The Fight for Resurrection Bay

Russ Maddox's activism has been gathering steam since 2001, when a neighboring property owner decided to incinerate a huge debris pile—including a Quonset hut, a trailer, a storage shed, a school bus, and several old cars—50 feet from their shared property line.

Maddox operates a business on his property, which was covered with lead-laden ash that rendered his well water unfit for consumption. He won a civil suit over the incident, but the experience prompted him to co-found the Resurrection Bay Conservation Alliance in 2003 and Communities for Democracy in Alaska in 2006. Above right, Maddox with members of the Conservation Alliance.

In 2006, Maddox spearheaded local opposition to a proposed coal-fired power plant in Seward, the gateway town to Kenai Fjords National Park. The proposal met with widespread local opposition, but the Seward City Council was for it. So Maddox got together with folks from the Sierra Club and the Conservation Alliance, formed a coalition to fight the plant, and got a petition going.

Photo by Dave LaForest

Seward sits at the head of Resurrection Bay, above, in a huge valley surrounded by mountains, and frequent inversions already trap smoke from wood stoves. "Coal emissions would have compounded with the smoke in a watershed and a region that's highly dependant on our fisheries," Maddox says. "It's the worst possible place for a new coal facility."

The coalition presented viable alternatives like hydro, tidal, and wind power, gathered more than 600 signatures in a town of 3,000 people, and generated over 100 public comments favoring alternatives to coal. They also found that the developer's "model" coal plant in Montana had closed after a long history of permit violations and broken promises to the community and the EPA.

In September 2006, the Seward City Council voted down the project, and the company withdrew its proposal.

As usual with conservation battles, no sooner is one threat vanquished than a new one arises. Also as usual, Maddox is on the front lines. This time the problem is coal dust.

Alaskan Grandmother Organizes to Stop Coal Plant

Folks who know Judy Heilman like to call her "Grammy Beluga." She's a grandma all right, and the "Beluga" part comes from the name of the tiny community on the west side of Alaska's Cook Inlet where she lives with her husband Larry in the log home he hand-built for their retirement. That's Judy and Larry, below, at Beluga's 4th of July celebration this year.

Beluga and the neighboring native village of Tyonek are less than 50 miles as the crow... er, bald eagle flies from Anchorage, but there is no road access. The area is home to moose, black and brown bears, and wolves, and the Chuitna River supports all five wild Pacific salmon species.

Photo courtesy of Cook Inletkeeper

But the community got its name from the Beluga whales, above, that calve, feed, and raise their young in the waters of Cook Inlet, below. Officially a "near-threatened" species, the beluga subpopulation in Cook Inlet is considered critically endangered and is protected under the Endangered Species Act. "There aren't many places left in the world like this," Heilman says.

 
Photo by Brendan McMurrer

But PacRim Coal, a Delaware-based company backed by Texas investors, is proposing one of the largest strip mines in the country on a tributary of the Chuitna River, below. If the Alaska Department of Natural Resources approves the project, it will be the first time the state has allowed a mining company to directly mine through a known salmon-bearing stream.

Heilman and others are spearheading local opposition to the mine. "We're trying to protect our homes, our lifestyles, and the fish and game that we depend on," Heilman says. "The vast majority of people in Beluga and Tyonek oppose the mine because it will destroy our way of life. If we don't recognize this unique and fragile area as unsuitable for coal strip mining, no place in Alaska will be safe." Below, the beach at Beluga.

 

Sierra Club Helps Launch Service Initiative

Photo by Kris Connor, Getty Images

On Veteran's Day, the Sierra Club joined First Lady Michelle Obama, Dr. Jill Biden, and hundreds of active-duty service members, military families, and more than 50 service organizations in launching Mission Serve, an initiative to bond service to country with community service.

That's Sierra Club President Allison Chin, above right, seated behind Obama and Biden at the November 11 event at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. Below, First Lady Obama addresses the gathering.

Photo by Jackie Ostfield

"The Sierra Club is proud to serve veterans and military families who are making the greatest sacrifices for our country," says Chin. "We're working to connect a new generation of American veterans and military families with the mental and physical benefits of being outdoors."

Over the last two years the Club's Military Families Outdoors (MFO) program has connected more than 25,000 veterans and military family members with outdoor experiences. MFO has partnered with the Armed Services YMCA, the National Military Family Association, and Outward Bound to provide a free week of summer camp for children of deployed service members, weekend retreats for military families in the national parks, and wilderness adventure courses to help veterans readjust after returning from combat duty.

