

He wonders what higher and more volatile energy costs could mean for his constituents.

“And that’s going to be a problem for us,” he said. “I can’t imagine the Railbelt not having adequate supplies of natural gas.”

 Deja vu all over again

There’s a framed copy of a 1958 Anchorage newspaper hanging on the wall of Micciche’s Soldotna office. In big, block type, it reads, “WE’RE IN” — marking the moment Alaska became the 49th state.

That was thanks, in no small part, to oil discoveries on the Kenai Peninsula. In their search for oil, companies stumbled across large reserves of natural gas, which they shipped out to Japan from a liquified natural gas plant in Kenai. Producers also sold a lot of gas to a fertilizer plant next door.

Micciche, now mayor of the Kenai Peninsula Borough, remembers coming to work for Tesoro as a summer intern in Kenai in 1982. Later, under ConocoPhillips, he managed the export facility – which, for decades, was the country’s only exporter of LNG.

“In 22 months, from conception to operation, they designed and built the LNG terminal, the platform, the pipelines, the receiving terminal in Tokyo harbor, the regasification facility in Tokyo, and the ships that would go back and forth and cross halfway through for 40 years,” he said.

There was plenty of gas to go around — too much. Big companies like Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Marathon and Unocal produced gas from large fields and sold the excess to Alaska utilities at very low prices. That kept costs low for Alaska consumers — well below the national average.

Still, it was known that the market wasn’t going to last forever. The easiest-to-reach gas ran out, and without money flowing in from overseas, companies weren’t interested in drilling expensive new wells when they had better prospects elsewhere. Agrium, which used cheap gas to make fertilizer, closed its Kenai plant in 2007 when the price of gas went up.

The export facility saw a steep drop-off in shipments in 2005 and largely stopped exporting a few years later in 2013, with just a few small cargoes going out after that. ConocoPhillips mothballed the facility in 2017, citing competition.

That left just one gas market intact — local utilities. And that market was too small to keep the big companies invested. They left, and Southcentral Alaska was left wondering if it had enough gas to keep the lights and the heat on.

“It’s definitely history repeating itself,” saidAnchorage Democrat Sen. Bill Wielechowski, who co-chaired the Senate Resources Committee at that time.

Without interest in new production, Southcentral Alaska was, like today, facing the possibility of not having enough local gas to meet its energy needs.

“They’re saying we’re running out of gas in Cook Inlet. It’s the same exact scenario,” Wielechowski said. “I remember in Anchorage, going back a ways, people talking about brownouts.”

Then, in 2010, the Alaska Legislature passed the Cook Inlet Recovery Act. The act provided incentives for oil and gas companies to make claims in the inlet and expanded existing tax credits.The Alaska Public Interest Research Group, a consumer advocacy nonprofit, estimates that the state granted $1.64 billion in tax credits for oil and gas production between 2006 and 2016, when the Legislature retired those credits.

Jackinsky, the retired oil and gas journalist, said those incentives were never about putting money in the state’s coffers. Officials were clear that they were meant to literally keep the lights on.

“It was for us to continue our nice, easy lifestyle, dependent on natural gas,” she said.

In some ways, the act was a short-term success. It helped usher in a new oil and gas production company and Alaska avoided having to import gas, as lawmakers had feared.

But Wielechowski, who still serves on Senate Resources today, said it didn’t solve the root of the problem.

“We’ve got these massive incentives that we’ve provided over the years,” he said. “And it just hasn’t worked. And so I think it’s time for us to look at what are some different policy options we can look at? Because obviously what we’re doing is not working.”

From the other side of the aisle, Micciche also took issue with the bill because he said it didn’t provide any production requirements for companies.

“We have to get the Legislature to look more in advance at solutions so we don’t make sloppy decisions going forward,” he said. “You have to think about the behavior you want to see before you create an incentive.”

There was another product of the recovery act: the Cook Inlet Natural Gas Storage Alaska facility.

