Southwest

President Joe Biden celebrated his conservation achievements Thursday with a Rose Garden address. The No. 1 item on his list? Blocking the Pebble mine, a proposed open-pit gold and copper mine upstream from the sockeye-rich waters of Bristol Bay.

“Bristol Bay is an extraordinary place, unlike anywhere in the world,” the president said. “Six rivers meet there, traveling through 40,000 miles of tundra, wetlands and lakes, collecting freshwater and salmon along the way … making this the largest sockeye salmon fishery on all the earth.”

Biden announced no new developments in the ongoing Pebble saga. His speech cited scores of sanctuaries and safeguards his administration created, from the mountains of Nevada to the Pacific Ocean. But the primacy he gave to this one part of Southwest Alaska shows how committed Biden is to stopping Pebble, and how he sees it as a centerpiece of his environmental record.

United Tribes of Bristol Bay Executive Director Alannah Hurley was invited to Washington, D.C., to introduce the president. In a blue print kuspuk, she spoke of how her salmon-centered community has lived with a threat looming over them for 20 years.

“But our people stood up and fought back to protect what we hold sacred. President Biden heard our voices,” she said. “He and his team listened to Bristol Bay and our many partners across the nation. And together we stopped the Pebble Mine.”

Biden said he listened to stakeholders and scientists and determined the mine – specifically the dam that would have to hold the waste rock in perpetuity – was too risky.

“In the end, we used our authority under the Clean Water Act to ban the disposal of mine waste and Bristol Bay watershed, period,” Biden said, to cheers from the invited guests. “That means the mine will not be built.”

Biden spoke of the mine as dead, but Hurley said mine opponents are still seeking “permanent, watershed-wide protections” through an act of Congress.

At least for now, the federal government is blocking the mine on two fronts. The Army Corps of Engineers denied Pebble’s permit application, and Pebble is appealing.

The larger problem for the mine developers is that the Environmental Protection Agency has essentially vetoed all plans to use the proposed mine site for rock disposal, meaning Pebble can’t just design a different dam and re-apply. The appeals of that decision could last years.

Hurley said there’s more work ahead. More than 20 other mines are proposed in the Bristol Bay watershed, and the EPA veto only protects two river systems. Still, she said, it was a day to relish victory. About a dozen Bristol Bay kids were at the White House for the ceremony.

“This is everything our people have been fighting for: To make sure that our children will know who they are, and will be able to continue to be Native people in Bristol Bay for generations to come,” she said. “So to see our kids with the president today, celebrating this monumental, historic victory for us was just profound.”

A Pebble spokesman declined to comment, but the company maintains the dam design is state-of-the-art and that the project doesn’t pose a risk to the fisheries.

WATCH: C-SPAN’s coverage of the event here.

Kodiak Island is home to a burgeoning local food movement — one that could get a whole lot bigger this summer, thanks to one gardener’s ambitious plan to plant half a million carrots across the archipelago.

You could say Dave Jackson is Kodiak’s carrot kingpin.

Jackson’s got a thriving garden at his house on the sunny side of Bell’s Flats, just past Kodiak’s Coast Guard base. There are onions and asparagus and rhubarb and beds of greens, but carrots are the main attraction.

“Three out of these four beds right in front here is where I’m going to grow carrots,” Jackson said. “And I grow quite a few carrots. I give a lot away. I probably put 2,000 seeds in there.”

That might seem like a lot of carrots. But it pales in comparison to Jackson’s bigger goal for this summer: to distribute 1,000 growing kits — each containing hundreds of carrot seeds — to gardeners across the island.

“The goal is to put half a million seeds out there and try to get people to plant them,” he said.

But Jackson said the plan started off much smaller. One of his friend’s asked if he could put together a carrot planting packet to give to the neighborhood kids, who kept eating carrots out of his garden.

So, he posted on Facebook to ask if other people wanted their own packets, too.

“And it got like 150 hits right off the bat,” said Jackson. “And I went, ‘Whoa.’ Next day, I ordered this bucket of seeds.”

That bucket, which contains 500,000 seeds and other materials, cost about $1,800 altogether, according to Jackson. The local 4-H club, Kodiak Harvest Food Cooperative and some friends pitched in money for him to upscale the project.

Jackson worked as a fisherman and then for Alaska’s Department of Fish and Game for three decades. He said carrots are perfect for commercial fishing communities like Kodiak. You can leave them for weeks at a time – which is especially convenient with salmon season on the horizon.

