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21–989 2017

S. HRG. 114–422 

THE CHALLENGES AND IMPACTS OF FEDERAL 

REGULATIONS AND WILDFIRE MANAGEMENT 

ON OUTDOOR RECREATION, HUNTING AND 

FISHING OPPORTUNITIES, AND TOURISM ON 

PUBLIC LANDS ON THE KENAI PENINSULA 

FIELD HEARING 

BEFORE THE 

COMMITTEE ON 

ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

MAY 31, 2016 

( 

Printed for the use of the 

Committee on Energy and Natural Resources 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://fdsys.gov 

(II) 

COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES 

LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska, Chairman 

JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming 

JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho 

MIKE LEE, Utah 

JEFF FLAKE, Arizona 

STEVE DAINES, Montana 

BILL CASSIDY, Louisiana 

CORY GARDNER, Colorado 

ROB PORTMAN, Ohio 

JOHN HOEVEN, North Dakota 

LAMAR ALEXANDER, Tennessee 

SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West Virginia 

MARIA CANTWELL, Washington 

RON WYDEN, Oregon 

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont 

DEBBIE STABENOW, Michigan 

AL FRANKEN, Minnesota 

JOE MANCHIN III, West Virginia 

MARTIN HEINRICH, New Mexico 

MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii 

ANGUS S. KING, JR., Maine 

ELIZABETH WARREN, Massachusetts 

COLIN HAYES, Staff Director 

PATRICK J. McCORMICK III, Chief Counsel 

MICHELLE LANE, Professional Staff Member 

CHUCK KLEESCHULTE, Senior Professional Staff Member 

ANGELA BECKER-DIPPMANN, Democratic Staff Director 

SAM E. FOWLER, Democratic Chief Counsel 

DAVID BROOKS, Democratic General Counsel 

(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

OPENING STATEMENTS 

Page 

Murkowski, Hon. Lisa, Chairman, and a U.S. Senator from Alaska ................. 1 

WITNESSES 

Maisch, John ‘‘Chris,’’ State Forester and Director, Alaska Department of 

Natural Resources, Division of Forestry ............................................................ 5 

Navarre, Hon. Mike, Mayor, Kenai Peninsula Borough, Soldotna, Alaska ........ 15 

Clock, Cindy, Executive Director, Seward Chamber of Commerce (Alaska) ...... 32 

Gease, Ricky, Executive Director, Kenai River Sportsfishing Association ......... 36 

Spraker, Ted, Safari Club International, Alaska .................................................. 46 

ALPHABETICAL LISTING AND APPENDIX MATERIAL SUBMITTED 

Clock, Cindy: 

Opening Statement ........................................................................................... 32 

Written Testimony ............................................................................................ 34 

Gease, Ricky: 

Opening Statement ........................................................................................... 36 

Written Testimony ............................................................................................ 40 

Harpring, Jim and Ginny: 

Statement for the Record ................................................................................. 77 

Maisch, John ‘‘Chris’’: 

Opening Statement ........................................................................................... 5 

Written Testimony ............................................................................................ 9 

Murkowski, Hon. Lisa: 

Opening Statement ........................................................................................... 1 

Navarre, Hon. Mike: 

Opening Statement ........................................................................................... 15 

Written Testimony ............................................................................................ 18 

Spraker, Ted: 

Opening Statement ........................................................................................... 46 

Written Testimony ............................................................................................ 51 

(1) 

THE CHALLENGES AND IMPACTS OF FEDERAL REGULATIONS AND WILDFIRE MANAGEMENT ON OUTDOOR RECREATION, 

HUNTING AND FISHING OPPORTUNITIES, 

AND TOURISM ON PUBLIC LANDS ON THE 

KENAI PENINSULA 

Tuesday, May 31, 2016 

U.S. SENATE

COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES

Kenai, AK 

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:00 a.m. AKDT at 

the Challenger Learning Center, 9711 Kenai Spur Highway, Kenai, 

Alaska, Hon. Lisa Murkowski, Chairman of the Committee, presiding. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. LISA MURKOWSKI, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM ALASKA 

The CHAIRMAN. Good morning. 

We will call to order this field hearing of the Senate Energy and 

Natural Resources Committee. I would like to thank you all for 

coming this beautiful morning, particularly the day after a long, 

Memorial Day weekend. 

We thank all those who have served our country and hope that 

the weekend was one that was filled with meaningful tribute. 

We are here in Kenai today to review the management of our national forests and our other public lands and review what we can 

do, together and responsibly, to make them healthy and productive 

for the people who rely on them for their livelihoods, whether it is 

tourism, whether it is guiding, whether it is their access to recreation, to fishing, to hunting. 

We have some serious work in front of us. I think we recognize 

that over the past 20 plus years or thereabouts the management 

of our forests, of our public lands, or perhaps the lack of management, translates to a very real threat to the health and safety of 

communities, not only in our state, but across our nation. 

According to the Forest Service, up to 82 million acres of forest 

lands need some kind of restoration treatment because they are at 

high risk for severe wildland fires. Of those, twelve and a half million acres require some level of mechanical thinning to deal with 

these overly dense stands. 

The Forest Service has also designated 45 million acres as insect 

and disease epidemic areas that are in need of treatment. Here in 

2 

Alaska and certainly here on the peninsula we know about the 

spruce bark beetle and the infestation that decimated some six million acres, including 1.3 million acres and more than 30 million 

spruce trees on the peninsula. 

If it is not enough to kill the trees, what then happens is that 

those dead trees become fuel for the devastating wildfires that we 

see. Everyone who fought and endured the 2014 Funny River Fire 

which consumed 156,000 acres knows that far too well. 

I have had an opportunity to go out and to see the devastation 

that was brought about by not only the Funny River Fire but the 

other fires that we have had around here, like the Card Street Five 

near Sterling. We have seen the impacts, and in many ways we are 

still dealing with the aftermath of that blaze. The hot spots or the 

holdovers, the carryover fires from not only last year’s Card Street 

but Funny River in 2014, the wildland firefighters were called out 

to address that just in this past week. 

We have with us this morning Chris Maisch, who is the State 

Forester and the Director for the Alaska Department of Natural 

Resources (DNR). We will hear a little bit from him this morning 

about where we are with fire threat and the fire season. But I 

think it is a reminder to us that when we do not manage our forests, when we have, again, levels of infestation, when we have fuel 

that is essentially sitting on the forest floor, it does pose a threat. 

We recognize the importance of installing fuel and fire breaks to 

try to keep the fires smaller in order to reduce that threat. It is 

not only important to our protection of life and property for those 

who live here but something that we keep in mind as we worry 

about the safety of those who are fighting these fires. 

Yet as we recognize what is going on with greater incidents of 

more devastating fires and the lack of management, what we are 

seeing is less and less harvesting from our forests. The annual timber cut in the State of Alaska has dropped by more than 80 percent. 

When you have those timber harvesting jobs leave, it is not just 

the jobs that are lost, it is the impact on the local schools. It is the 

impact on the local budget shortfalls. Clearly there is a ripple effect 

when you think about our failure to properly manage forests. 

Basically, under our Federal Government’s current practices, we 

are losing our forests to insects, disease and wildfires instead of responsibly managing and harvesting them. It is putting local communities at both physical risk and economic disadvantage. 

I was down in Ketchikan, Sunday and Monday and had an opportunity to meet with some of those in the struggling timber industry. They reminded me that our forests work if our foresters are 

able to work. 

Yet it seems that you have a situation, at least within the Forest 

Service, and it was what the former Chief of the Forest Service, 

Dale Bosworth, said. He describes it as ‘‘analysis paralysis.’’ Basically that progress today has been redefined by completion of a 

process rather than implementation of almost any project on the 

ground, and I think that we see that. 

In the Tongass we have gone from more than 6,000 direct and 

indirect jobs which represented 79 percent of all manufacturing 

jobs in the state back in the early 90’s, to just 550 wood and forVerDate Nov 24 2008 08:16 Jan 12, 2017 Jkt 021989 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\TARSHA\HEARINGS\21989\E21989.TXT E21989
3 

estry jobs today. This represents less than one percent of Alaska’s 

current economy. 

Here in the Chugach, historically speaking, we have never been 

a big timber producing area, but at this point in time, we see almost no timber harvested for saw logs and only a handful of workers remain to process mostly utility logs for biomass or for firewood. That has driven the Federal funding from what used to be 

called stumpage fees down to practically nothing. 

Now we recognize that when we are talking about Forest Service 

and Forest Service lands, it is multiple use. It is not just managing 

for timber harvest. So you would say well, other things are going 

well on our Forest Service lands. But that is not what I am hearing. 

We have many, many complaints from tourism, charter operators 

and outfitters and guides that the Forest Service is not offering 

enough new concession opportunities in most of the Chugach. Both 

the National Park Service and Fish and Wildlife Service, of course, 

have proposed or implemented new regulations that seize authority 

from wildlife management which was really one of the drivers of 

us for statehood. But they are basically moving in a direction that 

takes that authority for our wildlife management from the state 

and moves it under the auspices of Federal management. We need 

new, revised and better policies to fix all these issues, and we are 

working on it. 

I would like to talk about a couple things that we have been 

doing back in Washington to address these issues. 

In this year’s Interior budget, we have $1.6 billion, which is $600 

million more than last year, to make sure that we have the resources needed to fight fires during what we anticipate could be another really terrible fire year. What has been happening as we 

have seen the increase of these very, very costly fires, not only here 

in the State of Alaska but around the country, if there is not 

enough money budgeted on an annual basis for the Department of 

the Interior, what happens is the fire accounts within the Forest 

Service will borrow from other accounts to pay for fire suppression. 

What that means is let’s say, you have a big fire. We need to pay 

to put out the fire. As we are spending money to put out fires, we 

are taking it from those accounts that would make sure that we 

are working more actively on thinning, to do prescriptive burns, to 

basically manage the fires out there. 

Last week I introduced legislation, a draft bill with Senator 

Cantwell, who is the Ranking Member on the Energy Committee, 

along with Senator Wyden from Oregon, as well as both of the 

Idaho Senators. We are looking at trying to deal with a longer-term 

solution. We addressed the wildfire funding crisis and are working 

to improve Federal forest management. 

What we attempt to do is fully fund fire prevention and firefighting efforts. At the same time, we would stop this borrowing 

from one account to another, because if you take the money from 

Forest Service for what they need to do to provide for the concessions or again, for the recreation accounts, the timber accounts, the 

system just does not work. We recognize that it is a system that 

is not sustainable. 

4 

I have also worked to beef up recreation funding for the Alaska 

region through appropriations. We added $2.5 million more than 

we received three years ago to address the budget issues that the 

Forest Service has blamed for causing the reduction in the new solicitation periods for tourism, outfitter and guide concession contracts. 

Just over a month ago we got the Senate’s approval for comprehensive sportsmen’s legislation that I have been leading for 

some time now. This has been included in the energy bill. Probably 

the most pertinent provision of that Sportsmen’s bill, relative to 

this discussion today, is a provision that guarantees that Forest 

Service, Bureau of Land Management lands, remain open to hunting unless otherwise closed, open to hunting and fishing and sport 

shooting effectively ensuring that your public lands are actually 

public. This is going to be an important aspect of what it is that 

we do moving forward, making sure that we have access to the 

lands that we have in our public holdings. 

We are going to hear some testimony here about the regulations 

that have been issued by Park Service and Fish and Wildlife Service, again, the Federal regulators coming in and attempting to determine what will happen with management of our wildlife on 

these lands. We have been working as a delegation to do everything that we can to slow down and prevent these proposed rules 

from taking or staying into effect. 

We have a lot to talk about this morning when we discuss how 

to better aid health and management and benefit the economy here 

on the Kenai Peninsula. We have a good panel of witnesses with 

us, so I will end my opening comments and introduce the panel. 

To those of you who have joined us, thank you for your interest. 

Know that the way Senate field hearings or Senate hearings in 

general work, you have invited testimony. These five individuals 

have been invited to be part of the Committee record. They have 

submitted written testimony that is incorporated now as part of the 

record, we will have their verbal comments, have an opportunity 

for questions and answers, and back and forth. 

That does not mean that you or those that might be interested 

cannot weigh in and submit your comments, if you want to submit 

them as part of the Committee record. So keep that in mind if you 

have any interest on that. 

With that, I am going to remind those who have been invited to 

testify, we have asked you to keep your comments to about five 

minutes. But this is our hearing this morning, and I am not going 

to run a clock or a timer on you. I want to get the conversation 

flowing. Your full written statements will be incorporated as part 

of the Committee record, but again, we are looking forward to hearing your contribution. 

The first panelist to speak to us this morning is Chris Maisch. 

He, as I mentioned, is the State Forester and the Director for the 

Alaska Department of Natural Resources. We were a little bit concerned that Chris might not be able to join us this morning because 

this is the time of year that fires start hopping across the state. 

But when I got on the airplane coming out of Anchorage this morning and saw him there, I took it as two good signs. First, he was 

5 

going to be able to participate, and second, that meant we were not 

in the midst of some tough fires right now. 

Next to Chris is a friend of many of you, of course, the Honorable 

Mike Navarre, your Mayor for the Kenai Peninsula Borough. I 

thank you for being in your Borough and here this morning. Thank 

you for the good weather. 

