Guest column: In Cook Inlet, change stays the same

A number of years ago I spent an evening perched 25 feet up on the cold, windy Cook Inlet bluff south of Deep Creek, watching the tide come in.

A brisk wind was coming out of the southwest and every four seconds a muddy, gray wave crashed onto the beach and dissipated into spray, bubbles and foam. As the water slithered back out, it rattled the beach cobbles menacingly like a shaman working mysterious magic with a puffin-beak rattle. The shaman-waves broke again and again, rhythmically chanting their ancient geological feast‑mantra, “Closer...closer...closer.”

The 20‑foot tide was rising fast, and the sediment‑crazed surf groped for the base of the bluff until finally it nibbled at the talus below my perch. During the 40 minutes of slack, high water, the hungry waves grazed on Tertiary sediments in a 100-mile long feeding frenzy. Eventually the ebbing tide pulled the ravenous water away from the bluff, but not until 600 breakers had been fed.

From Point Possession to Homer, Cook Inlet had taken another long bite out of the bluff. Tikahtnu was satiated — but only until the next big tide.

Most of Cook Inlet’s waves break harmlessly onto the beach, expending their energy on mundane tasks like rearranging sand, polishing stones and erasing footprints. But when the highest tides lift the waves to the base of the bluff, a set of events begin that result in a slowly changing coastline.

When tides reach the base of the bluff, the breaking waves wash out a notch and carry the sediments out to sea. Gravity likes her angles, and this disruption of the bluff’s angle of repose is not to her liking. In time, sand and gravel from above the notch fall down and fill it in. Eventually, the former angle is re-established, gravity is once again content, and the coastline has moved inland a little bit.

The usual process is for individual particles to fall in a slow trickle of downslope movement. However, if the area is saturated with water, a large part of the bluff may surge down in an earth flow and, like the Dow on a bad day, the property owner finds himself a few thousand dollars poorer. Unlike the stock market, however, there will be no recovery.

Usually only a few inches of bluff are removed at a time, but a big tide accompanied by strong onshore winds can take out as much as 5 feet. Over the years, landowners have tried everything imaginable to shore up their investment. Breakwaters have been constructed of pilings sunk into the beach fortified with everything from cement-filled barrels, to old car bodies, to the kitchen sink. Sometimes the erosion has been retarded for a few years, but in the end, the inlet always wins.

Nothing will stop the erosion of the bluff, with the possible exception of encasing the Cook Inlet basin in fiberglass.

Contrary to what one might expect, erosion of the west coast of the peninsula from Point Possession to Kachemak Bay is not due to a rise in sea level. It is due to the exact opposite — the land is rising, like Neptune coming out of the sea, causing a relative lowering of sea level.

Why should the western half of the Kenai Peninsula be rising? According to geologist Richard Reger, the reason is crustal rebound. During the Pleistocene, millions of tons of glacial ice covered the peninsula, depressing the thin crust into the less viscous mantle below. As the ice receded, the weight has been removed and the crust is slowly rising to its former state. The process has almost run its course, but over the past 10,000 years, waves have constantly cut into this rising coastline, making a new bluff.

Today the bluff has stabilized in several places but, in the long run, this, too, is only momentary. The next big earthquake or global climate change will revise the land-sea boundary and again our coastline will be changed.

When the tide lowered, I moved from my perch down to the now-exposed beach. As I picked my way down, a bit of siltstone broke away from the cliff high above me and the particles rained down around me, destined for the notch below recently washed out by the high tide. The siltstone had been layered there for 5 million years, and now, thanks to rebound, tides, waves and the pull of gravity, those particles were starting another trip on their journey through the geologic cycle.

Nothing, it seems, is forever.

Alan Boraas is a professor of anthropology at Kenai Peninsula College’s Kenai River Campus.