Lindsey Hobson is a spokesperson for Enstar, the gas utility that runs the facility off Beaver Loop in Kenai. Enstar supplies gas to about half of Alaska’s population and gets all of its gas from Cook Inlet.

Standing among CINGSA machines that compress gas before it heads into five underground wells, across the street, she said Enstar and other electric utilities dip into those reserves when they need gas most, on the coldest days. The facility can hold 11 billion cubic feet of gas — about a third of the amount Enstar customers use each year.

“We can take greater volumes in the summer and store those volumes and call on them in the winter when we require more gas,” she said.

Hobson said the utilities are considering more storage as another partial solution, this time. But storage alone won’t fix Southcentral’s problems. She said a crucial factor back in the 2010s was the entry of a new company into Cook Inlet.

“And that’s an important piece, and something that we are looking for in terms of, what will that next step be? What will that major investment be?” Hobson said.

A Goldilocks company

When supermajor oil and gas companies lost interest in Cook Inlet and left in the early 2000s and 2010s, a new company entered — Hilcorp, a Houston, Texas-based company whose strategy of rehabilitating old oil and gas fields made them a good fit for the aging basin.

“Hilcorp was a Goldilocks company,” said Antony Scott, who was a commercial analyst with the state’s Division of Oil and Gas when Hilcorp entered the inlet.

He said Hilcorp was big enough that it had the capital to invest in the inlet and expertise to redevelop old fields.

“But they were also small enough that the prizes available were a pretty good fit for their capacities and their objectives as a company,” he said.

Hilcorp had a strategy that worked for the aging oil and gas basin — squeeze the last bits of production out of existing rigs and platforms and get them going again. The company’s then-CEO described it as a “quick hit, remedial program,” according to a 2012 story from the Anchorage Daily News.

Scott said that model was more economic for Hilcorp than building big new projects, which could cost millions of dollars and take years to permit.

As a result, Hilcorp outlasted other companies that tried to come in and gained a sort-of monopoly on Cook Inlet natural gas. The company bought up Chevron’s assets, and then Marathon’s. It hired an all-Alaskan staff and signed long-term contracts with utilities.

But Scott said that strategy won’t keep the basin going forever. Without a willingness to build new platforms to access harder-to-get Cook Inlet gas, there has always been an expiration date, especially as future demand for gas in Southcentral remains an unknown.

“What we need now are new resources,” Scott said. “And the problem with bringing on brand-new resources is that the geologic risk is much bigger. You really don’t know what you’re going to find.”

Last spring, Hilcorp told utilities it wouldn’t guarantee future contracts and that it would like utilities to be less reliant on the company to meet their energy needs.

They’ve said little, publicly, about their reasoning. Company spokesperson Luke Miller, in an emailed statement, said the company is working with utilities to develop a way forward.

“In recent years, as Hilcorp has been asked to shoulder more of the burden, we felt it was prudent and responsible to communicate with Railbelt utilities our long-term view of the Cook Inlet basin, particularly as other producers have exited and non-Hilcorp investment levels have fallen significantly,” Miller statement said, adding that the company plans on investing nearly a billion dollars or more on new projects in Cook Inlet over the next five years, including drilling new gas wells.

Lackluster industry interest

Economists and industry experts, like Scott, say business in the inlet isn’t as profitable for Hilcorp as it used to be. New development is getting harder and more expensive, while the market remains relatively small.

“We just have a problem where the risks and the size of the market and the incentives don’t seem to be hanging together,” Scott said.

At a State Senate hearing in January, Department of Natural Resources Commissioner John Boyle warned of low interest from new companies in the basin. Today, there are a myriad of smaller, local oil and gas companies in Cook Inlet, like HEX and Blue Crest. But they’re not producing enough to sign big contracts.

“We do see an environment where there’s a need for policy discussion around if the path that we’re on is sustainable for providing energy to Southcentral into the future,” Boyle told lawmakers.

