Saving Seafood

ALASKA: Glacier Bay’s Alsek River predicted to shift course within a few decades due to climate change

April 16, 2021 — New research indicates that the Alsek River will change course dramatically over the next few decades. Geologists with the National Park Service predict that glacial retreat related to climate change may move the mouth of the river 20 miles away from its current location. This could pose challenges for raft trips and fishing in Glacier Bay National Park.

The Alsek River originates in the Yukon Territory and flows hundreds of miles south before emptying into the Pacific Ocean at Glacier Bay National Park. Near the end of its journey, the river widens into Alsek Lake. It’s currently separated from the Grand Plateau Lake by a glacier.

But when that glacier melts enough, the lakes will combine and eventually drain into the ocean down a steep embankment.

Michael Loso is a Park Service geologist who researches the Alsek changing course.

“Presently, the Alsek River can’t get there because this glacier, you know, this big pile of ice is in the way,” Loso said. “But really, the thrust of our paper is to make the case that once that glacier ice completely goes away, by a combination of melting and calving into the two lakes, you would be able to paddle your raft right on over to Grand Plateau Lake because the two lakes would be combined.”

Read the full story at KTOO

Trump’s plan to overhaul government would give Interior and EPA more power

June 22, 2018 — The White House on Thursday unveiled a radical overhaul of the federal bureaucracy, including many of the agencies managing energy and natural resources.

The Trump administration’s ideas for revamping which agencies are tasked with certain energy and environmental responsibilities — such as managing the nation’s fisheries and flood infrastructure — are part of a broader reorganization plan that calls for sweeping changes such as merging the Labor and Education departments.

But the reorganization effort calls for a level of consolidation that Congress, which would need to approve the plan, is unlikely to sign off on.

It has long been the goal of many conservatives to streamline federal work on energy and environmental issues. Many Republican candidates for president have even promised to eliminate entire departments, such as when Rick Perry suggested during the 2012 race to shutter the Energy Department, which he now runs, and when Donald Trump in 2016 once called for closing the Environmental Protection Agency.

But President Trump’s latest plan is much smaller in scale than any of those campaign-trail promises.

In fact, instead of asking for the eradication of the EPA, the president’s proposal calls upon the agency to take on even more work. Under the plan, the EPA’s Superfund program would absorb portions of hazardous site cleanup programs run by the Interior and Agriculture departments. However, at the same time the EPA would also reduce or otherwise “recalibrate” its oversight of state-run pollution-control programs.

Read the full story at the Washington Post