Fishing for an alternative — Salmon task force ponders commercial permit buyout

By Jenny Neyman
Redoubt Reporter

Discussion of a Cook Inlet commercial fishing permit buyback program at a meeting of the Joint Cook Inlet Salmon Task Force last week ranged from the caveat that any such program would have to include voluntary participation from fishermen to speculation on ways to extinguish the fishery — whether fishermen wanted to be bought out or not.

The bipartisan legislative task force met Thursday in Anchorage with Bruce Twomley, commissioner with the Commercial Fishing Entry Commission.

The task force was formed by the Legislature last spring in response to dwindling salmon returns to rivers in the Susitna River drainage. A Cook Inlet commercial fishing permit buyback program was one of the options the task force was charged with considering, under the idea that reducing the number of commercial fishermen in the inlet would allow more salmon to return to rivers in the northern district.

“There are some very frustrated people from some of their experiences,” said Sen. Charlie Huggins, R-Wasilla. “I’m speaking of, in this case, sportfishermen. They’re some of my neighbors and friends.”

That result of a buyback on Northern District salmon runs is not a foregone conclusion, however. Sen. Bill Wielechowski, D-Anchorage, posed the question to Twomley: Would a Cook Inlet permit buyback program increase salmon returns to the Susitna drainage?

“I don’t see how. There isn’t a direct correlation there,” Twomley said. “I mean, the notion of limited entry is it gives managers one variable that they know is under control — they know there’s going to be a certain number of units of gear fishing, and that can help them plan for the fishery.”

It’s the decisions made by in-season fisheries managers that have an impact on salmon returns, not the limited entry commission determining how many permits are in operation, Twomley said.

“We’ve got only limited tools, and our tools give us some limited control over the number of units of gear that can be out there, but all in-season regulations of what those fishermen can do is left to the Board of Fish, and I’m pretty far removed from that,” he said. “So I would not see something we did about the numbers having an immediate effect, because it’s up to people on the other side of that equation.”

Sen. Tom Wagoner, R-Kenai, added that the decisions of in-season fisheries managers are based on meeting in-river escapement goals. Limiting the number of commercial fishermen in the inlet through a buyback program wouldn’t mean more fish get past commercial nets, he said.

“It doesn’t matter if there’s 450 drift permits out there and boats fishing or 300, their overall goal is to harvest enough fish where they meet those escapement goals,” Wagoner said. “And so what you would do with a reduction of the number of permits fishing Cook Inlet, you would increase the production per boat that’s fishing Cook Inlet, even after the reduction of permits.”

The issue of whether a buyback program would be an effective means of increasing salmon runs in the northern district got little more discussion. The task force turned its attention to talk of ways a buyback could be accomplished.

Twomley gave an overview of the drift net and set net commercial salmon fisheries in Cook Inlet. He noted the fisheries have one of the highest levels of participation he’s seen, compared to other fisheries the commission has looked at, with 80 percent or more of the permits being fished. The drift net fishery has 571 permit holders, and grossed an estimated $13 million in the 2007 season. The set net fishery had 738 permit holders and grossed about $10.5 million in 2007. Many of those fishing are Alaskans — 70 percent in the drift net fishery and 82 percent in the set net fishery.

“I found that to be substantial and a respectable figure,” he said.

Attaching a price to those permits for the purpose of a buyback program is difficult to do. Twomley explained that the commission estimates the value of a permit by tracking all permits sold among fishermen and averaging those prices. Currently that figure is $33,300 for a drift net permit at $13,300 for a set net permit. But that doesn’t include all the other investments involved in fishing, including gear, boats and fuel.

“The cost of getting somebody to retire from the fishery could be greater, will likely be greater, than the costs of the figures that I’ve given you,” Twomley said.
The task force chairman, Rep. Craig Johnson, R-Anchorage, noted that the only commercial fisherman who’s testified to the task force on the matter of buybacks estimated he has $1 million wrapped up in the fishery.

“I think it would be somewhat naive of us to think that someone would be rushing in to sell their permit for $33,000,” he said. “I want to caution, if I could, the committee on the value of it. It’s almost a fair market, it’s what you could get for it.”

