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Cook Inlet Offshore Oil Drilling: Why Alaskans Are Questioning Another Generation of Fossil Fuels · How To Protect The Ocean

• 0:00
  What if the next US offshore oil and gas lease isn't happening in some distant
• 0:05
  Ocean you've never heard of, but in waters that feed families support salmon runs
• 0:10
  and are home to one of the most endangered whale populations in North America.
• 0:15
  Today's conversation takes us to Cook Inlet Alaska.
• 0:18
  Where decisions being made right now could lock communities into another generation
• 0:23
  of fossil fuel dependence, or finally open the door to a different future.
• 0:28
  We're gonna talk about this on this episode of the How
• 0:30
  to Protect the Ocean Podcast.
• 0:32
  Let's start the show.
• 0:33
  Hey everybody.
• 0:34
  Welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast.
• 0:37
  I'm your host, Andrew Lewin, Marine biologist and science communicator
• 0:41
  here to tell you what's happening in the Ocean, how you can speak up for
• 0:44
  the Ocean, and what you can do to live for a better Ocean by taking action.
• 0:48
  And this is another interview in a series of interviews that I've done for the us.
• 0:53
  Oil and gas lease plan, a five year lease plan that was put out just before
• 0:57
  the holiday season so that a lot of people couldn't publicly comment.
• 1:01
  The public comment period is still open till January 23rd.
• 1:04
  This is gonna be released sort of on the Monday before that, And so
• 1:07
  I want you to get an idea of how people in Cook Inland and in Alaska.
• 1:12
  Feel about this oil lease plan and what you're gonna find
• 1:16
  out is very, very surprising.
• 1:18
  'cause we have Jamie Curry, who's the communications director of Cook
• 1:21
  Inlet Keeper, and we have Lauren Barrett, who's the co-executive
• 1:26
  director of the Inlet Keeper.
• 1:27
  They're part of an organization that has spent decades defending Cook Island
• 1:31
  watershed from pollution, climate impacts, and unchecked industrial expansion.
• 1:37
  So in this conversation, we unpack the US offshore oil and gas leasing plan, the
• 1:41
  five year plan, and what that actually means for Alaskans who live, who fish
• 1:46
  and race families along these waters.
• 1:49
  We talk about how the oil and gas industry has shaped Alaska's economy, politics,
• 1:54
  and public expectations in the past, and why that history still influences
• 1:58
  how people feel about drilling today.
• 2:01
  So most importantly, we explore a question that often gets lost
• 2:05
  in the national energy debates.
• 2:07
  Do the people most affected buy offshore drilling?
• 2:10
  Actually support expanding it into the future.
• 2:13
  And are they asking for something different altogether?
• 2:16
  This episode is about power, it's about legacy, and who gets to
• 2:20
  decide the future of Alaska's Ocean.
• 2:22
  And I want to reiterate the importance of what this is going to mean
• 2:27
  for coastal people across the us.
• 2:30
  Not just Cook Inlet, but even just specifically for Cook Inlet.
• 2:34
  'cause there's a website that they have up, and I'm gonna link to it.
• 2:36
  Speak up for blue.com/inlet.
• 2:39
  Keep it's in the show notes.
• 2:40
  It's very important that you go see this.
• 2:42
  There is an image in the timeline that they talk about what's been happening.
• 2:46
  That is so.
• 2:47
  Impactful to me because it looks at how the leases are going to be
• 2:52
  expanded or are going to be put and where they're located in Cook Inland.
• 2:57
  And if you haven't seen like what this looks like, it's basically it's got a
• 3:00
  mouth to the Ocean And then it's got this sort of like track that goes into as an
• 3:04
  inland, basically there's land on one side and land on the other side, like
• 3:07
  the major mainland on the other side.
• 3:09
  And it goes all the way in quite a distance.
• 3:11
  A number of kilometers in where they want.
• 3:13
  These leases are right in the mouth of the inlet where people
• 3:18
  live like Homer, where is home of the headquarters of Inlet Keeper.
• 3:22
  They actually live there.
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  So what they're gonna see right now, what they see without these leasing
• 3:26
  plans are without these platforms.
• 3:27
  They look out their windows and they see beautiful like mountains and
• 3:30
  volcanoes and a beautiful skyline with the Ocean in front of it.
• 3:34
  And they just see beauty wildlife as you've never seen before.
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  They get to see it each and every day.
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  It's why people who visit just like Lauren Barrett did, and
• 3:44
  just like Jamie Curry did.
• 3:45
  Why they visit and why they love it so much.
• 3:48
  Why they actually moved there and stayed there and are raising their kids there.
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  That's how important it's, and what this plan wants to do is lease out
• 3:56
  areas where oil platforms will take away that view will take away that skyline
• 4:01
  will impact the environment to no end.
• 4:04
  If there is an oil spill and there will be an oil spill, I want you to
• 4:08
  listen to this interview because it's really important and how the oil and
• 4:12
  gas industry is not really benefiting the local community of Cook Inlet.
• 4:16
  That's really, it really comes down to.
• 4:18
  So here's the interview with Lauren Barrett and Jamie Curry
• 4:21
  from Inlet Keeper on Cook Inlet.
• 4:23
  Enjoy the interview and we'll talk to you after.
• 4:25
  Hey Lauren.
• 4:26
  Hey Jamie.
• 4:26
  Welcome to the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast.
• 4:29
  Are you ready to talk about Alaska's nature as well as the
• 4:32
  US oil and gas leasing plan that just came out about a month ago?
• 4:37
  Oh yeah.
• 4:37
  Very excited to be here.
• 4:39
  Right.
• 4:40
  All definitely.
• 4:41
  This is gonna be fun.
• 4:42
  I am super excited because this is, uh, sort of the, not necessarily the last
• 4:47
  episode, but the last interview I'm doing, uh, before the public comment, uh, kind
• 4:52
  of shuts down for this US oil and gas leasing plan, uh, across the US where
• 4:58
  we're looking at, you know, one point, I believe it's 1.4 billion acres that
• 5:02
  it is pretty much opened up for leasing and the public common period is here.
• 5:06
  So we're, we're trying to do for this audience is to give you as much
• 5:09
  information as possible from different parts of the US that may or may not be
• 5:13
  affected by this leasing plan and sort of the history that they've had with
• 5:18
  the oil and gas industry, and also just.
• 5:20
  Talking about the nature, 'cause I'm excited.
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  We don't, Lauren and Jamie, we don't have a lot of Alaska people here,
• 5:24
  like people that live in Alaska.
• 5:26
  And although we've seen the beautiful pictures and the beautiful videos that
• 5:30
  people put up and all this kinda stuff, and we know we wanna get to know a little
• 5:33
  bit more about Alaska and what it's like to live there and the beautiful
• 5:37
  nature that's, that's about this.
• 5:38
  So we're gonna talk a lot about different things, but before we do, um, I'd love
• 5:41
  to get to know you guys a little bit more so the audience can get to know you
• 5:45
  Um, So let's start you with you, Lauren.
• 5:46
  Why don't you let know who you are and what you do.
• 5:49
  Uh, hi.
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  I am Lauren Barrett.
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  I am the co-executive director here at Cook and l Keeper in Homer, Alaska on the
• 5:56
  traditional lands with the Danina people.
• 5:58
  Um, yeah, so I help run this organization.
• 6:01
  I helped do a lot of the fundraising here.
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  Um, And then in my spare time I am mom to two little girls.
• 6:06
  So I am out enjoying the Ocean and trying to keep them from eating.
• 6:10
  It's too strange of kelp and, you know, enjoying the, as kids too.
• 6:15
  Living as kids too.
• 6:17
  So, um, yeah, super excited to talk about Alaska and all the
• 6:20
  wonders that there are here.
• 6:22
  That's awesome.
• 6:23
  I'm gonna have questions about your kids.
• 6:24
  I have two girls as well.
• 6:25
  They're teenagers, but I, so I could ask questions about that as well.
• 6:28
  Uh, Jamie, how about yourself?
• 6:30
  Yeah.
• 6:30
  Uh, hi, I'm Jamie.
• 6:32
  I am the communications director for Cook Inlet Keeper.
• 6:35
  Um, and, uh, yeah, when I'm not, uh, running communications for the
• 6:39
  organization, I, uh, dabble as well.
• 6:43
  I'm a, I'm a filmmaker and science communicator, so I, I do, I shoot
• 6:47
  documentary films and yeah, I like to spend a lot of time.
• 6:50
  Running around outside with my camera, uh, looking for, looking
• 6:54
  for wildlife, and, uh, yeah, just beautiful things, which I have a fair,
• 6:59
  a fair amount to choose from here.
• 7:01
  So I was about to say, you picked a pretty good place to, to do these
• 7:04
  types of, of documentaries and, and, and content, I guess is what,
• 7:08
  you know, what it is now, right?
• 7:09
  Not only documentary filmmaking, but, but content as a lot of people are doing.
• 7:13
  Look, both of you have, uh, titles and qualities that, uh, I love to talk about.
• 7:18
  So I'm super, super excited to, to talk about and get to
• 7:21
  know you a little bit more.
• 7:23
  Lauren, uh, how old are your girls?
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  Because I had two, I had two little girls at one point and I fell in love with
• 7:28
  being a girl, dad, and, uh, so I'd love to know more about you, two little girls.
• 7:33
  How old are they?
• 7:34
  Um, So I have a three and a 6-year-old.
• 7:36
  Oh, nice.
• 7:36
  So three years apart.
• 7:37
  Are they close?
• 7:38
  Like do they hang out with each other quite a bit?
• 7:40
  Yes.
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  Get along.
• 7:41
  They're, they're best friends, except for when they are not, but most
• 7:44
  of the time they're best friends.
• 7:46
  I'll tell you, that doesn't stop.
• 7:47
  Just as if they're anything.
• 7:49
  My are two and a half, two and a half years, almost two years apart.
• 7:52
  And, uh, yeah, they're 18 and 16 now, so it's, uh, it's a different,
• 7:56
  but I've loved every stage.
• 7:57
  It's, it's a lot of fun.
• 7:58
  So, uh, but they get to grow up in this beautiful place like this.
• 8:01
  Yeah.
• 8:01
  You know, cook and lit, you know, you're, you're in and around, uh, a
• 8:05
  wonderful place with beautiful nature.
• 8:08
  Uh, pretty much dominated by nature.
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  It's not as developed as a lot of the other cities or places in, in
• 8:14
  the us and obviously it's, it's, um.
• 8:16
  I, I, I would say it's, it's dominated by cold weather really, and, and
• 8:21
  dark and light times depending on the, on the time of the year.
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  It's a very, uh, I guess like a extreme, more extreme type of weather and
• 8:28
  type of environment to, to live in.
• 8:30
  Now, both of you didn't grow up in Alaska, but you both
• 8:33
  have lived there for six years.
