Welcome to the latest installment of the Wednesday Wake-Up Call, a weekly roundup of the most pressing conservation issues important to anglers. Working with our friends at Trout Unlimited, Backcountry Hunters & Anglers, the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, The Everglades Foundation, Captains for Clean Water, Bullsugar.org, and Conservation Hawks (among others), we’ll make sure you’ve got the information you need to understand the issues and form solid opinions.
If you know of an important issue–whether it’s national or local–that anglers should be paying attention to, comment below, and we’ll check it out!
1. Public Hearings on Pebble Mine Draft EIS Begin
Public hearings across Alaska kicked off last week, as part of the Public Comments period on the draft Environmental Impact Statement released by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers last month. A news report on the Iliamna hearing, by public-radio station KDLG does a good job of capturing the complexity of the issues for locals. On one side is the promise of jobs, while on the other is the spectre of a disaster that could ruin the environment.
The two hearings expected to draw the biggest crowds will be in Homer on April 11 and in Anchorage on April 16.
Meanwhile, a group of scientists gave a presentation to the Alaska House Resources committee on Monday. They argued that the draft EIS is both misleading and incomplete:
The chief concerns were that the DEIS used too short of a time frame to associate the risks of the mine, it used an inappropriate fish habitat assessment, cumulative risks were essentially ignored, there was very little mention of long-term risks associated with climate change and that it used selective use of scientific literature when backing up claims.
They also argued that a 90-day period for comments was much too short to allow a complete evaluation of the draft EIS’s merits and flaws. The article in the Juneau Empire is a good read.
If you haven’t made your voice heard yet, now is the time. The more anti-Pebble comments we can generate, the more pressure there will be on legislators to provide adequate oversight and stop this disaster-in-the-making.
Click here to make your voice heard NOW.
2. Orvis’s Perk Perkins Offers Support for Everglades Plan
Tomorrow, Orvis’s Perk Perkins will be taking part in “CEO Day in Tallahassee,” his second advocacy trip to the Florida capital in two years. The goal is to express support for Gov. DeSantis’s $625 million Everglades and clean water initiative. The Governor’s proposal represents an unprecedented investment in Everglades restoration and preventative measures to avoid the next toxic algae crisis.
Perkins will be joined by the a group including Scott Deal of Maverick Boat Group and Richard Johnson of Bailey’s and Florida Economic Council. They aim to meet eight legislators who will play vital roles in the debate to express how important Everglades restoration is to the future of Florida.
Text WATER to 52886 to make a difference today!
3. Garden & Gun Profiles Captains for Clean Water
Photo via Facebook
Writing in Garden & Gun Magazine, T. Edward Nickens offers a great profile of Captains for Clean Water, an organization dedicated to fixing Florida’s poor water-management practices. A group of charter-boat captains and guides who had simply seen enough destruction of the habitat where they make their livings, these folks have stepped up in a big way.
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