Twomley said a buyback program runs the risk of going afoul of the state constitution, which, on one hand, stipulates open access to resources, but on another allows a limited-entry fishery with certain provisions. The Limited Entry Act would allow a buyback if its purpose is to create a well-conserved, economically healthy fishery that allows enough participation to protect those who depend on it, he said.

“To be constitutional, a limited-entry system has to impinge on the open-to-entry principle of the constitution as little as possible. If a limited-entry system goes too far and goes over this constitutional line to become too exclusive, unconstitutional … at that point the state has a duty, and under the statute it’s our responsibility, to put more permits back into the water,” Twomley said.

In answering a question from Rep. Bill Stoltze, R-Chugiak/Mat-Su, Twomley said that limited-entry permits are a privilege granted by the state, rather than a guaranteed right. At the same time, he said a buyback program under the Limited Entry Act would have to be voluntary, even if it were a private effort created and financed by fishermen.

Rep. Mike Doogan, D-Anchorage, floated some suggestions he termed as hypothetical that would get around the statutory provision requiring enough permits be available to protect those in the fishery. What if a buyback program was offered and everyone wanted to sell — would that extinguish the fishery, or would the state be obligated to offer more permits?

“If all the fishermen in a fishery elected to sell their permits, that could end the matter. And if the fishery were gone, that doesn’t create a constitutional issue, I don’t think. …,” Twomley said. “If all of the participants did not so elect, it would pretty quickly run into the problem of a fishery that might look too exclusive.”
Twomley said he didn’t think it likely all fishermen would want to sell.

“I have known some of those people, and the last thing they want to do is get out of the business. Their families have been in it for years and years,” he said.
Doogan also wanted to know what leeway the Legislature had in revoking the permits of those who didn’t want to sell.

“I’m not proposing this, I simply want to know whether that is an option by itself or an option in conjunction with buying some of the permits and simply removing the privilege of those who choose not to sell,” Doogan said.

Twomley answered that the Legislature has reserved the power to eliminate or modify permits without compensation.

“We’d have to decide whether we wanted to,” Doogan said. “Apparently we have the authority, and the question would become whether or not the Legislature has the desire to extinguish a fishery all or in part by revoking permits.”

Stoltze hypothesized that banning gillnets in the inlet, either through the Legislature or the public by way of the initiative process, might get around the constitutional challenges of a buyback program.

“By initiative, under a conservation measure, could there be a banning of gillnets? That wouldn’t be restricting the permits, just the means and methods (of fishing),” Stoltze said.

It’s theoretically possible, Twomley said, but the findings showing such a move was in the interest of conservation would have to be sound. He suggested consulting the attorney general for a final determination of the issue.

Stoltze speculated that an initiative seeking to ban gillnets might affect the value of commercial permits to the point where fishermen would want to sell.

“That’s not far-fetched. I’ve had people talk about that and I’ve done my best to ramp down that type of sentiment — for now,” Stoltze said.

He said there’s a lot of pent-up frustration over the situation in the northern district and the lack of resolution to it through the legislative process.

At the conclusion of the discussion, Johnson said he understands the topic is contentious, and left the door open for further exploration of the issue.

“We don’t know how many people would step forward if we were to offer a program in Cook Inlet,” he said. “I certainly don’t think we know the effect of it if we moved down that road.”

Complex halibut allocation plan OK’d

By Naomi Klouda
Homer Tribune

The North Pacific Fisheries Management Council on Oct. 4 approved a plan to divvy up available halibut in two Alaska regions among commercial and charter fleets.

The council voted 10-1 for the plan in Southeast’s 2C and Southcentral Alaska’s 3A, hoping to set to rest halibut tussles between commercial fishermen and guided recreational anglers. The vote followed three days of often impassioned testimony from both sides, with Kachemak Bay charter boat operators asking the council to not limit their clients to one halibut.