We have Cindy Clock, who has come over from Seward. She is 

the Executive Director for the Seward Chamber of Commerce. 

Hopefully we will hear something about the impact on tourism over 

on the other side there. 

Ricky Gease is a friend and President of the Kenai River 

Sportfishing Association. We will have an opportunity to talk about 

the recreational and the commercial end of what we see with our 

fishing in the region and how that might be impacted by fire or for 

regulation. 

Rounding out the panel is Mr. Ted Spraker, who is with us from 

Safari Club International. He wears multiple other hats as we 

know, but I appreciate you joining us this morning and speaking 

from the perspective of perhaps some of the hunting regulations 

that we are seeing coming our way. 

With that, Chris, if you want to start off. We will go down the 

line and when everyone has concluded, that is when we can have 

a little bit more of a dialog with questions and answers going back 

and forth. 

Welcome. 

STATEMENT OF JOHN ‘‘CHRIS’’ MAISCH, STATE FORESTER 

AND DIRECTOR, ALASKA DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES 

Mr. MAISCH. Okay, great. 

Good morning, Madam Chair and members of the public. My 

name is Chris Maisch. I’m the State Forester and Director of the 

Alaska Department of Natural Resources Division of Forestry and 

Past President of the National Association of State Foresters. 

I want to apologize. I’m still fighting a cold that was precipitated 

by allergies for the record amount of birch pollen that we produced 

in Interior Alaska. [Laughter.] And I understand down here too. I 

never used to be allergic to trees, so I’m not sure what’s going on 

here being a forester and developing this. But we set a world 

record for the amount of pollen in Fairbanks on one particular day 

about three weeks ago in terms of the highest quantity ever measured on a 24-hour period. So if I pause to cough, I apologize. 

I do appreciate the opportunity to speak with you today and submit written testimony as the Committee entertains a review of the 

complex issues surrounding wildland fire management and the impacts to outdoor recreation opportunities during our active fire season. 

I also plan to offer some comments on the draft, Wildfire Budgeting, Response and Forest Management Act of 2016, that was recently made available for comment. 

The mission of the Division of Forestry is to proudly serve Alaskans through forest management and wildland fire protection. The 

Division is the lead agency for wildland fire management services 

6 

on 150 million acres of land with the primary goal to protect life 

and property. 

The National Association of State Foresters represents the Directors of state forestry agencies in all 50 states, eight territories and 

the District of Columbia. State foresters deliver technical and financial assistance along with protection of forest health, water and 

wildfire for more than two-thirds of the nation’s forests. 

As you know the 2015 fire season was a difficult one, both in the 

nation and in Alaska. Over ten million acres burned nationally 

with about 5.1 million acres burning in Alaska, our second worst 

season on record. 

The Card Street Fire began on the Kenai Peninsula in the Kenai 

National Wildlife Refuge near the community of Sterling on June 

15th on a day that had red flag warnings posted. The fire impacted 

many of the specific items this hearing was designed to explore, including tourism on public lands, outdoor recreation activities, especially fishing opportunities during June and long-term impacts on 

wildlife habitat, hunting, trapping and other subsistence activities. 

At Skilak Lake, boat launch ramps and campgrounds were closed 

at the height of the tourist season while numerous local residents 

were prevented from enjoying the various recreational and sport 

fishing opportunities that all Alaskans enjoy during our brief summer season. 

The Kenai River is a world renowned sport fishery and visitors 

and residents travel to this region to enjoy the various opportunities that can be found—provided there is not a large wildland fire 

wreaking havoc with their plans. 

How can we collectively do a better job of getting in front of this 

persistent wildland fire issue to minimize the negative impacts and 

risk to public safety while at the same time recognizing the role 

wildland fire plays in this ecosystem? 

I’d like to outline the multi-step process utilized in the Kenai to 

address these issues, and it all begins with advanced work and 

planning. 

The Alaska Interagency Wildland Fire Management Plan is the 

state level, foundational document that establishes initial attack 

response at four different levels. Those are critical, full, modified 

and limited and provide high level, strategic policy direction to fire 

managers across all land ownerships. 

It recognizes a need for close, pre-fire incident cooperation and 

communication with land owners, communities, land management 

agencies and the fire suppression organizations to be well prepared 

for wildland fires. And in the written testimony there’s a hot link 

to the interagency plan. 

After the large spruce beetle outbreaks across the Kenai in the 

late 80’s and 90’s the concept of all lands came into practice to address the issues associated with the unprecedented acreage of dead 

forests and the changing wildland fire risk including a new fuel 

type on the Kenai which are the grass type, as we call it. 

This concept preceded the now well-accepted goals enumerated in 

the cohesive strategy which is a nationwide strategy which has 

three primary objectives. Restore and maintain resilient landscapes, develop fire adapted communities, and provide efficient and 

effective response to wildfires. 

7 

Communities across the Kenai Peninsula undertook efforts to 

complete community wildfire protection plans and to implement 

specific recommendations for risk reduction in their communities. 

Adoption of fire wise principles decrease risk to individual homes 

and businesses. Increased training with cooperators including mutual aid agreements. Establishment of agency crews, and other 

measures to increase capacity. And finally, aggressive fuels mitigation projects at the landscape level of which the Funny River Fire 

project is a classic example of a project that really proved its worth 

in the 2014 Funny River Fire. 

There is another hot link in the prepared written testimony that 

goes to a very detailed scientific analysis of that effort and how it 

can be duplicated in other locations both in Alaska and across the 

country. 

These actions, taken in concert with each other, build a resilient 

and adaptive approach to reduce risk and deal with large wildfire 

events in and near communities. 

I have a few specific recommendations for the Committee’s consideration to improve or augment the activities I’ve mentioned already. 

First off, a simplified or streamlined process to allow Federal 

agencies to act promptly to change environmental conditions and 

funding opportunities to complete fuel mitigation projects on Federal lands. 

Due to the overly complicated and time consuming process of 

completing NEPA documents for treating Federal land, the Funny 

River project was completed on Borough and Native Corporation 

lands just outside the wildlife refuge boundaries. 

I would also recommend that providing funding for communities 

at risk to complete projects that will reduce risk and better prepare 

communities to survive and respond to wildland fires. Prevention. 

Prevention. Prevention. The more we collectively do to prepare for 

the incident, the better we will respond, including less overall cost 

and it will improve recovery timelines. 

Next I’d like to comment briefly on the discussion draft that was 

recently introduced by a bipartisan group of congressional members. I’ll offer a few points for consideration beginning with fire 

transfers which represent just one part of the broader wildland fire 

funding problem that the Senator alluded to in her opening comments. 

The discussion draft would allow access through a budget cap adjustment for additional funding to fight wildfires once all appropriated suppression funding, which would be 100 percent of the 

ten-year average, is exhausted. While we greatly appreciate the effort put into the current draft to recognize the need to address fire 

borrowing, the approach in the draft does not entirely solve the 

problem. 

As the ten-year average continues to grow with extreme wildland 

fire seasons, the portion of the Forest Service budget dedicated to 

fire grows. This results in less funding for other agency programs 

critical to supporting Federal, State, and private forests and further decreases the ability to improve forest health conditions that 

reduce the risk of catastrophic fire. 

8 

There’s actually an example in the written testimony about when 

fire borrowing impacts Alaskan projects. I’m not going to go into 

detail on those because I think we’re running a little long here and 

I’ll wrap up my comments, but I wanted to make one or two more 

points about the discussion draft. 

One of the key points is that our previous comments on this topic 

have been less focused on funding mechanisms to which disaster 

funds are made available to the Forest Service and DOI and instead stress the critical needs to access disaster funding to pay for 

catastrophic wildfires placing these fires on par with other natural 

disasters. And this can be done via a budget cap adjustment or access to the FEMA Disaster Relief Fund. 

An additional section of the proposed draft legislation addresses 

the need for agencies to work with states on an equal footing to 

certify aviation assets and pilots ahead of the fire season. This is 

a positive step in streamlining current operations and ensuring 

there are no delays during the fire season for needed resources. 

There are a number of other specific provisions in the draft bill 

that would help address the issues raised in today’s testimony and 

at previous hearings, and we individually and jointly look forward 

to commenting in detail on the proposals put forward. 

Once again, I appreciate the opportunity to appear before the 

Committee on behalf of the Alaska Division of Forestry and the National Association of State Foresters. I would like to thank the 

Committee for its continued leadership and support of efforts to 

both respond to wildland fire and to take necessary actions to address the underlying causes through increased active management 

of all forest lands. 

That concludes my comments. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Maisch follows:] 

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The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Chris. I appreciate it very much. 

Mayor, welcome. 

STATEMENT OF HON. MIKE NAVARRE, MAYOR, KENAI 

PENINSULA BOROUGH, SOLDOTNA, ALASKA 

Mr. NAVARRE. Thank you, Senator. I appreciate you bringing the 

Committee to the Kenai Peninsula to talk about some of these 

issues and for your leadership on the Committee and as Chair of 

the Committee on issues that are important to Alaska. 

You know, I want to deviate a little bit from my written testimony that I already submitted and just talk about how we got here 

and some of the instances. 

The initial funding for the spruce bark beetle issue came as a 

state grant, and it came back when Don Gilman was mayor in 1991 

and 1992, I believe. I was Chairman of the Finance Committee and 

he said, hey, we’ve got a big problem. He was scared to death that 

Cooper Landing was going to go up in smoke at the time because 

of the bark beetle infestation, so we provided some funding. Did 

some fire breaks in the Cooper Landing area, and Don Gilman led 

in that effort. 

When I became Mayor of the Kenai Peninsula Borough the first 

time in 1996 we were on our way to Seldovia for an assembly meeting, and I was absolutely shocked at how many dead trees there 

were flying over the Peninsula. I just had no idea. And so, I contacted Senator Stevens and without talking to the Forest Service 

or the state forestry or fish and game or anybody, I called Senator 

Stevens and said hey, we’ve got a big problem and need some 

money. He put a half million dollars in the budget for us to put 

together a task force. 

Then I got a call from a friend of mine who was working in DC. 

She said the environmentalists down here in Washington, DC are 

worried because they’re afraid that this crazy Mayor of the Kenai 

Peninsula Borough just wants to put together a plan to chop up the 

entire Kenai Peninsula. And I assured them that you wouldn’t do 

that. What’s going on? 

So I recognize the need to talk with folks about what was going 

on. I met with the state forestry and met with the Federal foresters 

and then put together a task force that was a very collaborative effort to, I guess, work with everybody, environmentalists, Native 

Corporations, State, Federal and local agencies, municipal officials, 

I guess, advocates for fishing and hunting to try to make sure that 

we could identify the problem and find a way to work through it. 

We were successful in initially finding, sort of, the low hanging 

fruit. Instead of focusing on the entire problem we focused on the 

things that we could agree upon, a wildland urban interface, making sure that there were fire breaks that we could widen either 

rights of ways or along roads, power lines, things like that that 

were already natural fire breaks that we could use and enhance in 

order to protect some of the more urban areas of the Kenai Peninsula. 

We did put together a good plan, submitted it to the Senator Stevens, and over the course of the next almost 20 years we received 

in excess of about $20 million to deal with the problem. And with 

those funds we were able to both do public education, implement 

16 

a fire wise program, look at the wildland urban interface and work 

together with a whole bunch of diverse interests to address a very 

critical problem. 

I guess the take away from that is the resources that we were 

able to bring to bear. And that really, I think, is what it boils down 

to at the end of the day whether you’re fighting fires or whether 

you’re planning in order to try to mitigate the damages when there 

is a fire. It boils down to resources. 

And we’ve been very fortunate over the years to get significant 

funding both from the State and Federal Governments to do some 

aerial photography so that we can integrate it into our GIS and do 

vegetation mapping to see how the landscape is changing. But 

those need to be renewed in a continual grant program so that we 

can identify where those changes are taking place. 

I brought my map here which shows why we should get Federal 

funding for this because the yellow is the Federal lands on the 

Kenai Peninsula. The Federal Government owns, by far, most of 

the lands on the Kenai Peninsula and in Alaska. So it’s important 

to get resources. 

It strikes me as we’ve seen the various fires, the Card Street 

Fire, the Funny River Fire, other fires that have taken place is 

that the incident command system really, really works. Resources 

are brought to bear quickly. People work together in concert to 

identify the problems to focus on how we solve the immediate problem. 

What isn’t always the case is that those resources are brought 

to bear when there is an incident, a fire incident, and go away 

when there is no immediate threat. And sometimes it hamstrings 

the efforts to try to find a way to plan for and mitigate fires. 

I want to talk a little bit too about what has been, I think, cooperation and more recently, at least since I’ve been Mayor for the 

last five years, between the Federal and State and local entities. 

And I think that really is in large measure part of the personalities, the folks who we have here. And I want to say that I’ve had 

a good relationship with the folks who manage the Federal lands 

here and the state lands here. We’ve gotten, as I said, some very 

good response through the bark beetle funding, the fire wise program, aerial photography grant funding. 

You know, we had an Elodea infestation that we managed to 

have a very cooperative effort between State, local and Federal entities in order to provide some ability to preserve our fishery’s resource, and I think that is critically important. 

