The Chilkat River has been nominated by an environmental nonprofit as one of ten most endangered rivers in the country. The nominations are meant to bring attention to threats to the nation’s waterways, and point to actions that can be taken to protect them. KHNS’s Alain d’Epremesnil has more.

Every year for the last 40 years, the nonprofit American Rivers has issued a list of the country’s ten most endangered rivers. David Moryc is a director at American Rivers. He explained the logic behind the designations.

Moryc: “It’s a combination of the actual threat to the river, the importance of the river from a state, regional or national perspective, and often we’ll take into account if the threats facing that river are also facing other rivers. Is it emblematic of a larger issue. But also making sure that there is a decision point that is happening this year that the public can engage in this year that the public can engage in to make a difference for those rivers.”

The threats are varied. Number one on the list of endangered rivers is the Colorado, threatened by climate change, and water management policies that suck the river dry, according to the environmental organization. The Pearl River, in Mississippi, is number three. The group says it is threatened by a real estate development plan that would dredge and dam it. The Clark Fork River in Montana is number 5. Previous industrial development has left it polluted with dioxins and heavy metals, and the clean up still needs to happen, American Rivers says.

Coming at number eight is the Chilkat/Klehini river system. Moryc cites mining as the biggest threat facing the river. Specifically, the Palmer Project, which is a proposed copper-silver-zinc mine near the headwaters.

Moryc: “We are really concerned about contaminated waste water discharges.”

While mining has historically taken place in the Chilkat watershed, the scale is not comparable.

The next phase of the Palmer Project is to drill a mile long exploratory tunnel under a glacier. This would displace large amounts of material and create copious water discharges. 

Haines resident Gershon Cohen is project director at Alaska Clean Water Advocacy. He was instrumental in getting the Chilkat on the national list. He says the discharge will be too close to important streams.

Cohen: “The area where they will be discharging, int their estimate is 350 000 gallons a day of what will be a contaminated discharge, contaminated with heavy metals, with explosive residues, with hydrocarbons from the the drilling process and all the vehicle equipment, that discharge is going to be literally adjacent to glacier creek.”

The American Rivers website encourages the public to send a letter to Congress about the river. The aim is to force the mining company to obtain a stringent surface water discharge permit. Federal standards would apply. Currently the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation requires a groundwater discharge permit. Cohen says this is not enough.

Cohen: “Chances are very high that that discharge is going to make its way to the river. Which means that according to federal law, they are supposed to get a surface water discharge permit. A groundwater discharge permit as they are now getting from DEC, does not require you to meet water quality standards, it has very little if any monitoring or enforcement, it’s a very different permit than the federal permit, and we want DEC to do its job.”

In a press release from American Rivers, Chilkat Indian Village president Kimberley strong is quoted as saying: “Our ability to live off the land and continue to harvest the wild stocks of salmon, to hunt the bear and gather the berries that grow in our traditional territory sustains us today, as it has since time immemorial. The natural riches of these lands and waters have allowed our people not only to survive, but to thrive, for untold generations. Endangering the Chilkat River ecosystem with a hard rock mine will have devastating effects on our Tribal people that rely on the Chilkat River and Chilkat Valley as our sustainable food source.”

American Pacific Mining, who operates the Palmer project, did not answer a request for comments.

Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated Glacier creek is the second most procutive waterway in the state for Coho salmon. In fact the Chilkat river has that distinction.