"We want to ensure that the people who are protecting our country get to enjoy the benefits of its natural wonders," says Chin, pictured below with Jim Garrett of Outward Bound, Joyce Raezer of the National Military Family Association, and Rhonda Geyer of the Armed Forces YMCA.

Photo by Jackie Ostfield

The event also honored Alma J. Powell, chair of America's Promise Alliance and wife of General Colin Powell, with the first annual ServiceNation Award for Excellence in Military Civilian Service.

Learn more about Military Families Outdoors.

Saving the Atchafalaya's Coastal Cypress Forest

Born on a U.S. Air Force base near Madrid, Spain, to a Spanish mother and an American father, Dean Wilson moved to the United States with his family in 1983. A quarter century later, he has perhaps done more than any other individual to save southern Louisiana's coastal cypress forests.

Wilson had long dreamed of living in the Amazon, and in 1984, the year after he arrived in the States, he decided to go for it. In order to acclimatize, he moved from Illinois to the Atchafalaya Basin in southern Louisiana.

He's still there.

For four months Wilson lived in his tent, living off the fish, raccoon, and other small animals he could catch by hand, hook, arrow, or spear. "I fell in love with Louisiana's swamps," he says. "I never did make it to Brazil."

Eventually he became a commercial fisherman and hunter, and he saw first-hand that centuries-old cypress forests in the Atchafalaya—the country's largest swamp—were being illegally clearcut to make garden mulch for sale at garden stores and retail giants like Walmart, Lowes, and Home Depot.

"It was being a commercial fisherman that led to my activism," Wilson says. "For years I conducted my own investigation, often in camouflage, sneaking around and documenting the illegal logging operations. I tailed the loggers by foot, car, and boat, taking pictures of the lumber yards and the clear-cutting."

Queen Quet's words of wisdom

Recently I had the privilege of attending the first-ever biannual Breaking the Color Barrier in the Great American Outdoors conference, which took place September 23-26 in Atlanta, Georgia.

The first evening featured many great speakers, but perhaps the message that stood out most for me was that of Queen Quet, head of state for the Gullah/Geechee Nation, which extends from Jacksonville, North Carolina southward to Jacksonville, Florida.

 

After enthralling the crowd with a song and dance performance, Queen Quet used the analogy of a turtle to illustrate the need to take action to protect the natural world.

 

 
“The Gullah/Geechee word for 'turtle' sounds like the English word 'coulda' [could have]. When we don’t visit and protect natural places we ‘coulda’ gone to, these places disappear and become a shell of their former selves,” she explained.

 

“When we pave over the land, we lose the pulse of the earth, but [natural disasters like] earthquakes can break through and let us regain our spirit and connection to the earth. When we move out of our shells, we return to a world of color, sounds, and culture."

 

“So we shouldn’t talk about what we ‘coulda’ done,” Queen Quet concluded. “We should be talking about how ‘we will’ and ‘we did.’”

 

 
She’s right. Talking about what we “coulda” done is a good mental exercise but is fruitless unless we act to make a difference now and for the future.

 

Want to make a difference in your community? Get active with your local Sierra Club chapter or volunteer with Inner City Outings, a Sierra Club program that provides opportunities for youth of all backgrounds to connect with the natural environment.

 

Stay tuned -- more posts from the conference are coming soon!

 

Debbie Chong is the 2009 Communications and Online Organizing Apprentice at the Sierra Club headquarters in San Francisco. In her free time she enjoys hiking, biking, and exploring the Bay Area’s diverse cultures and neighborhoods.

Club Climber Scales Sierra Summits

Thirty-one years ago, 18-year-old Daryn Dodge and three friends, all fresh out of high school, climbed Clouds Rest and Half Dome in Yosemite National Park—losing much of their food and a night's sleep to hungry bears in the process.

Little did he know what those two youthful ascents would lead to: On July 25 this year, Dodge, now 49 and a family man, became the 67th Sierra Club member to summit all 248 peaks on the Sierra Peaks Section list when he reached the summit of Cirque Peak, near Mt. Whitney. Below, Dodge nears the summit of Disappointment Peak in the eastern Sierra.

"I guess I'm sort of a goal-oriented person," says Dodge, an EPA toxicologist in Sacramento and a former competitive long-distance cyclist. Before that sport took a toll on his knees, he was regularly a top finisher in doublecentury (200-mile) races in Northern California, and he completed four Paris-Brest-Paris "brevets," covering 745 miles in 90 hours or less.