One of the things that it seems that we’ve sometimes run into 

is constraints that come down from what seems like the Federal 

managers in DC that is, sort of, a one size fits all for Federal lands 

across the United States. And in Alaska, we value our hunting and 

fishing, as you well know. And we also value our natural resources 

and our recreation and our access to recreation. 

And the Kenai Peninsula is the—is really a place where the entire state recreates. We get a tremendous amount of residents from 

in-state, who come to the Kenai Peninsula to recreate on State and 

Federal and local lands. And we also get visitors from out of state 

and around the world, who come here. It is a world renowned desVerDate Nov 24 2008 08:16 Jan 12, 2017 Jkt 021989 PO 00000 Frm 00020 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\TARSHA\HEARINGS\21989\E21989.TXT E21989
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tination and with proper management we can make sure that we 

protect it. 

What I would like to finish with is, I think, that the spruce bark 

beetle collaborative effort was a good example of how working together and being able to talk together about what the issues are 

that the Federal managers may be faced with from whoever their 

bosses are in Washington, DC and making sure that we can put 

a local flavor on it so that we can have local expertise and local 

interest be able to weigh into it and have a dialog with the Federal 

managers about what can and can’t be done or find innovative 

ways to either go around or to find ways that we can, sort of, get 

the local influence factored into the decisions and the management 

of our lands. 

Again, it boils down to resources. And the resources that are 

needed locally so that we can continue to integrate into our GIS 

system information and aerial photography on an ongoing basis 

that will lead us to adaptive management over time as we see 

changes here where, you know, in some cases we’re seeing trees 

going to grasslands. And that needs to be addressed or it becomes 

a quick way for fires to spread and at the same time, it changes, 

sort of, what the habitat is for the wildlife resources that we consider so valuable. 

So again, Senator, thank you very much for bringing the Committee to the Kenai Peninsula and for your leadership, and that 

concludes my testimony. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Navarre follows:] 

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The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mayor, I appreciate it. 

Cindy Clock, welcome. 

STATEMENT OF CINDY CLOCK, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, 

SEWARD CHAMBER OF COMMERCE 

Ms. CLOCK. Yes and so we’re going to take just a little break now 

from these really heavy duty, serious subjects and talk about tourism, specifically winter tourism. And thank you as well from Seward for being here and for inviting me. 

The Seward Chamber currently has about 315 members. Our 

small, seaside town has a population of just under 3,000. The 

Chamber partners with the City of Seward for economic development using strategic doing. 

Our current focus is on the Seward Marine Industrial Center and 

alternative energy. You may or may not have heard about the sea 

water heat pump at the Alaska Sea Life Center and that’s really 

our poster child in Seward for alternative energy. 

Historically, Seward has struggled with a seasonal economy. 

We’re very lucky to live in such a beautiful place and appreciate 

our thousands of summer visitors, but for years we’ve been searching for ways to encourage people to visit in the shoulder season, 

along with promoting and encouraging winter tourism in our community. 

Many of Alaska’s smaller coastal communities are challenged to 

maintain a viable and consistent, year-round economy. Those without a strong year-round economic basis rely on the state to assist 

their residents in maintaining basic standards of living. Communities that can successfully maintain a year-round economy with 

stable year-round employment support populations that are generally more self-sufficient and rely less on state assistance. 

Because Silverton Mountain Guides, which could very well be 

one of the new concessionaires that you spoke of, based their heliskiing operation out of Seward last year using BLM lands, we saw 

a real boost to our local economy during the winter months. 

Aaron Brill, owner and operator of Silverton Mountain Guides, 

and his client guests supported many businesses through purchases of food and beverage, lodging accommodations, leasing hanger and office space at the Seward Airport, not to mention purchasing aviation fuel. 

There’s a huge opportunity for Silverton Mountain Guides and 

hopefully other heli-skiing operations like them to grow their business but to do so it is imperative they’re able to utilize United 

States Forest Service terrain. 

Representing my Board of Directors and the Seward Chamber 

membership I would very much like to see them be awarded permits for United States Forest Service designated heli-skiing exploratory zones including East Moose Creek, Mount Ascension, East 

Ptarmigan, West Bench Peak, Mid Seattle Creek and East Seattle 

Creek. 

With the ability to fly inland at higher elevations and colder temperatures and where the sun shines more frequently, Silverton 

Mountain Guides could increase client capacity upwards to 24 clients per week. The current DNR heli-skiing terrain is located along 

the low coastal areas of Seward which doesn’t work very well durVerDate Nov 24 2008 08:16 Jan 12, 2017 Jkt 021989 PO 00000 Frm 00036 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\TARSHA\HEARINGS\21989\E21989.TXT E21989
33 

ing low snow years and warmer temperatures like those we’ve been 

experiencing lately. 

Silverton Mountain Guides needs to be able to expand the terrain options for clients in order to have the ability to fly inland at 

higher elevations for optimal snow, and we know that means powder for these guys. Winter tourism is good for Seward. 

And finally, I would just like to address the permit application 

process. So anything that the United States Forest Service could do 

to actually open up and then streamline the process to accommodate new businesses to enhance economic development in small 

towns like Seward would be very much appreciated. As communities like ours are encouraged to stand on their own by the State 

of Alaska during these very challenging economic times, the business community seeks to thrive and we know our Federal partners 

can help. 

Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Clock follows:] 

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The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Cindy. 

Ricky Gease, welcome. 

STATEMENT OF RICKY GEASE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, KENAI 

RIVER SPORTFISHING ASSOCIATION 

Mr. GEASE. Thank you. 

Thank you, Chairman Murkowski and for the opportunity to testify today. It’s really great to see you on the Kenai Peninsula. 

My name is Ricky Gease. I’m the Executive Director at Kenai 

River Sportfishing Association. We’re a non-profit fishery conservation group here on the Peninsula. I also sit on the South Central 

RAC, the Regional Advisory Council, for the Federal Subsistence 

Board. 

Federal lands comprise about two-thirds of the Kenai Peninsula 

so agencies and the regulations do have a big impact here. The 

Kenai River is the largest sport, personally-used fisheries in Alaska 

and combined with commercial, sport, personal use and subsistence 

fisheries here at Cook Inlet, it’s more than a $1 billion industry. 

You know, for outdoor recreation, hunting and fishing and tourism, 

it’s big business here and it’s a very important topic that we’re covering today. 

I want to cover three topics and they all have to do with the one 

size fits all approach of, kind of, Federal philosophical approaches. 

And they have to do with wilderness. I’ll talk about the Cooper 

Landing bypass, kind of this passive instead of active management. 

I’ll give two examples with fire management and predator control. 

Then I’ll wrap up with funding restrictions with the Endangered 

Species Act and how it impacts the Pacific Coastal Salmon Recovery Fund and our ability to access money for salmon research. 

So first off with wilderness. You know, as an ecologist I firmly 

support wilderness designation on Federal lands. I think it’s important to have a mosaic of different land designations and wilderness 

is definitely important. But I don’t think they’re as valuable in having an inflexible regulation that ties the hands of our land managers so much so that it discourages wise choices. 

So let’s talk about the Cooper Landing bypass. This issue has 

been around our community for more than 40 years. It’s been controversial, yet there does seem to be light at the end of the tunnel. 

Unfortunately that light looks like an oncoming train. The two objectives of the bypass were to move highway traffic around Cooper 

Landing safely and to move highway traffic away from the Kenai 

River. 

So what’s the oncoming train wreck? The preferred alternative 

by DOT is the most expensive route. It builds another bridge across 

the Kenai River. It fails to move highway traffic and more importantly, I think, the commercial truck traffic that everybody understands here if you’re a resident, away from the Kenai River. It does 

not mitigate the high impact areas such as the bend between 

Gwin’s and the Russian River Campground in Quebec, and it utterly disrupts Alaska Native, culturally sensitive lands. 

So after five years, you know, 40 years, why are we stuck with 

this loser of a proposition? Because DOT both at the Federal and 

State level wants no part of working through the process of the 

land exchange that involves a wilderness designation even though 

37 

the Russian River Lands Act, passed by Congress, authorizes this 

land exchange. 

We have 80 acres of a rock mountainside in the Kenai National 

Wildlife Refuge that has a wilderness designation. And that’s the 

start of the area that would be the top shelf or what I think is the 

best route. And that stands between us and a bypass that would 

bypass both Cooper Landing and the Kenai River. 

It would avoid culturally sensitive lands, and it would come in at a cost of $50 million less. So we’re going to forgo being smart 

and wise and strategic just to avoid the worrisome and dull and inflexible regulations of wilderness, and that doesn’t make much 

sense. 

I’ll add in some about fire management. If we do go in with this 

preferred alternative and we have fire response coming over from 

the Moose Pass area and they get stuck in the bottleneck of Cooper 

Landing during July and we have a big fire down here, it’s going 

to be a pretty poor example of good planning, when we have everybody from the personal use fishery trying to get to or from the 

Kenai Peninsula and we have all these emergency disaster trucks 

and everybody at the stage ready to go and they can’t get here to 

fight the fire. And that’s going to be real fun to watch. 

Second thing I’ll talk about is passive verses active management, 

and I’ll start off with fire management. I’ll say if and when the 

Greater Kenai/Soldotna area burns to the ground in a catastrophic 

fire. I don’t think it’s a question of if. I think it’s a question of 

when. I think more than a few people here are going to be thinking 

it didn’t have to be that way. And I’ll just state this. There’s a 

funny TV commercial. A bank has an armed robbery. People are 

hitting the floor, panic erupts, and the distraught bank customers 

are asking the security officer to do something. And he replies, oh, 

I’m not a security guard. I’m only a security monitor. I’m only to 

advise you when a robbery is going to take place. And after a short 

pause the guy goes, a robbery is taking place. That’s kind of what 

it feels like here. If a catastrophic fire sweeps through our community, we’re going to be feeling like a robbery is taking place. 

Now fire is an integral part of the ecology of the Kenai Peninsula. We’re willing to spend unlimited resources on fire suppression 

and control once a fire starts, but we’re unwilling to implement 

proactive fire management plans before our fire begins. And I’m 

not letting this, you know, fault at the fire managers. We’ve heard 

enough examples that it’s policy that’s doing this. 

There’s a no nonsense fire line south of the Funny River Road 

that saved our community from a catastrophic fire, and without 

that fire break fire would have spread through our communities 

like a freight train. I don’t know if this building right here would 

still be standing today without the hundred yard by ten-mile-long 

fire break that got put in on private lands. 

So what’s our current protection plan for the North and East of 

the communities of Sterling, Soldotna, Kenai and Nikiski? Wellcontrolled burns are now actively being the case on Federal lands. 

What large scale fire breaks are located on Federal lands? Not 

much. 

It seems as if the onus of fire protection is placed on non-Federal 

entities is disproportionate to that placed on Federal managers, 

38 

and it’s heading us for an eventual, large scale disaster. Again, I 

want to say it’s not the people personnel on the Kenai Peninsula. 

But they have their hands tied, and we need to do something to 

unbind those hands. 

Second issue in terms of passive management I’ll talk about, and 

this is more from the perspective of sitting on the South Central 

RAC and Federal subsistence, it’s the concept of predator control. 

No issue in Alaska highlights the difference between passive and 

active management on Federal lands like predator control. The 

leave no trace wilderness philosophy has crept into the Federal 

perspective on predator management and now has become a thou 

shall not kill predators. Traditional wildlife philosophy sets ranges 

for both predators and prey species in game management. The population base goals are to ensure the sustainability of both predator 

and prey populations and to provide harvestable surpluses for 

hunting. Hunting provides important food for Alaska families. It’s 

safe to say that no Federal agency in Alaska is a dynamic proponent of predator control. Examples abound. Wolves on Unimak 

Island. The Federal response to Alaska Natives of ‘‘no, you didn’t 

hunt that,’’ when Alaska Natives talk about their traditions of 

predator controls for bears, wolves and sea otters. 

The most recent attempt by the National Park Service and U.S. 

Fish and Wildlife Service to impose hunting restrictions and bans 

through the Federal agency regulatory process instead of using 

Federal or State game board management. 

Hunting and trapping for all animals, whether predators or prey, 

has a historical place in wildlife management in Alaska and should 

be included on Federal lands now and into the future. These activities have long held an important place in the pantheon of outdoor 

recreation and tourism on the Kenai Peninsula. 

The last issue I want to talk about is funding restrictions. First 

off, Federal funding is important on the Kenai Peninsula for fisheries and fishery conservation and habitat. We have the cost share 

program. It’s an amazing program. I think a third of the properties 

on the Kenai River participate in that, and that’s a great relationship between U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. 

We have a fish habitat partnership that’s been putting, you 

know, important, strategic plans in place. We’ve talked about the 

Elodea. The co-oper-ship between everybody, agencies and ridding 

that of the invasive species on the Kenai Peninsula. 

So let’s wrap up with the Pacific Coastal Salmon Recovery Fund. 

Regulations now state that research can only be for salmon listed 

under the Endangered Species Act. This restriction was added just 

a few years ago, and it’s taken about $10 to $15 million out of 

salmon research from Alaska. 

