The Observer, September 2005

return to this edition

New group formed to protect Sound

The citizens’ council has a new ally in the effort to protect the marine treasures of Prince William Sound.

The Prince William Soundkeeper, in the works for several years, geared up in earnest this summer. It now has a board of directors and has hired Sharry Miller – a member of the citizens’ council board – as executive director.

The group lists its mission as protecting water quality and the life it sustains in the Prince William Sound ecosystem through active stewardship, research, monitoring and fact-based education.

That makes it similar to the citizens’ council, with a couple of major differences.

For one thing, the council region is much larger, taking in not only Prince William Sound, but the waters off the Kenai Peninsula and Kodiak Island, as well.

Secondly, the council’s purview is much narrower. It is limited, by federal law and by the council’s funding contract with Alyeska, to the impacts of crude-oil transportation. The keeper’s mission, by contrast, is broad enough to cover nearly any issue affecting the Sound’s environment.

Vince Kelly, a Valdez resident and Soundkeeper board member, identified some of the other threats to the Sound as follows: discharges from shore based development; pollution from ever-increasing small-boat use of the Sound; hydrocarbons and other contaminants from community storm water runoff; mining activities; introduced species from vessel ballast water and bottom fouling; and the ever present danger of oil spills from all classes of vessels.

“For many water bodies, the most that can be hoped for is to mitigate the damage and halt the water quality’s decline,” Kelly said in a written statement. “While some human caused damage has occurred in the Sound, it has not yet become systemic and irreversible, as with so many other places in the world.”

John Devens, executive director of the citizens’ council, welcomed the formation of the new group.

“We have long seen the need for an organization that could address non-crude-oil issues in the Sound in the same way we oversee the crude-oil transportation industry,” Devens said. “It is very painful to us when there’s a major spill in the Sound and we can’t be involved because it’s outside our purview.”

Miller, the new group’s executive director, is a Valdez resident who has been active in Prince William Sound for over 15 years as a biologist, environmental scientist, and commercial fisherman.

She holds a bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of Alaska Fairbanks and a master’s degree in environmental science from Alaska Pacific University.

“I love the area and want to see it maintained as a wonderful place to recreate and to work,” Miller said of her decision to take the new job.  “It is in our economic, as well as personal, best interest to maintain good water quality in the Sound so that the fish and other animals living in this marine ecosystem can maintain healthy populations.”

The Prince William Sound group, which will be based in Valdez, is modeled on Homer-based Cook Inlet Keeper, and both organizations are members of the Waterkeeper Alliance.

The umbrella group includes more than 130 waterkeepers in the United States and abroad, according to its Internet site. The movement started on New York’s Hudson River in the 1960s. More information is available at www.waterkeeper.org.