The sole council member voting no, Ed Dersham, said he could not support the plan because it “does not meet the test of fair and equitable.” He is the operator of Dersham’s Fishing Charters in Anchor Point.

The ruling would impact the allocation of halibut caught on charter boats, which in turn causes loss for the thousands of guided recreational anglers who don’t own boats or know dangerous bay waters, a local group says. It would not impact private skiffs and fishermen.

Rex Murphy, of Winter King Charters and a member of the Charter Halibut Task Force, said the multitiered motion with its many amendments was confusing and disappointing. In the end, it was the opposite of a “simple” ruling the task force had requested.

“The bottom line is at certain levels of abundance, the motion proposes different charter-angler limits,” Murphy said Monday. “In Area 3-A, we would be looking at either a two-fish limit or a two-fish with one under the 32-pound limit, what we call the minnow rule. In times of medium abundance, it would either be the minnow rule or a one-fish bag limit. In times of low abundance we would have a one-fish bag limit. In times of super low abundance we would have a one-fish bag limit with modifications by the council.”

The minnow rule is one fish any size and one fish under 32 inches. A 32-inch fish is 11 pounds, head off and gutted, Murphy said.

The council wanted to reach a decision that wouldn’t involve revisiting the halibut allocation issue each year, Murphy said. The Charter Halibut Task Force had recommended that when abundance is low, that all sectors take reductions, Murphy said.

Commercial catch numbers for the 3A area in 2007, including Cook Inlet and Kodiak waters, was 25.9 million pounds of halibut.

Guided recreational anglers brought in 79,560 fish in waters from Anchor Point to Homer in 2006, according to information supplied by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game in Homer, for 2006.

The task force is still studying the council’s ruling for ramifications, Murphy said. It will not go into effect for at least two years, having now to go to the National Marine Fisheries Service for approval, then to the Secretary of Commerce.
Ocean Hunter Charters Capt. Keith Kalke feels the council leans toward commercial fishing interests.
“That’s the fox guarding the hen house,” he said.

Only one member of the 11 voters on the council is a charter boat operator while six are commercial fishermen.

In reality, charter boat operators are something of a glorified taxi driver, Kalke said, for the many who can’t afford to buy their own fishing vessels. Cutting to one halibut for charter boats – not private boats – would create some hazardous situations, he said. Inexperienced people would be heading out on rough waters to get their catch. It’s also discriminatory against individual anglers when everyone should have access to federal waters and halibut jointly owned by all, he said.

“The waters throughout the Gulf and Cook Inlet are dangerous waters. A lot of people don’t feel safe trying it. We’re the safest outlet for fishing. A lot of people can’t afford to buy their own boats,” Kalke said.

There’s also concern that charter boat operators from 2A, in times of lower halibut allocation numbers, would move over to 3C. That would stress harvests in Kachemak waters, Murphy said, and trigger allocation reductions.

Fishing buyout talk on tap — Salmon task force to hear permit buyback info

By Jenny Neyman
Redoubt Reporter

When the Joint Cook Inlet Salmon Task Force meets in Anchorage on Thursday, it’s slated to consider an idea that, according to a Kenai senator, won’t get much support from commercial fishermen — permit buybacks.

Sen. Tom Wagoner, R-Kenai, who’s on the task force, said the bipartisan group of lawmakers is scheduled to hear a presentation by the Alaska Commercial Fisheries Entry Commission on permit buybacks for Cook Inlet.

The task force was formed last spring by the Legislature to address dwindling salmon returns to rivers in the Matanuska and Susitna valleys. One theory for why those runs are faltering is because fish bound for northern district rivers are caught in commercial nets in Cook Inlet. To that way of thinking, limiting commercial fishing in the inlet would increase salmon runs farther north.

“Some members on the task force, I think some of them have this — and several of us warned them — they think there is this silver bullet they can go and find and fix the problem, and one of the silver bullets they can play with is a buyout,” said Roland Maw, executive director of the United Cook Inlet Drift Association. “We have a big concerns. Is it going to be voluntary or forced?”