Jackinsky, the retired journalist, said those discussions are overdue.

“There was a need for policy discussion, how many years ago?” she said.

She’s frustrated that the Railbelt is still so dependent on natural gas, even though it’s been clear for so long that gas was a finite resource and that supply shortages loomed.

And now, it’s personal. With demand for gas high and years left on some of its contracts, Hilcorp is looking for gas in her backyard. The company is drilling new wells from onshore pads on the southern Kenai Peninsula, where it’s much cheaper and easier to explore. The gas from those wells won’t be a panacea to the shortages, and don’t replace the level of production that could come from new fields, but it could backfill some declines in Cook Inlet production.

Jackinsky said Hilcorp has asked for the subsurface rights to her property — a parcel in Ninilchik passed down through generations from her homesteading ancestors.

She and her daughters have told Hilcorp no, repeatedly. Hilcorp won’t comment on conversations it’s had with property owners on the southern peninsula.

But some of her neighbors have already signed with the company.Nearby, the company is burning off gas to get rid of the excess as it tests new wells — a noisy process known as flaring.

“That comfortable lifestyle that the state talked about, and has subsidized — it may be continuing it for some people. But it’s ruined that lifestyle for me and my neighbors,” she said.

Searching for the big home run

The gas-dependent Railbelt utilities are patching together other ways to get natural gas to power Alaskans’ homes in the next few years. They’re meeting monthly, along with two state groups, to brainstorm solutions to their Alaska supply woes.

Hobson, Enstar’s spokesperson, said the group plans on coming out with a report with some possible solutions in June.

“I think that all options are on the table, at this point,” she said earlier this year.

So — what are the options?

In the short term, utilities are looking for other ways to get natural gas.

Some with near-expiring contracts are signing agreements to buy supply from other utilities that have years still before theirs run out.

Homer Electric Association, for example, gets 85% of its power from Cook Inlet natural gas through a contract with Hilcorp that expires next year — the soonest expiration date on the Railbelt. Last month, the utility signed a procurement agreement with Enstar to get some of its gas; Enstar’s contract with Hilcorp doesn’t expire for another decade. As a gas utility, Enstar has fewer options to diversify its power generation away from gas on a short time frame than electric utilities do.

The terms of the agreement between Enstar and HEA have not yet been approved by the Regulatory Commission of Alaska and therefore aren’t public yet, according to HEA, so it’s hard to say how that will impact pricefor HEAcustomers. Fairbanks’s Golden Valley Electric Association signed a smaller contract with Enstar this year that included gas at a small markup over what Enstar currently gets for its gas.

And now, utilities are talking about considering importing LNG from out of state. Imported LNG would be more expensive than the local gas utilities get and could raise residential rates by as much as 30%, in some cases.

Earlier this year, Chugach Electric Association CEO Arthur Miller told state legislators that importing is not a step utilities want to take.

“We think that would be a very unfortunate situation,” Miller said. “A state as rich as Alaska is with natural gas to have to import LNG. However, we recognize we need gas, and we want to have a competitive price for that gas. And if that’s what it will take to get gas, then we will pursue that.”

Homer Electric Association said it’s working on cost studies and analysis for getting LNG from multiple suppliers. Enstar also has a study in the works on gas supply options from out of state.

Pricing would depend on whether utilities get that LNG from the spot market or through long-term contracts. Prices for spot market gas are much more volatile. But renewables advocates worry long-term contracts would lock utilities into expensive deals and that would take away any incentive to diversify into other energy sources.

Any plan to import would also require building up infrastructure to bring in gas, and factoring in those costs. Marathon, which now owns the former export facility, is considering turning that plant into an import facility.

Champions of the long-fought Alaska LNG project say it’s time to start talking about that plan again. The project would send natural gas down from the North Slope to Nikiski for export and use in the state.