Since no salmon has an ESA listing it effectively blocks further 

salmon research in Alaska using Pacific Coastal Salmon Recovery 

Fund monies, and it’s that is the largest source of Federal salmon 

research money available in the country. 

Salmon populations through the North Pacific rise and fall in cyclical boom and bust fashion following periodic changes in ocean 

productivity that we don’t really understand the mechanisms. It 

makes no sense to research the salmon or it just makes sense to 

39 

research salmon to all phases of the boom and bust cycles so that 

we can come to understand all the variables involved in the population dynamics through the years, the decades and the centuries. 

Early run king salmon fishing on the Kenai River is now closed 

for the fourth straight year. Gillnets as a subsistence gear for king 

salmon are prohibited once again on the Kuskokwim River and 

that’s the largest subsistence king salmon fishery in the State of 

Alaska. 

Commercial and subsistence harvest of games on the Yukon are 

fading from memory. It’s been so long there since people have done 

it. 

We have a statewide king salmon crisis and other species are 

also starting to show signs of ocean distress such as sockeye salmon. This is about the second year in a row that the third, threeyear, ocean, sockeye salmon are showing little to no growth. 

We have halibut over the last decade. Halibut had the rate of 

growth as to decrease by one-half. 

We have sea birds. This is about the second year in a row that 

we’ve had great die offs of common birds across the Gulf of Alaska. 

Something is going on in the North Pacific, and yet access to research fronts through the Pacific Coastal Salmon Fund is denied. 

We’re unable to find out the reasons for poor ocean productivity for 

salmon and these other species. The lack of an ESA designation 

does not mean that Alaska salmon, in particular, or king salmon, 

are not in need of help. 

The lost economic opportunity for recreational fishing, specifically for king salmon and halibut in Cook Inlet, are on the magnitude of tens of millions of dollars. You throw in the lost opportunity for subsistence, personal use and the impacts of salmon restrictions and halibut restrictions on commercial fisheries, here and 

statewide, and you have untold losses in the millions and millions 

of dollars. 

But these losses are not enough to override the regulatory requirement for and ESA listing to trigger funding for salmon research. That’s just not a reflection of smart and responsive government. 

So the ESA listing is kind of like this wilderness and this clunky, 

bulky, regulation, a one size fits all approach, from DC imposed on 

Alaska, both the Federal and state managers in Alaska. And it just 

doesn’t work very, you know, sharply. 

I want to thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today 

and to the Committee, and we have some written comments. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Gease follows:] 

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The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. Thank you, Ricky. 

Our last panelist this morning is Ted Spraker. Thank you for 

being here. 

STATEMENT OF TED SPRAKER, SAFARI CLUB 

INTERNATIONAL, ALASKA 

Mr. SPRAKER. Thank you, Senator Murkowski and members of 

the public, I appreciate being here. I’m really grateful for the opportunity to address some of our local issues, especially some of our 

local Federal issues that we have before us. 

For the record, again, my name is Ted Spraker. Unlike probably 

many in this audience, I’m not a lifelong Alaskan. I was born in 

another state. I was raised in Wyoming. I’ve lived in Alaska for 42 

years and 38 of those years have been here on the Kenai Peninsula. 

When I first came to Alaska I was very fortunate to land a job 

and have a career with Alaska Department of Fish and Game 

where I worked as a wildlife biologist for 28 years, and I spent 24 

of those years as the Area Wildlife Biologist here on the Kenai Peninsula. 

After retiring from the state in ’02 I was appointed by Senator 

Murkowski’s father, Governor Murkowski at that time, to the Alaska Board of Game. And the Board of Game is, as many of you probably know, made up of seven members. We’re elected or we’re appointed by the Board, by the Governor, and then we’re confirmed 

by the legislature to three year terms. I’m currently serving my 

fifth term, and I’m the Chairman of the Board of Game and I have 

been for the last couple terms. 

However, this morning I’m only representing the interests of Safari Club International (SCI) as I testify to some of the local concerns related to declining wildlife populations, restrictions to access 

and lack of protection from wildfires as it relates to a healthy forest. 

At this time, I’d like to introduce Spencie Neschert. Spencie is 

the local President of SCI. We flipped a coin to see who was going 

to testify. I’m not sure if I won or lost, but I’m glad to be here. I 

think I won to be here to testify this morning. I’m very grateful to 

be here to talk to you folks, especially to the Committee. 

I’d like to focus my comments on the Kenai National Wildlife 

Refuge that comprises about 70 percent of the game management 

unit that we’re in right here. This is 15A. And if you have the opportunity to read my written testimony, you will know that the 

Kenai National Moose Range was assimilated into ANILCA as part 

of the new Kenai National Wildlife Refuge by the addition of about 

200,000 acres of Federal land. 

The purposes of the expansion and inclusion of the Moose Range 

into the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge are there’s three prominent goals that they have. A is to perpetuate a nationally significant population of moose, B is to protect populations of fish and 

wildlife and their habitats including moose and other mammals 

and water fowl, and three is to provide opportunities for wildlifeoriented recreation in a matter consistent with the purposes specified in subparagraphs A and B. 

47 

Now let me take you back quite a few years. In the early 70’s 

the refuge, this Kenai National Wildlife Refuge, then it was the 

Moose Range, was clearly known as a leader in developing and implementing techniques to enhance habitat for moose and a variety 

of other species that depend on early serial stages of forest growth. 

In fact, in the early 70’s I attended an international moose conference. It was held in Seward, and one of the featured events of 

this international moose conference was a field trip near the refuge 

to look at the techniques that they were using to enhance habitat 

for moose. They were, without a doubt, the leaders and known 

worldwide for habitat that was done on the Kenai. This leadership 

role halted in 1976 when the service changed their policy from a 

proactive agency to a more passive management approach, where 

we are today. 

I’ve also, in my written testimony, included a peer reviewed 

paper that outlines some of the issues addressed in the early 90’s 

as far as habitat and moose and where the population may go, that 

was written by the current refuge manager. I don’t know if he is 

here today. Perhaps he is. He is here today. The Refuge Manager 

that wrote this is here today. I would encourage you to look at this 

manuscript or this paper, because it outlines exactly what they 

thought in 1991. And the clear message was if habitat enhancement is not continued moose numbers will plummet, and they certainly were correct. 

I’d also like to direct you to the service’s comprehensive management plan. If you have a chance to read that, it’s very informative, 

and they have a goal in there to enhance 5,000 acres annually. 

And in my interpretation and that of the SCI, I don’t think this 

should be used as with the wildfire. It should be used as acreage 

that can be counted as this 5,000 should be enhanced because 

wildfires don’t always happen in the best places to benefit, not only 

the wildlife but protecting people and so forth whereas enhanced 

areas through prescribed burns, suppression and so forth do. 

There’s also a goal in that. It’s called a CCP, the Comprehensive 

Conservation Plan, that addresses a goal of maintaining about 

3,600 moose in this sub unit, 15A. 

Presently our moose population is in severe decline. In the early 

80’s state biologists estimated about 4,300 moose in game management Unit 15A. In a similar study in 2015 found about 1,200 

moose, about a quarter, less than a quarter. 

I also looked at a comparison of a five-year period in the early 

80’s as far as for local harvest, and during that time hunters took 

about 293 moose per year. I also looked at the last five years, and 

the last five years the average has been 22 moose with a range of 

four to 35. I want to tell the public and the Senator, people have 

pretty much abandoned hunting moose on the Kenai because our 

moose numbers are so low. 

Now that the moose population is less than a quarter in size 

compared to 30 years ago, predators are now accelerating the decline. We now have what is called a predator pit where regardless 

of how much the area is enhanced, the habitat is enhanced for 

moose, the moose population will not recover until the impact of 

predation is temporarily reduced. But the Service refuses to allow 

effective predator control although there are strong proponents of 

48 

their own predator control as long as it doesn’t include wolves or 

bears. Additionally, trappers willing to harvest wolves to benefit 

moose survival have been saddled with very restrictive regulations 

on this refuge. 

You know, a comparison was made by a colleague of mine when 

we talked about predator pit and habitat enhancement and the debate between predator/prey relationships and so forth. And the 

comparison was that creating more habitat for moose population in 

a predator pit is like trying to fill a water bucket without patching 

the hole in the bottom because it really—you have to have both. 

You really can’t do with one without the other. 

And another colleague, a couple years ago when we were involved in a moose calf study here on the Kenai, made the comment 

that habitat enhancement in 15A would just provide for fatter 

moose for the wolves to eat. [Laughter.] I think he was exactly 

right. The Service’s policies are not perpetuating significant moose 

population and by law they’re required to do so. 

And until the Service has passed its management policies driven 

by the preservationist ideology of natural diversity and biological 

integrity are removed, no one should have any hope that the moose 

population will recover. Restoring moose numbers will not only provide additional animals for locals to harvest for food security, but 

will provide moose for viewing and prey for predators. 

Senator, there’s just a little bit more I’d like to talk a little bit 

about public access. 

The refuge, I’ll have to proudly admit that they do an excellent 

job when it comes to maintaining trails for hiking, for canoeing. 

There’s a lot of camping areas that are excellent camping areas on 

the Kenai. 

The one place I think we’re lacking is just public roads, gravel 

roads, where people can access the refuge. There’s several gravel 

roads on the Kenai, all of which are in 15A. One of them is the 

Skilak Loop which is maintained a little bit in the summertime, 

not in the winter. There’s good fishing there in the wintertime. It’s 

difficult to get to if we have a normal winter with lots of snow. 

But the one I’m really concerned about is Mystery Creek Road. 

Mystery Creek Road is about 12 miles long. It’s a gravel road. It’s 

used extensively in the fall by hunters. I think, and SCI has talked 

about this, it could be open from the first of May through the end 

of October. Now the refuge has a design plan right now to improve 

the access to that where you turn off from the highway because it’s 

really steep. If there’s snow on the road like there is sometimes in 

October, you slide down the hill and you run into the gate which 

has been done. I think the gate just could be moved a little further 

down the road where it’s flat. I think the gravel that’s going to be 

used to improve this access point should be put on the road, improve the road. There’s also several lakes off of Mystery Creek. If 

the refuge was willing to provide some camping areas and access 

to those, I think those would be really appreciated by the local public and would also remove some of the crowding or reduce some of 

the crowding effort that we have with other campgrounds and 

other fishing areas that we have on the Kenai. 

One last thing about public access as far as the Mystery Creek 

Pipeline Road. There’s three airports. There’s three airstrips on 

49 

that road. There’s only one that’s open to the public. The other two 

are pretty much overgrown. 

And the one that is open, although it provides good water fowl 

hunting, there’s a cabin there. It’s the trickiest one to land on, and 

the other two, I think, should be cleared and open for public use 

as well. 

As far as wildfires, there’s certainly been a lot said about that. 

But in the past decade the peninsula has witnessed several large 

wildfires, largely human caused. The refuge, along with state and 

U.S. Forestry and other agencies, have certainly done an excellent 

job battling these threatening wildfires to minimize property loss, 

but the communities of the peninsula are still far away from being 

safe. 

And there’s been years of talk that there’s been very little action 

as far as building these fire breaks. And one of the things I’d like 

to point out is there’s another purpose to prescribed burn and fire 

breaks and so forth in addition to wildlife—wildfire protection. And 

in addition to the loss of habitat at high mortality due to predation 

on moose, about 200 moose are killed annually on local roads. 

And as the moose numbers drop animals killed by vehicles on 

roads have become a significant contribution to this decline plus 

high property loss, human injury, including some fatalities. If we 

can clear these fire breaks and do it wisely and do it in the proper 

areas, in the proper habitat types, there is an opportunity to encourage moose to not use our roads so much, to make areas more 

available to moose and habitat available and attract moose away 

from our highways. Because unfortunately right now, about the 

best moose habitat on the Kenai is along our highways because of 

the Department of Transportation’s four or five year cutting program. So hopefully we can do fire breaks, and hopefully they’re 

done wisely and done in the right places, in the right habitat types. 

I know the Senator has referred several times to the Federal 

public lands as ‘‘open until closed.’’ In our opinion the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge has clearly adopted a philosophy of ‘‘closed 

until open.’’ And we sure hope you address some of these issues, 

provide for more access. 

And as a hunting organization, conservation organization that 

supports hunting, we’re just very hopeful that this Committee can 

address some of these issues here on the Kenai and other places 

in Alaska. We have a lot of predator control issues across the state 

where hunters are not having an opportunity to harvest game because of a lack of predator control and trying to get these predators 

and prey in somewhat a balance. 

I want to point out one that hasn’t been talked about and that’s 

the Western Arctic Caribou herd. A lot of that is Federal land. 

That herd is going to be counted again this spring. If it goes below 

200,000 the intensive management program kicks in place. If that 

kicks in place, there’s going to be a lot of reduction in hunting. The 

only way to correct that is probably to reduce, temporarily, the 

number of wolves preying on caribou and almost all of that is BLM 

land/Federal land. 

So the battle is about to begin, and that is a huge issue for food 

security in Western Alaska for a lot of our residents. 

50 

So, I know I’ve gone more than my five minutes, Senator. Thank 

you very much for the opportunity. I really appreciate it. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Spraker follows:] 

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The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Ted. 

Well, thank you. There is lot of good information out on the 

table. We have got about an hour or so to have some further discussion and build out some of the topics that you have each raised. 

