Georgetown Tribal Council E-Newsletter Plus! News from the kuskokwim: KRWC Summit to be held this September, 2014 Subsistence Survey for Middle & Upper Kuskokwim Fishermen, & The Development of an Environmental Ed Curriculum for the middle Kuskokwim Region! in this issue: Food For Thought: Georgetown Fish Camp Edition! Red Devil Mine: Early Action Cleanup Photos from the BLM Investigating Invasives: Projects around Alaska - Get Involved! The Effect of Beaver Dams on Salmon Spawning Streams, by John A. McDonald Calendar of Events: August -November August 2014; Volume 2, Issue 1
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Georgetown Tribal CouncilE-Newsletter
Plus! News from the kuskokwim: KRWC Summit to be held this September, 2014 Subsistence Survey for Middle & Upper Kuskokwim Fishermen, & The Development of an Environmental Ed Curriculum for the middle Kuskokwim Region!
in this issue:Food For Thought: Georgetown Fish Camp Edition!
Red Devil Mine: Early Action Cleanup Photos from the BLM
Investigating Invasives: Projects around Alaska - Get Involved!
The Effect of Beaver Dams on Salmon Spawning Streams, by John A. McDonald
Calendar of Events: August -November
August 2014; Volume 2, Issue 1
GTC 2014 ANNUAL MEETING RECAP
In case you missed it, the GTC held its annual meeting this year at Tribal Council president, David “Buddy” Kutch’s residence in Chugiak, AK on July 19th. Seats B and C on the tribal council were up for election, and 33 votes representing 39.29% of the eligible voters were counted. The counts were: Seat B Vanessa Evans 18 votes, Kim Notti 14 Votes and Seat C Traci Fredericks 27 votes
Congratulations to Vanessa and Traci!
The Army Corps of Engineers was also present to give a project update on the potential Donlin Gold mine and their involvement in the Envi-ronmental Impact Statement. Tribal administrator, Will Hartman, gave an update on financials and Buddy Kutch gave an update on the land committee and their work. Environ-mental coordinator, Kate Schaberg, gave the environmental report. This will just document some of the high-lights from the year:
Kuskokwim Fisheries Report
In 2014, the Chinook salmon fishery on the Kuskokwim River in refuge waters (below Aniak) was managed by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. Wa-ters above Aniak were managed by the ADF&G. Many found regulations from duel management difficult to
keep straight. Unprecedented restric-tions were in place this year – prior to start of the run, the entire river was closed to all Chinook fishing. The first subsistence opportunity was allowed in the lower river on June 20th. Over-all, escapement numbers appear bet-ter this year, but taking into account heavy restrictions – it doesn’t appear that the total run was much bigger than last year – just more restrictions allowed the fish to make it to spawn-ing grounds
Red Devil Mine Cleanup
The BLM considered 3 different al-ternatives for “Early Action” cleanup, which would prevent tailings migra-tion into Red Devil Creek and the Kuskokwim River (Early action is a short term clean up to address ur-gent concerns). More info can be found on page 3.
Water Quality Report
The GTC currently has data from 2007-2014 for multiple parameters with a database/map that houses data from several tribes, including Kalskag, Napaimute, Georgetown & Sleetmute. KRWC and Telida data will be included soon. In 2013/2014, pre-sentations were given at the Alaska Forum on the Environment, the NW Tribal Water Rights Conference. Re-sults and more information are avail-able on our website.
For those of you who were unable to at-tend the annual meeting, surveys were sent in the mail with a return postage paid envelope and can also be found online by following THIS LINK Please complete the survey and submit or mail back by August 31st for entry into a drawing for a special prize!
Environmental Committee
The GTC Environmental committee currently consists of three members: Buddy Kutch, Renee Fredericks & Deb-by Hartman. We held our first quarterly meeting on May 17th. We put together an environmental assessment which will help get feedback from YOU on what your environmental concerns are for Georgetown. Our next meeting is tentatively scheduled for September 27th, at which time we will continue work on the Tribal Environmental Plan, including compilation of all survey re-sults.
