Author: alaskaadmin

Almost 200 years after the bald eagle was chosen as the emblem of the United States in 1782, the species was threatened with extinction due to DDT poisoning. The nation’s symbol owes its survival to a translocation program that captured young bald eagles in Southeast Alaska and flew them to New York and other Lower 48 states to initiate a repopulation program. 

Biologist Rachel Carson’s 1962 book “Silent Spring” brought attention to the devastating impacts of DDT, sprayed widely in areas of the Lower 48 states during the 1950s and 1960s. The insecticide application resulted in mass die-offs of birds and other animals. Birds’ eggshells were too soft to nurture the chicks within. Bald eagles suffered overwhelming population losses of primarily nestling birds. Eggs were not hatching.

The book’s title “Silent Spring” refers to the sudden quiet caused by the deaths of birds whose songs normally filled the air with sound after winter. The dramatic losses of birds observed in backyards and farmlands prompted Carson to delve into the poisons used to eradicate insects. In a chapter titled “And No Birds Sing,” she reports on bald eagles, noting that nest failure trends in New Jersey and Pennsylvania “…may well make it necessary for us to find a new national emblem.” 

Hope was on the horizon. DDT was banned in 1972. Within four years, officials in the State of New York believed the habitat could once again support a population of bald eagles. The birds live only in North America.

Fifty years ago New York initiated a repopulation program with funding from the 1973 Endangered Species Act that provided money for similar state programs. It started out of desperation to save the last nesting bald eagle pair in the state. Peter Nye, a retired New York Department of Environmental Conservation wildlife biologist, told the Juneau Independent in a telephone interview on June 17 how the initiative got started.

“The program was based on a successful restoration project for peregrine falcons,” Nye said. He and his colleagues practiced on the sole nesting eagle pair remaining in New York. They climbed up the nest tree — no small feat — and replaced a thin-shelled egg with a fake egg for the parents to incubate. After the appropriate 34 days, the biologists returned to the nest and substituted tiny live eaglets in place of the placebo eggs. The parents raised the chicks to fledging. The experiment worked well with bald eagles. It was the beginning of the restoration of the birds in the eastern U.S.

“At the time, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania had no nesting eagles, neither did Vermont or New Hampshire,” Nye said. Those states began talking with him about replicating his program.

The project coincided with the country’s Bicentennial in 1976, thus receiving attention for saving the national symbol. The initial New York project was extremely labor-intensive due to the 24-hour care the very young birds required. To sustain the program, however, an abundant supply of nestling eagles was needed. The birds needed to be old enough to endure capture and transportation.

They turned to Alaska where eagles were thriving, unlike the Lower 48 states where eagles were threatened or endangered. The wildlife biologists determined the ideal age was about seven weeks old, in July. At that age the young eagles could survive without parental attention during the usual intensive chick-rearing process. Older nestlings were capable of tearing apart food to eat and regulating their body temperature. But they could not yet fly so they were easier to handle. 

After considerable planning with Alaskan officials, New York state in 1981 was granted permission to take 20 single nestling eagles from nests in Southeast Alaska.  

Peter Nye flew to Juneau and teamed up with local wildlife biologist Jack Hodges, the bald eagle specialist in Alaska for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS). Both men were young and early in their careers. Hodges knew where nests were located. He had been identifying bald eagle nests for habitat protection as clearcut logging operations in Southeast Alaska kicked into high gear.

The first year of the program, Nye, Hodges and the translocation team worked rapidly aboard the USFWS’s vessel M/V Surfbird. Within five days, they had collected 17 young birds from different nests, fed and cared for the eaglets (the biologists used rod and reel to catch fish), placed them in special individual crates and flown them to New York on a chartered plane. There, the birds were placed in “hacking towers” (artificial nests) where there was minimal human contact to prevent imprinting on people. The eaglets were fed and tended before releasing when the nestlings were old enough to fly. There was concern about how the young birds would survive without normal parental guidance which is a three-month-long process in the nest and more time once the young have flown. Parents teach their nestlings how to fish and catch food. 