• 8:35
  Uh, so we'll start with you Lauren.
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  What brought you up here and really made you fall in love with, with
• 8:43
  the pla like with Alaska itself?
• 8:44
  Yeah, so I mean, really actually my girls are probably what brought me up here.
• 8:48
  I was born down in the Florida Keys Um, so I've always loved living by the coast.
• 8:53
  But then most of my, um, adult life have lived in landlocked.
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  I was in Montana for a long time.
• 8:59
  Um, I did the Peace Corps down in Guyana.
• 9:01
  Cool.
• 9:02
  Um, kind of traveled around for a lot.
• 9:04
  And after we got pregnant with my first daughter, my husband and I, who
• 9:08
  was a guiding in Yellowstone at the time, um, we were both like, we really.
• 9:12
  Wildlife and wild places are a thing that we really value and
• 9:15
  we want our girls to grow up, um, with access to a really wild place.
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  And so we kind of on a whim came up and, um, it was his first time coming
• 9:24
  here and I convinced him and we, uh, found a little cabin and moved
• 9:28
  out here and haven't looked back.
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  It's been a really, really special place to raise my kids and a really like
• 9:35
  wonderful tie in now to work here and be able to really protect this place so that
• 9:40
  they continue to have this growing up.
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  So yeah, they're often in the office with me.
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  They think they're little cooking look keepers and um, they yell at
• 9:46
  people on the beach for littering.
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  So it's wonderful.
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  I love it.
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  I love it.
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  Now, how hard was it?
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  For your husband to leave, uh, being a park ranger at Yellowstone Iconic National
• 9:59
  Park, I know us has a number of national parks and they're all beautiful, but, you
• 10:03
  know, Yellowstone's a pretty iconic thing.
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  I'm sure it was a dream of him.
• 10:06
  Was that a difficult decision for him to, to make Yeah.
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  Yeah, he was a wildlife guy.
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  Um, So lots of options.
• 10:11
  I'm sorry, wildlife for that up here.
• 10:12
  Yeah.
• 10:13
  Um, and as much as we love Yellowstone and we love the prairies and we love
• 10:18
  the bison, um, it was really neat to get to come up here and learn.
• 10:22
  I mean, it's really a whole learning about the coast and learning about
• 10:25
  the Ocean is a whole new experience.
• 10:27
  And so it's been really wonderful for both of us.
• 10:29
  It's Oh good.
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  It's never a dull moment.
• 10:32
  That's awesome.
• 10:32
  That's awesome.
• 10:33
  Uh, now Jamie, how about yourself?
• 10:35
  You know, you came up here, I believe for a master's degree
• 10:38
  in Marine biology at Fairbanks.
• 10:40
  Uh, talk a little bit about that and what made you wanna stay in
• 10:44
  such a, a different environment?
• 10:46
  Yeah.
• 10:46
  Yeah.
• 10:47
  Um, well, I, I, I grew up in Maine, so also kind of from, you know,
• 10:52
  uh, I guess a slightly chillier environment, at least Yeah.
• 10:55
  Yeah.
• 10:55
  Um, they're not quite Alaska level, but still chilly.
• 10:58
  Uh, and yeah, you know, I, I moved up here in 2020, um, 'cause I, I landed
• 11:05
  a position, uh, to do a master's degree and do a, a master's thesis,
• 11:09
  uh, looking at Ocean acidification and, uh, sort of climate change
• 11:14
  impacts in the Kmac Bay area.
• 11:16
  So right outside of, right outside of our door, basically.
• 11:19
  Right.
• 11:19
  Um, and yeah, I, I came up here for that and I was doing.
• 11:24
  Just had like, just crazy adventures throughout graduate school and was
• 11:29
  doing a lot of diving and Yeah.
• 11:32
  Ran into, ran into crazy stuff like, you know, stellar sea lions
• 11:37
  underwater and like, just had a phenomenal experience and Right.
• 11:42
  You know, totally fell in love with, with this place and just never wanted to leave.
• 11:48
  And I think that, so I work as a, i I do a lot of like filmmaking and Right.
• 11:54
  And science communication and, and photography, that kind of thing.
• 11:56
  And I think the, the thing that's just that I love so much about this place is
• 12:01
  that it's so easy to kind of show other people and to, to capture it and sort
• 12:05
  of bring it, bring it to, to others.
• 12:07
  And that's, you know, it is just a, it's a privilege to live in this place.
• 12:11
  And I think the thing that drives, one of the things that drives me
• 12:13
  is wanting to share that, you know?
• 12:16
  Yeah.
• 12:17
  I love, I love that.
• 12:18
  Uh, I'll start with you, Jamie.
• 12:19
  Like what was the most surprising thing for you?
• 12:24
  When you moved up here, good or bad, that you didn't expect
• 12:27
  when you first moved up here.
• 12:28
  I'll ask the same thing for Lawrence.
• 12:29
  We'll give Lauren A. Little time to think about that.
• 12:31
  But like, what was, like, what was the thing where you're
• 12:33
  like, oh, I did not expect this.
• 12:35
  You know?
• 12:37
  Yeah.
• 12:37
  I think what I, I think that, I mean, there was a, there was a bunch of stuff.
• 12:43
  I think, um, I think I, I didn't expect that a large portion of the
• 12:48
  population doesn't have running water.
• 12:50
  Um.
• 12:51
  That was a, that was a surprise because it takes a lot of energy to heat pipes
• 12:57
  to keep the pipes thawed out here.
• 13:00
  That's true.
• 13:00
  So a lot of people live, uh, live in sort of the dry cabin lifestyle.
• 13:04
  My, uh, a lot of, I had a lot of friends who did that in graduate school, and that
• 13:08
  was obviously a bit of a new experience, but, you know, it's really easy to
• 13:11
  kind of figure it out and, and have a great time doing it, uh, once you've,
• 13:17
  once you've done it for a little bit.
• 13:18
  But it, that was interesting.
• 13:19
  And I think the other thing that just amazed me was the size of the place.
• 13:23
  Um, 'cause I knew Alaska was big, but I did my master's degree, so I did all my
• 13:29
  classwork, my coursework up in Fairbanks and all of my research down here in Homer.
• 13:33
  Um, and it is pretty much a straight shot from one to the other.
• 13:37
  And it's a 12 hour drive and that covers like, I don't know, a third
• 13:43
  of the state, quarter of the state.
• 13:44
  Yeah.
• 13:45
  And, you know, it's just, there's, and there's so much of
• 13:48
  it that doesn't have roads on it.
• 13:51
  It's just, you know, it's, it's just wild.
• 13:54
  Yeah.
• 13:54
  Um, and that was, I mean, I knew that on paper mm-hmm.
• 13:58
  Coming here, but it's quite, it's one thing to kind of know that in theory
• 14:03
  and it's, it's, it's a very different thing to kind of experience that.
• 14:06
  Oh, yeah.
• 14:06
  Uh, in, in person.
• 14:08
  Absolutely.
• 14:09
  Absolutely.
• 14:09
  How about yourself, Lauren?
• 14:10
  Like, what was the most surprising thing for you, your husband?
• 14:14
  Like, your family?
• 14:14
  Like, what was the thing that you're like, oh, I didn't expect that.
• 14:18
  Yeah, that's a hard question.
• 14:19
  Um, Alaska is so unique.
• 14:21
  I think probably initially, um, the road system, I would say, like you
• 14:27
  mentioned, I think before when we were chatting, we're at the end of the road.
• 14:30
  I live, uh, 15 miles outside of Homer.
• 14:33
  So I'm, there's three miles a road after me, And then you're done.
• 14:36
  Um, which I love.
• 14:37
  I get to see, I can see three glaciers from my living room window.
• 14:40
  Um, it's pretty magical.
• 14:42
  But I'm used to having tons of like, public access roads and
• 14:46
  public access cabins, really easily available in Montana.
• 14:49
  And so, um, just figuring out like how to get out and engage with nature
• 14:53
  has been really different here.
• 14:55
  Mm-hmm.
• 14:55
  Um, and it's kind of a steep learning curve, but what I love about it is like
• 14:59
  you kind of have to dig into the community because as soon as you start building
• 15:03
  up in the community, suddenly folks are taking you out and showing you where the
• 15:07
  trails are and showing you and taking you there, you on their boats across the bay.
• 15:10
  Yeah.
• 15:10
  And then, um, kind of a whole world will open up to you, but
• 15:14
  you really can't, uh, be like the individual rugged explorer out here.
• 15:19
  You really need community to be able to get out, which is gotcha.
• 15:23
  Which is great.
• 15:23
  I think I like it about that.
• 15:25
  It's phenomenal.
• 15:27
  Um, how did, uh, Jamie, you kind of mentioned how you, you know, what led you
• 15:32
  to Inlet Keeper in a, in a way, 'cause you did a lot of your work at, in Homer,
• 15:37
  um, when you did your masters, uh, you obviously you're, you love communications,
• 15:41
  you love filmmaking, uh, things like that.
• 15:43
  How did you end up like, you know, working for, for Inland Keeper
• 15:47
  or discovering and did you do work with your masters with them?
• 15:50
  Did you use some of their resources or like, how did it all come
• 15:53
  about, I guess is the question?
• 15:55
  It, yeah, you know, it, it was kind of a, it was kind of a weird,
• 15:58
  uh, a weird sort of, uh, chain of events because I, um, was.
• 16:05
  So I had not actually encountered Inlet keeper other than I'd seen
• 16:09
  the bumper stickers and the, the logo, which, uh, I'm wearing on my
• 16:14
  Yes, I see, uh, sweatshirt today.
• 16:16
  I'd seen that before, but I hadn't seen anything else of theirs.
• 16:19
  But I'd been working in and out of the Homer area for a couple of years
• 16:22
  and, um, I had gotten a fellowship after my, after my master's degree
• 16:28
  ended, um, working for Noah Fisheries.
• 16:31
  And, you know, I was not totally sure what my career would be doing
• 16:34
  and, you know, was, I'd spent a couple of years trying to figure,
• 16:37
  figure out, you know, what I'd liked.
• 16:38
  I knew I wanted to do, like bring in sort of my filmmaking background 'cause
• 16:42
  I have a undergraduate degree in that.
• 16:44
  And, you know, I wanted to do documentaries.
• 16:46
  I was making 'em for Noah, but it was like a fellowship.
• 16:48
  And then, um.
• 16:50
  Yeah, I, I, uh, saw this opening at Inlet Keeper right around the
• 16:55
  same time as all the Doge cuts were happening, um, at, at Noah, and I was
• 17:01
  like, wow, this is, I mean, this is exactly where I wanna be doing the
• 17:05
  kind of work that I wanna be doing.
• 17:07
  Yeah.
• 17:07
  You know, that actually allows me to, you know, have an opinion and also, uh,
• 17:13
  and also to, you know, to, to, to go to this amazing place and, uh, and do good
• 17:19
  work for, for the environment out here.
