Alaska’s Environmental Movement Wants More Natural Gas, Less Hydro Power, to Protect Fish

December 1, 2021

In one of the more curious opinion pieces seen in the Anchorage Daily News this year, a group of tribal and environmental activists call on the local power company to change how it produces and accepts power from a hydro project, in order to protect salmon migrations in the area.

The Eklutna Lake hydro project consists of a dam across the Eklutna River, and its power output is exceptional.  Per the project website, enough power was created in 2018 to meet the electricity needs of nearly 25,000 residential homes in Southcentral Alaska for an entire year.

With renewable energy making up only a fraction of Southcentral Alaska’s energy grid – with natural gas the majority of the power producer – you’d think the environmental movement would push for increasing the hydro output…but you’d be completely incorrect.

Instead, the opinion piece authored by the activists calls for the consortium of utilities that own Eklutna to work with them to potentially decrease output, in order to re-establish sustainable runs of Alaska’s five salmon species to the area. 

It is a stunning request: Use more fossil fuels to help a salmon run.  When we talk about the extremists and their “wildlife above human life” way of thinking, this might just be exhibit #1 in the future.

Power The Future will stay abreast of this project, and report back to our readers any other head-scratching requests pertaining to Eklutna or other clearly hypocritical actions by the eco-Left in the Great Land.