If you have any questions, contact our the office at 907-274-2195 or by email
Food For Thought: Mouthwatering Georgetown FishCamp Edition
Georgetown members spent a few weeks in Georgetown at fish camp this summer, harvesting reds with the fish-wheel. Whether you smoke them, jar them or just eat them as they are...those reds sure are delicious. Just a few pictures to make your mouth water. Photos provided by Debby Hartman and Will Hartman. Contact them for further instruction on preparation :)
Red Devil Mine - Early Action Update
1 - The first part of the chosen alternative was to realign the creek, moving it fur-ther from the tailings piles. Shown here: excavation of stream channel adjacent to the tailings pile.
2 - In addition, tailings piles are being excavated above the creek.
3 - A culvert is installed into the creek-bed, pictured here: Installing 2nd section of diversion culvert, facing NW.
4 - Once the stream is realigned, the streambed has to be stabilized and constructed to an appropriate grade, to prevent further erosion. Pictured here is a contractor constructing the bed to grade, note the gabion for stability, facing west.
5 - Wondering what a gabion is, exactly? Pictured here, workers put together a gabion, a large wire basket, which is then filled with large rocks.
6 - Once the bed is constructed to grade, the gabions installed along the sides, it looks like this. This is a picture of the settling pond downstream of the tailings pile, which also shows gabions along the sides of the stream.
7 -And lastly, a view of the settling pond weir from the downstream side
For more information including project contacts, please visit the BLM website containing informa-tion about the Red Devil Mine site:
The chosen alternative was to: Realign the creek adjacent to the tailings piles, line the sides with gabion (a retaining wall of stones inside heavy wire mesh) to prevent erosion, and construct a sediment trap
downstream as an additional safeguard against tailings migration in the creek.
This past winter, BLM consulted with communities and other agencies about how to prevent tailings from continuing to migrate into Red Devil Creek and the Kuskokwim River at the abandoned Mercury mine site near Red Devil. Based on technical feasibility, input from communities, and the concurrence of other agencies, the BLM selected Alternative 4 for the 2014 action. The BLM contracted with Marsh Creek LLC to construct the project. Construction began in July and will continue through early August. This article is intended to further show what exactly is being done with this project, through the use of photographs provided by the BLM.
USDA Forest Service photo by Michael Photo by Michael Shephard
August Edition of Investigating Invasives: Projects around ALASKA...Get involved!
Project BrownDown Needs Your HelpKatie Villano and her research team, who operate out of Fairbanks, are looking for volunteers to track changes in autumn leaf color of native and invasive plants across Alaska. During their Melibee Project, citizen science volunteers observed that the invasive plants they were moni-
toring were staying green longer than the native plants around them. According to Katie,
Participate in one of the training opportunities below to join the Project BrownDown team. During the training you will learn about the research, how to identify local native and
invasive plants, and how to collect data on their changing fall leaves. All adults and youth are welcome to participate. This is a great fall science project for classrooms, youth groups, or
home school families. Fairbanks in-person training: Saturday, August 9 at 11 AM , UAF Campus Ski Hut
Training webinar: Tuesday, August 12 at 2 PM Register at https://sites.google.com/a/alaska.edu/projectbrowndown/join-the-team.
For more information on the project visit the Project BrownDown website: https://sites.google.com/a/alaska.edu/projectbrowndown/
“We began to wonder if invasive plants could better take advantage of longer growing seasons in Alaska than native plants. We have evolved the Melibee
Project to investigate the new questions and are calling it Project BrownDown. We need your help to answer the new questions!”
European bird cherry (invasive) holds onto green leaves long after the native birch have lots all their leaves along the Creamer’s Field Wildlife Refuge boreal forest trail. Photo by Katie Spellman
The effecT of Beaver Dams on salmon spawning sTreams
pick another route, they are very determined to reach their breed-ing grounds.