• 17:21
  So I was just like, heck yeah.
• 17:23
  Um, yeah.
• 17:24
  And so that's, yeah, so I, I applied and am still amazed that I got it.
• 17:30
  Um, but it's, it's awesome every day.
• 17:34
  Yeah.
• 17:34
  Well, I can see why you got it.
• 17:35
  Just from talking, from talking to you.
• 17:37
  It makes, it makes sense.
• 17:38
  I'm sure Lauren feels the same, the same way.
• 17:41
  Lauren, you know, you mentioned before your co-executive director.
• 17:44
  How did all that come to be?
• 17:46
  Uh, pretty, pretty, uh, big role, you know, uh, you know, I know it's a,
• 17:51
  you know, people are like, well, it could be like a smaller organization,
• 17:53
  but you probably have a lot on your plate as an organization in general,
• 17:58
  how did, uh, this, this role come up for you and, and what, like what
• 18:03
  led you to, to get a role like this?
• 18:05
  Yeah.
• 18:05
  Uh, kind of roundabout, honestly, my undergraduate work was an environmental
• 18:09
  studies, um, and creative writing.
• 18:12
  Um, And then I graduated and had no idea what I wanted to do.
• 18:15
  So I joined the Peace Corps, um, yeah, with the intention of working in environ.
• 18:19
  They have an environmental program, um, but ended up doing
• 18:22
  education actually, And so.
• 18:24
  I really loved doing that work and doing the community
• 18:27
  building aspect of that work.
• 18:28
  So I came back and got a master's in international
• 18:31
  development and social change.
• 18:33
  Mm-hmm.
• 18:33
  Um, and I was kind of moving like more and more away from the environmental
• 18:38
  stuff and, but it also has like such a deep seed in my heart.
• 18:41
  You know, my dad is a fly fishing guide.
• 18:43
  He's always been very involved in like bonefish tarp and trust
• 18:47
  and the work they do down there.
• 18:48
  And so it's always, it's always been in the vernacular of my family.
• 18:52
  Um, and when I came here I kind of worked a few different nonprofit jobs.
• 18:57
  Um, I have a lot of experience with nonprofit management And so I've always
• 19:01
  had my eye, like before I moved to Homer, I had my eye on Cook and lake keeper.
• 19:05
  Um, and when this role became available, I'd been here
• 19:08
  about five, well, four years.
• 19:11
  Yeah.
• 19:11
  Um, and it just felt like, it felt like the perfect combination of all
• 19:15
  of my skills and, um, sounds like it.
• 19:17
  Yeah.
• 19:17
  I've, I've.
• 19:19
  You know, having two young kids, if I'm gonna work, I wanna be doing something
• 19:23
  where I feel like I'm really like putting my heart and soul into it.
• 19:25
  And so, um, being able to do this has been like the perfect marriage of all
• 19:30
  of the different pieces of my life.
• 19:32
  Absolutely.
• 19:32
  For my own selfishness.
• 19:34
  How did you get the nonprofit experience?
• 19:36
  Were you just working in the nonprofit industry or did you go back to school
• 19:39
  or did you learn it in your master's?
• 19:41
  Like how did that work?
• 19:42
  Yeah, so, um, part of my master's has like an element of like
• 19:46
  grant writing and administration.
• 19:47
  And then I very randomly, um, because of work I'd done as like a
• 19:52
  volunteer when we were in Gardner, Montana, um, kind of stepped into
• 19:57
  the role of executive director.
• 19:58
  It's a very small town, it's like 300 folks.
• 20:01
  Okay.
• 20:01
  Um, And so, but that was a great experience.
• 20:04
  I got to learn how to run a business.
• 20:06
  Um, and I worked really closely with the National Park Service
• 20:08
  'cause we're right on the border.
• 20:09
  Mm-hmm.
• 20:10
  Um, so I learned a lot during that job.
• 20:12
  And then moving here, I was the development director at
• 20:15
  our, uh, local NPR station.
• 20:17
  Oh, cool.
• 20:18
  So, yeah, I've gotten to dabble in a lot of different nonprofit structures.
• 20:21
  Yeah.
• 20:22
  Oh, very, very cool.
• 20:23
  Very cool.
• 20:24
  That was, you know, speaking of Inlet Keeper, can you, uh, Lauren, can you
• 20:27
  just talk about sort of the mission and, and what you, what Inlet Keeper
• 20:31
  does in and around the inlet and, and, and sort of the overall mission?
• 20:37
  Yeah, so our mission is to protect the cooking lit water watershed
• 20:41
  and all the life it sustains.
• 20:43
  Um, pretty broad mission, but we've met for 30 years now.
• 20:47
  Um, it's, we do a lot of different things.
• 20:50
  We always talk about, um, having this really unique mix of science,
• 20:55
  outreach and advocacy, And so those are kind of our three branches.
• 20:58
  Um, And so we try really hard to have this great balance of like stopping
• 21:02
  the bad and building the good.
• 21:04
  Mm-hmm.
• 21:04
  So, um, you know, we, it's very easy, especially in like the year
• 21:09
  2026, um, to be really focused on that, stopping the bad, but we also
• 21:13
  want this element of building up our communities and making sure that they're.
• 21:17
  Um, able to thrive long term.
• 21:18
  So we do a lot of, a lot of our capacity goes to like watershed wide campaigns
• 21:23
  where we're mobilizing folks like the five year plan, um, on actions they can
• 21:27
  take to protect their lands and waters.
• 21:29
  Um, really holding corporations and industry accountable.
• 21:33
  We do a lot of work, um, on like mining campaigns right now.
• 21:36
  In particular, a lot of work with oil and gas.
• 21:39
  And then the other part of our work is a lot of stuff on, um, more like community
• 21:43
  building and a lot of climate change.
• 21:45
  So I don't know if you're familiar with the project draw down.
• 21:49
  Um, we've done some really similar models to that.
• 21:51
  So we've done really cool programs like helping to remove barriers
• 21:55
  to installing solar panels and improving local waste streams.
• 21:58
  And, um, working with the city for non-motorized transport.
• 22:02
  Um, we've got a really neat one in Soldotna, which is our office just up
• 22:06
  the road from us, um, where they're taking volunteers out and mapping
• 22:10
  an aima streams, um, and helping to put those on the conservation maps.
• 22:15
  So.
• 22:16
  It really spans what we do.
• 22:17
  Uh, yeah.
• 22:19
  It seems like, like, well, I mean, but that's what it, what it goes for when
• 22:23
  you're managing a watershed, because it's not just oceans, it's fresh water, it's
• 22:28
  land, it's, it's pretty much everything that encapsulate that, that watershed.
• 22:32
  'cause it all affects everything.
• 22:35
  Everything affects everything.
• 22:36
  When it, when it comes down to it.
• 22:37
  I love how, you know, you, you're not just attacking or protecting from the
• 22:42
  bad, but you're building up the good.
• 22:44
  And I think, you know, I think that's where conservation has gone more.
• 22:50
  I think we still have a lot of work to do, but I feel like that seems
• 22:52
  to be the motion in terms of doing a community building and, and making
• 22:58
  resilient communities or, or help building resilient communities.
• 23:02
  Um, now obviously, you know, cook Inlet and the communities around it.
• 23:07
  Probably a very unique, uh, characteristics of communities,
• 23:11
  indigenous, non-indigenous, uh, people, um, living together.
• 23:15
  Uh, are there any territorial lands a along the, the, the Cook Inlet as well?
• 23:22
  This is, I mean, yeah, so I, I would say that um, there are, so, there are lands
• 23:31
  that are, uh, that are historically, uh, that are historically, uh, different
• 23:37
  tribal territories in the area.
• 23:38
  Okay.
• 23:39
  So, um, you know, this is the ancestral home of the Danina, uh,
• 23:43
  the Supak and the Ellu people of Alaska's South Central region.
• 23:47
  Um, and I mean, it currently holds two thirds of Alaska's population
• 23:52
  is sort of this, this south central area of Alaska, um, which Cook inlet.
• 23:57
  It comprises a, a good portion of, so it is, uh, you know, historically,
• 24:03
  uh, it, it has, uh, had a variety of, um, uh, of traditional peoples
• 24:09
  out here that have been living in this place since time immemorial.
• 24:13
  Mm-hmm.
• 24:13
  Um, and, uh, you know, there, there's still, you know, there's, in terms
• 24:19
  of, I would say in terms of, um, tribal lands specifically mm-hmm.
• 24:25
  Some tribes like, have, uh, have areas that are, that are owned by
• 24:30
  like tribal corporations Gotcha.
• 24:32
  Out here, that sort of thing.
• 24:33
  Okay.
• 24:33
  Um, but yeah, it's more, I would say from a, a broad stroke standpoint, I
• 24:37
  would, I think of it as more, um, the, the total, the, the totality of the
• 24:42
  land and waters are all originally, uh, tr are all traditional homelands
• 24:49
  of, uh, one or more peoples out here.
• 24:51
  Gotcha.
• 24:51
  Interesting.
• 24:52
  Yeah.
• 24:52
  Alaska has a really unique, which I'm not even gonna pretend to.
• 24:57
  Uh, no.
• 24:57
  Well enough.
• 24:58
  Right.
• 24:58
  But it has a really unique, um, division because of Ilca.
• 25:01
  So there's, um, native corporations Okay.
• 25:04
  Which is really different than the rest of the lower 48.
• 25:05
  So we do have a lot of tribal partners that we work with.
• 25:08
  Like across the bay from us, we have Dan Wallock, Alvia, uh, port Graham,
• 25:13
  just up the road we have Nilch and Keni and Soff Um, So we work really
• 25:18
  closely with all of those guys.
• 25:19
  We have really longstanding partnerships with.
• 25:21
  That's so cool.
• 25:22
  And it must like working with those, those types of partners and having
• 25:25
  those partnerships, especially with like in the way in indigenous people
• 25:30
  have traditionally lived on land and the way they care for that land.
• 25:34
  Has it influenced the way Cook Inlet looks at its programs and manages its programs
• 25:40
  in terms of using some of, like using those, you know, those I guess thought
• 25:45
  processes or even, uh, conservation values in, in the way you do your work?
• 25:52
  Go ahead Lauren.
• 25:53
  Go ahead Lauren.
• 25:54
  Just say both of us, both of us went to see absolute, both of us
• 25:57
  went to say absolutely on that.
• 25:59
  Yeah.
• 25:59
  But Lauren, if you wanna go, go ahead Lauren, if you wanted.
• 26:03
  Um, no, I would say absolutely.
• 26:05
  I would say like any environmental organization,
• 26:07
  there's always more to learn.
• 26:09
  Um mm-hmm.
• 26:10
  And so it's something that we make a really concerted effort to be
• 26:12
  constantly, constantly learning and Yeah.