Cost has long been an obstacle to the Alaska LNG project, and previous employees of the project say it’s never going to happen. There’s also talk of a smaller project, known as the bullet line, or “ASAP line” — a 36-inch-diameter pipeline that would bring gas down from the North Slope for use domestically. But without buyers overseas helping to finance the project, it seems financially unviable.

Micciche, the Kenai Peninsula Borough mayor, said hopes enthusiasm from potential buyers abroad could finally push the Alaska LNG project across the finish line.

“I think it would buy us the time for a responsible transition, where renewables will fit into the global portfolio,” he said.

Raising the standard

Some renewables advocates say the time for that transition is now.

Solar and wind projects are becoming cost competitive with natural gas and some private power producers have approached utilities and municipalities with plans to place large-scale projects on their grids.

Alaskans across the political spectrum are now acknowledging that renewable energy will have to provide a larger share of Alaska’s power in the future. Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s administration is working on a bill to make geothermal projects more affordable. And Hilcorp itself is looking into turning some of its old Cook Inlet oil platforms into tidal sites. That’s on top of multiple other permitted tidal projects that would turn Cook Inlet’s massive tides — some of the biggest in the world — into power, but would take years to come to fruition.

Today, the Bradley Lake Hydroelectric Project, across Kachemak Bay, provides the cheapest power to the Railbelt. Utilities across the Railbelt have a stake in, and get power from, the project.

But that’s one of the only large-scale renewable energy projects in the region. Chris Rose with the Renewable Energy Alaska Project said utilities aren’t doing enough, and that it’s time to stop waiting around for the big homerun.

“I think there’s always this notion that something is going to come in and change things,’ he said. “But the fact is is that we haven’t got a gas pipeline yet, even though we’ve been talking about it for 40 years, and we’ve also never gotten a hometown discount on oil and gas in Alaska, so even though we produce oil and gas, we have some of the highest energy costs in the country.”

He has been trying to get legislation passed that would set a renewable portfolio standard, which would require electric utilities to get a certain percentage of their energy from renewables by a certain date.

As it stands, those utilities have goals to incorporate renewables into their portfolio. Homer Electric Association, for example, has a goal of reaching 50% renewable energy by 2025 — a goal set by then-Gov. Sarah Palin’s administration. The utility says it’s in its best interest to not be so majorly dependent on one producer for power.

But with two years away from that non-binding deadline, HEA gets just 14% of its power from the Bradley Lake hydro project. It estimates it could meet about 25% of its demand with renewables by 2027, the year gas demand is expected to outpace supply, through another hydro project, a solar project and a landfill gas project, according to a January filing with the Regulatory Commission of Alaska.

Rose said aspirational goals are not good enough. His legislation would fine utilities about $20 per megawatt hour if they don’t meet certain standards — 25% renewable by 2027 and 80% by 2040.

He said those standards would help create competition among private energy companies — something the Railbelt doesn’t have much of now — that would generate power in state to sell back to the utilities.

And he said unlike LNG on the world market, energy from renewable projects in Alaska could be more stably priced.

He said it’s not just about Alaskans’ gas and electric bills, although that’s important. It matters a lot for the broader state economy.

“We already have very high energy prices in the Railbelt,” Rose said. “And so we can’t really afford to be increasing our energy costs. That’s going to impact businesses, that’s going to impact people’s decisions to invest here, and to live here.”

Rose’s standard, widely opposed by utilities, didn’t pass before the regular session ended. For most of the session, lawmakers were focused on big-ticket items like the PFD and school funding, rather than energy.

In the absence of action from lawmakers and utilities, some Alaskans are taking matters into their own hands.

Waterman, the Homer resident, said the solar panels, heat pumps and other energy efficient upgrades on his house help reduce the pressure he’s putting on the system.

“If we could get 25% of the homes on the Kenai with 5 to 10 kilowatts of of solar on them, that would make a significant dent in the gas that Homer Electric has to purchase — and keep our costs from rising quite as rapidly,” he said.

As an energy efficiency enthusiast, Waterman is maybe more attuned to his own rates than most.