Debra Higgins, a staffer in Rep. Craig Johnson’s office, R-Anchorage, the task force chairman, said it is part of the task force’s mandate to at least hear information about buybacks. Wagoner said he didn’t think a permit buyback program would go anywhere.
“We’ll have to wait and see. There aren’t any provisions made for how that would work in Cook Inlet,” he said

“There’s going to be a resistance, for the most part, by commercial fishermen. They aren’t going to want to sell back their permits. That’s how they make their living.”
Maw said UCIDA hasn’t formed an official position on buybacks.

“At no time during the public hearing process did any commercial fisherman give testimony about a buyout, nor will we ever act about a buyout,” he said. “So if something comes out of this task force, they cooked that one up on their own without involvement of the industry, and we have grave concerns about what they may or may not be doing.”

Typically, permit buyback programs entail just that — buying a permit, and nothing more. Not the boat, nets, gear or investments in fuel and other costs commercial fishing entails.

“Some people seem to think if you buy a permit back you’re out of business. For the most part they’re people making their living off fishing, or a portion of their living, I should say,” Wagoner said. “They aren’t going to sell that for the value of the permit because they see more value in it than that.”

Steve Tvenstrup, with UCIDA, said he hoped the buyback idea had fizzled out.
“I’ve never been an advocate of buybacks, every time they talk about it,” he said. “To me, it’s a livelihood, and at age 51 right now I just can’t see it to be feasible to sell my permit and go find another job. They just want to buy the permit, and not the whole operation.”

Wagoner said it’s premature to consider limiting commercial fishing because science hasn’t settled whether commercial nets are to blame for what’s going on in the Mat-Su region.

“In a few years we’ll be able to see what, if anything, we can do about fish returning to the northern district. Nobody knows what the problem is, but we don’t catch all the fish that they’re complaining we catch in the northern district down here in Cook Inlet,” Wagoner said.

Until more answers are available, Wagoner cautions against making policy changes.
“As a matter of fact, nobody’s even sure there needs to be a buyback right now. It’s a lot of smoke and mirrors still,” he said.

Maw said considering a buyback proposal would be “way premature.”

“They haven’t asked us and we haven’t offered. I think there’s lots of available harvest surplus on the salmon stocks, if they would manage the habitat, especially those pike,” he said.

Northern pike, a voracious invasive species that eats young salmon, have been found in northern district watersheds.

Maw said commercial fishermen play a vital role in preventing overescapament of salmon runs, which can cause future runs to diminish. The state mandates managing fisheries for maximum or sustainable yield. To Maw, that means managing to escapement goals.

“You still have to take those fish down to that escapement value. If there are 500 boats, that dictates one fishing pattern, if there’s 250, that would dictate a much higher level of fishing in order to meet escapement goals,” he said. “It’s going to be interesting what this group comes up with. If they’re taking about throwing escapement goals out, that’s a very fundamental shift away from what we’ve been doing for 50 years and why the state was created. And it’s irresponsible, by the way, too. We’ll just have to wait and see what these folks do.”

Wagoner, a former Cook Inlet commercial fishermen, wanted to be on the task force because he was concerned about legislators stepping into a role that’s already filled by the Board of Fish, he said.

“The best place for that to be fought out is not at a Cook Inlet Salmon Task Force, it’s at the Board of Fish. The task force is trying to interject itself into the management of a fishery. It’s a very dangerous thing to do, have a lot of elected officials inject themselves into a scientific process. Because, number one, they’re not scientists, and number two, they’re not always honest because they’re out to please their constituents,” Wagoner said.
The task force is supposed to bring recommendations to the Legislature at its next session. So far, none have been formed.

“There’s been absolutely nothing come out of that task force,” Wagoner said.

