Step 3 Reasearch Draft #1

The Polluted Kenai River

How can the Kenai River be famous for its fishing and be listed as impaired by the Environmental Protection Agency? The main issue is pollution on the Kenai River, especially in the month of July. July is the peak time for both red salmon and king salmon. It is also when thousands of dip netters descend on the river. Although the new boat and motor restrictions have shown to reduce hydrocarbon pollution, they create other problems because it does not improve bank erosion, trash pollution, or the cost and effort by the city of Kenai or the Kenai Borough for trash clean up following the dip-netting season.

But the down side is more people, me included, now have to fish from the bank instead of my boat which is causing a tremendous amount of bank erosion and damage. Also people fishing from the bank tend to leave more trash behind than boaters.
This is an important issue for me because I now have to fish from the bank. I’m not very happy about the new regulations because one of the reasons I got my boat was to be able to dip-net my fish from a boat instead of fighting for a spot for my family on the bank. Also I can get more fish faster and move on to something else since I know I have fish to eat for the next year. Fishing from a boat results in a much cleaner fish. It is much faster and easier when it comes time for processing them. If any of you has dip-netted there you know you either have sand, if you are on the beach or silty mud if you are anyplace upriver from the mouth. Now I have to spend more time on the Kenai, resulting in more damage to the banks and this year I didn’t get my limit of fish. I would rather be fishing in the Matanuska and Susitna Valley streams where I live but the sockeye runs there aren’t even close to the amount of fish the Kenai River gets.
I have been thinking a lot about this issue since the rules changed in two thousand and eight. I will continue to think about it because unless I can borrow a Kenai River legal boat motor I’ll be back on the muddy bank again this year. I know the Department of Natural Resources and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game would not agree with me on this.
I stand on the idea that they should return to unlimited horsepower and allow the older, non Direct Injected two strokes to be used below the Warren Ames Bridge. The Warren Ames Bridge is the upper boundary for dip netters. The rest of the river can keep the new regulations. I find it interesting that the entire Kenai commercial fishing fleet is anchored in the mouth of the Kenai River yet, I haven’t heard any restrictions pertaining to them and they certainly don’t have any horsepower restrictions. Is it fair? I think not. The older higher powered motors could be limited to dip-netters only. The dip net season is only two weeks long. I don’t believe that this would cause as much of an issue because the dip-netting all occurs in a stretch of the river that is entirely influenced by the tides of Cook Inlet. I think that this would allow a greater number of Alaskans who really need those fish to feed their families to be more efficient at it and cause less damage. I will also predict that there will be further restrictions put into place because of bank erosion to eventually cause the demise of dip-netting on the Kenai River. I’m all for protecting our environment but I don’t like it when the rules favor the elite few who can afford a new boat motor every time the regulations change. The ones who can are the fishing guides who aren’t dip-netting anyway, and a few others who can afford it, and some of those don’t even use the fish they catch.
Once the river was labeled “impaired” and the new regulations were put into place, there was a very noticeable improvement in the amount of hydrocarbons in the river as measured at the same time and same place in both two thousand and seven and in two thousand and eight. The new regulations are not the only reason for the improvement. It was shown that the Kenai River’s flow was at least thirty percent greater in two thousand and eight than it was in two thousand and seven due to greater rainfall and runoff from snow. With that much more flow it causes more dilution of hydrocarbon pollution. Also it was recorded that there were fifteen percent fewer boats on the river on that same day as the year before. This would be a good indication of how many people could not afford the new boat motors. With fewer boats on the river there would be less sources of pollution. Another important factor in the reduction of pollution would be that there was a much greater tidal fluctuation in the lower river which would cause even further dilution of hydrocarbon pollution. In addition to the elimination of the non Direct Fuel Injected two stroke motors, all of these factors contributed to the measured reduction in gasoline pollution.
Studies have shown that bank erosion and hydrocarbon pollution can harm salmon fry because they spend the first year in shallow shoreline water that is greatly disturbed by boat wakes. It is also known that in the designated dip-netting area is not a salmon fry rearing area because of the tidal waters. The fry are much further upstream in clear water, not silty, brackish water. In two thousand and seven while dip netting from my boat my family and I caught numerous flounder as far as three miles upstream of the Kenai City dock. This should indicate how much the ocean salt water mixes with the river. The tide fluctuations affect the river as far as eight to ten miles upstream from the mouth.
The University of North Carolina conducted a study of marinas and other coastal areas where there was a lot of boat traffic to determine the effects of hydrocarbon pollution to a type of plankton. The study showed no adverse long term effects to this organism.
We can all agree that pollution is a bad thing, but how much our environment can absorb without causing any health issues has yet to be determined. Only theries have been offered.




Holland, Larry, Adam Moles, Marie Larsen, Mark G. Carls, and Stanley D. Rice” Concentrations of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and organochlorinated pesticides (OCPs) in the Kenai River, Alaska: 2001-2005: a data report /” Juneau, Alaska: Auke Bay Laboratory, Alaska Fisheries Science Center, National Marine Fisheries Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (2006): AFSC processed report; 2006-08. ALNcat. University of Alaska Fairbanks Lib., Fairbanks, AK. 17 Feb 2009 http://firstsearch.oclc.org/.

http://www.kenaiwatershed.org/hydrocarbon.html

http://www.sf.adfg.state.ak.us/region2/personaluse/kenaipu.cfm

http://www.epa.gov/twg/2004/2004proposals/04kenai.pdf


Piehler, Michael F., Julie S. Maloney, and Hans W. Paerl. "Bacterioplanktonic abundance, productivity and petroleum hydrocarbon biodegradation in marinas and other coastal waters in North Carolina, USA." Marine Environmental Research 54.2 (Aug. 2002): 157. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. University of Alaska Anchorage Lib., Anchorage, AK. 29 Mar. 2009
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