The bears, beavers, ospreys and trout have been living with salmon in Alaska for thousands of years and the balance is there, nature has worked it out. People are the only thing that is disrupt-ing this balance. Removing the predators or beavers will only hurt, and no one knows what the tipping point is if you mess with this delicate balance.
This is to response to the constant comments about beaver dams somehow being responsible for the reduction in salmon popu-lations. Studies in both North America and Europe have shown that beaver dams are not only beneficial to salmon and trout, but in areas where beaver dams have been removed by man, Coho and Chinook populations dropped by up to 60%.
In some rivers in Western Wash-ington State, extensive loss of beaver dams resulted in an 89% reduction in Coho salmon.
Everything in nature is linked together. You destroy something that has been there for as long as the salmon have been here, and you disrupt all of the species that are intertwined with it.
A similar ecological disruption would take place if you removed the rainbow trout or Dolly Varden trout from the steams. They may eat the salmon’s eggs and the smolt, but they have been doing it for a tens of thousands years and things were working just fine. Trout eat the eggs that come loose from the gravel, ones that weren’t nested properly and pos-sibly even diseased or unhealthy eggs. The trout clean up the riverbed and make for a healthier environment for the hatching salmon.
Back to the beaver, beavers have been here for thousands of years, actually, early beavers were very large, over 200 lbs., the size of a black bear. We would be hunting them for the winter freezer if they were still that big. Their river work
was also large, their dams were much larger than today’s. Bea-vers were here a long time before man was, and the salmon thrived. The giant beavers died out about 10,000 years ago, probably with the help of man when they ar-rived in North America.
Most beaver dams are located on slow moving side channels and creeks, mostly too slow of water for breeding salmon. Beavers don’t build dams on fast moving water or the main channels. King salmon breed in fairly fast water, so do chum salmon.
Many beavers in our streams don’t even build dams. Many are bank beavers, constructing their dens in the river bank and storing their winter supply of branches outside.
When the small salmon finally come out of the egg and gravel they start down stream, often ending up in side channels where dams do exist. The pools behind the dams provide critical rear-ing grounds and a safe wintering habitat. A Washington State study on beaver dam removal showed that salmon smolt production was 80% higher in beaver ponds than in just wood debris. Beaver dams have also been shown to reduce erosion, thus improving water clarity and quality.
Beaver dams have been shown not to impede travel by salmon smolt, which easily pass through them on their journey down stream. Dams also rarely slow down the travel of adult fish, ex-cept in very low water conditions, and in that case the salmon will
By John A. McDonald
If you would like to read more, here is some of the
research that has been done on this subject:
Working with Beaver to Restore Salmon Habitat - Michael
Pollock, Chris Jordan, Nick Bouwes, Joseph Wheaton, Carol
Volk, Nicholas Weber, Jason Hall, and Josh Goldsmith
Beavers (Castor canadensis) influence habitat for juvenile
salmon in a large Alaskan river floodplain (Kwethluk River)
The Importance of Beaver Ponds to Coho Salmon
Production in the Stillaguamish River Basin, Washington, USA
news from aroUnD The KUsKoKwimKRWC Summit and Resolution Request
The Kuskokwim River Watershed Council is holding their Summit this year in Aniak, AK on September 25th-26th, 2014.
They will be holding their board elections during that time, and are requesting resolutions from Tribes on the Kuskok-wim that would designate a director and an alternate from their community to serve in the full board of the Kuskok-
wim River Watershed Council. This person would sit on a board of directors made up of others from the middle River area. He or she would need to participate in any meetings pertaining to the middle River area and would make recom-mendations to an executive board. Nominations of those on the board of directors from each area of the River would
be voted on to make up an executive board which would consist of members from all parts of the River.
Resolutions are due September 1st. For more information, contact Charlene Wolf or Adrian Boelens at (907) 675-4705.
