I’m writing out of concern for what makes my business possible: the wild West Susitna region, which thousands of Alaskans enjoy throughout the year via jet boat, snowmachine, fat bike, dogsled and airplane, and which brings in tens of millions of dollars in revenue to Alaska each year.
I’ll never forget the first time I went to the West Su.
As I flew over it, I didn’t see the things that have,
by and large, whittled away at and fragmented the experience of fishing in so many other places. Instead, I saw vast, wild public land — all a short distance from Anchorage.
We landed on a lake circled by brown bears eating salmon. My first catch was a 30-inch Dolly Varden. I was in heaven.
Coho and king salmon populations in the region have since crashed, but the West Susitna is still an intact, wild part of Alaska, where you can cast for rainbow trout, arctic grayling, Dolly Varden and more.
But new proposals from the state would put a 100-plus mile industrial mining road through the heart of it, fragmenting habitat and crossing 182 streams, with fish passage in only 83 of 171 culverts. To add insult to injury, us taxpayers would foot the bill.
On Aug. 23, the Alaska Department of Transportation ended a 30-day comment period on the first 22 miles of the West Susitna Industrial Access road.
Last year, DOT began claiming that this first part of the road is a “new” and “different” project from the 100-plus mile road the state-owned Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority has been promoting, which would end at foreign-owned mining claims. It was disingenuous then, and it’s even more so now.
On the one hand is AIDEA, and the longer industrial road officials now finally acknowledge will be private. On the other is the Department of Transportation and a 22-mile “public” road that industrial vehicles would access, and degrade, for free as part of their longer industrial route. The state claims each hand is working on a different project. But both hands are operated by the State and paid for by us taxpayers.
As commenters at a public meeting I attended expressed, the whole thing is see-through. In its presentations, DOT mostly failed to mention that “no action” on this taxpayer- funded industrial road (not building it at all) is even an option unless they were directly asked.
During the comment period, hundreds of Alaskans expressed opposition to this road, both in person and in writing.
The state is putting private interests before Alaskans, endangering not only my business but also an existing economy and a region that many of us value and use every chance we get.
— Adam Cuthriell
Owner, FishHound Expeditions
Willow
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