But at the end of summer, when they switch on their lights and turn up their thermostats again, all Alaskans should be thinking more about how their lives could be impacted when the costs of doing so are a lot more expensive.

Plans to build an underground gold mine at the base of Mt. Iliamna have been in the works since the 1980s. Now, a Canadian mining company and the Alaska Native corporation that owns the land are in the advanced stages of exploring the area to see if it could be a viable project.

While HighGold, the mining company, says they’ll be careful about potential development on the land — which is inside a national park — not everyone is convinced. Although the project is still in early stages, environmental groups and the owners of the nearby historic cannery are raising red flags.

The site of the proposed project, called the Johnson Tract mine, is located 10 miles inside the boundary of Lake Clark National Park and Preserve, on the west side of Cook Inlet, on a 20,000-acre parcel of land owned by the Cook Inlet Regional Native corporation, or CIRI. The corporation picked that plot in a 1976 land exchange because of its resource extraction potential and benefit to shareholders.

Darwin Green is the CEO of HighGold. He said even though his company knows the tract contains rich deposits of gold, copper and zinc, it’s doing studies now to see whether the project makes economic sense. Deposits there were found decades ago.

“It was discovered in the early 1980s, and then advanced through the mid-1990s,” Green said. “There was an operator at that time that had a mine project elsewhere, and they were looking at just shipping the ore to that site to mill it and process it there. And that’s where it stopped, and it sat idle for 25 to 30 years until CIRI approached our management group.”

The project site is remote, and HighGold is applying for a permit to build an airstrip and an inland road that would connect the airstrip to the site. The company estimates the earliest it would begin underground exploration is 2025.

So far, the project has generally flown under the radar while more high-profile Alaska mine prospects, like Pebble Mine, have had the spotlight. Unlike the controversial Pebble project, Johnson Tract would be underground, not an open pit mine, which can release contaminants into the water and damage salmon habitat.

But local environmental groups have been keeping an eye on the project for a while now — including Homer environmental nonprofit Cook Inletkeeper, which first raised concerns about it in 2020.

“To get that ore out, you’re gonna have to go through the park lands, and you’re gonna have to open up the incredibly pristine and scenic and rich fish and wildlife area to industrial development,” said Bob Shavelson, who was Inletkeeper’s director at that time and penned the concerns about the project.

Another group, the National Parks Conservation Association, has been hosting biweekly meetings about the project for months, said Jennifer Woolworth, the Alaska program manager with the association. She said although the meetings were originally a time set aside to talk about Pebble Mine, they’ve evolved into discussions about the potential harms of Johnson Tract.

She said the group is concerned about the impact of possible contamination and the effects of development on local wildlife, including the highly endangered Cook Inlet beluga whale and brown bears. She pointed to research that shows one of the primary causes for brown bear decline is roads built for resource extraction projects.

Shavelson also raised concerns about HighGold because it’s a spinoff of Constantine Metals, the company behind a controversial Haines mining prospect. Many locals have also been rubbed the wrong way by comments CEO Darwin Green made about the state, where he described mining in Alaska as “going into a third world country with low hanging fruit,” but with first world regulations. Green said this quote has been taken out of context, and that he was promoting the high regulatory standards of mining in Alaska as an advantage in, “answering the world’s metal demands for a low carbon future.”

Green said environmental studies will be an important part of the project at every stage, and that the unique location of the project inside the national park is a critical consideration.

“We obviously want to be incredibly good stewards of the land where we operate, it’s part of our culture and philosophy everywhere we’ve been, but probably even more so now, given the optics,” he said. “It’s a really special place out there, and we’re well aware of that.”

Even though the land is inside a national park, it’s available for development because the tract has belonged to CIRI since the 1976 Cook Inlet Land Exchange. After land was allotted to Native corporations during the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, CIRI was disappointed with the economic possibilities for the lands they received. They selected this area because of its resource development potential, according to CIRI spokesperson Ethan Tyler.