Let’s start with just, perhaps, a more specific focus on fire, because when you think about the economic impact of fire in a region 

like the peninsula here whether it is the impact on your tourism, 

you have folks that have a reservation to come down and go out 

fishing or go over to a cruise out of Seward and you are shut down 

because of smoke. You have the lost revenue that comes from cancellation of bookings. You have just the reality of that economic impact. But when you think about what it means beyond the actual 

fire itself, smoke in a region, perhaps temporary road closures. 

When the habitat has been impacted, whether it is along our 

streams and that is impacting habitat where our fish are coming 

up or now have no place to really feel safe as they are moving in 

and out. Whether it’s the impact to the land that creates the brows. 

The impact on our hunting and fishing and those opportunities 

well beyond the actual fire itself. The impact that you have when 

you have actual property loss. 

We are going to start off with you, Chris, in terms of the road 

blocks that you see that prevent the various land management 

agencies from really dealing with the hazardous fuels reduction 

that we know has to take place in order to reduce the risk, to move 

forward with whether it is a level of timber harvesting, thinning 

or the fire breaks that we have talked about. 

What is it that is holding us back? We have talked a little bit 

about having the appropriate resources, and we recognize that at 

the end of the day so much of this comes down to money. But we 

have also seen situations where, even if you had the money, you 

have regulatory road blocks. You have got to go through your various NEPA analysis before you can move forward with that road, 

with that fire break. 

Talk to me a little bit about what we can do better to prevent 

these really significant fires that then have such consequential economic impacts to a region like the peninsula? What do we need to 

be doing resource wise, regulatory wise and just in the bigger picture? 

Mr. MAISCH. Okay, thank you, Madam Chair. I’ll do my best 

to—— 

The CHAIRMAN. I don’t know, can you folks hear him in the back 

okay or do we need the mic? You are good? Okay. 

Mr. MAISCH. You’re good? Okay. 

Well there’s a quite a number of things we need to do to help 

address these issues, and a lot of it has been touched on here by 

the speakers today. 

I would emphasize a couple of key points. I did make the point 

about the NEPA and the planning process, as you’ve heard from 

others about the whole planning process situation. And I would go 

back to the Funny River fuel break project. And I refer to these as 

fuel breaks. I know everyone here has been referring to these as 

fire breaks, and to a fire person there’s no such thing as a fire 

break. 

56 

A fuel break is probably the term we like to use because even 

with a fuel break, fires on the Funny River Fire when that wildfire 

approached that we lit the burn out. We had a lot of spots that 

went all the way over that very large fuel break which we were 

able to catch because we could see them. We had access. We had 

aviation resources. 

So I know what you mean when you say fire break, but it sends 

a false sense of security, I think, sometimes to the lay person that 

may not be familiar with it. They think there’s a fire break there. 

It’s not going to cross it. But that, unfortunately, is not the circumstance. 

The CHAIRMAN. Okay. 

Mr. MAISCH. So with that Funny River project one of the key 

things there is I know in some of the legislation that’s put forward 

to help Federal agencies do a better job is categorical exclusions for 

certain projects. 

The problem with most of the CX projects, as they’re known, is 

that the treatment sizes are probably too small. They’re really a 

postage stamp treatment in a landscape that needs a lot larger 

scale approach. And again, that particular fuel break is a pretty 

good example of that. 

Our fire managers have talked a lot about the lands here on the 

Kenai. And we would really like to see a system of fuel breaks and 

a shaded, more complete, kind of, an in depth defense, if you 

would, between the Federal lands and the communities that are up 

against these Federal lands. 

Because a lot of the fires, I keep looking at this map that’s sitting right here that the Mayor has that shows the fire scars over 

the past years on the Kenai Peninsula. And a majority of them 

start on the Federal landscape and they spread, you know, to various portions of the peninsula. 

So I think to help communities have at least a sense of comfort 

that we are aggressively doing something to treat fuels and to provide a reasonable chance of success should a fire start and we are 

trying to protect a community like happened with the Funny River 

situation. 

The other aspect I noticed with Federal agencies is they have 

really lost, in many cases, capacity to actually do projects themselves. They have to rely on partners like the states. Good Neighbor authority is a good example of an authority that’s help, to some 

degree in the country, with addressing projects that the Federal 

agencies can’t perform themselves. 

Again, the Funny River project was a good example where the 

state agency actually performed the work. The funding came 

through Federal sources, but that work also had to be done on private lands and rural lands which was good that the Borough and 

the private landowners stepped forward. 

To my thinking that should have really been on the Federal side 

of the line where that project actually occurred. But we didn’t do 

that because of some of the NEPA challenges that we would have 

had to have gone through. And in fact, if we would have tried to 

do a NEPA process, that fuel break would have never been put in 

place in time to serve the purpose that it did just two years ago. 

57 

The CHAIRMAN. Well of course, that is the great frustration here 

because the fire could care less whether this is Federal land or private land or State land. The expectation, I think, from the public 

is all those involved, Federal, State, local, tribal, whatever, wherever, whoever you are. It does not make any difference that we 

have some way to work collaboratively in the event of these disasters. 

We talk a lot about interagency cooperation and collaboration. In 

your view, do we have some good examples? 

I think many of us look to the Funny River Fire as an example 

where there was some pretty good coordination. If there is any 

grumbling about who was the most difficult partner? What I am 

hearing it is always the feds that were the more difficult partner. 

So the question that I have is, again, and I appreciate what you 

are saying about making sure that we have got an opportunity for 

larger scale approaches with categorical exclusions, but how can we 

make sure that that Federal partner is not the one lagging behind? 

Mr. MAISCH. Right, not an impediment. 

Well I think on that point, you know, a landscape scale NEPA 

analysis would be one tool, potentially, to approach this. Where if 

you have to do NEPA, which we will if we’re doing Federal projects 

on Federal land, at least clear a very large landscape so that you 

can tier multiple projects out of that one analysis so you’re not continually doing additional NEPA each time you propose a project. 

The CHAIRMAN. Right. 

Mr. MAISCH. And there’s some examples of that around the country where they’re attempting to do that right now in Prince of 

Wales with a landscape scale analysis, in that case for timber sales 

as opposed to fuel mitigation work. And there’s some other examples around the country where places have tried that approach. 

I have to say that, really, the Kenai is a very good example 

where we’ve had a lot of good interagency cooperation. The Federal 

agencies have been the best, I think, that they can with the toolbox 

they currently have in place. Although, I do think they lost capacity in their ability to actually do these projects on the ground. 

And that’s worrisome. We see that both in the Forest Service, 

and we see that across a lot of the different Federal agencies. I 

think you alluded to some of that with your discussion about management on the refuge. 

So I’m not quite sure what the answer to that particular point 

is, but that is definitely an observation from our point of view. 

The CHAIRMAN. Let me ask, and I will tie the Mayor in on this 

because I think we recognize that there is a host of different things 

that can make the threat of fire be even more daunting. One is just 

not managing, but when you have an epidemic like we had with 

the spruce bark beetle some years ago, you could see that coming. 

You could see that coming and you knew that we were going to be 

paying for this with a lightning strike that was just placed in the 

wrong spot or somebody who is out in the woods and was being a 

little bit careless. 

We can pray for cool, wet weather, but that is not a very good 

policy, really, when we are talking about how we can improve forest health. So when it comes to limiting the damage that we can 

see from something like a spruce bark beetle, and I understand 

58 

that we are actually looking at a new, it’s not a beetle coming in, 

it is some kind of an aphid, and it is causing the needles to literally 

turn brown and drop to the ground. We all know that you light 

that on fire and it is just like popcorn going off. I am not one who 

thinks that we are out of the woods when we think about the impact of insects and how they are, again, adding more tinder to the 

forest floor. Outside of, perhaps, spring, which I do not know that 

this is possible, how can we work better, and again more collaboratively and smarter, in dealing with some of these forest health 

issues? 

Mayor, I am going to put you on the spot on this one because you have talked a lot in your testimony about what $20 million in 

Federal dollars did to help reduce fire hazards. I want to know 

what you think we can do in the Borough to help continue to reduce the risk of wildfire. 

I am going to throw this one at you because we learned just last 

week there was a call from one of my staff to the Forest Service 

Washington Office. We were told that there were not any projects 

needed on the Kenai because outside of 2014 the forest areas in the 

Chugach seem quite healthy to them. 

Now what do you do with that when everybody says, okay, you 

guys are doing just fine, so we do not think you need any more resources from within Forest Service budget. 

I am throwing it out there to both of you in terms of what can 

we do more on the preventive side whether it is working now to 

work on things like fuel breaks, the larger scale approaches. But 

what do you do when everybody thinks that we are ‘‘healthy’’ right 

now? 

Mr. NAVARRE. Well you could put a rider in a piece of legislation 

and—— 

[Laughter.] 

The CHAIRMAN. There you go. 

Mr. NAVARRE. You know, I guess from my perspective it does boil 

down to resources. 

The CHAIRMAN. Take the mic there. 

Mr. NAVARRE. Including the aerial photography so that we can 

do some vegetative mapping, so that we know what the resources 

are. 

One of the things about the Funny River Fire that was interesting was that the live trees were far more volatile than the dead 

trees were. And I didn’t know that, that the black spruce were 

going off like crazy and identifying where the various fuel sources 

are and then on Federal land, having some ability. The NEPA process is slow, cumbersome and expensive. 

I know it has to be done, but there’s got to be something that 

recognizes what happens more predominantly in Alaska than anyplace else in the country and that is with all of the Federal lands 

that we have, the urban/rural interface is wildland urban interface, 

is it’s all over the place. And when we see these fires start on Federal lands and they don’t recognize boundaries. They move, they 

can move very, very quickly and when we end up with a huge disaster everybody is going to be pointing to the reasons why it 

shouldn’t have happened and that somebody should have done 

something. 

59 

So I think a collaborative process that’s facilitated between Federal, all of the various interest groups, that would allow for putting 

a plan together that could, maybe even as a Kenai Peninsula, we’d 

be happy to do it as demonstration project to show why it’s important to create an ability to move a little bit quicker than is allowed 

for now. 

I think one of the things that is sometimes frustrating, well I 

know it’s frustrating for a lot of people, whether it’s users, hunters, 

fishers or with Federal entities is we get, I guess we get the response that it can’t be done. Oftentimes what it takes is folks who 

are willing, and I think the managers have been willing to say, 

wait a minute. Instead of it can’t be done, how can we do it and 

what are the impediments to responsible management of all of the 

land including all of the Federal lands? So again, it boils down to 

resources to do some of the mapping and the aerial photography on 

a continuing basis. It takes—— 

The CHAIRMAN. How far along are we in the mapping would you 

say percentage wise? 

Mr. NAVARRE. We have a great system at the Kenai Peninsula. 

We are constantly trying to update it. I think the last photography 

that we have now is 2012. So we need some additional resources 

in order to do some over flights again. 

And the reason we do aerial photography instead of satellite photography is that it, aerial photography, can be shared. There’s no 

impediment against or there’s no restriction on its use whereas 

with satellite imagery it’s—there’s more restrictions on it. 

So, either remove the restrictions on satellite and then we could 

utilize that or else the aerial photography is the way to go and it 

allows us to do high resolution where we can see the vegetative 

map and we can identify where the changes are in the landscapes. 

We can see where the high fuel sources are and where the, I guess, 

where the changes are happening. 

And then, as importantly, using that information in order to put 

together a responsible management plan. 

The CHAIRMAN. Chris, what would you add to that? 

Mr. MAISCH. I think I’d add a few things. 

One in particular, a lot of the Federal agencies are really focused 

on restoration of various ecosystems around the country including 

in the Tongass it’s focused on restoration of mostly salmon habitat. 

In the far south it’s long leaf pine. You can go around the country 

and there’s different restoration efforts. And it’s always perplexed 

me that on the Chugach we don’t actually have a restoration effort 

or at least an active restoration effort. 

The CHAIRMAN. Have we ever? 

Mr. MAISCH. We established forests that were destroyed as part 

of the bark beetle outbreaks in the 80’s and 90’s. There’s been some 

activity, mostly on private lands and some state public lands, but 

not a lot on Forest Service lands. 

As you know the current forest plan is being revised for the Chugach, and it’s the one national forest, that I’m aware of in the country, that does not have an allowable cut in it. And to my way of 

thinking, you have to manage that resource and have the ability 

to have some timber harvest to help restore the forest to a healthy 

state. 

60 

So, I think a lot more could be done with the Forest Service in 

terms of approaching restoration of this habitat. We have grasslands that have established themselves that several speakers have 

mentioned. That’s a really difficult fuel type forest because it’s very 

light and flashy. It dries out quick, presents a whole new level of 

danger for firefighters, and it’s also very difficult to reestablish 

trees once that grass type has established itself. It’s very difficult 

to deal with that. 

So it won’t be an easy task, but it’s one of the things, I think, 

that has to occur through this collaborative process the Mayor has 

talked about. It’s got to be all landowners. It’s not just the Federal 

landowners, but they’re really a key because of the amount of ownership they have here. 

So—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Before we move off fire, I am going to ask the 

question that everybody wants to ask you which is what is the fire 

outlook for the Kenai Peninsula? 