Dodge says he enjoyed short hikes with his dad when he was growing up in the Bay Area, but what really opened his eyes was a high school trip with the Yosemite Institute. "That was the beginning of everything," he says, "when I took a weeklong trip to Yosemite with other high school kids in 1977. After that I was hooked."

Dodge became a committed peak-bagger the following year with his ascents of Clouds Rest and Half Dome. "During the summers I'd try to get out every other weekend for 3-4 days, which was usually enough time to climb several peaks," he says. "I discovered the Sierra Peaks Section online in 1994, and it really fit in with what I wanted to do."

ICO Service Outings Forge Bonds, Broaden Horizons

Pictured: Chaperone Jennifer Greiber, Meng Yang, Pang Thao, Kia Lor

This summer, the Sierra Club's Inner City Outings Program (ICO) sponsored two national service trips: one to the Marble Mountains of far-northern California, and one to the Club's Clair Tappaan Lodge in the Sierra Nevada.

"I'd never been to the mountains before, so seeing them and being in them for the first time was mind-blowing," says Kia Lor, one of three Hmong youths from Minnesota who did trail work in the Marble Mountains, part of the Klamath National Forest. Lor is at right, above, and at center in brown shirt, below.

Pictured: Brian O'Neil, Pang Thao, Kia Lor, Meng Yang, Sam Chavez, Adam Nekimkin

Kids from Southern California, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Louisville, Ky., and the Orlando, Fl., area, ranging from 14 to 19 years old, participated in the service trips. All travel expenses and trip fees for the kids and adult chaperones were covered by ICO after the program received a $40,000 bequest from a donor.

On receiving the bequest, ICO asked its leaders around the country to identify students and chaperones who they felt would most benefit from the service trips. Eight kids ultimately participated, and all received 10-year Sierra Club memberships.

"I've always wanted to get involved with the Sierra Club but never knew how, so this was an amazing opportunity," says Lor. "I learned so much, including how to survive in the wilderness. The trip really broadened my horizons about the world around me and the earth I live on. It was an awesome, awesome trip!"

Says fellow Hmong teenager Meng Yang: "This was my first time out of the Midwest, my first time on an airplane, and my first time being away from home for a week. The trip was one of the hardest, dehydrating, exhausting, scariest, and greatest things I've ever done. If given the opportunity, I'd do it all over again." Yang is second from left in top photo, and third from right above.

On the Clair Tappaan Lodge trip, participants helped clear the forest around the lodge to reduce the risk of forest fires. They also finished a task they were only expected to begin—creating the new Valencia Vista Trail.

"It felt so rewarding when we finished the trail," says Giao Tran of Garden Grove, Ca., above at right, who was joined on the trip by schoolmate Lucy Lang. "Lucy and I have never built trails before, so the skills we learned will benefit us in our roles as officers for the Wilderness Adventure Club at our school."

Others on the trip hailed from Florida and Kentucky. "It was amazing how a group of kids who didn't even know one another bonded so quickly within the first day," says Tran. "We were all from different parts of the country with different backgrounds, spoke different languages, hung out with different types of people, yet we managed to connect. We learned a lot from each other."

Below, Jakliene Lado of Louisville at work on the Valencia Vista Trail.

 

"We were all extremely proud of our accomplishments," says Louisville ICO chair Josh McMinn, who came on the trip as a chaperone. "What was built on the trail can't be measured in steps we took, the mosquito bites we endured, or the hours we spent in the woods—it can only be measured in the memories we share, the satisfaction we feel, and the friendships we made."

Learn more about Inner City Outings and how you can get involved.

Landmark Agreement Restores Flows In Spokane Falls

  

Thanks to a settlement between the Sierra Club, the Center for Environmental Law & Policy, and Avista Utilities, water will flow year-round over Spokane Falls in downtown Spokane, Washington. Flows in the Spokane River have been interrupted for nearly a century by water diversions for hydropower, leaving the falls high and dry for much of the year, as seen below.

For decades, an upriver dam operated by Avista has diverted all the water in the Spokane River from the falls during the summer months. After Avista's operating permit for the Upper Falls Dam was renewed, the Sierra Club appealed the permit under the Clean Water Act, arguing that factors other than maximizing power generation needed to be taken into consideration.