From 1981 to 1993, Nye, Hodges and others collected nestling eagles for translocation. Nearly 400 of Alaska’s young eagles repopulated New York, Missouri, Indiana, North Carolina and Tennessee.

Speaking of the once-barren states he helped rejuvenate with similar programs, Nye said, “They all started releasing eagles and that’s how the whole northeast population got rebuilt.” New York now has 450 breeding pairs and Pennsylvania has more than 400 pairs.

Today, webcams provide live video of eagles’ nests in many U.S. locations. Observers can watch mated pairs refurbish their nests, incubate eggs and raise chicks through explore.org, a site known for its live-streaming web camera videos featuring Alaska’s popular salmon-fishing brown bears of Katmai National Park.

Both Nye and Hodges are retired now. They have had time to reflect on their roles in restoring the birds.

Nye remarked about the joy he felt early in the project when a pair of Alaska-born New York eagles successfully nested on their own and raised a family. Two of the first released birds were found 84 miles from their hacking site, showing they could repopulate new areas over long distances.

“It’s been a very, very exciting and rewarding project to have been involved with,” Nye said. New York is celebrating the 50th anniversary this year since the state translocation program began. 

Hodges spoke of similar emotions. “I really felt that what I was doing was important,” he said in an interview on June 11, “because wherever we found an eagle nest we were able to protect habitat from being clearcut logged or otherwise developed because it was against the law.” He was pleased, he added, “when I able to put a sign on a tree on Forest Service land and know that I was protecting an average of 5.5 acres of eagle habitat on the shoreline. The biggest thing that made me feel good was the ability to protect more habitat.”

Hodges has written about his work in a 2017 memoir titled “Above and Beyond, Life of An Alaskan Aviator and Voyager.” In it, Hodges says,

“Alaska’s bald eagles were called upon to help rescue, in a sense, our national bird in the continental United States. One hundred years ago the state of New York had an estimated 70 pairs of bald eagles. By 1975, only one pair remained,” Hodges wrote. 

Steve Lewis, USFWS wildlife biologist with the Migratory Bird Program in Juneau, told the Juneau Independent on June 23, that locally “the eagle population is strong.” 

Ironically, at one time there was a bounty in Alaska on eagles due to the unfounded concern by fishermen the birds were responsible for the decline in salmon. From 1917 until 1953, a bounty was paid of 50 cents per pair of eagle feet. During that period more than 120,000 eagles were killed, according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game website. Bald eagles were threatened or endangered in the Lower 48 states during the time of the restoration program. They were removed from the threatened and endangered species list in 2007, but remain protected under other laws.

New York’s Peter Nye summed up the eagle restoration program well.

“It’s also super good that our 50th anniversary of returning the national symbol to New York, which also influenced a greater amount of area in the northeastern United States, falls on the 250th anniversary of our country,” Nye said.

• Contact Laurie Craig at lauriec@juneauindependent.com.

This story was originally published by the Juneau Independent.

The post America’s bald eagles thrive due to Southeast Alaska’s translocation program appeared first on Chilkat Valley News.

Officials from Hecla Greens Creek Mining Co. and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers are scheduled to meet Monday for a tour of the mine on Admiralty Island. The meeting comes after years of a community push for an expedited long-term solution to glacial lake outburst floods — a plea that has gained momentum in the last two weeks. 

Brian Erickson, vice president of operations at Greens Creek, said the plan is to demonstrate the methodology the mine uses every day to tunnel — and how those with local mining expertise could apply it to Bullard Mountain. 

“This stuff is not magic, it’s happening every day in the borough,” he told about 150 attendees of a meeting hosted by Juneau Flood Solution Advocates on Thursday at Chapel by the Lake. “There’s two mines operating and doing exactly what’s necessary to solve this.”

Suicide Basin is expected to release again in early August, according to Jason Amundson, a geophysics professor at the University of Alaska Southeast. The Mendenhall River has crested at record levels over the last three years. 