• 26:15
  Um, being really cognizant of and having conversations where
• 26:19
  we're getting that feedback.
• 26:20
  So, yeah.
• 26:21
  Gotcha.
• 26:21
  Gotcha.
• 26:22
  And, and I would just add that, you know, a lot of the, a lot of
• 26:25
  the, the sort of foci, foci of our, a lot of the things that our
• 26:30
  organization focus on are, you know.
• 26:33
  I in some way related to, to resources that are traditionally
• 26:38
  very, very important.
• 26:39
  Um, So one of the things, another of the many things that surprised me about
• 26:42
  Alaska when I came out here was the amount of subsistence harvesting that
• 26:47
  happens, um, out here year to year.
• 26:49
  And that's, you know, so it's people who are going out and either foraging
• 26:53
  or hunting or fishing for, for some much or almost all of their food sources.
• 27:02
  So, um, a lot of, so there are a lot of Alaska native villages up here that pursue
• 27:07
  a, a majority subsistence lifestyle.
• 27:11
  Um, and it's, you know, millennia old and it's can supply up
• 27:14
  to 90% of the villagers diet.
• 27:17
  So we're talking, you know, going out and foraging for blueberries
• 27:20
  when it's blueberry season and, you know, there's, there's.
• 27:24
  There's a, a panoply of different berries and mushrooms, And then there's hunting.
• 27:29
  And then of course we have our massive annual salmon runs every year.
• 27:34
  Yeah.
• 27:34
  Um, which, And so we are, and what's what's actually amazing is
• 27:38
  that we, you can kind of experience this, um, in any sort of context.
• 27:42
  So one of my favorite things to do is to go out and go berry foraging during
• 27:46
  the, during the, the late summer.
• 27:48
  Um, yeah.
• 27:48
  And you can't, that was a new thing for me because it the sort of that a abundance.
• 27:56
  Of sort of the, uh, of sort of the, the, the resources out here.
• 28:00
  The, the fact that you can kind of just wander into the hills and find enough
• 28:05
  blueberries just for yourself to fill, you know, a couple of gallons to, to
• 28:09
  have to have through the winter or more if you're, if you want, but you know,
• 28:13
  or if you need, I should say, um, and you can just go out or you could go out
• 28:17
  during the late summer and actually fish.
• 28:19
  Um, and I am not by any means an expert fisherman.
• 28:23
  And I went out with my fiance at the time who, uh, she also is t an
• 28:29
  expert fisherwoman, and it was the, the sockeye were running up the Kenai
• 28:35
  River and she whomped about five fish out of the water in about 45 minutes.
• 28:41
  It was so fast that I couldn't actually do any fishing because I had
• 28:44
  to keep rushing up to her with a net to try to, to try to catch the thing.
• 28:48
  Um, and she's, you know, and it's, it's that level of abundance.
• 28:53
  That is up here still.
• 28:55
  Um, that is, you know, so crucial to, to many, to many of the traditions and
• 29:02
  lifestyles and livelihoods up here.
• 29:04
  Mm-hmm.
• 29:04
  Yeah.
• 29:04
  And that's one of the major things that I think Inlet Keeper focuses on, um,
• 29:08
  protecting and making sure that it, it is present for future generations.
• 29:12
  I think that's so interesting because like when I think of, you know, salmon runs,
• 29:16
  I don't think of it as being plentiful.
• 29:18
  You know, like when you, because you know, you hear the, you know, in BC especially
• 29:21
  like British Columbia especially, you hear like the ups and downs that they have.
• 29:25
  It's nice to hear that you can go out and just catch it.
• 29:27
  And this is not.
• 29:28
  The only time I heard, as I mentioned before, we, we started
• 29:30
  the interview, I worked up in the Beaufort in on the Canadian side.
• 29:34
  And you know, speaking to, uh, the Inuits there they were, they
• 29:39
  were saying, yeah, we can go out and get Arctic char like that.
• 29:41
  Like we can get five in like a half hour.
• 29:43
  And you're just like, it's like, how does that, and like massive ones too.
• 29:47
  And you're just like, how, how does that happen?
• 29:48
  Like, that's amazing.
• 29:49
  And they're like, yeah, there is stuff here and it's, and it's great to do that,
• 29:53
  but we wanna keep it that way and we wanna make sure that it's stays balanced.
• 29:56
  Yeah.
• 29:56
  Jamie, go ahead.
• 29:57
  Yeah.
• 29:57
  And I would, I, yeah, I would definitely, uh, put in a, put in a caveat that
• 30:01
  our seminar are not from a historical standpoint doing well, I would say.
• 30:06
  Right, of course.
• 30:06
  Understood.
• 30:06
  Um, that is, we're, we're way below where we ought to be right now.
• 30:10
  Right, right.
• 30:10
  Um, and this is at, this is at sort of us at, at low ebb and things
• 30:13
  are looking a bit concerning.
• 30:15
  Right.
• 30:15
  But, um, you know, it, it is.
• 30:18
  I, I would say that this is one of the last places on
• 30:22
  earth where you can do that.
• 30:23
  Gotcha.
• 30:23
  And one of the privileges of living up here is that it offers you a
• 30:27
  window into what the rest of, at least North America used to be like.
• 30:33
  Mm. Um, because this level of abundance ecologically used to be present throughout
• 30:41
  North America and it's not anymore.
• 30:45
  And it's easy to lose sight of that, you know, across generations.
• 30:48
  As we, as you know, as time has gone on, people are like, oh, well it's,
• 30:51
  you know, it's normal that it's, it's very difficult to, or impossible for
• 30:54
  us to catch fish and salmon don't run up here and, you know, we can't find
• 30:59
  a ton of berries out in the wild.
• 31:00
  That's just not how, how it is out here.
• 31:03
  But it used to be Right.
• 31:06
  Right.
• 31:06
  So that makes, yeah, it's all about the frame of reference too, right?
• 31:09
  Mm-hmm.
• 31:09
  When, when you were there, um, that's, that's really interesting.
• 31:12
  You know, you talked about challenges of, of the salmon run and how
• 31:15
  that's not what it used to be.
• 31:16
  Lauren, what are some of the, like, some of the major challenges that, that
• 31:20
  the inlet keeper faces or helps with in, in terms of their, their programs?
• 31:25
  Yeah, it changes.
• 31:27
  Um, and this year in particular, it's, it's changing quite rapidly.
• 31:31
  Um, oil and gas from the very beginning has been one that
• 31:34
  we've always stayed engaged on.
• 31:35
  Mm-hmm.
• 31:35
  Um, we're really the only group in Cook Inlet that's working on that.
• 31:38
  So, um, we tend to lead the charge there.
• 31:41
  Um, I mentioned that we're doing a lot of work on, um, mining projects.
• 31:45
  There's several really big ones that are also getting fast
• 31:47
  tracked under this administration.
• 31:49
  Um, there's one across the bay from us in Lake Clark National Park, actually
• 31:54
  on a private land holding there.
• 31:55
  That's a gold mine.
• 31:56
  Um, that would be just.
• 31:58
  It would be the death.
• 32:00
  The death.
• 32:01
  Now for the, um, critically endangered cooking, let beluga whale.
• 32:04
  So we're doing a lot of work there on trying to, um, make sure that the
• 32:07
  newest science is actually getting in front of decision makers and
• 32:10
  that they're aware of what they're, what they're allowing to happen.
• 32:13
  Um, there's the Donlin Mine, which is up on the SCA Quim, which is another
• 32:17
  giant, um, salmon tributary and a really important cultural and, um, ecological
• 32:23
  source for our tribes up there.
• 32:26
  And that's another gold mine.
• 32:27
  And so a lot of these mines, um, they're these big extractive
• 32:30
  industries that are mm-hmm.
• 32:32
  Coming in and purporting like, oh, we're gonna put something here.
• 32:35
  There's nothing here.
• 32:36
  And like Jamie was saying, there is a lot here.
• 32:38
  Um, yeah, it's abundant.
• 32:39
  There's, and these are things that we rely on.
• 32:41
  So, um, we do a lot of watch dogging for that.
• 32:44
  Um, and I'm losing myself in your question, but yeah, so those are come some
• 32:50
  of the big ones that we're working on.
• 32:51
  Pebble Mine is one that I'm sure.
• 32:53
  Um, many of your listeners have heard about.
• 32:55
  That's, um, one that we've worked on from the very beginning And
• 32:58
  then our science work kind of helps bridge the gap with all of that.
• 33:02
  So we actually just finished up, um, our long-term science director just
• 33:06
  retired and she was amazing and created this 20 year long data set on stream
• 33:11
  temperature monitoring, um, that she really piloted And then helped,
• 33:15
  um, spread out across the state.
• 33:17
  So we have this amazing data set that's telling us where is the cold water
• 33:21
  ugia, what areas do we really need to focus our conservation efforts on?
• 33:25
  Um, where do we need to be really concerned?
• 33:27
  What's impacting our salmon?
• 33:29
  Wow.
• 33:30
  Um, and yeah, and we use salmon.
• 33:32
  We we're gonna talk about salmon a lot.
• 33:34
  Salmon a lot.
• 33:34
  Yeah.
• 33:35
  Understood.
• 33:36
  'cause it's, it's absolutely like the central figure of Alaskan
• 33:40
  life and it also is a really great indicator for everything else.
• 33:43
  So, you know, if your salmon are affected, your beluga are affected.
• 33:46
  If your salmon are affected, it's probably your badar affected.
• 33:49
  If your salmon are affected, your bears are unhappy.
• 33:52
  Um, yeah, we're gonna talk about salmon.
• 33:55
  Salmon is a really great guiding, it's that indicator species, right?
• 33:59
  Yeah.
• 33:59
  Indicator keystone species, Yeah.
• 34:01
  Yeah.
• 34:01
  Um, and talking point, you know, it's really by person.
• 34:03
  Yeah.
• 34:03
  Everybody up here eat salmon fishes for salmon.
• 34:06
  Depends on salmon.
• 34:07
  Yeah.
• 34:07
  Across board.
• 34:08
  What's interesting, like when I worked as a Marine mammal observer there, you
• 34:11
  know, there was obviously, like in the US it seems like there was a lot more,
• 34:15
  there were a lot more regulations, uh, you know, with the Marine Male
• 34:19
  Protection Act, you know, And so that, like, you couldn't, the, the rules apply
• 34:23
  to not only whales about noise when they do seismic surveys, but also to
• 34:27
  seals and sea lines and, And so forth.
• 34:30
  In Canada, it was just whales that we had to, to look after.
• 34:33
  Um.
• 34:35
  Now with, with mines, I've, I worked as an environmental consultant in
• 34:38
  Canada with mines and, and, and sort of the discharges into rivers.
• 34:42
  And we used to have like the, the metal mining, reg effluent regulations.
