August 26, 2021 — This particular pocket of Beaver Creek is not far from the road, just a short and muddy tromp away from a gravel parking lot between Kenai and Soldotna. But it’s home to several cold water inputs that could be crucially important for young salmon as they swim from the Kenai River to Cook Inlet.
Cook Inletkeeper Executive Director Sue Mauger said the inputs are like cold water faucets.
“They’re a little place where there’s a constant pump of colder water,” she said. “And that really can help buffer when we have those really warm, sunny days to actually have some cold water coming into the creek.”
Inletkeeper is working with the Kenai Watershed Forum and the Kachemak Heritage Land Trust to diagram those cold water spots in four peninsula creeks. The goal is to keep those creeks, and the salmon that use them, protected.
Here’s the catch — the inputs fall over a mosaic of private and city land. The nonprofits are reaching out to landowners to let them know they have something special in their backyards.
“Everyone who owns riverfront property knows they have really special habitat,” Mauger said. “Like, they know that that’s important; that’s why they bought the property, probably, is to be on the river. But to then be told, ‘You have extra special property. You have something really unique on your property’ is very exciting for someone.”