Last year, the Mendenhall River crested at 16.65 feet on Aug. 13. On Thursday, Amundson said the basin’s capacity is similar to last year’s. Based on current data, he said the volume is correlated with crest height and severity, so this summer’s flood will likely be comparable to 2025.

A “lake tap” would bore a gravity drainage tunnel through Bullard Mountain so the basin’s water drains continuously into Mendenhall Lake. Currently, the Corps is proposing using a tunnel boring machine, with an estimated timeline of six to 10 years. Erickson said a conventional drill-and-blast used at local mines could get the job done faster.

“We have the technical skills, we get it, you know, we’re doing it in difficult ground,” Erickson said. “If we started that tunnel today, I think at the advanced rates we see in the mine, it’s probably two and a half years from start to finish.”

Part of that relies on his hopes for emergency expediting some of the permitting. Erickson said that bureaucratic delays put the whole project in jeopardy.

“It gives you latitude to do things faster,” he said in an interview after his presentation. “And you’re starting five or six years in advance to try to get all the engineering and design and stuff done, to try to slow that first feedback process. These permitting processes are long and burdensome.”

In December, the City and Borough of Juneau, the U.S. Forest Service and the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska aligned on the lake tap for a long-term solution. In March, the Corps reaffirmed its assessment of the lake tap as the most viable option, but noted four alternatives are not being excluded from further consideration. 

The city, Tlingit and Haida, Forest Service and the Corps have said the lake tap appears to be the most cost-effective and safest option presented, with early estimates ranging from $613 million to $1 billion.

Erickson called that too high.

He said he reviewed a December 2025 three-day charrette summary report the Corps commissioned AECOM to complete. In his personal cost estimation report, he claims a drill-and-blast method would cost half of what the Corps has proposed for a concrete tunnel through Bullard Mountain using a specialized tunnel-boring machine (TBM). 

“TBM procurement involves a custom machine, factory acceptance testing, months-long lead time, and specialized transportation to a remote barge-access-only site,” Erickson’s report notes. “Drill and blast mobilization is dramatically simpler and faster, drawing on equipment and expertise that is commonly used in Juneau today with parts vendors and expertise in the community.”

His revised estimate reduced the cost to $220-323 million, which Erickson describes as a high-level estimate put together with numbers from the USACE charette report with the aid of an AI chatbot.

“The estimate included in the attached report are very high level and needs significant refinement and study to better estimate project costs, and of course, we won’t know the true project costs until the project is complete,” Erickson told the Independent. 

The report also recommends skipping concrete-lining the tunnel. In his presentation at Chapel by the Lake, Erickson said he wasn’t sure that addition is necessary.

“If it produces sediment from some kind of erosion, the glacier is producing way more sediment than that already,” he said.

Erickson said “sticker shock” threatens to kill the project.

He said Monday’s meeting aims to develop a relationship with USACE and demonstrate the safety and responsibility Hecla uses in daily operations.

“I can tell you that there’s no bad guys,” he said. “Everyone is working earnestly on a solution. The challenge we have is everyone is working independently on their own solutions, and we’re not all together getting on the same page.”

He said since AECOM and the Corps do not have the same experience as the mining community, drill-and-blast tunneling would not have been considered as a primary option. 

“Neither the USACE or AECOM are necessarily wrong in their assessment, there are simply other ways of accomplishing this task which is what I was trying to convey in the attached report,” he wrote in an email Friday.

Erickson has 30 years of experience in the production and maintenance of operating mines and as a geologist in the mining industry. He also lives in the Mendenhall Valley and said his home would be affected by a 21-foot crest. 

He said he was presenting at both Juneau Flood Solution Advocate meetings — one on June 11 and one on Thursday — as a representative of his personal views and not on behalf of Hecla. His cost report also does not reflect the views of Hecla or Kensington. 

However, he said the mining industry is supportive of the project and his involvement, as evident in company views submitted in a March 20 letter to Alaska’s congressional delegation by the Alaska Miners Association, Greens Creek and Kensington Mine Coeur Alaska Inc. 

