Alaska Beat: News and notes from around the state

NEW AD CAMPAIGN CONTINUES BRISTOL BAY PUSH FOR PERMANENT PROTECTIONS

From the Last Frontier to the nation’s capital, the push to permanently protect Bristol Bay’s healthy salmon runs – its sockeye returns set records in 2022 – means money is no object.

In mid-September, the Bristol Bay Defense Fund announced a six-figure advertising campaign featuring video, print and digital platform ads that will all be featured in Alaska and Washington DC.

Meanwhile, the Pebble Mine’s parent company continues to fight to get its project started near the headwaters of a sockeye run that approached the 70-million mark, the biggest ever recorded.

“The recorded salmon runs have never been larger. The chorus of Alaskans has never been louder. Return peace to Bristol Bay, veto Pebble Mine now,” the ads state.

As pressure increases on the DC-based Environmental Protection Agency to continue its halting of the project by going a step further to prevent future comparable mining projects, several restaurants in the nation’s capital joined Bristol Bay Salmon Week, the third week in September, by adding wild Alaska sockeye to their menus. “Finish the job” has been the battle cry from Alaska to the EPA’s headquarters on Pennsylvania Avenue.

“NRDC is proud to join Bristol Bay Tribes, commercial fishermen, and conservation groups this week in DC supporting a decades-long fight led by Alaskans to defend themselves, their communities, and their lands against destruction by a foreign mining company,” Joel Reynolds, Western Director and Senior Attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, said. “And make no mistake: This is a fight we must win. The will of the people has never been stronger, the salmon run in Bristol Bay has never been bigger, and the course for EPA has never been clearer. Now is the time for the EPA to veto the Pebble Mine.”

Added Alannah Hurley, executive director of United Tribes of Bristol Bay: “As captured in the ad campaign, there is no time to waste and our people will continue to do whatever it takes to protect our home. The EPA must listen to the voices of the people of Bristol Bay and finalize protections this year that stop Pebble Mine for good.”

This print ad complements those on video and digital platforms as part of an aggressive campaign led by the Bristol Bay Defense Fund to pressure the Environmental Protection Agency to implement permanent protection for the region from the Pebble Mine and comparable projects. (BRISTOL BAY DEFENSE FUND)

ALASKA BEAT

TWEET OF THE MONTH

Joseph Hazelwood, whose death was announced in mid-September at the age of 75, was accused of being drunk and negligent when the Exxon Valdez oil tanker ran aground on a Prince William Sound reef on March 24, 1989, causing the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history.

NOTABLE NUMBER 89,570

The number of coho that were counted along the Yukon River’s Pilot Station sonar as of September 5, which was more than 50,000 fewer fish than the median cumulative count for the date of 141,925. The low number prompted a closure of the Yukon’s sport silver fishery.

The Yockey family found peace in quiet but satisfying Co man Cove on Prince of Wales Island, where they enjoyed the local bounty.

(YOCKEY FAMILY)

FROM THE ASJ ARCHIVES – OCTOBER 2016 A FAMILY THRIVES ON PRINCE OF WALES ISLAND

To some, a place like Co man Cove, which has fewer than 200 residents, would epitomize isolation – even though it is on the Prince of Wales Island road system – and foster the type of sheltered upbringing that would stunt the growth of a teenager. It also produces adults who stay after they graduate because they are afraid or are unprepared for the real world, another red flag among skeptics to this way of life.

But don’t tell that to the Yockeys.

“I definitely don’t feel like I’m missing anything,” says Nate Yockey, who plans to go to college and eventually become a teacher and basketball coach in Alaska. “I don’t get to see skyscrapers every day, I don’t get to go to McDonald’s or have fast food, I can’t go on a road trip because I live on an island, but I get to walk outside and breathe perfectly clean air. I can go hike up a mountain and see views that no one else in the world can even imagine. I can go hiking for a couple miles into the woods and stand somewhere that no one else has probably ever stood. So no, I don’t think I’m missing out.”

Bill Yockey says it’s more a matter of being happy rather than trying to validate a lifestyle to those who have already made up their minds.

“I never had much desire to move to the Lower 48 because of all of the people; I like to hunt and fish and don’t like sharing my hunting and fishing grounds with a large crowd,” he says. “I come from three generations of loggers and operators, so I had my mind made up what I was going to do by the time I was 20.”

If anything, it was the absence of a down-south type of civilization that made Prince of Wales so appealing. Bill and wife Sara lived in Arizona but chose to go back to Alaska after their youngest (Nevan) was born.

“When we moved back to Co man Cove is when I knew I wanted to stay on the island and raise my boys with the island lifestyle, the way I did when I was growing up,” Bill says. “Co man Cove is where I was born and raised and I feel safe there. I like the feel of a small town and knowing your neighbors.” -Jeff Lund “ THEY SAID IT “And it’s demoralizing to see the runs, the salmon runs, the depressed salmon stocks that we’ve been experiencing the last 13 years.

And it’s of great concern to me that now silvers are being restricted. This is the third species that we have had very severe restrictions put upon us. And

I do think that it is time that the burden of conservation be extended to people

”far beyond our river systems.” -Mary Peltola in an interview with

Alaska Public Media after defeating, among others, former Gov. Sarah Palin in a special election to finish the late U.S. Rep. Don Young’s term in Congress. Peltola will try to win a full two-year term in the November general election.