• 34:47
  So there was like a very stringent rule that every mine had to abide by
• 34:51
  and they had to make sure that they weren't affecting the reference sites
• 34:55
  or the, the, the downstream sites compared to the reference sites.
• 34:58
  And we looked at a bunch of different, different indicators.
• 35:00
  Uh, obviously, you know, the Marine Male Protection Act very, very, uh, important.
• 35:04
  Uh, I know it's under threat right now and we can probably do an entire episode
• 35:07
  just on that, but with, with all the minds that you mentioned, it seems like that's
• 35:11
  a, a big topic in, in your area, are there regulations surrounding effluent?
• 35:17
  So the, the discharge from, from metal mining, um, and, and other things that you
• 35:22
  can use as sort of like an indicator of how the established mines are affecting.
• 35:28
  Uh, the rivers and what new mines need to look out for or what
• 35:32
  compared to what old mines may have gotten away with in the past.
• 35:36
  And Jamie, I'll let you, or or whoever would like to answer that, but
• 35:41
  I'm not sure the answer for that one.
• 35:43
  You would have to pull in like our program expert.
• 35:45
  I, the one specifically that I'm referring to the whales on, um, our
• 35:50
  biggest concern, immediate concern, is they would need a deep sea port.
• 35:54
  Um, a lot of, a lot of Alaska, like, just because it's not developed for industry,
• 36:00
  a lot of the concerns are just like these road systems that have to be put in.
• 36:05
  Um Sure.
• 36:06
  Or the ports that have to be put in even to begin to develop these things.
• 36:10
  Um, and in putting those in, you're going across really critical migration pathways.
• 36:16
  Um, tons of ous streams.
• 36:19
  Yeah.
• 36:19
  And the deep sea port in this case would be going into what we just discovered in
• 36:23
  2023, I believe, is the winter foraging grounds for cook and lip belugas.
• 36:28
  Um, So it is, it is right now, right off of a national park.
• 36:32
  It is like this perfect little quiet oasis.
• 36:36
  Mm-hmm.
• 36:36
  Um, where they can go and they can eat and they can have their babies and be safe.
• 36:40
  Um, and putting a deep sea port in there, just the installation
• 36:43
  of the court alone, the noise from that would be really catastrophic.
• 36:46
  This is why I love talking to people who live in the local community, because
• 36:50
  these are the stuff that we don't realize when we, when we hear about
• 36:52
  mines, like the deep sea ports, like same thing with what's going on with
• 36:56
  pipelines is like they have to go to a deep sea port in BC because that's how
• 37:00
  we get the big ships and and out, right?
• 37:02
  And then we don't know what's being affected by those areas already.
• 37:06
  And so this is why I love talking to people like yourselves because you can.
• 37:09
  Make that enlightened for the audience.
• 37:11
  So when we talk about a mine, it's not just a mine that like the physical
• 37:15
  aspect of putting the mine in.
• 37:16
  It's the roads that go in that are built.
• 37:18
  It's the habitat that's displaced.
• 37:20
  It's the, the deep sea ports that going in the ha in the, and the animals that use
• 37:24
  that, as we just mentioned, the belugas.
• 37:26
  Are it important winter foraging area like this all matters.
• 37:31
  When we, when we look at this and, and I think, you know, going into oil
• 37:35
  and gas, uh, which we can talk about now is, you know, we don't realize
• 37:40
  the setup and the infrastructure that needs to be added into a place that is
• 37:45
  dominated by this beautiful wilderness and that people have been living here
• 37:49
  and, and enjoying and, and, and living under and with, uh, in unison for.
• 37:55
  You know, thousands of years.
• 37:57
  And so to have someone come up and just be like, yeah, you know, someone in DC to
• 38:01
  be like, Hey, you know, we're like, Austin is great, but the oil is better and we're
• 38:06
  gonna make so much money off the oil, which we've probably heard the rhetoric.
• 38:09
  I'm not gonna mention who says that.
• 38:10
  And, you know, but not understanding all the stuff that needs to be built
• 38:15
  around it and the history around it.
• 38:17
  So let's, let's talk about, you know, there's, there's a lot of
• 38:20
  history as you mentioned, Lauren, in terms of, of oil and gas and LNG and
• 38:25
  everything like that within Alaska.
• 38:28
  Can you talk about how that history has influenced life in and around Cook
• 38:34
  Inlet or even just Alaska in general?
• 38:40
  Yeah.
• 38:41
  Jamie, you looked like you maybe wanted to.
• 38:43
  No, I'm, I'm think, I'm, I'm thinking, I'm pulling ideas
• 38:46
  together, so, and like, uh, yeah.
• 38:48
  Uh, let me just taking, taking this idea and putting this one here, um.
• 38:55
  Yeah.
• 38:55
  Lauren, I don't know if you had, if you, if you wanted to, if you wanted to, to
• 38:59
  lead the charge or, um, or I can on that.
• 39:03
  Um, but yeah, I don't know.
• 39:06
  Do you have a strong feeling?
• 39:08
  No, I mean, I think it's, um, when we're looking at specifically oil and
• 39:13
  gas, it's been a really mixed bag.
• 39:15
  And, um, one of the things we can talk about is maybe the little bit
• 39:19
  of the dependency trap and SB 92 that we're looking at right now.
• 39:23
  Yeah.
• 39:23
  Um, you know, I think oil and gas has this very lovely mystique
• 39:28
  of, it's going to bring in jobs and it's going to bring in money.
• 39:30
  And we just know that that narrative has changed, that it's just no longer true.
• 39:33
  It's very antiquated.
• 39:35
  Um, and it, you know, this is a lot.
• 39:37
  I am still learning, so that's why I'm mm-hmm.
• 39:39
  Kind of like pausing.
• 39:40
  'cause I, you know, Alaskans are very smart and very involved in their politics,
• 39:44
  And so I don't want to step on anybody's.
• 39:46
  So, but Understood.
• 39:47
  Understood.
• 39:47
  You know, uh, we.
• 39:53
  We used to, like, we have this Alaska permanent fund.
• 39:56
  Um, And so oil and gas used to be a big part of revenue for Alaska.
• 40:00
  Mm-hmm.
• 40:00
  And that has diminished more and more.
• 40:02
  And I'll let Jamie speak more on the SB 92 stuff 'cause he,
• 40:05
  um, prepped for that better.
• 40:06
  But, uh, there are a lot of loopholes right now that are
• 40:10
  allowing, uh, specifically Hillcorp who's the only really invested,
• 40:15
  um, as far as offshore up here.
• 40:18
  Okay.
• 40:18
  To come in and drill and not pay any income tax on it so that
• 40:22
  money is not staying in Alaska.
• 40:25
  Um.
• 40:25
  And it's been really detrimental to our schools, to our roads,
• 40:28
  to our healthcare system.
• 40:29
  And I'm gonna be quiet now and let you speak, Jamie.
• 40:32
  Well, yeah.
• 40:33
  Um, and I mean, yeah, Lauren, Lauren basically did a,
• 40:35
  did a great summary of it.
• 40:36
  But, so I mean, obviously Alaska has, um, a long and involved history with extracted
• 40:43
  industries including, uh, oil and gas.
• 40:46
  And, I mean, actually Cook Inlet Keeper got its start after the Exxon
• 40:50
  Valdi disaster Um, So, you know, most expensive, uh, oil spill in human history.
• 40:57
  Mm-hmm.
• 40:58
  Um, and it happened in Prince William Sound, uh, which was, I mean, on
• 41:03
  the map it looks next door to us.
• 41:04
  We were, we were getting oil up here in, in, uh, in Cook Inlet.
• 41:08
  We're hundreds of miles away.
• 41:11
  Wow.
• 41:11
  Uh, for reference, and this was a, it was absolutely massive.
• 41:15
  Um, and there have been bigger ones, right.
• 41:17
  But this one was, was huge and in this really beautiful area of Alaska.
• 41:22
  And, um, you know, it is, you know, we, we have this, this really involved
• 41:27
  history with, uh, both that industry and the dangers that are associated with it.
• 41:33
  I'd say one of the things recently, so our, yeah, our state, obviously we, this,
• 41:38
  the state, you know, has a large sort of financial, um, I, I guess, uh, stake
• 41:48
  in, um, in industries like oil and gas.
• 41:52
  And it has created, um, something that is called the dependency
• 41:56
  trap, where we're, we're.
• 42:00
  Sort of forced into a situation that is not ideal for us because we
• 42:04
  believe that we are sort of dependent upon, um, this resource being
• 42:09
  extracted or used in a certain way.
• 42:12
  Um, So prior to 2018, uh, our oil royalties and taxes were the vast
• 42:18
  majority of our state revenue.
• 42:21
  And but since then there's been the, a combination of lower oil prices and
• 42:27
  uh, like tax giveaways that have really changed, um, really changed the landscape.
• 42:34
  So like, so.
• 42:41
  Hillcorp is one of the biggest, for instance, is one of the biggest oil and
• 42:45
  gas companies, uh, operating in Alaska.
• 42:48
  Yeah.
• 42:48
  And it's privately owned.
• 42:50
  So it's uh, what's called an S corporation under US tax code.
• 42:54
  And that's in contrast to like c corporations that are
• 42:56
  owned by stockholders who, you know, trade ownership and
• 42:59
  charities, the public markets.
• 43:02
  Hillcorp is privately owned.
• 43:04
  Alaska has adopted these s-corp versus C-Corp designations into its tax system,
• 43:11
  but it taxes s corporations, privately owned corporations based on personal
• 43:18
  income tax, um, on the returns to their owners rather than the, the corporates,
• 43:23
  like the total corporation income tax.
• 43:26
  Um, and Alaska doesn't have personal income tax.
• 43:32
  And so that means because Hillcorp is, Yeah, because Hillco is privately owned.
• 43:39
  Pretty much the vast majority of their revenues aren't taxed at all.
• 43:45
  So basically they are allowed to go in and in public waters and extract
• 43:52
  this public resource, um, for profit.
• 43:55
  But all of that profit, all of those resources go straight out of
• 43:59
  the state, um, because we're not actually able to, to, to tax them.
• 44:05
  Um, and you know, that's become a political flashpoint in recent years.
• 44:09
  Some policy makers are advancing a bill called SB 92, which is, uh,
• 44:13
  a senate bill in the alleged, in the alleged Alaska legislature.
• 44:17
  Um, that's aimed at closing that s corporation loophole.
• 44:21
  But they're getting a lot of opposition by, uh, political opponents
• 44:25
  from one particular party, um, who are saying that it's unfairly
• 44:29
  targeting oil companies like Hillco.
• 44:32
  And I don't know, to me that's kind of nonsensical 'cause like, so like for.
• 44:39
  I am a small business owner, and I do, like, I do stuff on the
• 44:42
  side and I have to pay taxes on.
• 44:46
  Yeah.