Company leaders of Kensington and Greens Creek also shared their support for a tunnel at a Greater Juneau Chamber of Commerce luncheon on May 28. 

“I live right on the river,” said Steve Ball, the general manager of Kensington. “I’ve watched this over the years, I’ve watched the changes, I’ve watched the HESCO barriers go up, and I’ve watched community members and neighbors be affected by these floods. We have an opportunity in the mining industry to be a resource to lend our knowledge to the community and the local government, but also state government and federal government on what we feel could be done to protect the community.” 

He said his biggest fear is “if nothing’s done and there was a catastrophic event that wiped out or forced people to leave the Valley, that would most likely spell the end of Juneau.” 

Ball said avoidance of that worst-case scenario is why Kensington joined the letter in support of the lake tap. 

“I want everybody to be aware that a lake tap is not a small cost, but in terms of the different options that are out there for long-term mitigation of this risk, we feel that that’s a cost that is warranted,” he told Chamber attendees. “How that gets paid, that’s not in our wheelhouse. How it gets built — again — that’s not in our wheelhouse. We’re running a business at Kensington, but we’re more than happy to provide a resource to be able to share our knowledge and understanding of the local geology.” 

Ball said the rock units mined at Kensington are no different from those 45 miles south at Bullard Mountain. 

William Kloth, general manager of Greens Creek, said the company was happy to partner with Kensington and the Alaska Miners Association. He said Hecla has employees living in the flood zone, but outbursts are a community problem. 

“We want to offer what we can to be part of solutions, and that’s really what drives the desire to offer what the two mines know of tunneling,” Kloth said.

City Manager Katie Koester expressed interest in the mining companies’ involvement at a Chamber luncheon earlier this month, pledging to bring the topic to Washington, D.C. Two city engineers are expected to attend Monday’s mine tour, according to Denise Koch, director of Engineering and Public Works.

At the community meeting Thursday, Erickson and other residents living in the Mendenhall Valley expressed frustration at federal bureaucracy and the Corps’ cost estimation. 

“It’s our business. This solution is not really complicated,” Erickson said. “Quite frankly, for me, it’s been really frustrating just watching the process.”

Juneau Flood Solution Advocates lobby for solution

As of Friday, the grassroots group Juneau Flood Solution Advocates has gathered more than 300 signatures as part of its campaign to ‘‘Release the Miners.” The group plans to present the signed banner to Alaska’s congressional delegation.

Supporters are asking USACE and the delegation to pursue the lake tap as an enduring solution for annual glacial lake outburst floods impacting the Mendenhall Valley — with the mining industry’s help. 

“There’s just a deafening cry starting up that we don’t want to spend any more, no more wasting money,” said Debbie Penrose-Fischer, the leader of the neighborhood group. “Let’s fund a solution, not the symptom, not the Band-Aid.”

She said her concerns were intensified after a Committee of the Whole meeting on May 4, where officials from the Army Corps presented to the Juneau Assembly. The possibility of mid-term solutions, such as sheet piling, was shared for the first time. The “medium-term” solutions, along with short and long-term mitigation measures, are expected to be reviewed by USACE headquarters this August. 

Since the Army Corps has not been authorized to enter a feasibility study, there is not a public process for the August executive summary, according to John Rajek, the chief of the geotechnical and engineering services branch of USACE Alaska District. 

“We have a condition that’s moving faster than our feasibility studies can respond to, but it would happen sometime after the report is submitted in August,” he told the Independent at the May meeting. He added he didn’t know how long a headquarters review of the August report would take.

Penrose-Fischer said this information made her afraid the HESCO barriers, meant to be semi-permanent, and other mid-term solutions may stop the Corps from investing in a long-term solution. 

“The sentiment this year is different. People have flood fatigue, but they’re also really tired of feeling like we’re not moving forward,” she said. “I can’t tell you how many people have said to me, ‘I don’t want these HESCOs in my yard forever.’ These are supposed to be temporary. Where’s the long-term solution?”

She said it was time for group members to start using their voices and speak up.