Development of an Environmental Education Curriculum for the Middle Kuskokwim Region
The GTC is working in partnership with community members and workers from Kalskag, Aniak, Napaimute & George-town, professionals from the Kuskokwim River Watershed Council, the Kuskokwim Native Association, and the Univer-sity of Alaska Fairbanks to create an Environmental Education Curriculum geared toward the target audience of youth attending K-12 in the schools located within the middle Kuskokwim Region. The focus of the concern is on addressing
environmental issues that impact the youth and their families in the area: including but not limited to water qual-ity, wildlife biology, salmon ecology, solid waste (landfills, recycling, etc), invasive species, and air quality. It will be intended for use in the schools to help youth understand the environmental issues their villages are facing, and the
positive impact they can have on their environment by working together.
We are in the very early planning phase of this project, hoping to set a meeting date in Aniak this fall. If you are inter-ested in participating in this project, please contact Kate at [email protected] or 907-274-2195
FROM
THE
JULY
30
WG PACKET
FROM
THE
JULY
30
WG PACKET
27-31Conference: 2014 Alaska Tribal
Conference on Environmental Man-agement: Anchorage, AK
MORE INFO HERE
Gina McKindy and Verdene Morgan with the Aniak Traditional Council are on the ATCEM planning com-mittee. They are gathering ideas for presenters on water or sustain-ability. Please contact them with ideas/suggestions. 907-675-
9-11 AVCP will be hosting water quality training September 9-11 in Bethel at the Lomac Building. One day of training will be in the field. Please contact Ben Balivet if you are inter-ested in attending. 907-543-7363
25-26The Kuskokwim River Watershed Council Summit meeting will be held September 25-26 in Aniak. Adrian Boelens will send registration forms and an agenda soon! She is looking for presenters to
share success stories.
SEPTEMBER
AUGUST
OCTOBER
2-3ITEP is accepting registrations for a 1½-day
Climate Change Adaptation training scheduled for September 2-3 in Portland, OR (start time 1:30 pm Sept. 2). Since the course will focus on climate
change impacts and adaptation strategies in the Pacific Northwest, we especially encourage
people from that region to attend.
REGISTER HERE
11Training: Climate Change; 9 weeks
long, estimated 6-8 hrs. of work/week. Massive Open Online Course offered by University of Melbourne
through Coursera. This course develops an interdisciplinary un-
derstanding of the social, political, economic and scientific perspec-
tives on climate change.
MORE INFO HERE
November3-6
Conference: Climate, Conservation, and Community in Alaska and Northwest Canada: Anchorage, AK.
Joint Landscape Conservation Cooperative (LCC) and Alaska Climate Science Center (AK CSC) conference; sponsored by the University of Alaska Fairbanks and
open to stakeholders, decision makers, and researchers from throughout the LCC and CSC communities.
MORE INFO HERE
6Kuskokwim River Salmon Manage-
ment Working Group Meeting in the ADF&G office in Bethel.
This meeting will be conducted via teleconference using our nor-
mal teleconference line: 1(800) 315-6338 (MEET) Code: 58756# (KUSKO). If you have questions please call the Bethel Office at
543-1678.
MORE INFO HERE
21-31Alaska State Fair!
The Alaska State Fair Recycling Program needs Volunteers! Each shift needs 8-12 volunteers; groups of volunteers are encouraged. Volunteers who donate at least four hours of their time to the program receive free entrance to the fair that day and help make a positive impact on their community and state. For more informa-tion e-mail [email protected] or call Michelle Demaree at 444-6828 or Pam Meekin at 746-7159.
23-25Alaska Federation of Natives 2014 Annual Convention: Anchor-
age, AK at the Dena’ina Center
MORE INFO HERE
23-25The 2014 Rural Energy Conference will be held in Fairbanks, AK. The
Alaska Rural Energy Conference is a three day event offering a large va-riety of technical sessions covering new and ongoing energy projects in Alaska, as well as new technolo-gies and needs for Alaska’s remote
