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NEXT EXIT, COPPER RIVER
by Ann Dornfeld
The "DEMONSTRATORS AND BANNERS" headline of the Eyak Preservation Council’s July 30 press advisory is puzzling. Further inspection reveals that EPC folks don’t have designs on yo’ momma.
Instead, the benevolent Prince William Sound region environmental organization’s latest news release reports that when Governor Tony Knowles visited the town recently, "a spirited number of protesters" carried banners emblazoned with "Preserve Wild Salmon — No Copper River Trail" and "Respect Katie John — Protect Subsistence Rights."
Knowles’ proposed $27 million Copper River Trail would stretch 85 miles, from Chitina to Cordova along the old Copper River and Northwestern Railroad beds. The trail would be open to hikers and bikers, and Knowles has said it would be "one of the world’s premier long-distance wilderness trail experiences." Not so, say the demonstrators, who include members of EPC, as well as a marine biologist, local citizen activists, and Delta fisherfolk.
They’re stressed out because the "so-called non-motorized" trail would slice through the spawning ground of Copper River salmon, along with the homeland of bears, moose, wolves, Canada dusky geese, seals and many other forms of wildlife.
Although motorized vehicles wouldn’t be allowed on the trail, EPC is convinced that the state would "have to build a road in order to build a trail." Furthermore, the group cites the U.S. Forest Service regulation that "an improvement to a trail is a road," which EPC takes to mean that the Copper River Trail might become the Copper River Freeway. Besides, the organization says, "what [Governor Knowles] fails to realize is that a world class trail already exists — it’s called the Copper River." Bring extra socks.(Reprinted by permission of The Anchorage Press
August 9 - August 15, 2001 / Vol. 10, Ed. 32)
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