Editor’s note: Rep. Craig Johnson, R-Anchorage, chair of the task force, was not available to comment on this story, and task force members Rep. Bill Stoltze, R-Chugiak/Mat-Su, and Sen. Charlie Huggins, R-Wasilla, did not return calls seeking comment.

Know the drill — Tesoro stages practice for possible disaster

By Jenny Neyman
Redoubt Reporter

Had it been real, it would have been a frightening situation.

It’s 6 a.m. The Seabulk Arctic, an oil tanker carrying 13,381,872 gallons of North Slope crude oil for Tesoro from the Alyeska Terminal in Valdez to the Kenai Pipeline Company dock in Nikiski, is struck by a high-speed vessel coming out of Port Dick in the Gulf of Alaska about nine miles south of Gore Point.

The vessel didn’t respond to hails when it appeared on the tanker’s radar. The tanker attempted evasive maneuvers, but the smaller, more agile craft changed course and slammed into the tanker’s starboard side, breeching two cargo holds with 1,517,628 gallons of crude.

The smaller vessel is destroyed in the collision, and the Air Force finds no other threats to the tanker in a flyover of the area. The tanker is stable, but listing 5 degrees starboard, and wind and sea currents are pushing a three-mile-long oil slick toward the southern tip of the Kenai Peninsula.

What happens now?

That’s what Tesoro, the Coast Guard and the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation met Sept. 24 and 25 to find out.

The collision and resultant spill scenario served as the premise for a massive drill to test oil spill response capabilities in Southcentral Alaska.

It was practice, but the response was conducted as though it were real.

“This really is training and practice in the event they did have an actual oil spill, to work closely with the government agencies that would be involved,” said Alan Poynor, who served as Tesoro’s public information officer for the drill. “It’s all practice but it takes on a flavor of reality because many of the people here worked for real events.”

In the drill, the tanker collision happened at 6 a.m. Wednesday morning. By 8 a.m., the Cook Inlet Spill Prevention Response Inc. facility in Nikiski was humming with activity as more than 100 people attended to their specific responsibilities, which, combined, would help mitigate the theoretic disaster unfolding in the Gulf.

The response utilized an incident command structure. Incident command, also called Unified Command, evolved from devastating wildfires in the 1970s in the Lower 48 that were made worse by miscommunication and turf wars between agencies that should have worked together to respond, Poynor said.

In an oil spill, the Unified Command system brings together representatives from all the agencies and entities involved to one place to formulate and carry out a response. In this case, that meant representatives from the Coast Guard, Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation and Tesoro descended upon CISPRI for the day.

Downstairs, the environmental department was a sea of blue vests huddled around computer screens, hunched over printouts and discussing spill mitigation options and their possible ramifications.

“Everything has to be approved by ADEC,” Poynor said. “We can sit down and say, ‘This is what we want to do.’ DEC may say, ‘No, you can’t do that because of these environmental concerns,’ so that’s why it’s so important that the three groups work together.”

The glow of computer screens lit up an adjacent room that had become home to the Joint Information Center, made up of representatives from Tesoro, ADEC and the Coast Guard. Their task was to manage information by creating press releases, dealing with the media and updating a Web site. Around the corner was a communications station, where operators could contact personnel in the field.

Upstairs, the scenario continued to unfold as realistically as an actual spill, down to the small mountains of empty caffeinated beverage containers collecting on tabletops, the scheduled, then rescheduled, then come-on-we’re-meeting-now briefings and the “miserably hot,” as Poynor put it, conditions that inevitably exist when 100-plus people are stuffed into a room where a fan in a propped-open door is the closest thing to air conditioning.

More blue vests represented the planning section, which is responsible for researching and tracking all the factors that could affect the spill, like weather conditions and tides. An image projected on the wall showed the three-day trajectory of the oil spill as it bloomed then receded in a continuous loop of images. By the end of day one an ominous red blob representing the oil slick had reached Perl Island at the southern tip of the Kenai Peninsula. By day three it was rounding the peninsula and heading into Cook Inlet.