“CIRI really strikes a balance between preserving its lands for future generations for shareholders and descendants with resource development,” Tyler said. “And the benefits to shareholders and descendants really comes down to sustainable development of resources that provide for the services and distributions that we provide to our stakeholders.”

In a summer job posting, CIRI says the company and Native corporation are prioritizing CIRI shareholders and their descendants for positions with the project.

Green said HighGold is working closely with CIRI to meet their interests, and that it was refreshing to be approached by a Native corporation interested in developing their resources.

“The economic benefits from that development will flow directly to Alaskans, it’s gonna flow really, directly to Indigenous Alaskans who are shareholders, and that’s something to feel good about,” he said. “That’s something Alaska should feel proud about.”

But not everyone is convinced the project would be good for business.

Abe Porter is one of the owners of the old Snug Harbor Cannery on the west side of Cook Inlet.

“My family and I bought it in the early 2000s. I grew up there, my dad grew up there commercial fishing for the cannery, when it was a fully functioning cannery, my grandpa started fishing there in I believe the ’30s,” Porter said.

The cannery opened in the early 1900s and operated first as a razor clam and then salmon cannery until 1980, when it closed and sat vacant for decades. The Porter family has been working to restore the complex over the past 20 years, and recently reopened it as the Snug Harbor Outpost, an ecotourism lodge for visitors interested in bear viewing and fishing off remote Chisik Island.

“We’ve sunk everything into this. It’s my brother and I’s dream,” Porter said.

He said the proposed mine project would directly impact what his family has worked to create at the cannery. He also said the bay is too shallow for large boats, so HighGold would need to build a long dock out into the water of Tuxedni Bay. Green said the project is in too early of the stage to be looking at this type of infrastructure, but confirmed that if HighGold goes through with the mine, a dock or loading facility would be necessary.

Porter is also worried about the fate of commercial salmon fishermen on the west side of the Cook Inlet, and how the mine could impact the value of existing fisheries — regardless of the protections put in place.

“All of the fisheries have a reputation, and that reputation dictates the popularity of it,” he said. “If people hear that there’s a big gold mine, for commercial fishermen the price of fish goes down. For sports fishermen, less people want to come here.”

Proponents of the project say it’s too early to have concerns, since all of its parts and pieces remain hypotheticals, for now. Porter said that’s part of his worry — that the company will keep putting off public concerns until it’s too late to stop the project.

Green said HighGold will continue to study the site and conduct environmental studies there this summer.

Tourists are lured to the Kenai Peninsula every summer by the promise of big catches from the decks of saltwater fishing boats. That promise looms large in local lore: a sign proclaiming Homer the “Halibut Fishing Capital of the World” is the first thing anyone sees when they enter the city. And each spring, hundreds of boats each spring venture into Kachemak Bay for the annual Winter King Salmon Tournament.

But as regulations on halibut and king salmon fishing have ramped up in the last decade, charter guides have branched out into another species: rockfish. This year, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game is limiting rockfish harvest by emergency order to make sure the population doesn’t plummet to a point of no return.

“Things are OK. We’re just on an increasing harvest trend that is likely to lead to unsustainable levels,” said Mike Booz, area management biologist for the department’s division of sportfish.

Booz traced that trend back, in part, to 2014, when the council that manages fishing in Alaska’s federal waters passed a catch-sharing plan to allocate halibut harvest between commercial and sport fisheries in the Gulf of Alaska and Southeast. Charters had to limit how much halibut they were allowed to catch. Booz said right away, charters started going more for rockfish.

Meanwhile, the department has tightened regulations on king salmon fishing, too, including closures and decreased bag limits. That’s as king salmon across Alaska continue to suffer.

Ray DeBardelaben owns Long Live the Kings lodge in Soldotna and is president of the Kenai River Professional Guide Association. He also takes clients out on his saltwater boat, the O’Dea, out of Homer.

