Recycle E-waste and prevent pollution
A large deposit of copper, gold, silver, molybdenum, and palladium has been discovered in Alaska! These precious metals are currently sitting idle awaiting the chance to be turned into your newest iPad, computer, gaming console, or smart phone. Perhaps this particular deposit will be used to create a battery that will power your next hybrid vehicle or will be used to manufacture a tidal turbine in Kachemak Bay, creating a source of clean, local, and sustainable energy. No, this is not the proposed Pebble mine in southwest Alaska. This deposit is in your junk drawer, storage unit, back room, and even your local landfill.
Don’t shortchange spending on children
We’re being told that fiscal responsibility requires big cuts in education, nutrition, and health care for millions of children. This shortsighted and uncaring thinking is not only a nightmare for those directly affected; it is an imminent threat to America’s economic future.
We have to let our policy makers know that fiscal responsibility requires caring economic policies. Here’s why.
Experts agree that a nation’s most important asset is what economists call “high quality human capital” – flexible, creative, educated people who can adapt to our globalized knowledge-service economy. Brain science shows that the years from 0 to 5 are critical for healthy brain development. An overwhelming body of research shows that to ensure that we have this high quality human capital we must invest more in care and education for our children. Indeed, studies have long shown that this is the most cost-effective investment a nation can make.
Among other challenges, shorebirds hunted legally in Caribbean
I recently received an email from a local birder expressing shock over a recent article in the current Audubon magazine (www.audubonmagazine.org/). In “Unlocking Migration’s Secrets,” Scott Weidensaul (former Shorebird Festival keynote speaker) and Joel Sartore discuss how new technology has provided important insight into the status of shorebird populations.
Raising standards not big piece of the puzzle; raise expectations
On Sunday afternoon I watched the final hour of the Masters Golf Tournament. Besides being an exciting competition, it was interesting to watch several of the commercials that focused on the apparent sorry state of U.S. education. The ads pointed to the country’s poor performance on international tests as the reason why we need to raise our standards.
Strengthening Families Week of Young Child
The Week Of The Young Child — April 22-28 — will be celebrated in Homer with many fun, free activities for families and young children. The list is long — reflecting the wide variety of organizations and individuals who care about kids in Homer! Watch for posters and ads or look at the resource website: www.pop411.org for updates on scheduled activities.
Families First: A Best Beginnings Partnership works with others in the Homer area to advocate for those things that will help strengthen families. We know that the early years are the most important in a child’s growth and development. It can also be a very stressful time for a young family. A national initiative called Strengthening Families has a research based approach to support families. They have identified five very specific “protective factors” that help parents raise happy, healthy children. Communities can help families by encouraging and nurturing these protective factors.
Halibut Cove salmon pens cause worry
The proposal to install salmon pens in the Halibut Cove Lagoon should worry anyone who cares about this little gem in Kachemak Bay State Park. While presented as benign, it has the potential to cause significant impacts.
First, the fish are not native to the Tutka Bay, China Poot, or Humpy Creek Runs, they are from Windy Point. Thus, CIAA is introducing a different line of fish to the Bay. What impacts will come from this? The previous pens the hatchery put in were tiny compared to the current “revised” proposal. They reduced the proposal from 100 to 30 million fish. There has never been 30 million fish in this Lagoon (3-12 million maximum).
Reply to Alaska AG Geraghty
Thank you for your letter dated, March 9, expressing the State of Alaska’s concerns regarding the EPA’s Bristol Bay Watershed Assessment. Your letter raises a number of concerns about the process the EPA is employing to develop the Watershed Assessment and raises questions about its legality. The letter requests that the EPA respond to your legal and process concerns in writing. You have also asked for a meeting between the EPA and the State on technical questions and issues regarding the Watershed Assessment.
It is very important to me, personally, and to the agency as a whole, that the EPA work with the State on the Bristol Bay Watershed Assessment and understand your concerns. From the beginning of the draft assessment process, the EPA has reached out to the State to discuss our approach to better understanding the Bristol Bay resource and to seek your input and involvement at every step along the way.
New book speaks of tale of US Manhattan
Ask any Alaskan if they have heard of the Manhattan and you’re likely to get a blank stare. Granted, it was more than 40 years ago — but the voyage of the leviathan oil tanker Manhattan through the Northwest Passage in 1969 launched the American rush to Arctic resources. Now, a new book by Ross Coen, “Breaking Ice for Arctic Oil: The Epic Voyage of the SS Manhattan Through the Northwest Passage,” tells the story of the ship. (Coen visited Homer last week to talk about his book at the Kachemak Bay Campus.)
As the biography of an extraordinary vessel, the basic story is riveting enough: massive ship built as a fluke gains worldwide attention and becomes famous. Coen takes it further, placing the Manhattan at the nexus of global oil industry competitiveness and then weaving in the age-old question of who has the right of passage over the seas. Even before her bow crushed any ice, she spun the compass on conventional ways of thinking about the technology of moving millions of barrels of crude oil while accommodating nascent ideas of environmental protection.
Fighting for fair oil incentives
Thank you for inviting me to speak today. I assume I was asked as President of the Senate, but maybe I should explain being Senate President is like being head of a cemetery company. You have got a lot of folks under you but no one is paying any attention. I should know better than giving any predictions about when the Senate will get oil tax changes done.
Weeks ago I gave a schedule to the press saying that I expected the oil tax bill to be out of Senate Finance with a month for the House to consider it. But unfortunately no one in the cemetery was paying any attention. Making predictions in this business is pretty chancy. I had hoped to get the bill out of the Resource Committee early as well.
Letters – Mar. 28
Battle of the books Hats off to the Homer Emblem Club No. 350; Sons of the Legion, Post No. 16; The Homer Foundation; Kachemak Bay Lions; and Rotary Club of Homer-Downtown for supporting literacy in our schools each year through the Battle of the Books program! By donating these books to West Homer, and to [...]
