Partnership working to help salmon

WASILLA – There’s something fishy going on in the Mat-Su Valley.

Home to some of Alaska’s most productive salmon fisheries, the area’s lakes and rivers are valuable natural resources important to a variety of user groups. Some of those groups got good news recently when $236,000 in salmon habitat grants were awarded by the National Fish Habitat Partnership through the Mat-Su Basin Salmon Habitat Partnership.

“We have a great range of projects this year that not only improve degraded salmon habitat, but also are preventative and forward looking,” said Jessica Speed, coordinator for the local partnership in a press release announcing the grants.

Funding will go to eight projects ranging from $7,000 to $52,000. It includes everything from funding to help the Alaska Department of Natural Resources eradicate the invasive plant Elodea in Alexander Lake to $10,000 to help the Mat-Su Borough build new culverts on Buddy Creek. It also includes funding for several research projects that are looking to identify water quality and habitat issues with Mat-Su salmon.

Some of the funding will also help the Mat-Su partnership fund its 2015 Salmon Symposium in November, an event that will feature keynote speaker Richard Nelson, who is known for his radio program “Encounters.”

Coordinating the grant funding is just one example of what the partnership does, Speed said in an interview with the Frontiersman last month. She spoke with the paper a day after taking 27 local legislators, city and tribal leaders, state agency representatives and local businesspeople on a tour of several sits the partnership thinks are key to preserving salmon and trout habitat in the region.

Speed said the representatives are part of a growing movement in the Valley for people from different backgrounds to come together for the purpose of preserving salmon populations and the environments in which they spawn and grow.

“All of these individuals are coordinated in their focus on salmon habitat, which is really neat,” she said.

Speed said the tour included stops in the big Lake area to explore fish passage, habitat conservation, lake shore restoration and fisheries science, as well as a trip in the afternoon up to Alexander Creek and Shell Lake.

At the Alaska Sailing Club, tour members viewed a habitat restoration project where the club’s Bruce Lee explained efforts to curb erosion. Stopping erosion and restoring natural habitat is one of the partnership’s cornerstone goals, Speed said.

There was also a stop to see fish passage improvement work at Meadow Creek, which helps adult salmon move upstream and juveniles move toward the ocean.

Speed said the tours were both informative and inspiring because they represent a wide range of user groups who are working together to help salmon.

“History shows us we’ve got to work together to keep wild salmon healthy,” she said.

Speed has been with the partnership for about three and a half years. In the decade since the group was formed, she said it’s grown from a grassroots group to an organization that includes membership from virtually all aspects of the public and private sectors.

“Over these last 10 years the partnership has continued to grow,” she said.

For her, seeing such a diverse group of users pulling together to work for salmon habitat is the best part of the job.

“People from all over the borough are putting in their time and that’s maybe the most gratifying part of this,” she said.

Anyone seeking more information on the Mat-Su Basin Salmon Habitat Partnership or its 2015 symposium can visit the group online at matsusalmon.org.

Contact Matt Tunseth at 352-2268 or matt.tunseth@frontiersman.com