RIVERS WITHOUT BORDERS

Taku Land Use and Wildlife Management

Congratulations to the Taku River Tlingit First Nation (TRTFN) for their recent Framework Agreement signing with BC for shared decision making respecting land use and wildlife management. 

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The Taku’s Wild Heart Remains Unbroken! Thanks Nola!

On this Valentine’s Day, I am thinking back to February 2005 when Rivers Without Borders (then the Transboundary Watershed Alliance) sent Cupid off to Ottawa to deliver over 1000 Valentine’s cards to the Prime Minister. Then Prime Minister Paul Martin was otherwise engaged, so Cupid delivered the Valentines to MP Peter Stoffer, a long time friend of the Taku and outspoken defender of wild salmon. Cupid was our own Nola Poirier and the Valentine’s cards implored the Canadian government to leave the wild heart of the Taku unbroken. Three years later, the Taku remains the biggest intact watershed left on the west coast of North America, and is perhaps the largest intact, fully functioning wild salmon watershed in the world.

Sadly, Rivers Without Borders can no longer claim to have Cupid on its staff roster. Nola Poirier moved on to other good work this January, and we miss her and the creativity and compassion she infected us all with. This Valentine’s Day the Canadian government is again poised to make a decision regarding the wild heart of the Taku. While Nola and her alter-ego Cupid won’t be sending poetic epistles off to the Canadian Prime Minister today, we know that she still holds the Taku and the other transboundary rivers in her heart.

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Galore Creek Collapse Provides Lessons for Alaska

With the Galore Creek mine dead in the water, British Columbia’s plans for an electrical line into the Stikine region are also now in question. Investor confidence in the BC mining industry has been shaken, while the problems of mining companies underestimating costs and relying on faulty feasibility studies are in the spotlight. People and communities that bet on the promises of Galore Creek will take a hit. Alaska should heed several key lessons from this situation.

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Thankful for the Taku

 As we head into the annual turkey day celebrations in the US my friends and neighbors and I are thinking more of fins than feathers.  We have a large Taku king salmon from this past season marinating and almost ready for the grill, along with crabs, shrimp and halibut from the Taku area.  This wilderness watershed provides much in the way of jobs, food, recreation and culture to Juneau and we are very thankful for this bounty.  

Rivers Without Borders is also thankful that we have been able to work closely with our allies on both sides of the border to protect the Taku and its contribution to the regional economy and the thousands of families dependent on its resources.  But we recognize that maintaining this resource takes vigilance.  The next year will be critical to the future of the Taku as Redcorp attempts to develop its unproven hoverbarge plan and the Taku River Tlingit First Nation moves into detailed land planning for the Taku watershed.  If all goes well for us and our allies we can look forward to the Taku providing the Thanksgiving feast for many years to come. 

Redcorp’s Tulsequah Chief Mine Continues to Pollute the Taku

 Fourteen years and counting. That’s how long it’s been since the BC provincial government issued a pollution abatement order for the Tulsequah Chief mine. It’s also been over five years since Environment Canada issued its own cleanup orders for both the Tulsequah Chief and Big Bull mine sites. Yet, the acid mine drainage pollution (AMD) continues.

During a helicopter trip over the mines last week as part of our study of Redcorp’s controversial proposal to access the Tulsequah Chief site with a "hoverbarge," I noticed obvious signs of ongoing AMD pollution running off the Tulsequah Chief site and into the Tulsequah River flood plain. The river was quite low, and at higher levels the pollution would be running directly into the water.

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Giving thanks to the Taku and its defenders

It was Thanksgiving Day in Canada yesterday and my family and I were very thankful for the King salmon dinner we sat down to. The giant King was caught in late July by a Taku River Tlingit friend who commercially fishes the river. At the end of a spectacular raft trip on the Nakina and Taku rivers, she and her Dad shuttled me off river across Taku Inlet and up to Juneau. How could I resist taking this amazing fish off of her hands? True to the One Hundred Mile Diet that my brother and Alisa Smith have popularized, the salmon fillets were accompanied by sauce made from loganberries that my family and I picked a few miles from our house. The potatoes were from an unused plot across the street that our good neighbour allowed us to make use of. The steamed kale came from the flower garden in our front yard. The wine … well, we’re working on local Yukon wine, and in any case I digress.

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Hoverbarge Plan Runs Into Delays and Solid Objects

Redcorp’s hoverbarge proposal has run into, literally, some serious problems.  At a meeting in May with Alaska and US agencies the company faced a wall of questions and skepticism about the hoverbarge concept.  Later in May Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADFG) wrote scathing memos about the hoverbarges potential to harm salmon, salmon habitat and salmon research projects in the Taku and recommended against Alaska issuing permits for the hoverbarge.  Finally, Alaska has some leverage to use in defending its fisheries and fishing families. 

Most recently Redcorp sent some conventional barges up the Taku to ship supplies to the mine site.  The barge ran into the canyon wall in the narrow section of river near Canyon Island. 

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Taku River Rafting Reflections

Back in July, I rafted the Nakina and then the mainstem Taku, but I haven’t had time to post a blog since then. My time on the river was a powerful reminder of what motivates me to work to keep the Taku River watershed from becoming just another fragmented, diminished industrial landscape. There are so few places where you can take to the air in a helicopter or float plane and fly for half an hour or more without ever seeing a road or a clearcut in any direction. Closer in at river level, you actually see many signs of human presence in the watershed, but they tend to be subtle and not in conflict with the essence of the place. There are grave houses, fishing camps and trappers cabins. They suggest that people and the land can and have co-existed without either being diminished.

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e-PIC Problems

The on-line database for British Columbia’s Environmental Assessment Office (BC EAO) is called e-PIC, or environmental Project Information Centre. It is where you are supposed to be able to access information about projects currently being considered by the BC EAO. But the BC EAO seems to be playing fast and loose with when it chooses to make information public and when it doesn’t.

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Mom Says Clean Up Your Mess!

Most people learn the lesson of having to clean up one mess before making another from their mothers at a young age.  Redcorp apparently still hasn’t taken this one to heart. 

They say that they can’t (or won’t) clean up the ongoing acid mine drainage pollution from the Tulsequah Chief and Big Bull mines until they re-open the Tulsequah Chief.  Given their lack of financing, continued delays and the skeptical reception their barging plan is getting from the people of Juneau and US and Alaska agencies, mine development is certainly in doubt. 

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