• 44:46
  I have to pay state income, state tax on my small business.
• 44:49
  Yeah.
• 44:50
  And if I have to pay my fair share, it is always just staggering to me
• 44:54
  that a mega corporation like Hillcorp, um, doesn't have to, as they would
• 45:00
  have to in any other state in the us.
• 45:03
  Um, and also that people are insisting that it's not fair to tax
• 45:10
  a company that size while, you know, it's like, well, I'm, I'm paying.
• 45:16
  Yeah.
• 45:16
  I'm paying, what are they doing?
• 45:17
  You know?
• 45:18
  Well, and my, And so Yeah, my first, my first thought of looking out,
• 45:21
  like looking in from outside is like, they're doing this on purpose.
• 45:24
  Like they did this as, like, they didn't, they, they probably
• 45:27
  incorporated as that knowing.
• 45:29
  Like in certain states that they can get away with this.
• 45:32
  And, and this is what ticks me off is, you know, like you said Lauren, at the
• 45:35
  beginning over this conversation about oil and gas is the traditional selling
• 45:40
  point of like, hey, it brings in jobs, it brings in, you know, money to the,
• 45:44
  to the state or money to the local area.
• 45:46
  That's just not true anymore.
• 45:48
  Because these co corporations will try and get away with whatever they can
• 45:52
  to get whatever money they can and out the state and going somewhere else.
• 45:56
  I don't know where Hill is Hillcorp a US company?
• 45:59
  Is it a traditionally US company?
• 46:01
  Mm-hmm.
• 46:02
  Yeah.
• 46:02
  Yeah.
• 46:02
  And so you're just like, it, it just like, even just the fact that they don't
• 46:08
  do anything for the state, knowing that they get a lot of their profits from the
• 46:11
  state, it's just, it bothers me to no end.
• 46:14
  You know what I mean?
• 46:15
  It's like that's the state that's giving you everything, you know what
• 46:18
  you're doing to it in the long run and you're not gonna give, uh, any money.
• 46:22
  So that, that's frustrating.
• 46:23
  How do like.
• 46:25
  Like Alaskans, look at that and, and, and like how do they treat
• 46:30
  that company or even just look like, what's their outlook on that company?
• 46:34
  Yeah, I mean, Hillco has a awful, awful reputation.
• 46:38
  Um, well deserved, awful reputation in the city.
• 46:40
  Been fined I believe 20 times.
• 46:42
  They were just fine in November.
• 46:44
  Um, they've had gas leaks before.
• 46:47
  Um, and they really are the only one, you know, when we get into a little bit
• 46:51
  more specifics on the five-year plan, you know, when we look at what has been leased
• 46:58
  in Alaska, it's mostly state waters.
• 47:00
  Um, and that's hillcorp.
• 47:02
  They have 137, I believe, leases in state waters.
• 47:05
  They have some in federal waters that are inactive, um, already.
• 47:09
  And we have, we being the communities.
• 47:14
  Of Cook Inlet have stood up kind of time and time again.
• 47:17
  Mm-hmm.
• 47:17
  Um, it's been incredibly frustrating.
• 47:19
  You know, we were removed from the ten five year plan, which
• 47:21
  was supposed to still be active.
• 47:23
  Um, it was supposed to start in 2024.
• 47:25
  And so, um, to have us be put back in again after folks have already
• 47:29
  said, you know, we haven't, we have great industries here that are all
• 47:33
  absolutely dependent on the health and of our salmon and our clean water.
• 47:37
  You know, we have commercial fishing, sport fishing, ecotourism, um, And then
• 47:42
  we, of course have our subsistence use.
• 47:44
  And so putting that at risk for an industry to come in and do exploration
• 47:48
  work, which just the exploration work alone is really detrimental.
• 47:53
  Mm-hmm.
• 47:54
  Um, it's not something that folks here want, and I, it's been, I won't
• 47:58
  say it's been completely bipartisan.
• 47:59
  I think that wouldn't be fair to say, but I think.
• 48:01
  In a large part, folks are in agreement that, um, our salmon
• 48:04
  resources and our water resources are much more valuable to us long term.
• 48:09
  Right, right.
• 48:10
  So that's been expressed in a number of, on a number of different levels
• 48:13
  and number of, of different ways.
• 48:15
  Um, now you mentioned that there like, you know, hill Corp is still doing
• 48:19
  some, some drilling and, and they're, they're getting their, their money.
• 48:23
  Um, you mentioned there's some other leasing, uh, things that are going on
• 48:28
  on top of like, so we we're, you know, we're here to talk about the US oil
• 48:31
  and gas plan for, for the most part, but there's other things that are
• 48:34
  happening before this got put together.
• 48:37
  Can you talk a little bit about, uh, Lauren, a little bit about
• 48:40
  that, those, those leases and, and how that's complicating
• 48:44
  just life in general And then.
• 48:46
  You know what, this US plan adds onto that.
• 48:49
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 48:51
  Um, this is a little complicated, so bear with me and tell me if I'm
• 48:54
  getting in the weeds, but No worries.
• 48:56
  Um, we are calling this like the dirty dozen.
• 48:58
  This is what we've been working on since the end of last year when all of
• 49:01
  a sudden all these leasing authorities opened up Um, so it kind of kicked off.
• 49:05
  There was in the, I believe it was the ninth, um, OCS outer Continental shell
• 49:10
  plan, there was lease sale 2 58, um, which Hillcorp did bid and they were awarded.
• 49:16
  Um, and we, after they did their initial NEPA review, we took them to court, um,
• 49:21
  along with several other partners because it was, they did the whole environmental
• 49:25
  impact review in like four months.
• 49:27
  Um, and it was just incomplete.
• 49:30
  So there was a lot of things that we were like, yeah, you didn't
• 49:33
  consider this, this, this, or this.
• 49:34
  Right.
• 49:34
  Um, and the district court agreed with us And so they
• 49:37
  ordered them to do another EIS.
• 49:38
  Um, typically when they do a supplemental, EISB would've hosted.
• 49:43
  Public hearings, public comments, done a full review, um, which was their intention
• 49:49
  until, uh, the Trump administration made some changes to NEPA and kind of, um,
• 49:54
  made the language a little more cloudy.
• 49:56
  And then it was, we are not having any public comments.
• 49:59
  It will be out by the end of the year.
• 50:01
  It's out, it's finalized till course's back in Um, So that was the first one.
• 50:05
  So that was happening.
• 50:07
  And then, um, simultaneously, you know, we had the five year plan that I mentioned,
• 50:13
  the 10th one that we had worked really hard with coalitions across the nation
• 50:17
  to get cook and lit removed from, um, we had Cook Inlet removed from that plan.
• 50:22
  We were not slated for any, And then it was snuck into the big beautiful bill.
• 50:26
  So then we have six, um, mandated by Congress lease sales that
• 50:33
  are gonna start in March Um, So those are already happening.
• 50:37
  Um, and because they're part of a reconciliation bill, there's not a lot.
• 50:41
  Mm-hmm.
• 50:42
  Process that they need to go through for those.
• 50:44
  Um, though there's more process than they're currently doing.
• 50:47
  So that's all I'm allowed to say on that one.
• 50:49
  And then, um, And then we, you know, right at Thanksgiving time we hear, here's your
• 50:56
  new five year plan and cook and lit is back on, and here's five potential more.
• 51:00
  So that's six total, um, that are all overlapping with a really just
• 51:05
  a incredible lack of public process, um, which is really astounding.
• 51:09
  And I think no matter where you fall on the issue, you should have a say.
• 51:13
  Um.
• 51:13
  Mm-hmm.
• 51:14
  And, you know, we were talking earlier like local expertise is not, it's
• 51:18
  not just kind of like a box to check.
• 51:20
  It really, it really is essential, especially in a place like Glasgow,
• 51:23
  we are so far removed from the people who are making these decisions.
• 51:28
  Um, and there's no way that they could know some of these things.
• 51:30
  They need to hear from the fishermen who are out there, who know the tides, who
• 51:35
  know the wind patterns, who know what the reality of actually trying to do.
• 51:39
  Any kind of development in those areas is going to be.
• 51:42
  Um, and they, the OCS does have a public comment period, so we want folks
• 51:47
  to get in there and comment on it.
• 51:49
  They've made it this very short period over the holidays that
• 51:53
  we believe was intentional.
• 51:55
  Um, and, you know, folks are tired.
• 51:57
  Folks already commented on this just a few years ago, right?
• 52:01
  Um, So it's hard to go back and say, we know you won, but you gotta do it again.
• 52:04
  Um, but it did make a difference that first time and it, it, they
• 52:08
  do have to take it into account.
• 52:09
  So it is really important that we kind of keep beating that drum.
• 52:12
  So you can still use the LA the two years ago, the process as a little bit of this
• 52:16
  process to say, Hey, you know, we beat it once we can, we can beat it again.
• 52:21
  Yeah.
• 52:21
  And how have people reacted to sort of that mind mindset?
• 52:26
  Um, I would say the people in our community are wonderful.
• 52:30
  Um, Alaskans more than anywhere else I've ever lived, people are involved.
• 52:35
  Like, yeah, they want to know, they wanna be part of the process and, uh.
• 52:39
  You know, Jamie and I are newer to Alaska and we're newer to this
• 52:42
  organization, but we have folks here who've been working on this for 30 years.
• 52:47
  Yeah.
• 52:47
  Um, and they're like, alright, here we go again.
• 52:49
  I'm ready.
• 52:50
  Let me bust out the language.
• 52:51
  So people are, people are ready.
• 52:54
  Well, I think they're ready.
• 52:55
  And they've also learned the tricks, you know what I mean?
• 52:57
  Through maybe some hard times and some hard lessons learned.
• 53:01
  Um, but they're, they're, they know it's not gonna stop.
• 53:03
  They know it's gonna keep coming and they, they're like, they're resilient
• 53:06
  in that way where it's like, okay.
• 53:08
  And luckily they've had some success in the past to be able to, to
• 53:11
  build on, uh, to put this through.
• 53:13
  And, and let's be honest too, like the last Trump administration, they had very
• 53:16
  similar, uh, you know, lease sale and it didn't go through, or it never ended
• 53:21
  up going through for whatever reason.
• 53:22
  Um, hopefully that happens again this time.
• 53:25
  Um, we're starting to see a lot of public, uh, participation in the deep
• 53:28
  sea mining, uh, uh, you know, public comment periods and, and things like that.
• 53:34
  I assume we're gonna see the same thing, uh, for, for this public comment period.
• 53:39
  Um, oh, I assume you're, you're expecting an overwhelming No from,
• 53:44
  from the public comment period here.
• 53:46
  And, and how are you as a, as a organization and Jamie,
• 53:50
  'cause the communications director, maybe you can do it.
• 53:52
  How are you sort of.