Mr. MAISCH. Well, it was, for the first three months of the season, so that’s April, May, June, predictive services which is our intelligence part of the fire operations up at the Alaska Interagency 

Coordination Center looks at indexes around the area, long-term 

climate issues, a whole variety of things. And for the Kenai and the 

Mat Valley through the end of June, it’s a higher than average risk 

factor. And we’ve seen that already with a number of starts that 

we’ve had in both the Mat-Su and the Kenai, it’s still really dry out 

there. 

As the Senator mentioned, we’ve had several carry over fires. 

One, a couple from the 2014 fire which is very unusual. Typically, 

in a year we have maybe one or two carryovers statewide. We’ve 

had 14 already this year statewide. 

So that just is a reflection of less snowfall over a lot of the state, 

a lot drier fuels. We’ve also had about 200 fires to date statewide 

which is about on track for a normal season, as we would call that. 

But a normal season means almost two million acres are going to 

burn in the state. 

We’ve had very light lightning activity so far, but where we’ve 

had lightning activity, which is mainly out in McGrath, we’ve had 

fire starts from that lightning. I think we had three lightning 

starts over the holiday weekend here. 

So that does cause me some concern that as we enter lightning 

season which is June, we could see significant starts from lightning 

statewide. Really, the next three weeks will tell us how we’re going 

to fair with that lightning part of it. 

To date, out of those 200 fires I mentioned, only eight of those 

are lightning-caused. All the rest have been human-caused. So 

technically all of those fires would be preventable. 

So that’s really one of our key places that we feel like we can 

make a bigger difference is on prevention, and that’s why I stressed 

some of that in my comments earlier. 

So—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Yes. 

Mr. MAISCH. Let’s hope it’s a less than normal season. It will be 

perfectly acceptable to me. 

61 

But 2004 was the tipping point for this state. We went from 

burning about 800,000 acres a year to now almost two million acres 

a year on average. So I think due to long-term climate issues we 

have definitely seen a big change in the amount of fire on the landscape and the length of the season. 

So—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Yes, and again, praying for cool, wet weather is 

really not a policy that you can bank on. Yet it seems that sometimes that is what we are waiting for, or if you have got a fire underway, we are just going to pray that the wind changes and that 

is going to be our answer. We have much that we need to be on 

alert for. 

Let me move just a little bit and talk to you, Cindy and to Ricky 

and Ted, on where we are right now with our Federal agencies, 

whether it is Forest Service or otherwise, in terms of some of the 

permits that our folks need whether you are an outfitter, whether 

you are seeking to bring skiers up for a great heli-ski adventure. 

We are hearing some real dissatisfaction about the timeliness of 

getting these permits issued. We are hearing that the Forest Service has again limited or perhaps not opened up these general solicitations for some of the concessions. So can you give me a little 

more insight? 

You have spoken specifically, Cindy, to the Silverton Mountain 

Guides and their efforts, but are you hearing from others in the 

Seward tourism business about the permitting or application process for either conducting tours in the Kenai Fjords National Park 

or in the waters around Prince of Wales or Prince William Sound? 

Is this just limited to Forest Service? How difficult is it across 

other Federal agencies? 

Ms. CLOCK. Well as everyone probably knows Kenai Fjords National Park really put Seward on the map in the middle 80’s, and 

there are lodges and other concessionaires that work. It seems to 

be a fairly easy process for them to work inside the national park. 

The CHAIRMAN. Through the Park Service? 

Ms. CLOCK. Yes, through the Park Service. 

As far as with the heli-skiing, it may not be new to some parts 

of Alaska but it is new to this area. And I think, maybe, the Forest 

Service does need to just, maybe, change philosophy or undergo a 

little paradigm shift where they shouldn’t have to go out and solicit 

for vendors. It should be an open permitting process to where, I 

mean, why would they go out and seek people to bring heli-skiers 

up into the Chugach? It seems a little backward. 

So it’s not even that they wouldn’t grant the permit. It’s that 

they, well, we didn’t ask you to apply. So we’re not even going to 

consider it. That was some of the communications that I got a hold 

of through a letter to Ms. Blackwell. 

So it just, it seems not very conducive at all to economic development. I know that it doesn’t seem like a big deal to bring 24 extra 

people to Seward each week in the winter time, but it really is. 

So that’s—I don’t have a lot of experience about other guides and 

outfitters asking for permits. Right now it’s just the heli-skiing. 

The CHAIRMAN. Okay. 

Ms. CLOCK. Yeah. 

The CHAIRMAN. Yes. 

62 

Ricky, did you want to weigh in? 

Mr. GEASE. Yeah, I just wanted to talk about two things. 

One is I want to say that the process of the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge has for upper river Kenai River guides in place is a 

good process. It’s concessionaire based. It’s not a transferable permit so whoever has the most amount of money gets permitted. It’s 

actually based on qualifications, experience, and I think that’s a 

great process to follow and I want to give kudos to them for that. 

You were talking about the Chugach National Forest. One of the 

things that concessionaires need to be able to make use of is infrastructure, and in Western Prince William Sound there’s been a wilderness study for 20 some years now. It’s one of the slow, slower 

moving studies that we have in the Federal Government, and that’s 

preventing public use cabins from being installed in Western 

Prince William Sound that people, whether it’s the members of the 

general public or concessionaires, can sign up and make use of. 

I was a park ranger for Kenai Fjords National Park for six years 

during the 1990’s, and for the first three years it was no and hell 

no are we ever going to have public use cabins on the Outer Kenai 

Fjords. And then suddenly there was a rider from Senator Stevens 

and voila, we had four public use cabins out on the Outer Kenai 

Fjords. 

The original mindset of the regulators of the superintendent at 

the park was it’s just not acceptable to have infrastructure, public 

infrastructure, on this outer, wilderness ‘‘areas.’’ And it’s probably 

one of the best things that the park has done. 

The CHAIRMAN. Yes. 

Mr. GEASE. It allows visitors a safe and secure environment to 

enjoy the wilderness experience. And if you don’t have people out 

experiencing wilderness not everybody is going to be out there, you 

know, in their tent in rainfall and with populations of bears, 

whether black bears or brown bears. People want to feel those safe 

and secure environments, and I think public use cabins are just 

one of the ways to increase that opportunity and access into wilderness or remote areas that are on Federal lands. 

The CHAIRMAN. Is some of what we are seeing necessarily regional but with the ease of either getting a permit or just working 

through some of the one size fits all regulations that we deal with 

as you have Federal agencies? Does it depend on who your refuge 

manager is? Who is the district manager is? Does it get as, I guess, 

parochial as that? Sometimes it is good and sometimes it is bad depending on who we have assigned to the region? 

Mr. GEASE. I think it does. I think people at the end of the day, 

people in positions are doing their jobs and if they have experience 

and they understand, I think, kind of, why Federal lands are so important for tourism, outdoor recreation, hunting and fishing. And 

you have regulators who are welcoming of the public on Federal 

lands instead of an us versus them. We want to limit access. We 

don’t want you to go there. 

But say no, we welcome you. We want you to visit these lands 

in a safe, secure, accessible, meaningful manner. I think that 

makes a lot of difference. I think at times you, kind of, flip flop 

through philosophies that, kind of, filter and trickle down through 

63 

the government and some of it or people saying that we don’t want 

people on public lands and other ones are very welcoming. 

It’s like going to DMV. I mean, is that going to be a great customer experience or really crappy customer experience? I think 

you’ve got both of those type of personnel and philosophies within 

the Federal Government. 

And from my experience on the Kenai Peninsula, I really look 

with respect and admiration to those Federal officials that have a 

welcoming approach to people accessing in a meaningful way. For 

example, if you go up to Exit Glacier. For many years it was a really crappy—I’m just going to be brutally honest. It was a rock road, 

gravel road going out there that would get wash boarded. And 

somehow some people at the national park thought that if you 

struggled to get to the wilderness, somehow seeing Exit Glacier 

was going to be a more meaningful experience for you which I 

thought was a bunch of caa caa. I mean really, it was just a stupid 

way. 

And then once again, Senator Stevens got involved, I think, and 

then the funding got in to pay for Exit Glacier and put in a meaningful parking lot and so people aren’t jammed on each other and 

parking on the sides of the roads because it’s a popular destination. 

At the end of the day people were out there and said, wow, this 

isn’t so bad after all. It’s nice to have a road to go visit one of our 

beauties of our national parks, and to see a crown jewel and to be 

able to walk up and see a glacier. 

I mean, so there’s differences in philosophies. And I think that 

one of the things on public lands is an approach, whether you’re 

somebody who is getting a guided experience or on your own, is to 

have a welcoming experience from the Federal Government on Federal lands as a citizen of this country and from people all over the 

world to say, you’re welcome to come here and we’ve provided the 

infrastructure and access for you to have a great experience. People 

come to this peninsula because they can experience some of the 

best days of their life on this peninsula on Federal lands. 

That’s how great this area is. That’s why it’s so popular. You talk 

to anybody and they’re like, wow, I’ve never experienced that. I’ve 

never seen a glacier. I’ve never hooked a king salmon, never had 

halibut, never seen whales. Wherever they go across this peninsula 

you can have the best day of your life. 

I think it should be yes, protection is important. But we can also 

do it in a way that we provide meaningful opportunity for people 

who are visiting here. 

The CHAIRMAN. Well that is a great advertisement for the Visitor’s Center here on the peninsula. We appreciate that, and I think 

you are right. You can have one of your best days here. 

One of the things that I hear from Alaskans, though, is a frustration that Forest Service is different than BLM, is different than 

Park Service, is different than Fish and Wildlife Service. It is not 

unlike what we were talking about earlier when you were talking 

about fire. Fire knows no boundaries there. It does not care whose 

land it is tearing across. But when we talk about access and public 

lands being public, what I hear a lot of is that well, it means different things if you are on Forest Service lands than it does for instance on Park Service lands. 

64 

Some of what we saw back when the Federal Government was 

closed for that period of time. Ricky, you will have to refresh my 

memory on this, but there was some concern that if you put in on 

the Upper Kenai and you are drifting down the Kenai, and you 

move from basically the parts of the river that are surrounded by 

refuge versus coming through into non-refuge areas, you are subject to different rules, different interpretations, a little bit different 

example than what I am talking about between the various public 

or Federal agencies. 

This is something that, as I am talking to folks, there is a degree 

of frustration that they do not see a level of consistency in terms 

of how we would define access for whether it is the hunter or 

whether it is the person who is just going out hiking, and they 

want a level of consistency there. 

Ted? 

Mr. SPRAKER. Senator, I’d like to offer a very clear example of 

that from the hunter’s aspect. 

If you would like to hunt in Unit 7, which is U.S. Forest Service 

land, and would like to harvest a bear using bait, you’re allowed 

to do it. There’s no real restrictions. It’s pretty much wide open. I 

have participated in some of the orientation programs with the Department of Fish and Game and the refuge and U.S. Forest Service 

and so forth, and they actually encourage people to come to Unit 

7 and take bears. They also allow them to take brown bears over 

bait which is a real controversy over on this side on the refuge. 

Now the refuge has, I think, a very well thought out plan, although it’s very restrictive. They only allow the taking of bears 

using bait as a method in a very small portion of 15A, and they 

do not allow the taking of brown bears. So that focuses the effort. 

If you want to take brown bear on the state land or the U.S. Forest Service land, there’s a real inconsistency in those two. I know 

from talking to hunters it seems like that should be a simple fix. 

The refuge should allow the taking of bears because this is a difficult place to hunt bears because of the dense vegetation, and the 

use of bait is a very successful method. 

It’s also been proven that hunters can be very selective. And one 

of the management tools on harvesting bears is to not allow hunters to take too many of the adult females. That works really well 

if you have a bait station you could take your time and you can 

avoid taking females, and it’s been shown that it works. 

So that’s an inconsistency between Federal agencies that I wish 

we could address. It would provide for a lot more opportunity for 

hunters, and it would reduce some of the confusion that hunters 

deal with, with regulations. 

Because you mentioned floating down the river, it’s the same 

thing here. If you go on state land it’s one regulation, you go on 

Federal land it switches, and it’s always confusing. 

The CHAIRMAN. Let me continue with you, Ted, just relating to 

the hunting impacts of these Fish and Wildlife proposed regulatory 

changes. 

I certainly share many of the concerns that you have raised. We 

had a witness from Safari Club International speak before our 

Committee back in December when we had a hearing on ANILCA. 

She mentioned at that time that these proposed regs, in her view, 

65 

amounted to a takeover of our state’s authority over wildlife management. The concern was that while this is happening in Alaska 

and clearly very state specific, the issue that she was raising was 

a fear that this could set the stage for similar actions in the State 

of Alaska. This was not just looking at regulations in Alaska and 

the impact there on the ground but again, this move by an agency 

to really insert itself into the regulation, the management, of hunting that would otherwise be left to the states. Can you comment 

on that? 

Mr. SPRAKER. I certainly can, but I can’t add much more to it 

other than the fact that of the proposed rules and the bite on everything else that’s going on these days, one of the things that as 

a, you know, long time avid hunter living in Alaska, that’s really 

frightening to me is that the authority that the state has exercised 

for years in management of our game is slowly being, not slowly, 

it’s rapidly being taken over by the Federal system. 

