ANCHORAGE, AK—On September 27, the Chuitna Citizens Coalition filed an appeal in state Superior Court challenging the Alaska Department of Natural Resources’ unprecedented decision to deny their legal right to reserve water in a stream to protect wild salmon.

“It’s just not fair. The state says mining companies can get rights to take water out of streams permanently, but regular citizens can’t get rights to keep water in our streams for fish,” said Ron Burnett, President of the Chuitna Citizens Coalition. “That’s plain wrong.”

The case dates back over nine years, when the Chuitna Citizens Coalition filed a petition to get what is called an “instream flow water reservation” to keep water in streams in the Chuitna watershed on the west side of Cook Inlet over concerns a large proposed coal mine would destroy salmon habitat.

In 2015, after considerable legal wrangling, the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) granted Chuitna Citizens an instream flow right. Mining, oil and gas corporations then appealed that decision, and the case languished under Governor Bill Walker’s DNR Commissioner, Andy Mack.

Then, in December 2017, after a closed-door meeting with the Alaska Miners Association several months before, Commissioner Mack issued a remarkable decision – saying that because the coal company had relinquished its leases, such changed circumstance warranted an entirely new decision.

Finally, late last month, under an order from the state Superior Court, Commissioner Mack issued a new decision denying the Chuitna Citizens request to keep water in the streams because the coal company left and there was no competing interest in the water.

“First they told us we could have the right to keep water in the stream for our salmon,” Burnett said, “Now they tell us we can’t. It turns the law completely upside down. What is going on over there at DNR?”

“The state ignored thousands of comments from Alaskans who supported our efforts to protect wild salmon,” said Chuitna Citizens Board member Eric Booten. “At the end of the day salmon simply need water, but the state would rather give the water away to big mining companies.”

The court case comes as the state and large mining, oil and gas corporations are fighting a citizens’ initiative to update Alaska’s 60 year-old, one sentence long fish habitat law, and in the wake of state permits to destroy salmon habitat at the Donlin Mine along the Kuskokwim River.

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