At a side station was the documentation department, which does just that for absolutely every piece of paper, order and action in the response, so it can be evaluated later.

Across an aisle was the resources unit, seated at computers with databases of every available piece of equipment and personnel, and their current whereabouts. Visual index cards corresponding to all the equipment, from a C-130 plane down to a portable pump, were arranged on the wall, so the inventory could be seen at a glance.

Behind resources was operations, which takes all the information from planning, resources and the environmental unit and decides what to do with all of it.

“That’s our goal, to have a good game plan, to have as effective a response as possible,” Poynor said.

Once that’s decided, the logistics section puts the plan in motion. On Wednesday a bank of phones was in use as workers made actual phone calls to real suppliers, asking if they had certain equipment or supplies available and how long it would take to get them where they needed to go. Every call began and ended with “This is a drill.”

“So we don’t panic everybody,” Poynor said.

Next to logistics was finance, in charge of tracking and paying for all the costs associated with the response. Tesoro footed the bill for the entire drill, just as it would for an oil spill cleanup involving one of their tankers.

In a back corner, overseeing it all, was the Unified Command.

“Nothing is done in this response without all the members of the Unified Command agreeing about it,” Poynor said.

Drill controllers and evaluators, including representatives from the Prince William Sound Regional Citizens’ Advisory Council, circulated through the building, keeping an eye on the team as it developed its response.

“The controllers, they know what’s going to happen, we don’t,” Poynor said. “They throw curveballs at us all day long to see how we respond.”

By 3 p.m., the Unified Command was ready to unveil its spill response plan at a mock press conference in the Nikiski Middle-High School auditorium. In the audience were members of local media and drill evaluators posing as media. Coast Guard Petty Officer Sara Francis served as moderator, giving a recap of the situation, followed by statements by members of the Unified Command, Capt. Mark Hamilton of the U.S. Coast Guard, Shawn Brown with Tesoro Alaska Corp., and Gary Folley, ADEC

The Unified Command fielded questions from the media, and “media,” including a grilling from the New York Times about how long it took to notify nearby villagers of the spill, and pointed questions from the National Enquirer about equipment response times.
After about 30 minutes the press conference ended and the Unified Command headed back to CISPRI to wrap up the “tabletop” planning portion of the drill. On Thursday, the group was in Homer to practice the deployment of oil spill response equipment.

Following the drill, John Kwietniak, manager of contingency planning and response, and Steve Hansen, Nikiski refinery manager for Tesoro, said they were happy with how it went.
“I think it went awesome. It just reminds me how privileged I am to work with this team. I am kind of humbled by the performance from the tabletop to equipment deployment. I thought it went extremely well,” Kwietniak said.

“It was a serious exercise, I think our folks responded in that fashion,” Hansen said. “… This group once again joined together without missing a beat with focus, and at the same time a thirst for learning. They not only displayed an excellent outcome in this drill, but they are better prepared for the next drill, whether it’s a tabletop or another exercise or the real thing.”

Stan Jones, a drill observer and director of external affairs for the PWSRCAC, praised Tesoro for the extensive scope of the drill, its location outside the usual areas of Prince William Sound or Nikiski, and the level of commitment Tesoro showed to training with the amount of equipment it deployed in Thursday’s exercises.

On the negative side, he challenged the decision to use chemical dispersants as a first response to the spill until mechanical equipment could get to the scene, and took issue with the spot chosen as a port of refuge for the leaking tanker, since the spot was actually environmentally sensitive, Jones said.

The RCAC will compile a report on the drill and submit recommendations to the agencies involved.

“Our recommendations always get a serious hearing, and sometimes they’re adopted and sometimes they’re not, and sometimes we have to make them repeatedly before we prevail. But in the long run, we prevail quite often, sometimes to an extent that surprises me,” he said.

Overall, Jones gave the drill mediocre rating.

“It was not a particularly challenging drill, but they mobilized a lot of people and spent a lot of money and did OK as far as people sitting down and doing what they needed to do,” Jones said.

