Panel taking stock of Alaska's ocean health

Panel taking stock of Alaska's ocean health

Yereth Rosen, Reuters, Anchorage, Alaska

Environmental strains ripple on the oceans that border Alaska.

In rural stretches of the state, global warming has thinned Arctic pack ice, making travel dangerous for Native hunters.

Traces of industrial pollution from distant continents is showing up in the fat of Alaska's marine wildlife and in the breast milk of Native mothers who eat a traditional diet that includes such items as seal and walrus meat.

The population of sea lions, fur seals, sea otters and varieties of sea birds has plummeted for reasons yet undetermined by scientists.

And fishery managers in Anchorage, though more successful than their counterparts elsewhere in the nation, are still struggling to reduce the millions of pounds of species that are accidentally harvested, then thrown away, by commercial fishermen.

Although Alaska is far from the polluted shorelines of southern industrial centers and the decimated fisheries off the New England coast, even its waters are affected by environmental strains, a private, non-profit organization has discovered.

The Pew Oceans Commission, an independent group of marine experts, political leaders and academicians, heard Alaska's concerns about marine health during a stop here on a national tour.

The commission, formed by the Pew Charitable Trusts and based in the Washington, D.C. area, is gathering information from around the nation's coastal regions for a report due to Congress next year on recommended ocean policies.

The report will cover the general issues of pollution, coastal development, fisheries management and governance.

The panel already traveled to Maine, South Carolina, Hawaii and California, is headed next to Portland, Oregon. At all stops, overfishing has been a major concern, said Justin Kenney, spokesman for the panel.

"Everywhere we've gone, we've heard about the current status of fishery management," Kenney said during a week-long visit to Alaska.

Drastic cutbacks in seafood harvests are not necessarily the answer, but the oceans do need a new harvest system that encourages better conservation, said commission member Eileen Claussen.

"All the incentives are set up so they want to take everything now," said Claussen, a former assistant secretary of state for oceans, environment and science.

The stint in Alaska included a boat tour of Kenai Fjords National Park near Seward -- where commission members got glimpses of the endangered sea lions sunning themselves on rocks -- a public hearings in Anchorage and Kodiak.

Alaska's fisheries are much healthier than those elsewhere in the nation, and managers here have tried to avoid the mistakes that led to collapses in places like New England, Dave Benton, chairman of the Anchorage-based North Pacific Fishery Management Council, told the commission at the Anchorage hearing.

"The reason our council works is we have some basic ground rules. We don't overrule our scientists, for example," he said.

Still, Benton said, managers need a better system to reduce what is called 'bycatch,' or taking in unwanted fish. "We've made a lot of progress but there's still allot that needs to be done," he said.

Global warming and the ensuing climate change is also considered a growing problem in Alaska. -- for eyebox

Some blame it for the precipitous declines in the Alaska sea lion population and for declines of other marine mammals in the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska.

Around his Lower Yukon River village of Marshall, global warming is believed to have contributed to deaths, said George Owletuck, a Yupik Eskimo and member of the Alaska Oceans Network.

Some villagers traveling by snowmobile have fallen through the thinner-than-normal river ice and drowned, Owletuck told the commission at the Anchorage hearing. "Generally, it's younger men, young men in their 20s who have not learned to traverse the country safely," he said.

The concern is echoed by Carlotta Leon Guerrero, a commission member and former legislator from Guam.

She fears for the flat South Pacific atolls that could disappear if water levels rise substantially. Islanders face the possibly of losing their homes, she said.

"The Pacific Islanders are the last people in the world to contribute to global warming, and we'll be the first to feel the effects of it. There's something very unfair about that," she said.

Alaska has set an example for curbing one source of marine pollution, said the state's governor, Tony Knowles, who is also a Pew Oceans Commission member.

This year Alaska became the first U.S. state to regulate water pollution from cruise ships, which can carry 2,000 to 3,000 people and are sometimes likened here to floating cities.

Alaska's efforts have won attention from other cruise destinations, including those in the South Pacific, Guerrero said. Those islands have become attractive to the cruise companies, which are seeking exotic new destinations to satisfy a growing market, she said.

"You've got to pay attention to their discharges. You've got to pay attention to they way they conduct themselves in your waters," she said. "It's not as clean an industry as it appears to be."

Other governments have yet to follow through with regulations similar to those in Alaska. Still, Knowles said, the other cruise destinations will benefit from Alaska's laws because the major cruise lines are upgrading waste-water technology to comply.

"Once you've got the technology in place and working, it goes where they go," the governor said.