“I learned how to do these carrots, high intensity, low maintenance, I do no thinning and no weeding,” said Jackson. “And so once I get the carrots up a couple of inches, I can go away and go fishing or whatever. And come back in six weeks and start eating carrots.”

Each carrot kit comes with an envelope filled with 500 seeds and everything you need to plant them. Jackson said the kits are perfect for aspiring or established gardeners, and they’re available for free at locations around Kodiak, including the Little Store in Bell’s Flats and Kodiak Harvest’s Food Co-Op.

He’s not shipping the kits outside Kodiak, but they have made it to other parts of the state, including Homer and the Aleutian Chain.

He said he doesn’t have a long term goal for the project — just that at least this summer, it means more locally grown food will end up on people’s plates.

“I really don’t have a way to judge how effective we are, you know, scientifically or anything, but I’m expecting there’s going to be lots of carrots,” he said.

Jackson’s advice is to plant by mid-May to have carrots in time for fall.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will reconsider certain aspects of the Pebble company’s permit application to build a large gold and copper mine at the headwaters of Bristol Bay. The 81-page report comes just three months after the Environmental Protection Agency vetoed the mine in a separate process.

“It’s a bit surprising and a bit confusing,” said Dennis McLerran, who worked as the regional EPA administrator during the Obama administration.

The EPA in January determined that the mine would have “unacceptable adverse effects on salmon fishery areas.” Using its powers under the Clean Water Act, it essentially vetoed the mine plan, and any future plan that would have a similar impact on the same waterways. Many opponents of the project hailed that as the final blow.

McLerran said the EPA decision nullifies any permit the Army Corps could issue.

“EPA has now made a final determination, and so in any event, the Corps could not issue a 404 permit for the mine,” he said, referring to the applicable section of the Clean Water Act. “So it is a bit surprising and a bit confusing as to why the Corps entertained the appeal and issued a remand on it.”

At the heart of the Corps’ decision is whether its permit denial adequately assessed certain risks the mine would pose to the environment and its effects on communities in the region. In its April 25 announcement, the Corps’ Pacific Ocean Division Engineer Brig. Gen. Kirk Gibbs said he found specific portions of Pebble’s appeal warranted another look, although he noted that that doesn’t mean the Corps will reauthorize Pebble’s permit.

The report analyzes each of Pebble’s reasons for its appeal. It said that five of the company’s points didn’t need additional consideration, and portions of three did, including the Corps’ assessment of whether and how the project would benefit communities (pg. 47 – 56). The Corps will also revisit how it assessed the possibility of a catastrophic failure of a dam that would contain waste from the mining operation (pg. 62 – 65) and the potential damages to fisheries (pg. 67).

Pebble spokesperson Mike Heatwole said the announcement shows the company’s appeal holds water, and that they aim for the mine to meet environmental requirements for permitting.

“A mine in Alaska, and in the United States, has to coexist with that fishery,” he said. “We know that for the residents of Bristol Bay, it’s an important not only commercial but cultural resource. And all of that has to be factored into this project at the end of the day.”

The Bristol Bay Defense Fund, a coalition of mine opponents, called the Army Corps’ remand a refusal to overturn its permit denial, and said that it will merely “clarify” that decision.

Still, United Tribes of Bristol Bay Executive Director Alannah Hurley said, this is another reason why opponents are pursuing watershed-wide protections through federal legislation.

“Not only to address this project, with this company that is refusing to give up, but the many other active mining claims throughout the region,” she said.

The Army Corps’ Alaska District now has to review the decision to deny Pebble a federal permit — and take the EPA’s veto into consideration in the process.

Bristol Bay should see relatively strong sockeye runs this summer, though they’re not expected to be near last year’s record-breaking run and harvest.

Around 50 million sockeye are forecasted to return to the bay, according to the state’s forecast for the 2023 fishing season. The total escapement is projected to reach 13 million with around 37 million fish available to harvest.

That’s a good deal lower than last year, and it’s also lower than the average over the last 10 years. But looking a little further back, this summer’s run is still expected to be 40% above the bay’s long-term average.

The University of Washington produced its own forecast for Bristol Bay’s 2023 season.

The strength of the salmon returns varies across river systems, and the Nushagak District, on the west side of the bay, has seen some of the biggest sockeye runs and highest harvests in recent years.