• 53:54
  Um, guiding people to help do like sort of the, have the, the biggest bang for their
• 54:00
  buck in terms of putting it, putting the public comments in and being effective.
• 54:05
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 54:07
  So we've made, um, we have a bunch of resources that we're making available,
• 54:10
  uh, for people to, to go to, to kind of help guide them through this process.
• 54:14
  So on our website, um, we have a, a page that is actually dedicated, um, to, uh.
• 54:23
  To oil and gas lease sales.
• 54:26
  And on that page we've got, uh, like talking points that people can use.
• 54:31
  Uh, we've got the link to the actual place where they're supposed to do,
• 54:33
  where they can go to submit the comments.
• 54:35
  And, um, in a couple of hours.
• 54:37
  And at five 30 today we're gonna be doing a online, like video training
• 54:43
  session where we can kind of walk people through the issue and how
• 54:46
  to go about commenting on it.
• 54:48
  And, uh, we're gonna record that and put that up online as well.
• 54:52
  So we're just trying to get as much as we can out there for people, uh, to
• 54:56
  both be aware that this is happening and that, you know, this thing that's
• 55:01
  happening over the, uh, holidays that is trying to be stuck under their
• 55:04
  nose is, is happening right now.
• 55:06
  And they've gotta, they've gotta get a comment in, um, by January 23rd.
• 55:12
  Um, especially because, you know, we've got.
• 55:16
  Like Lauren said, we've got 12 lease sales, uh, either that
• 55:20
  have either happened or are about to happen in Cook Inlet alone.
• 55:24
  And this is because of, you know, the various loopholes that, uh, the, that
• 55:29
  the federal government has been using to get rid of, to constrain public comment.
• 55:34
  This is potentially like the only opportunity that
• 55:38
  people are gonna get Yeah.
• 55:39
  To actually make a public comment.
• 55:41
  Right.
• 55:41
  So it's like, okay, you get one, we get one shot at this.
• 55:44
  Yeah.
• 55:45
  Um, So we're trying to really emphasize online that you know, that this is
• 55:51
  particularly important time and um, yeah.
• 55:54
  And do people have to be like, people who care for cooking that may not
• 55:57
  live in Cook, like a person like myself or someone else in the lower
• 56:00
  48, they can still comment for Cook Inlet, like, you know what I mean?
• 56:04
  Like they can still mention it in the public comment.
• 56:06
  I'm just gonna add.
• 56:07
  You know, as you, as, as, uh, you're looking to answer that I'm gonna just
• 56:10
  put up, uh, if you go to speak up for blue.com, cook Inlet, it'll take
• 56:15
  you, I'm gonna, uh, link to this page with the, the what you mentioned,
• 56:18
  um, Jamie, the, the oil and gas lease page, um, on Cook Inlets web.
• 56:23
  On Inlet Keeper's website.
• 56:24
  'cause it's, it's phenomenal.
• 56:25
  It gives you everything you need to know.
• 56:27
  It has a timeline going back from, uh, 2017 to 2018 and a lot of like, sort
• 56:32
  of the things that happened there.
• 56:33
  Um, I think it's, I think it's fantastic.
• 56:35
  So just, I just want to let people know.
• 56:37
  So speak up for blue.com/ let's do inlet Keeper, we'll do Inlet Keeper And then so
• 56:41
  that you can go there to, to take a look.
• 56:44
  Um, but you know, like, so people from outside the lower 40 eights,
• 56:47
  Lauren can actually answer, like, can answer, put up public comment
• 56:51
  And then put their, you know, say, Hey, we love Alaska the way it is.
• 56:55
  Leave it alone.
• 56:56
  Like, don't, don't touch it, right?
• 56:57
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 56:58
  You know, these are, whether it's for Alaska or anywhere, you know, all of these
• 57:03
  coasts right across the nation are up.
• 57:05
  Um.
• 57:06
  And they're public waters, they're waterways that we as
• 57:09
  US citizens, they are ours.
• 57:11
  And so, um, I, I really strongly believe that it's a national resource.
• 57:16
  Having these wild fisheries is gonna be essential, um, for long-term
• 57:21
  food security for, like, I just can't even imagine a world where
• 57:25
  we don't have our wild fisheries.
• 57:27
  It breaks my heart.
• 57:28
  And so, um, absolutely if you care about fisheries, if you've visited, you know,
• 57:32
  so many people come out and visit like Lake Clark and Kamai and Homer and come
• 57:36
  halibut fishing here if you've been here.
• 57:38
  Um, and most of those folks actually surprisingly do, because it really does
• 57:42
  captivate you once you've been here once.
• 57:45
  It's hard.
• 57:46
  It's hard not to fall in love with it and hard to imagine it not being here anymore.
• 57:51
  And, and, you know, I think throughout the episode, you, you
• 57:54
  mentioned something really important.
• 57:55
  It's oil and gas is not the most important industry.
• 57:59
  You know, within, like the Cookland in Inlet area.
• 58:02
  And I think that's a really important thing to say.
• 58:04
  I think a lot of, I think the narrative, uh, from a, from a
• 58:08
  federal perspective is that it is.
• 58:10
  Mm-hmm.
• 58:10
  Um, but like you said, it's, it's the, it's the, the, the, the wild
• 58:14
  in general, but also the fisheries is such an important aspect and
• 58:18
  it, it outweighs from a financial perspective what oil and gas will give.
• 58:23
  'cause right now, oil and gas is giving jackal to ever to, to what, you know,
• 58:28
  to the, to the, the people of Alaska.
• 58:30
  And I think that's a, a, a big thing to, to, to mention here because.
• 58:35
  You know, that that just can't happen where you don't, Ben, like the
• 58:38
  local community doesn't benefit in whatever way, whatever their biggest
• 58:42
  stakeholder group is, that that stakeholder group needs to benefit.
• 58:46
  And it's, we know it's not oil and gas and, And so I think that's a, a,
• 58:50
  a major point to, to put like, in the public comment, it's like, yeah, you
• 58:54
  know, like, this is not important to us.
• 58:56
  We care about fisheries, we care about wildlife.
• 58:58
  You know, that's what's important to us.
• 58:59
  That's what brings in, um, the money for us.
• 59:02
  That's what bring, that's what encapsulates us as a. As a
• 59:06
  community, as a, as a state.
• 59:07
  Right.
• 59:07
  So I think that's, that's really important.
• 59:10
  Um, okay.
• 59:10
  So I will let, let people know.
• 59:12
  So speak up for blue.com/in inlet keeper, you know, you can go there.
• 59:16
  I'll put it in the, in the show notes also, if you can, uh, Jamie.
• 59:20
  And if once you've done that, uh, once you've put up that, uh, webinar that
• 59:24
  you're putting on, if you can send the link, we'll put it in the show
• 59:27
  notes as well so that by the time we publish this episode, that'll be up.
• 59:30
  So people can take a look too to find out more what they can
• 59:32
  do to put on the public comment.
• 59:34
  Um, 'cause I think that'll be really handy.
• 59:35
  'cause it's not just writing something, it's what you write to make.
• 59:38
  So, so make use of this page that we, that they put up, the link keeper put up and,
• 59:42
  and, uh, it'll be, it'll be really great.
• 59:45
  Um, you know, so I guess like in terms of, um, is there anything else that you want
• 59:49
  to cover that we haven't covered here?
• 59:51
  Um, you know, where, where that, that would be important for you
• 59:54
  to get out so that people can, um, you know, can take hold of.
• 1:00:00
  Um, yeah, I think there's a, uh, certainly the first thing that that comes to
• 1:00:04
  mind for me is that, that like just reinforcing the idea that everything
• 1:00:10
  in this watershed is built on the back of our fisheries and our salmon.
• 1:00:14
  And that's true for both the people and for the environment here.
• 1:00:18
  So, you know, the bears are reliant on the salmon.
• 1:00:21
  Um, the salmon swim upstream every year to spawn.
• 1:00:24
  And then, you know, after they've spawned they perish and all that
• 1:00:29
  nitrogen from their bodies feeds into the feeds into the forests up here.
• 1:00:34
  Um, the trees are reliant on and are built on salmon up here.
• 1:00:38
  The birds are reliant on it.
• 1:00:40
  Um, this place is this sort of last, one of the, one of the last sort of
• 1:00:46
  bastions of, of this sort of wilderness.
• 1:00:49
  And not only is the ecosystem built on salmon, but our economies are here.
• 1:00:55
  Hmm.
• 1:00:56
  And you know, between, between the, uh, the, the millions of dollars
• 1:01:00
  brought in just in this region alone in tourism, ecotourism, bear viewing, uh,
• 1:01:07
  charter fishing, commercial fishing, um, you know, that all brings so much
• 1:01:13
  more to the table then, uh, than an oil, than than extractive processes
• 1:01:19
  like oil drilling possibly could.
• 1:01:21
  And yeah, the risk posed by, by oil drilling in this area is immense.
• 1:01:29
  Um, because, you know, each of these, each of these lease sales that, that
• 1:01:35
  happen, like the most recent one, lease sale 2 58, there was a, they, they,
• 1:01:42
  the, they did a model on it, on sort of the, the risk of a major spill that was.
• 1:01:49
  Associated with this particular lease sale and they estimated that there was about
• 1:01:53
  a 19% chance of a major spill happening.
• 1:01:56
  So this is the kind of thing that would be, you know, destructive across the
• 1:02:01
  board and could, you know, choke out, choke out our fish and also be just
• 1:02:06
  immensely destructive to wildlife, both in the, in the Ocean and also on land.
• 1:02:13
  And that's just one lease sale.
• 1:02:16
  When you start adding up the fact that we already have a bunch of, when we have
• 1:02:20
  a bunch of sort of extracted industries further up the inlet plus each new lease
• 1:02:26
  sale coming in, having its own risk associated, that risk becomes additive.
• 1:02:31
  So lease sale 2 58 is 20%.
• 1:02:34
  When you add on the lease sale before that, um, it becomes 40%.
• 1:02:39
  And when you account for all of the current leases that are already happening
• 1:02:45
  in Cook Inlet, we're already hovering.
• 1:02:48
  Well over 50% of a well over 50% chance of a risk of a major oil spill in the area.
• 1:02:55
  And that's before we start adding even more to the region.
• 1:02:59
  So, you know, when you think about what's at stake here, um, the risk to this
• 1:03:06
  place is so high and the probability of a, of a major oil spill is so high.
• 1:03:13
  And when you think about like, the value of this place and how all of that could
• 1:03:19
  disappear, you know, thinking about it from a local standpoint, if you wanna
• 1:03:23
  bet all of the beauty of this place and your livelihood and like the local
• 1:03:31
  economy and like your subsistence way of life on a, like a poker hand that
• 1:03:36
  you have a seven out of 10 chance of losing, is it really worth the risk?
• 1:03:42
  You know, um, it almost comes down.