Cook Inlet beluga numbers flatline — Decision on endangered listing due this month

By Naomi Klouda
Homer Tribune

The beluga whale population in Cook Inlet remains troubled, with numbers hovering at about 375 members of a genetically distinct group that formerly numbered at about 1,300.

In response, marine mammal experts and conservation groups have renewed their calls for the Bush administration to immediately list the Cook Inlet beluga whale as endangered under the Endangered Species Act.

John Schoen, senior scientist at Audubon-Alaska, said he’s expecting a decision after Oct. 20.

“At that point, the National Marine Fisheries Service could rule whether the beluga in Cook Inlet should be listed as threatened or endangered.”

An endangered or threatened status would put three advantageous factors to work for the beluga, Schoen said.

NMFS would be required to do a recovery plan and spell out exactly what research and monitoring would be involved. The agency would be required to develop a recovery plan.

“The second factor is that if critical habitat is defined, then any activity will require consultation with NMFS, and the third issue is that being listed will bring more money for research and monitoring,” Schoen said.

Only the science and protections offered by the endangered status would provide a safety net to help this group of beluga escape extinction, stated marine mammal scientist Craig Matkin of the North Gulf Oceanic Society, in a press release.

Cook Inlet is the most heavily used waterway in Alaska. It is the route for major shipping freight coming into Anchorage and communities beyond. Oil rigs and spills have stressed the waterway, Schoen said.

“It’s no one cause, but an accumulation of activities with all the things going on in Cook Inlet,” he said.

Other factors threatening beluga whales are not manmade problems, but stress that can put the population in danger, such as strandings in Turnagain Arm.

“Any kind of a natural catastrophe, like a killer whale predation or a stranding, plus all the human-caused issues, can push the beluga population to the brink,” he said.

After conservation groups petitioned to list the population as endangered, NMFS had one year to determine whether to do so. NMFS extended that deadline six months (until Oct. 20) at the request of Gov. Sarah Palin’s administration, which claimed the 2007 survey data showed an upward increase in the population. That, therefore, made the listing unwarranted. NMFS’s recent survey results demonstrate there is no upward population trend.

Beluga concentrate in the Susitna and Chickaloon Flats during the summer. Up to 90 percent of them can be in those places, making it “habitat we would want to be very cautious of,” Schoen said.

Beluga populations in the Bristol Bay and the Beauford Sea are healthy, but the Cook Inlet mammals remain distinct from them and geographically isolated. If more protections aren’t put in place, scientists are concerned it won’t take long for the beluga to become extinct in Cook Inlet.

The aerial surveys were taken June 3-12 by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration fisheries service scientists, where the belugas had congregated by the Susitna and Little Susitna Rivers, Knik Arm and Chickaloon Bay. They also took photographs and video. After examining the images, and from the manual count, observers said the population estimate remained the same as last year — about 375.

Alaska Native groups have been allowed to hunt the whales under co-management agreements with NOAA’s Fisheries Service, with restrictions on how many can be taken. Between 1999 and 2007, hunters took five beluga whales for subsistence, down from 308 in 1995 and 1998. There was no subsistence hunt for belugas in 2008.

Schoen said he expects there will be opposition to listing Cook Inlet beluga whales as endangered by Gov. Palin, similar to her administration’s actions against the polar bear listing. The effort to deny the need for an ESA listing, “is part of a larger trend in Alaska government to overrule science that contradicts political ideology,” Schoen said.

Schoen said that listing belugas as endangered won’t stop industry along Cook Inlet.

“But it takes a good look at that activity and tries to mitigate harm. It most certainly won’t stop all economic development in Cook Inlet,” Schoen said.

The organizations listed as petitioning to place the beluga as endangered are: Cook Inletkeeper, Alaska Center for the Environment, the National Audubon Society, the Kachemak Bay Conservation Society and the Natural Resource Defense Council, among others.