Alaska Department of Fish and Game officials rejected this week a request from the local Upper Lynn Canal Advisory Commitee to stop all fill and construction activities on the Haines Highway reconstruction project until after the bulk of the king salmon run has passed.

The Alaska Board of Fisheries isn’t recognizing the committee’s letter as a formal action, however, because the committee approved the letter in a 6-1 vote through an email chain and without public notice, a violation of the Open Meetings Act, said Glen Haight, executive director for the Alaska Board of Fisheries. “The reason it’s important to be done under the Open Meetings Act is so the public can see what’s happening and to hear what’s happening so they can contribute to the discussion,” Haight said.

The committee, organized to make regulatory proposals and address wildlife conservation and habitat issues, has 11 seats from Haines, Skagway and Klukwan. Tim McDonough, Kip Kermoian, Will Prisciandaro, Derek Poinsette, Shannon Donahue, Darren Belisle and Ryan Cook all voted on the letter, with Cook opposed. The five other members were absent from the discussion.

The letter and vote came after some committee members took issue with a July 5 amendment to a construction permit that allows SECON to build the rock fill pad portions of river protrusions at any river stage. Fish and Game issued an initial permit in July 2017 stating, “To avoid impacts to spawning eulachon, developing embryos, and juvenile and adult anadromous fishes, you will work in the dry.”

In the letter to Fish and Game commissioner Sam Cotton, committee chair Tim McDonough said allowing work during high water “contradicts all of the conservation measures taken to ensure safe passage of Chilkat River Chinook salmon to their spawning grounds.”

He cited the Chilkat king salmon as a stock of concern—a designation given by Fish and Game earlier this year. He asked that construction activity cease until Aug. 1. “We feel that the State of Alaska has a responsibility and obligation to adhere to the intent of having designated Chilkat River Chinook salmon a stock of concern, and that sacrificing even one spawner due to poor planning or unanticipated issues, when a brief hold of in-river activity would mitigate harm, is unacceptable,” McDonough wrote.

SECON’s Bryce Iverson said the project had two separate fish habitat permits, one for in-river rip rap placement for the highway structural section, and the other for the construction of in-river mitigation features. “The depth of the river was more than originally thought, making the access to construct the mitigation features unfeasible if not built concurrently with road structure rip rap,” Iverson said.

Jackie Timothy, Fish and Game Southeast Regional Supervisor, responded to McDonough’s letter Tuesday. Poor king returns to the multiple river systems in Southeast, populations also labeled stocks of concern, reflect poor marine survival, not issues related to freshwater, Timothy said.

“Freshwater is also not the problem in the Chilkat River,” Timothy said. “There is no time of the year when the Chilkat River is absent of salmon of various life stages…and it is unrealistic to expect construction of a large critical infrastructure project like the Haines Highway to occur only in the winter as human safety is a consideration as is the ability to construct the project to industry standards.”

Timothy disputed the committee’s claim that the current permitted construction activities are “due to poor planning or unanticipated issues.” The stretch of river where work is currently occurring, between 3.9 and 12 Mile, is three-quarters of a mile wide—allowing plenty of room for fish passage, Timothy said.

Fish and Game habitat biologist Kate Kanouse said before a big project moves forward the department issues more restrictive permits, and issues amendments when more detailed construction methods are known. “We wrote the original permits a year ago before it went out to bid,” Kanouse said. “We knew [SECON] couldn’t possibly do the work when it was dry. We knew we’d be writing amendments.”

Fish and Game’s amendment to SECON’s construction permit allows the company to construct the rock pad fill portion of the river protrusions—fish habitat mitigation features included in the project. The river protrusions designed to establish “natural river banks all along that section of the road so we get the road out of the river,” Kanouse said. Installing ballasted log clusters that create fish habitat aren’t permitted until the water level decreases.

Poinsette said construction activities at high water will impact fish. “There’s deep water along a lot of those stretches,” Poinsette said. “That’s the run the fish wheels are in. Fish do migrate through there, probably every species, and outmigrating immature fish are leaving during high water and passing through there. Dumping rocks in on top of salmon definitely has an impact.”

Lynn Canal Conservation executive director Elsa Sebastian took issue with Timothy’s comments regarding king salmon marine survival. “For the [Fish and Game] Habitat Division to be dismissive of the impacts of filling and working in the river during the Chinook return demonstrates that it’s not fulfilling their mandate to protect fisheries habitat, and shows an unwillingness to hold construction projects to the same level of restrictions as fishermen who are taking cuts to allow passage of individual fish,” Sebastian said.

The rip rap installation will be completed by the end of the year, according to the project’s timeline, Iverson said. “Currently we are on our sixth rip rap zone working our way back to town from 12 Mile,” Iverson said. “There are 18 separate zones, but the recent completion of the 9 Mile zone puts the in- water work past 50 percent complete.”