Advocating for Southeast Alaska Waters
Our Clean Water Program works with Southeast Alaska communities to develop solutions for protecting, managing, benefiting from, and celebrating local waterways.
Photo by: Susan Stephens
Photos by: Michele Cornelius (top) Connor Gallagher (below)
The Waters of Southeast Alaska
Southeast Alaska is as much water as it is land. Here, the interconnected web of the Inside Passage is home to lush wild salmon rivers and immense watersheds that feed the trees of the Tongass and the oceans of the world. It is a place teeming with biodiversity — from whales and wolves, to eagles, deer and bears, to salmon and human communities.
There is wisdom here too, connection, balance, and resilience — lessons learned through millennia of change and adaptation.
Yet, balance is becoming more difficult in a world of rapid change and large-scale resource extraction.
What We Do
Our Clean Water Program supports Southeast Alaskan communities in having a strong voice, developing solutions for managing, protecting, and benefiting from local waterways, and learning from local knowledge about what works for maintaining balance in this place.
What’s happening with Southeast Alaska waters?
Talking points for Greens Creek Mine Expansion public meetings
Two public meetings are planned for on the Greens Creek Mine Expansion Scoping process. The virtual public meeting for Juneau and Hoonah will be at 5:30 p.m., Tuesday, Oct. 20, and the virtual public meeting for Angoon will be at 5:30 p.m., Thursday, Oct. 29. PUBLIC...
Chilkat and Stikine Named 2019’s Most Endangered Rivers
Yesterday, American Rivers announced the 10 Most Endangered Rivers of 2019. Featured prominently on this list, for the first time, are two iconic and highly important rivers of Southeast Alaska: the Chilkat and the Stikine. Both rivers are facing social,...
Photo by: Alex Crook
Southeast Watersheds
Our work is currently focused on three transboundary watersheds: the Chilkat | Jilkaat Heeni (near Klukwan and Haines), the Stikine | Shtax’héen (near Wrangell and Petersburg), and the Unuk | Junak (near Ketchikan, Saxman, and Metlakatla).
We have selected these rivers because they are all vitally important to the survival of wild Pacific salmon and nearby communities, they are threatened by upstream mining activity, and there are still opportunities to take protective action in each case.
Click the graphics below to learn more about these three rivers and how to protect them.
Chilkat • Jilkaat Heeni
Stikine • Shtax’héen
Unuk • Junak
Chilkat River
Stikine River
Unuk River