And what is threatening to me is the process that they’re using. 

They no longer go to the state agencies and try to work with those 

and compromise with those. It seems like what we’re hearing and 

seeing more of is Federal agencies can make a ruling. For instance, 

the brown bear being on the Kenai. That’s a value judgment. It has 

nothing to do with biology, good, sound science. We have quotas for 

those bears, we reach the quotas, and the state shuts the season 

down. 

The refuge came in a couple years ago and closed the brown bear 

hunting on all the refuge. Everything else was open but they had 

the authority to do that, and that’s the frightening thing to me is 

I see this moving rapidly throughout the Federal system, to usurp 

the authority of the state to manage our wildlife. That’s the threatening part to us. 

The CHAIRMAN. If that happens and we see that, kind of, play 

out on the Peninsula, the impact to access to the lands, the impact 

to the people, the businesses, the local economy going forward, is 

effectively shutting things down. 

Mr. SPRAKER. Yes. 

The CHAIRMAN. Let me ask, again, when we think about the 

economy here on the peninsula, so much of it is tied to our outdoor 

spaces. It is our opportunity to fish, to recreate, to hunt, to hike, 

to really take advantage of our lands. Again, when you think about 

how we care for the lands, the impact that we have seen because 

of fire has been something that has had negative impact to us. 

From your perspective, and I am going to throw it out to all of 

you here, and again, I am asking you to look at this from the Federal lands because that is what we are trying to put on the record 

here, what do we need to be doing? What should we be doing to 

promote a healthier economy here on the Kenai Peninsula and 

from the perspective of whether it is regulation? 

Ricky, I will go back to your example of the proposal that we are 

dealing with just for access into the peninsula and our highway 

system and the fact that we have got some road blocks that keep 

people from perhaps making that decision as to whether or not 

they are going to come down to the peninsula at all because it is 

going to be a nice weekend and the road is going to be choked up 

and how we deal with that? 

66 

What else can we be doing to promote the economic health of this 

peninsula? 

I am going broader than our hearing agenda here so you probably have not prepared for it, but this is my opportunity to figure 

out what else it is that we need to do to make a difference? 

Go ahead. 

Mr. GEASE. I think it’s just important on Federal lands to realize 

the importance of tourism on the Kenai Peninsula. Kenai National 

Wildlife Refuge generates the third highest amount of revenues of 

any refuges across the United States. The other two, the top two, 

are locations on the Mississippi River. They get millions of visitors. 

We probably get a million visitors on the Kenai Peninsula, probably, hundreds of thousands do visit the Kenai National Wildlife 

Refuge, and just their footprint here has a lot of economic value. 

So on that broad sense, I think, just generalized training, more 

interagency cooperation. When I was a park ranger we had interpreters who were the front line of interaction between visitors on 

the peninsula. We had seasonal trainings for all the agencies. It 

didn’t matter if you were with the wildlife refuge or with the Park 

Service, with the Forest Service, or State parks, we all worked together, cooperatively, in interagency, kind of, trainings. I think to 

see of more of that and the continuation of that is important. 

There’s also sometimes some really small regulations that prevent business and prevent commerce. 

We look at sea otters. There was an article in the Alaska Dispatch recently about why is the sea life center getting inundated 

with sea otter pups? Well because protection of sea otters has been 

wildly successful. [Laughter.] 

The CHAIRMAN. Yes. 

Mr. GEASE. We’re over the carrying capacity for sea otters. It just 

makes sense that sea otters, you know, they’re very abundant now 

and some of them are getting lost because there’s no suitable habitat there. If you go to Cordova or Southeast Alaska, if you see sea 

otters in the harbors, they’re skin and bones. 

They’re eating themselves out of house and home. In our commercial fisheries in Southeast Alaska and Eastern Prince William 

Sound, the crab populations are collapsing and we no longer have 

viable, commercial fisheries because there’s too many sea otters. 

Well, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has a regulation saying 

that the only people who can hunt sea otters by Federal law is 

Alaska Natives. 

Okay, well, that tribe is a tribe because it works cooperatively 

within the framework of a tribe. But these regulations say that you 

have to be the single person, an individual can only hunt and then 

transform a sea otter pelt into something of artwork. There can be 

no barter between members within a tribe. There can be no barter 

between a husband and wife. 

There have been people who have been convicted of saying well 

the husband goes and hunts the sea otter and the wife preps it. 

Well, sorry, can’t do that. That’s illogical. That prevents business. 

I mean, the first eight years of Alaska under Russian colonialism 

was based on sea otter furs and trade. It’s a very valuable commodity that could be enumerable amounts of money could be generated for Alaska Natives as to go out and hunt. If they were alVerDate Nov 24 2008 08:16 Jan 12, 2017 Jkt 021989 PO 00000 Frm 00070 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\TARSHA\HEARINGS\21989\E21989.TXT E21989
67 

lowed to barter with other members of the Alaska Native community, whether it’s within a tribe or between tribes, to then transform that into pieces of artwork that could be sold to tourists here 

or could be exported. It’d be very, very lucrative. But because of 

that one regulatory restriction that says, an individual must go out, 

kill the sea otter and then switch hats and become an artist. Well, 

how many people here are expert marksmen and expert artists? 

The CHAIRMAN. I am. [Laughter.] I am just kidding, just kidding. 

Mr. GEASE. But you’re not Native Alaskan. 

The CHAIRMAN. No, so moot. 

Mr. GEASE. I mean, traditionally there’s separations of work in 

tribes just like there are in any other communities, and yet we fail 

to recognize that at a basic level of providing access to a resource. 

And then we wonder why? Why are there so many sea otters? 

Wow, the sea life center is going to go broke trying to take care 

of all these sea otters. Well they’re not endangered any more. 

The CHAIRMAN. That is good. 

Mayor, what are you hearing from your constituents because 

they are coming to me and they are saying Forest Service is cracking down on activity as a small miner. We mentioned the concessions, and Fish and Wildlife imposing these new regs. If I am hearing them I have to figure that you are hearing them. What else are 

you hearing that perhaps has not gotten to me? 

Mr. NAVARRE. You know, I guess what I would—my observation 

is that despite all of the complaints and sometimes angst, it’s focused. Those are focused oftentimes on specific incidents or rules 

or regs that come out that create a hot button issue at the time. 

By and large it’s been working pretty well here on the Kenai Peninsula. 

The CHAIRMAN. Good. 

Mr. NAVARRE. I say by and large. There’s problem areas, and I 

do hear about those. 

From an economic standpoint, visitor industry is critical to the 

Kenai Peninsula. You know, we’re a microcosm of Alaska and have, 

probably, the most diverse economy in the state, without, I think, 

without question. 

One of the things you pointed out earlier that I want to focus a 

little bit on is you mentioned the changing landscape when there 

is a huge fire. That is important because oftentimes after the resources are immobilized and they are incredible. It’s an incredible 

process to watch when there is a fire incident how many resources 

and how much expertise is brought to bear in order to combat the 

fire, to protect life and safety and infrastructure. 

But it gears down just as quickly. Boy, when it’s over they pack 

up and they are gone, and what’s left is the scars on the landscape. 

And with climate change and warming temperatures, I’m sure, 

which mean that oftentimes we’re already seeing impacts to habitat. You know, one of the things that we’ve talked about is streams 

warming and waters warming and what that does to the habitat 

for salmon, the resources that we rely on. And when you have the 

scars from a forest fire that denude, you know, right up to the 

water’s edge, that has ongoing impacts. While it will regenerate 

over time, the reforestation efforts in those situations are critically 

important. 

68 

So, the followup, oftentimes, I mean, we get the resources when 

there is an incident. What we often don’t get is the resources before 

and after that are as critical and as important as during the incident. 

The CHAIRMAN. Well, you do not have the resources and then 

again, you have people that are looking at an area and saying well, 

really? Do I want to go down and camp in an area where there are 

no trees anymore? It used to be a nice campground area. It used 

to be a nice place to go fish, and they do not come back. They do 

not come back. 

Cindy, did you want to jump in there? 

Ms. CLOCK. Well I just wanted to say, to get back earlier to what 

you were saying about, you know, what could we do to help economic development? 

Wouldn’t it be great to like, just sit down at a table together with 

the United States Forest Service, with the Park Service, with 

maybe the Mayor of Seward, maybe the Mayor of the Borough, 

whatever community we’re going to talk about and, sort of, hash 

out the issues right there? And so, that would be my preferred way 

to move forward as face to face conversations. 

The CHAIRMAN. I think that is what the Mayor refers to as 

adaptive management. [Laughter.] I am looking forward to how 

you tailor these policies to a changing landscape, to social concerns, 

to just trying to think beyond where we are today. 

I think, oftentimes, the way our regulatory process works, both 

State and Federal, sometimes the regulatory process does not allow 

for a more nimble management. It is where it is today and it is 

going to be that way tomorrow and perhaps next year unless we 

force those changes. 

I am just going back and looking through some of the things that 

I wanted to make sure that I got on the table, and I wanted to go 

back to you, Ted, regarding these regulations, these proposed regs 

on refuges. 

It was about ten days or so ago now I sent a letter to the Office 

of Information Regulatory Affairs within OMB. We argued in that 

letter that Fish and Wildlife’s management regs should be returned 

to the agency for more analysis because the true economic impact 

of these regulations had not been sufficiently captured. 

As you know, because you are very engaged in this, the letter 

that the delegation had sent initially to Director Ashe was one 

where they made clear in their regulation that this is not going to 

have any impact on subsistence. These regulations would not have 

impact on subsistence. 

So we sent a letter back to OMB saying, you have got to relook 

at this because you have not looked at the economic impact. These 

regulations, we believe, will impact subsistence which is, of course, 

economically critical to so many. 

I would like you to just comment on whether or not you would 

concur that even though these regulations specifically say this is 

not going to impact subsistence, when you manage in an area or 

you regulate in one area, again, your wildlife that is within the 

area does not pay any attention to whether or not you are a Federal manager or state manager. It does not know where the boundaries are and does not really care what regulations we put in place. 

69 

Can you just comment on the subsistence aspect of what we raised 

in our letter? 

Mr. SPRAKER. Yes, Senator, I’ll attempt that one. 

There’s no question that these new rules are going to impact subsistence. And we’ve talked a lot, several testifiers have talked a lot, 

about proper management. There sometimes is a need for reducing 

numbers of predators and so forth, the impact of predation. What 

happened? And I already briefly mentioned the Western Arctic Caribou. 

The CHAIRMAN. Right. 

Mr. SPRAKER. I think that’s going to be the real, the proof is 

going to be in the pudding there because if we’re not allowed we— 

as in Alaskan hunters, Department of Fish and Game and the Federal agencies—if we’re not all allowed to address that in some proper manner to increase that herd of caribou there’s no place in the 

state where subsistence, I think, is so vital for food security other 

than the Western Arctic Caribou. 

Local residents kill between 12,000 and 14,000 caribou annually. 

They don’t kill them for the antlers. They don’t mount the heads. 

They take the meat. That’s going to be the real question, I think, 

in analysis when that plays out in the Western Arctic it’s what 

happens here. 

You know, we’re all looking forward to a count this summer. 

We’re hoping that count comes in higher. Some of the basic parameters of game management are looking a little more positive for it. 

But if they go the other direction and if falls below 200,000 animals, subsistence is going to be impacted because I don’t think 

we’re going to be able to do the proper sort of management that’s 

necessary, and that is predator control. I don’t want to mince words 

about it. 

The way to address that is not habitat enhancement and we can’t 

do anything with the climate or anything addressed there, but the 

one thing that we can do is we can reduce the impact from predators. I’m talking about wolves. 

The other thing that’s involved there, and this is going to be really interesting, is that I made a comment about trappers who are 

saddled with a bunch of regulations here. Trappers have never 

been able to reduce predators to any sort of a level that will benefit 

a prey population. There’s only been one case in Alaska in the 40- 

mile herd where they came fairly close and it was short lived. 

If you want to do effective predator control it has to be over a 

long period of time. You want to keep a base number of predators 

in there. You don’t want to take them all out, but you have to reduce them over a long period of time to release the prey population 

and let them build. 

Again, those questions are going to be asked on this Western 

Arctic, and with all these new rules in place it’s really going to be 

interesting to see which side of the line the Federal guys fall on. 

The CHAIRMAN. Ricky? 

Mr. GEASE. On this specific issue I would just point to the record 

of the Federal Subsistence Board. Every Regional Advisory Council 

wrote in opposition to the National Park Service and U.S. Fish and 

Wildlife regulations. Those are rural residents, qualified rural resident users, for the most part, and the overwhelming testimony, I 

70 

think, in feeling the people was yes, we may be qualified rural subsistence users, but we also make use of the non-subsistence Federal 

lands and also the state lands for hunting and fishing. 

It’s telling that the core regulatory body within the Federal system, made up of primarily subsistence users, said no, we don’t like 

these regulations. That’s a very telling testimony, in my opinion. 

