Saving Seafood

ALASKA: New federal program aims to speed restoration of damaged Alaska streams and rivers

July 10, 2024 — Around Alaska, particularly in the Interior region, there are streams, creeks and rivers that were damaged by mining conducted as far back as the mid-19th century.

The Bureau of Land Management, a federal agency of the Department of the Interior, now has a new program intended to speed up work to fix those historic damages.

The agency has made final its systematic approach that is intended to avoid the need for full-scale environmental analysis of each proposed restoration project. The new program features a matrix of restoration techniques, ranging in intensity from planting vegetation by hand to use of heavy equipment to redirect waterways or rebuild streambanks. Those techniques are to be matched to individual projects’ needs and physical characteristics that include fish and wildlife habitat, geologic formations and levels of damage.

The idea is to complete projects as quickly as possible while adhering to requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act and other federal laws, said Matthew Varner, leader for fisheries and riparian resources in the BLM’s Alaska aquatic resources program.

“Restoration projects, like most federal agency actions on the ground, require environmental analysis consistent with NEPA,” Varner said. “And when you couple NEPA compliance with permitting associated with stream restoration, you know, that could take six months to a year to complete.”

Read the full article at Alaska Public Media

Panel Outlines Devastating Social and Economic Consequences of Antiquities Designations

May 2, 2017 — The following was released by the House Committee on Natural Resources:

Today, the Subcommittee on Federal Lands heard testimony on the consequences of Executive Branch overreach of the Antiquities Act. The panel discussed national monuments designated without significant local input or support or that included excessively large or restricted areas of land.

Director of the Utah Public Lands Policy Coordinating Office and former head of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management Kathleen Clarke discussed the devastating economic consequences for Utah communities after President Clinton designated 1.7 million acres in Utah as the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument in 1996.

“Families that have lived for generations in affected communities find their families torn apart due to lack of employment opportunities for the next generation. Populations are declining. In the twenty years since the creation of the Grand Staircase, school enrollment in Escalante has gone from 150 to 57 students,” Clarke said.

The monument included roughly 176,000 acres of Utah School and Institutional Trust Land Administration (SITLA) lands, which generate revenues for the state’s K-12 public education system. According to the Utah Geological Survey, the value of resources on school trust lands dropped by $8 billion immediately after the monument designation.

President Obama’s December 2016 Bears Ears National Monument designation similarly locked up 109,000 acres of SITLA land in southern Utah. “What impact will this have for SITLA as they try to grow their fund to benefit more schoolchildren in the state,” Chairman Rob Bishop (R-UT) asked Clarke.

This will “diminish opportunity,” Clarke responded, adding that it threatens Utah’s entire K-12 public education system.

Knox Marshall, Vice President of the Resources Division at Murphy Company, testified that President Obama’s January 2017 expansion of the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument in southwestern Oregon and California has “devastated the social fabric of our rural communities and crippled county finances.”

“Douglas County in Oregon, for example, has recently closed its entire public library system because timber sale revenues that previously funded those libraries and a robust set of other public services have largely disappeared,” Marshall added.

Maine Governor Paul LePage outlined current and anticipated adverse impacts resulting from the August 2016 Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument designation by President Obama, including economic losses to the forestry industry and public access barriers such as the loss of connectivity for ATV trails in the region.

“Not long after President Obama designated the Monument, Maine residents started to feel the negative effects of having the federal government as their new master,” LePage stated.

“These designations were often imposed in spite of local opposition, without consultation with Congress, or the state or local government’s effected, and without regard for the economic damage these designations have had on surrounding communities,” Subcommittee Chairman Tom McClintock (R-CA) said.

After reading letters and resolutions from local tribes in Utah opposing the Bears Ears designation Chairman Bishop stated, “I hope that those listening today will remember these voices, the ones that have been excluded from this conversation and the ones that President Obama ignored when he designated Bears Ears National Monument.”

Click here to view full witness testimony.