Dam would place roadblock on Susitna economy

The wild Susitna River, one of Alaska's premier waterways, travels through robust wilderness from its remote headwaters in the Alaska Range to Cook Inlet. Along the way it joins with the Chulitna and Talkeetna Rivers at the western rim of Talkeetna, where most residents and the local economy rely primarily on wilderness and the rivers. The proposed Susitna dam would change all that.

Our Talkeetna Community Council has officially gone on record with both the Alaska Energy Authority (AEA) and the Alaska State Legislature that "there is deep concern in Talkeetna about the proposed Susitna River dam." More recently, an October 2011 advisory vote conducted by the council revealed that 109 local voters weighed in as "against" the dam while 19 voted "for" it.

The dam's economic impact on Talkeetna's dynamic sports fishery could be crushing. Professionally guided trips for all five species of salmon - including silvers (coho), chinook (kings), sockeye (reds), chum and pinks - provide principal income for charter boat operators here. In spring and fall, a healthy trout population adds some supplemental pay. All these species depend upon or interact with the Susitna River. Major concerns about corruption of the river's seasonal flow rates, crucial salmon spawning side-sloughs, temperatures, silt content levels (both in the proposed reservoir and in the Susitna itself) and water depths arise.

We are told the dam would trap the normal flow of water in a giant reservoir in summer and release larger amounts than normal in winter. Please. This can only impact the river's natural, critical production of high summer water and low depths in winter. Think about it. Also, AEA staff has implied that once the reduced Susitna flow reaches the confluence of the Talkeetna and Chulitna rivers, these two major tributaries would replenish Susitna's flow. This seems naïve at best. A dam-diminished river is a diminished river, plain and simple, one that passes its defects into the lower Susitna.

Another major boat operation here runs popular guided sightseeing trips up the Susitna for tourists, some all the way into Devil's Canyon, which is due west and just downriver from the dam site. Yet another provides rafting trips in the area for tourists.

Local air taxi operations are another economic machine that meet tourist demands for wildly popular aerial scenic flights to Denali and the Alaska Range, many with brief glacier landings. These visitors are astonished at what they see and experience. A significant part of this flight time includes traveling (both outbound and inbound) over the great wilderness of the Susitna River and vast forests of birch and spruce. What might major meddling with Susitna's natural dynamic inflict on this area?

Remember too, that healthy wildlife populations abound in proximity to the river. Another popular air taxi service is transporting recreationists with rafts to high tributary sandbar reaches for wilderness travel. Add to this more transport wanted by hunters to remote game areas. In recent years, air taxis have also met a rapidly growing demand for flights to wilderness locations for professional filming crews and still photographers from Outside.

Of course, all these people need overnight accommodations and meals. A major lodge on the outskirts of town and downtown-area inns, motels, a historic roadhouse and numerous bed and breakfast operations comprise another economic force, as do several restaurants and other eateries here. High-quality gift shops are located in the downtown area, where our esteemed Talkeetna Historic District casts an aura of extra-special interest for tourists who tell us that "this is the Alaska I always imagined."

Some might think that a dynamite river with Alaska-caliber fish runs, together with a small, entrepreneurial town with a strong work ethic and economy, are worth sacrificing for an exorbitantly priced dam. Or, that the health of almost countless named and un-named tributaries and side-sloughs that harbor spawning salmon from the mouth of Cook Inlet to the proposed dam site doesn't count. Don't bet on it.

A lifelong Alaskan, Roberta Sheldon is a 47-year resident of Talkeetna and a member of the Coalition for Susitna Dam Alternatives.