The Juneau Flood Solutions Advocates group started collecting signatures last weekend at Juneau Gold Rush Days after Erickson’s presentation at its Mendenhall Valley Public Library meeting on June 11.

“This is legitimately an emergency situation, and so the quicker the solution the less likely that there’s more damage and more loss,” said David Brown, a resident of Long Run Drive. He said his household is still recovering from damage sustained in the 2024 flood that crested at 15.99 feet. 

Brown said part of his support for the expedited lake tap solution is fear that the HESCO barriers could be overwhelmed by future flooding. 

“I don’t want that to come true, so that’s why I’m in favor,” he said.

At Thursday’s meeting, Ann Wilkinson Lind, who lives on the banks of the Mendenhall River, said the news of Monday’s meeting gave her hope. Her crawlspace flooded last year due to a failed drain pipe installed underneath a HESCO levee, and neighbors helped pump the water.

“Before tonight’s meeting, I was really frustrated about the momentum, because there was no momentum, because the Corps wasn’t interested in talking to the mine,” she said. “It’s a learning experience for the Corps — a teaching experience for the mine — to show them what’s been happening around here for years and years and years. I’m pretty excited about it now.” 

Wilkinson Lind said she is nervous about this year’s expected flood because of how the barriers were compromised last year. Although they were reinforced and raised, she said she has her doubts.

Erickson and members of Juneau Flood Solution Advocates encourage “cutting through the red tape” and putting the pressure on Alaska’s congressional delegation to expedite the lake tap. 

“Government is absolutely also not built for this kind of work, right? This is really, again, unique. It’s not built to move quickly on complicated problems,” Erickson said.

Murkowski on delegation support

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, asked about a possible public-private partnership between the Corps and local miners at a U.S. Senate subcommittee appropriations hearing in May. 

“If local miners in the area can demonstrate to you that they’re able to help with a long-term solution in a way that saves time and money, is the Corps willing to look into working with them in pursuing some kind of a public-private partnership?” Murkowski said, holding Erickson’s report.

Adam Telle, assistant secretary of the Army’s Civil Works program, responded with “absolutely.” He added the Corps was reviewing Erickson’s technical paper. It wasn’t until this week the mines were contacted by the Corps, according to Erickson.

“I think the situation in Juneau is unlike any we face within our portfolio,” Telle said. “It’s an uncommon problem that requires an uncommon solution.” 

Murkowski visited homes along the Mendenhall River during a trip to Juneau earlier this month. She observed the raising of HESCO barriers from last year, and chatted with residents who said their lives were disrupted by construction and the loss of a river view.

“I do worry that the solution that the residents are seeing right now, which is these HESCO barriers in front of them, is going to be viewed by some as, ‘Well, we spent the money to help them get this temporary solution,’ and then that temporary solution becomes longer term,” she said in an interview on June 7.

The HESCO barriers were estimated to protect 90% of the homes in the flood zone last year, and in roughly several decades, the Mendenhall Glacier will recede enough for the outbursts to stop being a problem. The glacier currently acts as a natural ice dam.

“Maybe this August comes and goes, and we don’t have a flood event, and so then does that take the momentum out of the project? I hope not, because one of the things that we have learned is that Suicide Basin — that’s still back there,” Murkowski said. “It is still filling to levels that we have seen that are unprecedented. We’re still seeing that glacier receding, that is allowing that basin to get bigger and bigger, and thus puts more pressure. So it is something that needs to be resolved. It is not a quick solution or an inexpensive solution, but it’s one that we have to keep pressing on.”

She acknowledged the apprehension Juneau residents are feeling about Congress approving funding for a long-term solution. 

“That’s legit, but the Corps has dedicated a pretty significant team, and they have elevated this Juneau flood project to a level that has gotten my attention,” she said. “I appreciate it, because believe me — myself, Senator Sullivan, and Representative Begich have been pushing the Corps, pushing the Corps, pushing the Corps on this. But they have been very, very much engaged, and again to a level that is — I don’t want to say it’s surprising — but they have treated it as the emergent emergency that it is.” 

This story was originally published by the Juneau Independent.

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