• 1:03:44
  It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when.
• 1:03:47
  That's really what, that's, you know, like that's absolutely
• 1:03:50
  what we're talking about here.
• 1:03:50
  I remember there was a quote from a, a, a shell executive who says like, yeah, you
• 1:03:55
  know, spills are part of business, but that's, that's part of their business.
• 1:03:59
  Not the business of the local people.
• 1:04:00
  Not the business of the fishers, not the business of, you know,
• 1:04:03
  people who live off the land.
• 1:04:05
  And, you know, just like, as you mentioned at the beginning of the episode and, and
• 1:04:08
  all the stuff that's affected afterwards, you know, like you mentioned, salmon go
• 1:04:12
  up and spawn up in the, in the headwaters.
• 1:04:15
  They eventually, they will die.
• 1:04:17
  They will, their nitrogen goes into the forest.
• 1:04:19
  The forest grow from that.
• 1:04:21
  And it's just a, a regenerative positive feedback that gets interrupted.
• 1:04:25
  A lot of stuff goes to hell.
• 1:04:27
  Like, let's, let's be honest here, from a nature perspective, but
• 1:04:29
  also from a human perspective.
• 1:04:32
  And, and, and this, in these types of environments like Alaska, they
• 1:04:35
  cannot handle big changes like that.
• 1:04:38
  And, and, and for people who come in and just take money and bring it out
• 1:04:42
  and don't even support the community.
• 1:04:45
  I is, it is just like a, it's a non-starter for me.
• 1:04:47
  Right.
• 1:04:48
  I think it's easy to say that it's a, it's a non-starter.
• 1:04:50
  Um, Lauren, just in terms of final thoughts, uh, do you have anything,
• 1:04:54
  you know, from, from in the key?
• 1:04:56
  Right.
• 1:04:56
  That's a, that's a big, big talking point here, but, um, you know,
• 1:05:00
  no, I, I'm jotting stuff down.
• 1:05:01
  I'm, you know, I would love to leave people with a little bit
• 1:05:03
  of hope that, like their actions really are gonna make a difference.
• 1:05:07
  Um, I think this last year, I know many of us felt just pummeled, you know,
• 1:05:12
  whether it was from an environmental or humanitarian, you know, so many
• 1:05:16
  things have been happening in the world and it can feel incredibly
• 1:05:18
  overwhelming and like, um, like sitting down to write a 10 minute email is
• 1:05:22
  not gonna make much of a difference.
• 1:05:24
  Right.
• 1:05:24
  But it really does.
• 1:05:25
  Um, and we've seen that time and time again.
• 1:05:28
  And so I really encourage people, I, I understand it's
• 1:05:31
  a very complicated narrative.
• 1:05:33
  Um, even for us who are working in it, we're like, okay, make sure
• 1:05:36
  we're understanding the tax codes.
• 1:05:38
  Make sure we're understanding the implications of.
• 1:05:41
  You know, this protection act and now NEPA has changed and
• 1:05:44
  it's changing very quickly.
• 1:05:45
  And so we don't expect anyone to be an expert.
• 1:05:47
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:05:48
  Um, unless you are an expert.
• 1:05:49
  And then we really need hear, comment.
• 1:05:51
  Yes, absolutely.
• 1:05:51
  But what we also need is just the public.
• 1:05:53
  I, the public needs to speak up that this is a resource that is already
• 1:05:58
  in use and is already important.
• 1:06:00
  Um, And so personal stories really, really do matter.
• 1:06:04
  Um, and if you can take 10 minutes to write something, yeah.
• 1:06:09
  It will make a difference.
• 1:06:10
  Um, and lifetime of a difference.
• 1:06:11
  Little bit about that Yeah.
• 1:06:13
  Yeah.
• 1:06:13
  For you, for future generations.
• 1:06:15
  Absolutely.
• 1:06:15
  Yeah.
• 1:06:16
  For your kids, Lauren, for your girls growing up in that area.
• 1:06:19
  Yeah, my, my kids can still go eat sea lettuce when we
• 1:06:21
  go down to the beach, please.
• 1:06:22
  Ready to comment?
• 1:06:25
  Absolutely.
• 1:06:26
  Uh, Lauren and Jamie, I can't thank you enough for spending time with me
• 1:06:29
  today and, and with us, you know, here at How to Protect the Ocean Podcast.
• 1:06:32
  Like the audience loves the fact that we, we can hear from
• 1:06:35
  people from all over the us.
• 1:06:37
  And how they feel about this.
• 1:06:39
  Uh, and, and you know, just to give it context, to give, you know, from a local
• 1:06:44
  context of like what's really important to the people and how these, these major
• 1:06:49
  plans that are put off, you know, that are made by people who don't even live there
• 1:06:53
  or maybe never have been there, never will be there, uh, how it affects local people.
• 1:06:57
  And I think that's, it's a, it's a really big tell in terms of just not
• 1:07:01
  understanding what's, what's local and, and, and how important it is.
• 1:07:05
  So I wanna thank you so much for sharing all the information.
• 1:07:08
  Love to have you back on to talk about all the other wonderful work that
• 1:07:12
  you guys do, um, because I think it's really important and, and it was just
• 1:07:15
  so much fun talking to both of you.
• 1:07:16
  So I appreciate you spending that time with me.
• 1:07:19
  Thank you so much.
• 1:07:20
  We really appreciate you and your listeners and everyone who has a
• 1:07:24
  stake in protecting our oceans.
• 1:07:26
  Absolutely.
• 1:07:27
  Thank you.
• 1:07:28
  Yeah.
• 1:07:28
  Thank you all.
• 1:07:29
  Thank you, Lauren.
• 1:07:30
  And thank you, Jamie, for joining us on today's episode of the How
• 1:07:33
  to Protect the Ocean Podcast.
• 1:07:34
  This was Revelations like I've never seen before.
• 1:07:36
  It's not what I thought it would be.
• 1:07:38
  A lot of times when we talk about oil and gas moving into a coastline, especially
• 1:07:41
  with the history that Alaska has had, you don't expect somebody who's never
• 1:07:44
  been to Alaska, and I've been to the Northwest Territories And so forth, you
• 1:07:47
  don't really understand how important little things are there and how important
• 1:07:51
  it's to the community and that oil and gas may not be the biggest industry
• 1:07:55
  that's benefiting that local community.
• 1:07:57
  And in this case, that's what Jamie and Lauren have said over and over
• 1:08:00
  and over again is that the fishing is what's the biggest financial impact
• 1:08:03
  to the community, not only from an environmental perspective, but
• 1:08:06
  actually from a monetary perspective.
• 1:08:08
  The oil and gas industry, the way it's set up now is not benefiting the community
• 1:08:12
  in any way other than the potential of oil spills and what Jamie mentioned in
• 1:08:17
  terms of the percentage of risk that there is from an oil spill at 90%.
• 1:08:21
  It's not a matter of.
• 1:08:22
  If it's a matter of when, 90% chance that there's gonna be an oil
• 1:08:26
  spill that is going to affect this inlet for decades, if not more.
• 1:08:31
  It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when oil spills are gonna
• 1:08:35
  happen in this area, and without that, we're not gonna see a change.
• 1:08:39
  We're not gonna see a benefit to this community from a monetary perspective,
• 1:08:43
  from an environmental perspective, from a health perspective, we are going
• 1:08:46
  to see a detriment to this community.
• 1:08:47
  That's not said on the federal level, on the overview level of
• 1:08:51
  what they're saying in the press conferences and things like this.
• 1:08:53
  We have seen it time and time again.
• 1:08:55
  We have seen it on the coast of California.
• 1:08:57
  We have seen it in the Gulf and we've seen it here in Cook Inlet.
• 1:09:00
  How many more interviews do I have to do to just be tell us?
• 1:09:03
  Everybody's like, Hey, this isn't good for the people.
• 1:09:06
  It's not good for the people, not the way it was before.
• 1:09:09
  If it was, and the long term hazards are outweighing the benefits.
• 1:09:13
  There are any, so keep that in mind.
• 1:09:16
  Go to speak up for blue.com/inlet keeper.
• 1:09:19
  They have a page there all about the oil and gas lease sales, but also
• 1:09:23
  in there, what's really important is they have a five-year plan talking
• 1:09:26
  points, and they have a link to submit a comment about the five-year plan.
• 1:09:29
  It's not just for the Cook inlet, it's for all of the us.
• 1:09:31
  1.4 billion acres of us is up for grabs on leases that shouldn't happen.
• 1:09:37
  And so make your comment, whether you're a US citizen or a non-US citizen, if you
• 1:09:41
  don't wanna see the environment go to hell, then this is what we need to do.
• 1:09:44
  We are way past the stage of needing this amount of drilling, and we have
• 1:09:48
  the ability for renewals to help.
• 1:09:50
  And so this administration needs to hear that And so they hear
• 1:09:54
  it through you, the people.
• 1:09:56
  So if you're listening to this and you really believe in this, go to
• 1:09:58
  speak up for blue.com/inlet keeper and submit your comment today.
• 1:10:02
  I'm gonna also link to the webinar of a workshop that Jamie and Lauren and
• 1:10:07
  the Cook Inlet Keepers are putting on.
• 1:10:09
  I would love you if you wanna watch that.
• 1:10:11
  You can watch that just to get a little bit more involved and find out what you
• 1:10:14
  can do for the most impactful public comment that you can put together.
• 1:10:16
  I want to thank Lauren and Jamie for joining me today.
• 1:10:19
  I wanna thank the inlet keeper at Cook Inlet for all the work that they do and
• 1:10:23
  all the people around there that live there, and for spending time with me today
• 1:10:26
  to talk to us and say, Hey, you know what?
• 1:10:29
  This isn't a good idea and this is why.
• 1:10:31
  So thank you so much for that.
• 1:10:32
  If you have any questions or comments, please leave it in
• 1:10:34
  the comment section below.
• 1:10:35
  If you're watching this on YouTube.
• 1:10:36
  Or if you're listening to this on your favorite audio podcast, you go
• 1:10:40
  to speak up for blue.com/feedback.
• 1:10:42
  You can leave a voicemail or you can leave a comment.
• 1:10:45
  I would love to hear what you have to say.
• 1:10:47
  This is the beginning of a conversation and I'd love to continue that
• 1:10:49
  conversation with you, either on social media, Instagram, how to protect the
• 1:10:53
  Ocean, TikTok, speak up for blue.
• 1:10:55
  All this.
• 1:10:55
  We're everywhere.
• 1:10:56
  We're just everywhere.
• 1:10:56
  Just go to the website speaker for blue.com.
• 1:10:58
  I wanna thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of the
• 1:11:01
  How to Protect the Ocean Podcast.
• 1:11:02
  I'm your host Angelo, and from the true nor strong and free, have a great day.
• 1:11:05
  We'll talk to you next time and help conservation.