The settlement to keep the river flowing year-round is of national significance because the legal basis of the Sierra Club's appeal was that the Clean Water Act protects not just water quality, but also water quantity flowing in rivers and waterfalls. Below, another view of the falls, full (at left) and empty (right).

 

Big Names Attend Sierra Club Sportsmen Presentation

Thirty-one people, including Representatives Wexler, Holt, Grijalva, Inglis, Eshoo, and Dorgan, as well as members of various wildlife advocacy organizations, attended the June 30 Congressional Press Briefing titled “Conserving the Big Game Migrations of the American West.” The event was sponsored by Congressman Rush Holt, and speakers included representatives from the Sierra Club, the Western Governors’ Association, the Western Wildlife Council, Freedom to Roam, the Wildlife & Habitat Initiative, and the National Fish & Wildlife Foundation.

The briefing was put on by the Sierra Club’s Sierra Sportsmen program, which aims to unite conservation-minded anglers and hunters from around the country and empower them to be leaders in the protection of our wild places and wildlife. The goal of the briefing was to bring attention to the rapid loss of migration routes and wildlife corridors in the western states for big game such as caribou, pronghorn, and mule deer. Climate change and poorly planned development are cited as the main reasons for this loss of habitat. During the briefing, both science and policy were used to discuss what is already being done about this problem and why it is such a crucial issue.

The effect of habitat loss on the sportsmen industry was especially highlighted. As climate change reduces the food supply for big game animals, which are popular prey for hunters, the animals are forced to migrate to new habitats. However, when their migration corridors are destroyed, the animals cannot move to more plentiful habitats, and thus they face extinction. With no animals to hunt, the sportsmen trade also is threatened. 

See what else the Sierra Sportsmen program is up to by visiting the website.

This entry was written by Sierra Club Media Intern Natalie Gaber.

Confrontation in West Virginia

 

Larry Gibson lives on a 50-acre homestead on the side of Kayford Mountain in West Virginia that has been in his family for 200 years. More than 300 of his ancestors are buried in the cemetery on Kayford Mountain. 

The mountains of southern Appalachia are home to a rich cultural heritage, as well as some of the most bio-diverse forests on earth. They are also rich in coal, and since 1986, mountaintop removal mining (MTR) has been steadily demolishing Kayford Mountain, leaving behind the moonscape pictured below.

Larry's homestead used to be surrounded by peaks and ridges supporting deep forests and mountain streams. The Gibson's haven't moved, but their house now occupies the highest point of land around, as the surrounding 12,000 acres of Kayford Mountain have been blasted to smithereens. The Gibson's cabin is the right-most structure in the settlement pictured below. In 2007 a portion of the cemetery where the Gibson's relatives are buried was bulldozed.

For more than 20 years Larry has held out against coal company efforts to buy him out, meanwhile helping found the Keeper of the Mountains Foundation, which celebrates and nurtures mountain culture. The foundation also allows him to travel the country spreading the word about MTR. Larry welcomes concerned citizens, students, journalists, and government officials to visit his homestead to see first-hand what mountaintop removal does to the land.

Larry also helps host the Mountain Keepers Festival over the July 4 weekend at Stanley Heirs Park on Kayford Mountain, where people camp out, learn about the mountains, and share food, stories, music, and solidarity.

This year, a group of people dressed in T-shirts issued by the Massey Energy Company crashed the party, intimidating and verbally threatening festival-goers. They were apparently unarmed, but one half-naked man in their company rubbed meat all over himself and threatened to slit people's throats before Massey employees who were recognized as local residents led him away.

The incident was captured on video. [Viewers, note that this clip contains strong language and is not suitable for children.] State police were contacted, but by the time they arrived two hours later the intruders were nowhere to be found. The video has been forwarded to the West Virginia State Police and the U.S. Department of Justice.

It is not clear whether the intruders acted on their own or were encouraged by Massey, the largest operator of MTR sites in the state. It should also be noted that not all of the party-crashers behaved threateningly; the ones who led the shirtless man away were apparently embarrassed by his behavior, and one member of the Sierra Club's Kentucky Chapter who was in attendance reported that there was "an exchange of barbecue" before the Massey crew drove off.

What is clear is that the practice of mountaintop removal is deeply divisive to residents of southern Appalachia, often pitting neighbor against neighbor and even driving a wedge between family members. Learn more about mountaintop removal mining and how we can move beyond coal.

Kayford Mountain photos by Vivian Stockman, courtesy of the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition.