Yes on 1 helps us avoid costly mistakes.

Alaska is my home, I’ve been here for most of my life, and I’m here for good. This is why I am voting YES on ballot measure 1.

For 25 years I have hunted and fished the upper Su Valley. I met my wife here, and we built our home, raised our family and grew our family business here. Through it all I have learned over and over that it’s better to do things right the first time. The Pacific Northwest has learned this the hard way. They have lost most of their salmon runs by making mistakes they are now spending hundreds of millions of dollars trying to fix. In Alaska, we have the unique opportunity to do things right the first time.

For example, nearly half of the culverts in the Mat-Su are not engineered to allow for the passage of salmon. Many historic salmon runs have been cut off, and now they are spending tons of our money to go back and fix what they should have done right the first time. Ballot measure 1 would prevent this kind of mistake and save money as well as salmon runs.

Major industrial projects such as large mines, dams, and road projects have the greatest potential to destroy salmon runs. Ballot measure 1 is aimed squarely at ensuring that such projects happen responsibly. Huge Outside corporations are spending millions on slick ads against ballot measure one, and I’m sure you’ve seen them. They want you to think that this will stop us from building our docks and driveways and affect how we use our ATV’s, hunt, and fish, but it will not. They are crying like Chicken Little that this will somehow stop development in Alaska. It will not. It does add a clear, common-sense set of science-based rules for major projects and makes corporations accountable. It is needed to protect salmon in the long run. It is absolutely in our best interest to ensure that they develop such projects in a way that minimizes damage our to salmon habitat, and Yes on 1 does just that.

I care deeply about the future of Alaska. I believe that we can develop Alaska without sacrificing the very things we value most about it. If you do too, please join me in voting Yes on 1.

Howard Carbone,

Talkeetna