“I think the reason why we’re getting these big runs in the Nushagak is because the warmer winters allow for a longer growing season,” said Tim Sands, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s management biologist for the area, at a recent presentation in Dillingham. “So there’s just that extra growing period where there’s more food for them to eat. And they get a little bit bigger. And as they’re bigger going out to the ocean. They’re more competitive and they survive at a little higher rate.”

In the 2023 commercial fishing outlook, the department also raised concerns about fishermen under-reporting of king salmon harvests and said tenders should expect to be boarded and checked for undocumented king salmon.

Here’s a rundown of this summer’s forecasts and regulations by district.

Nushagak

The Nushagak District is forecast to see 16.3 million sockeye this season, with the run almost evenly split between fish that spend two and three years in the ocean. The Wood River’s forecast is 8 million sockeye, the Nushagak’s is 7 million and the Igushik is set to see almost 2 million.

Low king salmon runs up the Nushagak River pushed the Department of Fish and Game to designate them a stock of concern last fall.

In an effort to conserve king salmon, the Board of Fisheries adopted three triggers, only one of which the district needs to meet for the season to open.

The latest the district will open is June 28. But new, optimum escapement goals mean managers will likely manage the fishery more conservatively than in past seasons, because the regulations allow them to let more sockeye escape.

Sands said that the triggers tell the department when to start fishing, and the new escapement goals determine how hard they fish throughout the season and how many breaks they take in order to protect kings.

“My goal is going to be to try and keep the escapement on the Wood River below 3 million escaping on the Nushagak River below 2 million, and trying to get enough king and chum salmon up the Nushagak River so that we can start climbing out of this stock of concern hole we’re in,” he said.

The triggers to open fishing are as follows:

• In the Nushagak River, once 420,000 sockeye, or 6% of the forecast, are projected past the sonar.
• In the Wood River, once 800,000 sockeye, or 10% of the forecast, are projected past the counting tower.
• If neither of these triggers are met, the season may open on June 28.

Asked during the presentation how the department would project those runs, Sands said they were going to use as many sources as possible.
“Aerial survey is certainly included,” he said. “We’re going to have test boats in the district – [Bristol Bay Science and Research Institute] is running that project – subsistence harvest. Whatever we can gather that will inform that decision, we’ll use.”

The district’s triggers delay commercial fishing in June. But the department said even after fishing is open managers will work to balance commercial fishing opportunity with escapement of kings, chum and sockeye throughout the season; set net fishermen should expect some closures into the second week of July, and drift openings will be timed to allow kings and chum to swim through the commercial district.

Chum runs up the Nushagak have also been extremely low; they haven’t met the escapement goal in the last three years. Sands said the department also considered recommending that species a stock of concern last fall but that ultimately they felt the chum didn’t qualify. However, Fish and Game is asking fishermen to avoid areas where they may catch higher numbers of kings and chum.

“If we don’t make chum salmon escapement goal for the next three years, we will be talking about chum salmon stock of concern plan and that will be much more restrictive than what we’re doing now for kings, because it’ll mean that what we’ve done for kings has not worked to protect chums,” Sands said.

Other regulatory changes include increasing the distance from set nets to the shore along Ekuk beach.

“We’re working on getting a map made with those new coordinates,” Sands said. “So the drifters will be able to find the coordinates into their plotters, and see where the furthest offshore the buoys can be. And then so that set netters can make adjustments as well.”

Once the coordinates are finalized they will be posted to the department website and on the district’s map.

Togiak

Togiak is expected to see 680,000 sockeye, which is below average in recent years, but slightly above average in the long term. The available harvest will be almost 500,000 fish.

The transfer date for Togiak permits changed at the recent Board of Fisheries meeting. It used to be July 17. Now, permit holders who have fished elsewhere in the bay can’t fish in the Togiak District until the mid-point of the escapement goal has been reached. Those who started out fishing in Togiak can’t fish in any other district of the bay until that midpoint goal has been reached.

While the Nushagak is the only river in Bristol Bay that still has a king salmon escapement goal, the state’s outlook says Togiak’s king runs are also expected to be poor, following a trend over the past several years, and that fishermen should expect reductions to their weekly fishing schedule in the last two weeks of June in the Togiak River section.

