OPINION: Eklutna Lake deserves better

Eklutna Lake is the crown jewel of Chugach State Park. It is the quintessential Alaska scene of jagged peaks rising abruptly from the shores of turquoise. Dall sheep gambol on Bold and Twin Peaks; moose amble the aspen woods; and plentiful bears leave their berry-studded calling cards on the lakeside trails. Eklutna Lake draws scores of visitors and Alaskans to hunt, hike, bike, kayak, camp, berry-pick, gawk and photograph the spectacle. When the seasons turn, we switch to skates, skis and fat bikes.

The Eklutna lakeside trail is a magnet for dog walkers, runners, and families with strollers. In a park blessed with verticality, the flat and rolling route is one of the few Chugach Park trails suited to everyone. Here at Eklutna, you can be immersed in wild Alaska without breaking a sweat.

Recent news of a $234,000 appropriation from the Alaska Legislature for trail improvements at Eklutna is cause for celebration. This popular trail has suffered from severe lakeside erosion that has eaten away long stretches of trail and rendered many sections hazardous or impassable. The trail has been rerouted several times, yet the lake keeps chewing away at it, especially in wet years such as this one.

Most people chalk up erosion of the Eklutna lakeside trail to the vagaries of Alaska weather. Blaming fall storms for wiping out our trails is like accusing mountains for avalanches. Mother Nature doesn’t care about our best-laid plans, right?

Except at Eklutna, Mother Nature is not to blame. The power companies are.

Part of the infrastructure for the Eklutna hydropower project is a dam at the outlet of Eklutna Lake that raises the water level 21 feet above its natural height. Even though Eklutna is a natural lake, Chugach Electric and Matanuska Electric treat it like a bathtub that they fill and drain to maximize their revenue. In winter, they draw the lake down 40 feet so that we must slip and slide on treacherous sloping ice to skate, ski or fat bike. In early summer we drag our kayaks 100 yards through mud and rocks to get to the water; in late summer the power companies overfill the lake and erode our popular trails.

It doesn’t have to be this way. The power companies have a drain in the dam spillway they could open to lower the lake level and prevent trail erosion. Advocates of Eklutna River restoration have asked the power companies to release water into the dry riverbed to help struggling salmon, but their response is, in effect: “We don’t have to.” They ruin our trails instead.

The power companies have been treating Eklutna Lake as a cash register for decades. They even charge us millions of dollars each year for our drinking water. One especially perverse term of this arrangement provides Anchorage with free drinking water if the lake spills into the river, so the power companies work overtime to keep the river dry. We don’t get much electricity from Eklutna, only a small fraction of our power supply in exchange for our crown jewel. Eklutna hydropower is cheap, all right — just like a bad suit.

We should thank the Alaska Legislature for funding trail repairs at Eklutna, but send the bill to the power companies. The Eklutna lakeside trail is treasured by thousands of Alaskans but literally undermined by corporate indifference. If the power companies exhibit such disrespect for us, our trails, and our salmon, perhaps it’s time to shut the Eklutna hydro project down.

Margaret Williams is a longtime Alaska conservationist and wilderness explorer. She is a former managing director for the World Wildlife Fund and she is now an Arctic Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

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