Taking a look at Ballot Measure 1

My wife and I have had several conversations about the upcoming election. The gist of the conversations has gone something like this: “I’m so sick of hearing election ads and I’m disappointed that almost all these ads do nothing but bash the other guy. When are the ads going to start telling me about why I should vote for someone/something rather why I should vote against someone/something?”

On the last point – why should I vote for something – we’re seeing that approach in some of the more recent “vote Yes on Stand for Salmon” television ads. Waste materials from both coal and gold mines have destroyed freshwater systems around the world. Most of these systems had fish in them at one time, but no more. More ecosystem friendly methods of mining and drilling have not been developed because existing laws don’t require them.

Filling and draining wetlands to allow development for anything, with no remediation or offsetting mitigation requirements, has done nothing but destroy fish habitat. Ask yourself why the Pacific Northwest and the New England coastal areas no longer support robust salmon runs. Why are almost all current salmon runs in those areas weak, endangered, and made up primarily of hatchery stocked fish? And that’s just in this country. Look at the history of declining salmon runs in Europe and you will see the same situation.

The answer is fairly simple. Totally inadequate habitat protection regulations allowed poorly regulated development to destroy the habitat’s ability to support healthy and vibrant salmon runs.

We all understand why the mining and oil corporations oppose Ballot Initiative 1. It’s money! If the Stand for Salmon initiative passes, major construction and development projects will be required to meet certain scientific standards of habitat protection or remediation before they can advance. Projects will need to be designed to minimize habitat damage. This will cause some delays and additional cost to the developer, but what value do you place on our wetlands and freshwater systems remaining healthy and productive? Is the short-term gain of money for a non-renewable resource extraction worth the destruction of a renewable resource which could continue indefinitely if properly protected?

I recently saw a letter paid for by the Cook Inletkeeper group supporting Stand for Salmon. This letter contains several points I think have been lost in the discussion and we’ll get to them in a minute. The thing that caught my eye were the folks signing the letter. Fifty-two retired state and federal fisheries scientists and biologists see why Ballot Initiative 1 is necessary for the future of Alaska’s salmon populations.

I personally know fifteen of the retired state folks listed and have worked, to some extent, with all of them. These folks are the folks that did actual field work, collecting and interpreting data while researching and managing our state’s fisheries resources. They were not the political appointees and upper echelon bureaucrats being schmoozed by corporations and politicians. They got their hands dirty dealing with fish and habitat rather than wearing a suit and tie every day and pushing papers around a desk.

One key point in this letter which hasn’t been discussed much was the repeal of the Alaska Coastal Management Program in 2011 and the governmental push to accelerate and simplify environmental development permitting processes in recent years. These changes have lowered fish habitat protection standards.

Title 16 – the Alaska Anadromous Fish Act – is the only law which protects salmon habitat in Alaska. While Title 16 requires the “proper protection” of wild salmon, there is no definition or standard in law of what “proper protection” means. And while the Alaska Constitution (Article VIII) says every Alaskan owns our fish and water resources, there is no provision under Title 16 to allow public comment and notice about fish habitat permitting which could have serious negative impacts on that habitat.

This whole situation began with a Board of Fisheries letter to the legislature in January 2017, asking the legislature to overhaul Title 16 to strengthen habitat protections, define terms, establish penalties for noncompliance, and allow the public to comment on permit applications. The ballot initiative was developed in the event the legislature failed to act.

Given its track record for the past few years, the probability the legislature would take no action was high and that’s exactly what happened. Everybody would have preferred the legislature develop the revisions to Title 16 in an open process. Instead, they failed to even get the bill out of its first committee assignment.