The Chugach Regional Resource Commission (CRRC) serves the greater Chugach region of Southcentral Alaska including Lower Cook Inlet, Resurrection Bay and Prince William Sound. Within Lower Cook Inlet are several member Tribes of CRRC and therefore, CRRC will establish the Kachemak Bay Watershed Collaborative (Collaborative or KBWC) to protect salmon streams located within the Kachemak Bay Watershed (Watershed). CRRC will engage a diverse group of stakeholders located within or having land ownership within the Watershed including Federally recognized Tribal entities, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Alaska Departments of Natural Resources and Fish and Game, the municipalities of Homer, Kachemak Selo, Voznesenka and Razdolna Seldovia and the unincorporated native village communities of Nanwalek and Port Graham, and conservation organizations. The Athabascan and Sugpiaq communities located within the Watershed rely on a subsistence economy, as they have since time immemorial.
Many changes are impacting the subsistence resources that the above communities rely upon related to warming fresh and marine water temperatures, and these changes are happening at a rate no one thought possible a decade ago. Land management activity within the watershed can exacerbate such impacts. Increasingly common drought conditions and spruce beetle outbreaks in the region threaten the health of the watershed and the plants and animals upon which rural communities rely on for subsistence. The Collaborative will work with federal, state, tribal, local, research, conservation and other stake holders to be more inclusive of tribal and other local communities and other stakeholder in monitoring, planning and decision making that affects the Watershed. Along with implementation of existing risk assessments and planning documents, preserving connectivity and non-climate stressor mitigation actions, this will ensure better protection and management of salmon habitat in the Watershed.
The Watershed is made up of five small watersheds located in the Kenai Peninsula Borough of the state of Alaska, and encompasses the municipalities of Homer, Kachemak Selo, Voznesenka, Razdolna, Seldovia, and the unincorporated Alaska Native village communities of Nanwalek and Port Graham. The United States Geological Survey (USGS) Hydrologic Unit Codes (HUC) in which the group will work are: Cook Inlet, Stariski Creek-Frontal Cook Inlet, Fox River, Sheep Creek and Quiet Creek-Frontal Kachemak Bay Watershed HUC ID #s: 1902080000, 1902030108, 1902030110, 1902030109 and 1902030111 respectively.
CRRC is an Alaska Native Tribal consortium whose Dena’ina, Alutiiq and Sugpiaq villages and association members, located throughout south-central Alaska, have been the stewards of the Watershed for over 10,000 years. CRRC’s mission is to promote Tribal sovereignty and the protection of subsistence lifestyles through the development and implementation of Tribal natural resource management programs to assure the conservation, sustainable economic development, and stewardship of the natural resources in the traditional use area of the Chugach Region.
There currently is no group focused specifically on this Watershed, though a diverse array of stakeholders including livestock grazers, tourist and recreation groups, industry, environmental organizations, recreation advocates, universities, land use, tribal, state and federal entities, municipalities and the general public utilize it. This Watershed group will also help fill a planning gap left by the elimination of Alaska’s Coastal Zone Management program.
Goals
The goals of the Collaborative will be to research and share knowledge about the impacts of climate change and development on local salmon populations prioritize and implement restoration projects and work with stakeholders to build capacity for the protection of salmon streams located within the Watershed and identify water insecurities in Watershed communities and developing plans to secure local water suppliesBy protecting salmon habitat in the Watershed, the Project will assist in increasing resiliency to climate change and subsistence resources throughout the Watershed. In addition, the project will improve the inclusiveness of the management process by including tribes and other from inception, which are often left out of management decisions even though they have substantial traditional and practical knowledge regarding climate related impacts to fish and wildlife resources within the Watershed.
What Engagement Looks Like:
- Conduct outreach activities in order to establish broad-based, diverse Collaborative stakeholder membership, including the creation of an outreach plan and information materials using CRRC’s existing website and social media and networking. We will also conduct meetings to identify priority needs and potential projects with local stakeholders which, depending on the status of the COVID-19 situation, will be conducted virtually during the first year of the project and in person during the second.
- Develop a mission statement, vision statement, and goals for the watershed group.
- Gather information about issues and needs related to water quality and quantity within the watershed (e.g., through research, talking to government agencies and local universities) through research of existing plans and literature and outreach to local stakeholder groups.
- Conduct pre-planning activities, including outlining a watershed restoration plan, researching and building on the existing plans related to the watershed, collecting baseline information, and identifying restoration needs for the watershed. Specifically, these activities will include continuing the process of enabling stakeholders to prioritize, make progress on goals and objectives applied in existing plans, and incorporate resilience and adaptation into a more detailed program level management plan.
The Collaborative’s preliminary planning activities will include identifying strategies for creating contiguous “green” corridors along twenty interjurisdictional anadromous streams, most of which originate on the Kenai Refuge, addressing current threats to salmon habitat, addressing salmon habitat connectivity and climate resiliency, and working with federal and state resources agencies to enter into cooperative agreements for management of salmon habitat on a watershed basis. To this end we will work with stakeholder members to implement existing watershed management plans and programs including: 1) The Kachemak Bay Fox-River Critical Habitat area Climate Risk Assessment; 2) The Kenai Mountains to Sea Land Conservation Strategy to Sustain Our Way of Life on the Kenai Peninsula; 3) The Alaska Department of Fish and Game Fox River Flats Critical Habitat Area management plan; 4) The Kachemak Heritage Land Trusts Krishna Venta Conservation Management Plan; 5) The Department of Natural Resources’ Kachemak Bay State Park and Kachemak Bay State Wilderness Park Management Plan; and 6) The Cook Inlet Keeper Community-based Watershed Tour: Planning for our next 25 years Project
Join the Collaborative:
If you are a federal, state or tribal entity, conservation group or anyone else interested in the welfare and sustainability of Kachemak Bay, please join our Collaborative. Any questions please contact Hal Shepherd (halshepherdwpc@gmail.com; (907)491-1355). For more information see the WPC website at: www.waterpolicyconsulting.com.
Here is one writer’s perspective on the sense of ownership and responsibility many of us have to protect and enjoy the Kachemak Bay Watershed: Michael’s Bench (shepherdalaska.com)
