Coal mine is a not a salmon user group

Posted: Friday, April 01, 2011

In recent weeks the Alaska Board of Fish has held meetings to establish a proper and equitable distribution plan for Cook Inlet salmon. In their wisdom and allegedly non biased opinion they have determined that in any allocation plan, fish reallocated from one user group must be taken from another user group because, allexisting Cook Inlet stocks of salmon are already being utilized and spoken for.

I ask the Board of Fish and Gov. Sean Parnell why the Chuitna River salmon stocks are being reconsidered for reallocation and decimation by a non-user group -- the Chuitna Coal Project? Why is a perfectly healthy river full of salmon and other species of wildlife being considered for reallocation to a group that has no residency, no plans to utilize the salmon resource and plans to actually erase from existence the whole river system itself? Why the creation of fantastic wealth for a chosen few should be more important than the existing pristine environment of the Chuitna and adjacent marine environment?

I have heard it called a trade off,dirty coal for salmon. In a real trade each side derives some benefit from the deal. What benefit do the user groups of the salmon get? Nothing. What does the environment stand to gain? Degradation on a massive scale never to be returned. Lets not forget the salmon stocks themselves. What benefit will the Chuitna salmon species realize? Basic extinction. That does notamount to a trade; it's a sellout.

Please don't allow this twisted, oligarchic rush for greedy profit at the cost of our collective environment. No amount of industrial propaganda changes the reality of what the coal industry has in mind for the Cook Inlet region.

Walter Bovich



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