The CHAIRMAN. We are going to wrap up the panel here. I am 

going to give you one last opportunity to put on the record what 

you think we may have overlooked or something that you need to 

amplify, recognizing that what we were trying to do today was to 

effectively review the management of our national forests, of our 

public lands and what we can be doing together, cooperatively, to 

make them healthier, to make them more productive, for the people 

who live here as well as attractive for the people who we want to 

bring up here, who will help us with our local economy, whether 

it is enhancing our tourism opportunities, whether it is guiding, 

whether it is for recreation for hunting, for fishing. 

Chris, is there anything that we need to amplify or supplement 

for the record, certainly from the perspective of making sure that 

our forests are healthy? You have brought that perspective to the 

panel today, and I appreciate that. But if you would like to add 

anything further to that and specifically we will look forward to 

further analysis of this draft proposal that we have put out there. 

As you know, we are still working to build that out and to work 

on a final draft, final legislation. 

Mr. MAISCH. Yeah, thanks for the opportunity. 

I think that it’s a great start and there’s a lot of good things in 

it, and I think we can help them make improvements. So, we’d be 

looking forward to commenting further. 

I think what I wanted to comment on I think we’ve covered fairly 

well that we understand we need to try to get ahead of the problem 

and there’s many facets of them. 

And one of those is having these Federal landscapes support the 

communities and the residents that live in this landscape and 

around the landscape. It’s very important that we have economic 

activity to allow us to prosper, and that’s been something we’ve 

been working in particular on in the Tongass very earnestly for 

quite a number of years. The Tongass Advisory Committee and 

that of the Tongass Transition Collaborative are really holding the 

Federal agencies feet to the fire that when they come up with a 

planning direction, which they do pretty regularly on all these 

landscapes, that they actually follow through, that they actually 

implement what they say they’re going to do and that we hold 

them accountable for what they say they’re going to do. 

That’s been a real focus on the Tongass, in particular, about the 

timber situation and how dependent the economies in South East 

Alaska are on that particular resource. It’s been a real frustration 

for many but that landscape has not been able to produce the renewable resource that it has in sufficient quantities to maintain a 

viable timber industry, so we’ve been working very hard out there 

trying to work with the Federal agencies to come up with new ways 

to engage them, to get them involved with the communities, to 

really get them to feel that they have an important role to support 

these towns and citizens. 

71 

And it’s a real mind shift, I think, for some of the agencies to 

start thinking that way. 

The CHAIRMAN. Right. 

Mr. MAISCH. And it’s not an easy shift. We call it a cultural 

change within the agencies. The recommendations the Tongass Advisory Committee made, only about a third of those will actually 

go into the management plan that they’re amending. Two-thirds of 

the recommendations we made have to be things that we do to this 

transition process to ensure that they’re held accountable for what 

they say they’re going to do. 

So anyways, new ways of collaboration. Collaboration is not an 

easy thing to do. It’s been very difficult, and it takes a lot of time 

and energy. But if people commit to it, I think it can result in, you 

know, better days for all of us. 

So, that’s what I—— 

The CHAIRMAN. I appreciate that, and I appreciate what you 

have said about the Tongass and recognizing that it is different in 

the Tongass now than when I was a kid growing up and living in 

that region. But when we talk about a transition to a second 

growth and what that means, we need to understand what it is 

that we have so that we know that a transition is workable within 

the time that Forest Service believes it is. 

We have been pretty adamant that we understand our inventory 

first, and I think Mayor, that is some of what you suggested in 

your comments here was that to be better prepared let’s know 

where our trouble spots are. Let’s make sure that we have got the 

aerial mapping. Let’s make sure that we know what we might 

want to do. It is, kind of, an inventory of our assets here. So are 

there other things that we need to know? 

Mr. NAVARRE. You know, I think a collaborative effort in which 

we just continue to communicate because there are conflicts between the different managers at the State and Federal levels and 

as you know, the different agencies. 

So good communication and you know, maybe even, as I mentioned, a facilitated process where you can identify what the impediments are to management instead of identifying what reasons, 

what things can’t be done, identify what needs to happen and then 

figure out how you accomplish that in a way that allows for it to 

be done in a little bit more efficient manner so that you can make 

sure that we protect long-term both access to the economies that 

go with our natural resources that we have up in Alaska and on 

the Kenai Peninsula. 

And I want to thank you again, Senator, for bringing the Committee to the Kenai Peninsula and to Alaska for these hearings. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Cindy? 

Ms. CLOCK. Well, Okay. 

So Chris mentioned that really scary word, change. We may all 

need to go to some workshops to learn how to deal with change, 

but I definitely believe in a proactive approach to the world instead 

of reactive, so that would be awesome. 

The other thing that I just brought to mind when the Mayor was 

speaking was strategic doing. We ask three questions. The first one 

is if we could do anything at all, you know, what would we do? 

72 

Then the second one is well, okay, but now let’s narrow it down 

and what can we do? Then the final, nitty gritty question was what 

will we do? So I think once we get to that question some awesome 

things will happen. 

Thank you, again. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Cindy. 

Ms. CLOCK. Thank you for facilitating the conversation, and I appreciate being part of it. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Ricky? 

Mr. GEASE. A couple things. 

One is, I’ll hammer the point, the first point I made about Cooper Landing bypass and the thing about wilderness. 

I mean, you’ve had your own share of battles with the concept 

of wilderness in Alaska. But I really think this is an amazing example where you have an Alaska Native Regional Corporation and 

you have an Alaska Native Tribe who both oppose going through 

their culturally sensitive lands. They’re both, kind of, timid on 

going up against wilderness designation even though the lands that 

the Alaska Regional Corporation holds on the Kiwi River, are our 

important brown bear habitat, important king salmon habitat. It 

would be a great trade to put into the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge. 

We’re timid, and we won’t trade it for 80 acres on a rocky mountain hillside so we can put a highway through. That makes the 

most sense. 

That that to me just, it’s mind boggling to me why we’re going 

to put another bridge across the Kenai River, where it will end up 

behind the Princess Lodge. We’re going to come down on the 45 

mile an hour stretch. Then they’re going to go through the S turns, 

and you know, ramble along the Kenai for five miles when it could, 

just as easily, been bypassed and have the whole highway go outside the Kenai River and the ability to have an accident. 

Again, that’s another one where it’s not a question of when. 

We’ve already had trucks come in to the Kenai River. Anybody who 

goes driving between Kenai and Anchorage at nighttime understands the amount of truck traffic, of double trailer, truck traffic. 

It keeps our stores alive. It keeps the economy moving and stuff. 

But such a basic access and infrastructure need and we’re being 

cow towed by our own limitations of the concept of wilderness. And 

it’s just amazing to me. 

The second thing I would say is that in terms of fishery’s research there’s no greater balkanization, I think, of research fisheries. We have fresh water. We have salt water. We have U.S. Fish 

and Wildlife. We have nymphs. We have ADF and G. We have universities. We have industry. We have NGO’s. And it would be very, 

very helpful to have some sort of coordinated research in pink 

salmon because they go into everywhere basically, State waters, 

Federal waters, fresh water, salt water, and somehow get all the 

research embedded into a technological format that you can start 

understanding the limitations on where we have these bottleneck 

productivity for king salmon and other species in the North Pacific. 

It’s a big area where we have changing climates. We have changing productivity. It’s cyclical. Sometimes we have booms and someVerDate Nov 24 2008 08:16 Jan 12, 2017 Jkt 021989 PO 00000 Frm 00076 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\TARSHA\HEARINGS\21989\E21989.TXT E21989
73 

times we have busts, and to get a better understanding of that I 

went to Stanford prior to the biotech revolution and was, you know, 

we were still using the lots of crit DNA models and getting graduate studies and—— 

When you come back 20 years later it’s like, well this is the genome of the human, and this is the genome of a brown bear, and 

this is the genome of the sockeye salmon, and here’s our genetic 

testing labs. 

For whatever reason in terms of fishery’s research we have not 

utilized technology and information to the extent that we can visualize what’s happening in the ocean to the extent that we can. 

It comes back to information technology whether it’s mapping, 

seeing these different areas. Where we can do here, where we can 

go there, where we can be strategic? That’s visual information. 

And in terms of visual information for fisheries, we’re a long 

way. And I hope we come back 20, 30 years from now, we can visually go into areas and see hey, this is what’s happening out in the 

Pacific. We have visuals. 

We think we can have a virtual reality where we’re swimming 

along and oh, this is the bottleneck because there’s no—there’s 

none of this feeding group at this ecological level. I hope we build 

in the systems that can do that, take advantage of these new technologies that are coming out. 

We would never have the advances in medicine if biology never 

embraced technology. I think in our fishery’s research we need to 

make that same jump and really get an advance in using that so 

that we can see systems that we can’t see just by themselves. 

The CHAIRMAN. Okay, good suggestions. 

Ted? 

Mr. SPRAKER. Well, the last main comment that I want to make 

is I would hope that your Committee will take a very serious look 

at this new ideology. I think it’s clearly a preservationist approach 

to wildlife management. And in terms of natural diversity and 

wildlife with integrity I think it’s going to just stop all management 

on wildlife refuges. 

You know, a refuge is not a national park. You know, it’s here 

to use and it’s here. And I think if we, we were talking earlier 

about the revenue. If we could bring some of the 3,500 plus hunters 

that used to call the Kenai their area for hunting, bring them back 

here, it would be a huge increase in revenue. 

In the early 70’s, 80’s, we used to have check stations on the 

Swans River Road because there was so many hunters. Today you 

go to those same roads on the opening day of moose season and you 

can’t even tell that the moose season is open. You may see one guy 

with a camo shirt on but that’s probably the same shirt he had on 

the day before. [Laughter.] So, I mean, hunting on the Kenai for 

moose is just a thing of the past. I’m not going speak for the refuge, 

but I know these people. I’ve worked with them. I know them well. 

And for the author that put together a paper in 1991 saying that 

if we don’t do something about our moose population it’s going to 

decline, I think that’s the same refuge manager that would like to 

lead the recovery of the moose population on the Kenai. 

And it’s simple, the management of a wildlife resource is very 

simple. It’s getting through all the bureaucracy and the permits 

74 

and the authority to do it. That’s the difficult part. Managing 

moose is not difficult. Managing habitat is not difficult. Just having 

the funding and the authority to do it is the tough part. 

We have some of the best scientists in the world living in Alaska, 

working for State and Federal agencies that would like to do their 

job, and I don’t think they have a chance to do it. And that’s what 

I would hope that I could just leave you with that thought. 

The CHAIRMAN. Okay. 

Mr. SPRAKER. Letting managers do their job will produce wildlife 

for viewing, for people to hunt, for food security, for predators to 

eat. We could produce moose. While people come to the Kenai to 

see moose, they rarely ever see moose. 

Thirty years ago there were a lot of moose. And there’s also a, 

kind of, a social carrying capacity. You don’t want a lot of moose 

produced in town. So that’s where the smart researcher, the smart 

manager does habitat work away from towns to create areas where 

moose will live and be away from towns. It produces road kills, 

problems with the moose in town, so same thing with bears. 

These things can be done. We just need the authority and managers need to be allowed to do their job. 

I want to thank you as well for being here today and bringing 

the Committee to the Kenai. This is a real privilege for us. We 

really appreciate you being here today. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Well, thank you. 

I thank each of you for giving up your morning and helping us 

fill out the record here as we look to not only the impact of fire and 

why it is so important to do what we can ahead of time to make 

sure that the losses that are associated with wildland fire are limited. Limited for a host of different reasons, from an economic perspective, from safety perspective and just from a management perspective. But also the opportunity to talk about how we really can 

do a better job working with the Federal managers of our public 

lands whether it is Forest Service, whether it is Park Service, 

whether it is BLM, all the various Federal agency, Fish and Wildlife. I think we recognize here in this state it is not easy when you 

have multiple agencies that you are dealing with, not only at the 

Federal level, but at the state level. I know that the frustration 

level gets very, very high. I know because I hear about it as I am 

sure that your local leaders and your state representatives do as 

well. 

As we try to work through some of the challenges that we face 

and some of the impediments to a stronger economy and a 

healthier region and healthier communities, this is what we are 

trying to do by peeling back the onion a little bit. 

So thank you to each of you. I want to thank those of you who 

have also spent your morning with us. We appreciate that, and 

thank you to the staff that have helped make it happen this morning. 

The record will be held open for two weeks from today. If you 

have anything that you would like to provide to the Committee in 

writing, you can submit it by going to the Energy Committee 

website. 

I am looking for affirmation and I’m told no. Annie Hoefler will 

be back there making sure that if you need more information about 

75 

where to submit and how to submit your testimony make sure that 

you see her or you can also go to our website. 

But just so you are aware, this is more than just a nice opportunity to have conversation with these folks. We actually do take 

the input that we receive and we use this, whether it is to flesh 

out more of the details on this draft legislation that we laid down 

last week or whether it is how we move forward in advancing either comments to regulations or if we need to do measures by utilizing other legislative tools, say for instance, through the appropriations process. We gain good information here. 

So do not think that this is just an exercise where we come to 

town, listen for a little bit and then leave and do not do anything 

with it. We definitely do take all of this into account as we are formulating our legislation, our comments and our input back in 

Washington, DC, and yours will be considered and evaluated too. 

Thank you for being here. Thank you all. 

With that the Committee stands adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:28 p.m. the hearing was adjourned.] 

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