He’s been fishing since the 1980s, when he said it was possible to get a 200-pound halibut. He said he no longer targets the clientele that expects that sort of fishing.

“That clientele’s gone for me,” he said. “So I’ve really just spent money on marketing and got new clients. They pull up a halibut that’s 25, 30 pounds. And the first thing they say is – ‘wow.’”

He said there are still days when he’ll take clients out to fish for halibut, alone or for halibut and king salmon, together. But he said he started focusing more on trips for halibut and rockfish over the last seven years.

Rockfish are found further offshore — as far as the Chugach Islands in Cook Inlet, on the other side of Kachemak Bay State Park. They’re also found in Resurrection Bay, in the Chiswell Islands area, Booz said.

“That is a long way for a charter vessel to travel,” said Brian Ritchie, a charter operator out of Homer and vice president of the Homer Charter Association. “And it does increase fuel costs. But it’s something that businesses here have shown they’re willing to take on, and it’s something that we certainly adapted to.”

He said Homer-area fishermen have been eyeing rockfish abundance for a few years. Recently, the total rockfish harvest in Cook Inlet salt water skyrocketed to over 50,000 fish a year — a 300% increase from the historical average between 2006 and 2013, according to Fish and Game. Most of the increased harvest of the species has been black rockfish, the department said.

Booz said rockfish, as a species, are susceptible to overharvest. They don’t migrate much, but instead stick to the spots they like, which makes them easier to catch.

“Because we know right where they’re going to be, every day,” Booz said.

Rockfish are also slow to mature, and live a long time. Black rockfish can live to be 50 years old.

Booz said that makes it hard for them to bounce back, too — which has happened to rockfish fisheries in the Lower 48. He said that’s another reason to be conservative with restrictions.

The new bag limits are three a day in Cook Inlet, down from five, and three in the Gulf Coast area, down from four. In both areas, just one of those fish can be non-pelagic.

Booz said this week’s announcement is an emergency order, for this season. Any longer-term regulation changes would have to pass the Alaska Board of Fisheries later this year, at its Lower Cook Inlet finfish meeting in Homer in November. Proposals to the board were due earlier this week.

Ritchie said fishermen in Cook Inlet are getting more used to diversifying, as regulations continue to shift. This year, for example, charters can’t fish for halibut on Wednesdays and some Tuesdays throughout the season.

“That kind of uncertainty, when it’s your business and it’s your job, can be stressful. And I think it’s been stressful the last two years, especially, for Homer-area businesses and operators,” he said.

Andy Mezirow, a Seward charter boat captain and member of the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, said new plan to set up a recreational quota entity system, included in this year’s federal omnibus bill, will likely help with the pressure on rockfish because it could allow charters to catch more halibut.

Another challenge for charters has been increased gas prices, said DeBardelaben, who will start taking clients out for the season later this month. He’s also had to diversify in freshwater — with king runs suffering on the Kenai River, he instead takes clients out to fish for sockeye.

He thinks there’s been a mentality shift.

“I’ve had to change my attitude on how much fish do I need, how much fish do I want,” he said. “And I try to pass that onto my customers — the attitude of, ‘We’re going to go out and we’re going to have fun, and we’re going to catch some fish and we’re going to eat it.’”

He said clients want the experience of going out and catching fish, no matter the species.

The Kenai Peninsula Borough will pay more than $200,000 to settle a harassment suit filed last fall against former borough mayor Charlie Pierce, according to a statement released Tuesday night on behalf of the borough assembly and administration.

The announcement comes eight months after Pierce resigned and six months after his former assistant, Pamela Wastell, sued him for repeated sexual harassment, and sued the borough for failing to protect her.

The borough has been tight-lipped about many of the details of the suit. The assembly voted not to disclose the details of an internal investigation last fall, and met in executive session again last month to talk about it.

But at its meeting this week, the assembly agreed to make public that it had settled with Wastell for $237,500. The borough will pay $206,250 and Pierce owes $31,250, the statement said.