Naknek-Kvichak

The Naknek-Kvichak is expected to see 18 million sockeye this summer. The Kvichak River is forecasted to have a run of 8 million sockeye, the Naknek could see over 6 million and Alagnak forecast is set at 4 million.

It will have four day a week openers until June 23, after which the managers will schedule openers based on the sockeye run.

That district also faces new regulations this year. For one, people can now go online to get subsistence salmon permits for the Naknek River. Subsistence users can only fish with set gillnets in the special harvest areas of the Naknek, Alagnak and Wood Rivers.

The Board of Fisheries also approved a new subsection for the Naknek River special harvest area, which allows commercial fishing there when the Naknek River’s escapement has passed the midpoint of the escapement goal range and is projected to exceed the upper-end goal. A boundary line coordinate for Kvichak and Naknek sections has been changed to align with the district like at Johnson Hill.

Egegik

Egegik’s forecast is at 11 million sockeye, with over 9 million available to harvest. Almost half of the run is expected to be 1-3 fish, or salmon that spend one year in freshwater and three in the ocean.

Egegik’s season will start with fishing three days a week through June 16 to allow kings to escape, according to the outlook. After that the department will schedule additional fishing openers based on the strength of the sockeye run.

Ugashik

Ugashik District is expected to see around 3 million sockeye, bringing available harvest to 2.5 million. Almost half of that river’s run will be 1-2 fish. This summer, the late season schedule for Ugashik will be aligned with other districts on the fishery’s East Side.

Proposals to limit chum salmon bycatch in the Bering Sea are moving ahead, but slowly. After reviewing recommendations over the weekend, the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council asked for further analysis to help develop possible chum bycatch limits or additional regulations on the Bering Sea pollock industry.

It’s a small step in a slow federal fishery management process.

Supporters of bycatch limits say reducing the accidental catch of chum and chinook salmon in the Bering Sea could help improve runs along the Yukon and Kuskokwim Rivers, which have seen record-low returns in recent years. But the pollock industry is pushing back.

Mellisa Johnson is government affairs and policy director for the Arctic-Yukon-Kuskokwim Tribal Consortium and a member of the council’s advisory panel. She said while the council is moving in the right direction, the motion doesn’t immediately address villages along the Yukon and Kuskokwim that have been hit hardest by the chum and chinook crash.

“Indigenous people … have provided testimony [that] they have not been able to fish for three years,” she said. “There’s a high possibility that they may not be able to fish with 2023 being the fourth year.”

Salmon is central to life in Western Alaska. Residents, environmentalists and other pro-subsistence advocates spent hours testifying in favor of bycatch limits last week, describing the devastating impacts to food security and Indigenous culture without it.

“Hopefully there’s enough other salmon species runs that will work to accommodate the food security issues, but it’s really hard to say … that [Western Alaskans are] going to get their needs met,” Johnson said. “More than likely, that’s not going to happen.”

The Western Alaska salmon crash is likely driven by a number of factors, including climate change. It’s not certain new bycatch limits would improve the runs, since only about 10% of chum intercepted in the Bering Sea are headed for Western Alaska, according to genetic studies.

But the council’s motion acknowledges that the Bering Sea pollock trawl fishery is responsible for keeping some proportion of chum salmon from returning to Alaska rivers.

Chinook bycatch limits are already in place in the Bering Sea, and the number of chinook accidentally caught remains low. Brent Paine, executive director of United Catcher Boats, said the idea of adding chum bycatch limits is “scary” for the groundfish trawlers he represents.

He said the impact to trawlers depends on what the council ultimately decides, but a constraining hard cap could close the fishery.

“The Bering Sea pollock fishery is one of the largest, valuable fisheries in the world,” he said. “So there will be huge losses, huge revenue losses, and lots of jobs loss.”

The Bering Sea and Aleutian Island pollock fishery was valued at $448 million in 2019, according to a NOAA Fisheries report.

Paine noted that the fishery supports coastal communities with processing plants like Dutch Harbor, Akutan and Sand Point. Sixty-five Western Alaska villages also participate in the Community Development Quota, or CDQ, program, which allocates a percentage of pollock and other species for those communities to harvest.

Tim Bristol, executive director of the pro-subsistence advocacy organization SalmonState, said he’s disappointed with the council’s process, which he said prioritizes the pollock fishery above subsistence harvesters.