In a statement sent by her lawyer Tuesday night, Wastell said she was pleased by the settlement, but that “there’s not enough money in the world to go through what I have.”

Pierce’s lawyer, Richard Moses, said Pierce isn’t paying his sum, personally. Rather, he told the borough that his part of the settlement would be covered by the borough’s Alaska Municipal League Joint Insurance Association policy, according to Sean Kelley, attorney for the borough. That policy includes the borough’s property coverage, work compensation and other liability.

Kelley said the borough was not informed of this until Tuesday night.

“If AMLJIA (Alaska Municipal League Joint Insurance Association) or anyone else is paying Mr. Pierce’s fees or settlement sum that would be a unilateral decision by them that was not done in agreement or consultation with the Borough,” Kelly said in a follow-up email Wednesday.

A spokesperson from the insurance association did not respond to a request for more information, before airtime. Kelley said the borough is not covering Pierce’s attorney fees.

Mayor Peter Micciche — who voters picked to fill Pierce’s spot in a special election in February — said the borough’s portion of the settlement will come from its Insurance and Litigation fund, which he said contains an “adequate balance” to cover the cost. There was over $2.7 million in that fund in the 2023 fiscal year.

Neither the borough nor Pierce is admitting wrongdoing, according to the respective parties.

The lawsuit, filed on behalf of Wastell in Kenai Superior Court last October, said Pierce would touch and kiss Wastell against her will and that he made sexual remarks, using his authority to intimidate her behind closed doors in his Soldotna office. It also said he had intimidated other female employees, and that the borough didn’t have the reporting mechanisms in place to protect any of them.

In a prepared statement sent Tuesday night, Wastell’s attorney, Caitlin Shortell said the alleged harassment was devastating and ruined her plans to retire.

Wastell, in the same statement, said she did not feel safe reporting the harassment at the time since the acting human resources director at the time was Pierce’s chief of staff, Aaron Rhoades.

In its own statement, the borough said the assembly and current mayor decided to settle the suit without further litigation to avoid spending “more public funds” and “bring finality to a difficult time.”

“Neither the Assembly nor Mayor Micciche are happy with all aspects of this settlement, but we also recognize that years of litigation on this matter is not in the best interest of the Borough, or the taxpayers,” the statement said.

Moses, Pierce’s lawyer, says Pierce is happy to put the suit behind him.

Pierce was elected as borough mayor in 2017. He resigned last August, citing his then-bid for Alaska governor. The borough later said Pierce was asked to consider submitting a voluntary resignation as part of a potential resolution, to help the borough avoid a lawsuit.

The borough previously settled with two former human resources directors over bullying and discrimination complaints involving Pierce, in 2019 and 2021, totaling $267,000 in costs to the borough. With this settlement, the borough will be paying nearly half a million dollars settling lawsuits involving Pierce.

Separately, an ongoing suit against the borough, filed in January, alleged harassment and retaliation from another borough employee with the Kachemak Emergency Services Fire Area.

At Tuesday’s meeting, Micciche said the borough was adopting a new sexual harassment and discrimination policy so borough employees will know how to report incidences of assault, and what the consequences are.

Micciche said the new policy went “live” Monday morning and that it applies to anyone who may be in the borough building and working on the borough’s behalf. The policy, emailed to borough employees yesterday, elaborates on several ways to report harassment, including through the borough’s new online reporting tool, or directly to a supervisor, the mayor, the human resources director or the borough attorney. Micciche also said he’ll establish a three-person, mixed-gender reporting panel of borough directors that will field complaints.

Shortell, the lawyer for Wastell, said change for other employees was very important to her client.

“And she’s very happy to see that the borough is adopting new policies,” she said. “I would just add a caution that a policy on paper is only as good as the people who implement the policy.”

She said it will be up to the borough to make sure the policy is not just words on a page.

This story was updated Thursday with more information from all parties’ lawyers.