“You have this industry that I think the government, via the council, sees as too big to fail. And I just worry that that has really disturbing implications for everybody else who counts on that ecosystem for their livelihood and their way of life,” Bristol said.

Meanwhile, last week, Tanana Chiefs Conference and the Association of Village Presidents, represented by Earthjustice, filed a lawsuit against the National Marine Fisheries Service, arguing that current federal fishery management plans are outdated and don’t adequately prioritize the needs of subsistence users.

Kate Glover, senior attorney at Earthjustice, said they’re pushing for the agency to consider different ways to approach fisheries management.

“That might include things like looking at changes in bycatch, or what could be done as far as catch limits go and how that affects other fish that are not being targeted by the fisheries but are important to subsistence users,” Glover said.

The analysis the council requested over the weekend will go through a series of reviews and public comment periods. Its first review is scheduled for the council’s October meeting. Brian Ritchie, chair of the council’s advisory panel, said final action on the proposals is scheduled for June 2024. If a bycatch limit does pass, it won’t be active until the 2025 season.

“It’s a complicated process,” Ritchie said. “Sometimes effecting real change and actions like this — it can take time.”

The eruption of a volcano this week on Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula has prompted Alaska flight cancellations, including some flights in and out of Juneau.

Monday saw Shiveluch Volcano’s largest eruption in nearly 60 years with ash exploding at least 50,000 feet into the air. While the bulk of that cloud is to the southwest of Alaska around the western Aleutians, a ribbon of volcanic gas and a little ash reached the mainland on Wednesday.

Airline spokesperson Tim Thompson said that on Wednesday, the airline had canceled eight flights between Western Alaska airports and Anchorage. Those flights were to Adak, Bethel, Dillingham and King Salmon.

Alaska Rep. Mary Peltola was among those affected by the eruption overnight Wednesday, after her flight from Honolulu to Anchorage was turned back due to the ash plume. On Thursday morning she and other passengers were on the ground again in Honolulu, waiting for a chance to return home.

Juneau flights affected

Cancellations spread across the state on Thursday, and a Twitter post from the airline Thursday morning recommending passengers check their flight status.

As of 7 a.m. Alaska time Thursday, Alaska Airlines reported canceling 23 flights due to ash from the volcano.

So far, cancellations include Thursday morning flights from Anchorage to Juneau, Juneau to Sitka, and Juneau to Yakutat. Flight 64’s departure from Anchorage to Juneau has been delayed by at least 4 hours. Juneau airport manager Patty Wahto said other afternoon and evening flights were also listed as delayed.

Andy Kline, marketing manager for Alaska Seaplanes, said the company canceled flights from Klawock and Sitka to Juneau, and from Juneau to Haines and Skagway.

“We had one flight that was going to Hoonah when we got the call to cancel flights, so it landed in Hoonah and it’s there,” he said late Thursday morning.

The Alaska Seaplanes flight from Juneau to Petersburg was delayed but did depart in the early afternoon.

A massive cloud

Dave Schneider, a research geophysicist with the Alaska Volcano Observatory in Anchorage, says lava from the Shiveluch volcano forms a dome, parts of which periodically collapse and create ash clouds.

“What happened a couple days ago was much more significant,” he said. “It’s still too early to really know exactly what went on, but I surmise that a large part of the lava dome that’s been growing for years collapsed and unleashed a pretty good sized eruption.”

The massive cloud was initially moving west, blanketing villages in Russia with a thick layer of ash. But as another weather system came in, it started moving east, toward Alaska. And parts of the cloud are peeling off. As of Wednesday, the ash was still out in the western Aleutians.

“But bits and pieces of it are sort of getting pulled off, sort of like you’re making toffee, and you can pull a branch off, and it’ll sort of go off in its own direction,” Schneider said.

Check out satellite imagery of the cloud here

One cloud actually passed over Dillingham on Wednesday, though Schneider said it was mainly sulfur dioxide gas and contained very little ash.

“Both of those are part of the volcanic cloud that was produced,” he said. “And with satellites, we’re able to track those and that helps the weather service issue forecasts and sort of see where the cloud is and where it’s moving.”

The volcano’s emissions decreased on Wednesday, and Schneider said that while there’s no guaranteeing exactly when the cloud will disperse, that’s a fair sign that travel could soon be back to normal.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

KTOO’s Katie Anastas and KBBI’s Hope McKenney contributed to this story.