Brine makes life less affordable
About a year after the 2024 presidential election, affordability has risen to the top of concerns in America. The average first time homebuyer age is now 40, the highest ever. Many don’t feel they can get ahead and so are looking to any alternative, as evidenced by some recent publicized elections.
Vehicles haven’t gotten any cheaper either. You can drive a used one, but those vehicles are getting harder to find in Alaska; many posted are irreparable with brine rotted frames. Posts now include “brought up from lower 48! No brine!”. New vehicles are outrageously priced. Rapid depreciation accelerates more the first time Alaska DOT sprays that salt mix that eats the new metal on your vehicle.
Our northern latitude means a longer winter — brine will go out from October through April. So, it might just take 5-7 years (length of typical vehicle loan, by the way) to effectively get as much as 10 -15 years’ worth of salt exposure. That’s plenty of time to rot the important parts. Covered, heated car washes help, but it’s unrealistic to do that every time DOT soaks the roads and it’s not cheap. Additionally, they don’t get the brine mist that penetrates the internal frame and panels, which can rot out electronics of the ABS system, airbags, and brakes.
These things are not lost on Alaskans. The overwhelming opinion voiced at public meetings when it was the topic was to get rid of it and go back to sand. In response to these concerns, the DOT recently posted on Facebook that “they listened”; To recap the post: they listened and therefore they intend on continuing to put brine out on the roads. Wait…what?
Alaska is awesome, but it is an expensive place to live, and the added burden of having your automobile life span shorten significantly only adds to it. The way it degrades car safety features is disregarded. Citizens have spoken out and have largely been ignored. Our elected representatives say they are eager to improve things in Alaska to encourage young people to move here and stay here. Brine is not an improvement and, in fact, makes life less affordable. Elected persons: affordability is front and center and the people are speaking. Are you listening?
Angus Warren
Kasilof
Trash on Kenai beaches affects people and wildlife
I write to you to address the problem of trash on the Kenai beaches and to spread awareness to help preserve Alaska’s beauty and wildlife. Every year wildlife is in danger of getting stuck in or consuming toxic waste. In addition to that, the beaches lose their charm when locals or tourists want to walk the beautiful Alaskan beaches, only to discover that they are trashed. This problem degrades the value of our nature and harms the wildlife that roamed in our lands before us. If we really claim to “care so much” about our environment, why are we not putting that into action? We need to find a solution to this matter, and fast, before more endangered animals are put at risk from the carelessness of someone’s mistake.
This issue should be brought to our attention and our community needs to be aware of the high increase of wildlife danger when we are not taking care of our town. This includes people who host parties on the beach, fishermen and others. Over the years I have witnessed drunk parties on the beach come and leave behind cans or bottles. I believe that most fishermen do a great job to keep our rivers clean, but there are still pieces of hooks, nets or lines that are left on the beaches every summer. This line or net could be a danger to the sea life with the chance of getting entangled or even being strangled to death. Not only is our wildlife at risk, so is the essence of our town! Thousands of tourists travel to Alaska each summer to see something that they can’t find anywhere else. Millions of photos have been taken of the mountains and views. Coming to our town is some people’s “dream vacation.” We should keep that dream vacation spot alive for all who wish to see what Alaska has always been.
So as members of the community, we need to implement solutions immediately to help preserve the way Alaska is supposed to be. A way we could create a safer environment for wildlife while also preserving nature could be by having beach clean-up clubs, jobs or even by organizing a contest. Having a set of people that are hired to specifically devote their time to cleaning up the beach could be a great way to show love for our community. Or even by offering a contest for picking up the most trash on the beach and giving a small prize to the winner. Many people would jump at the chance to help the beaches and to have fun in trying to win a prize.
I want to thank you for taking this into consideration and for spreading awareness on this issue. We need to be a town that sticks up for our home’s beauty and wildlife by just a simple task of picking up your trash.
Ellee Pancoast
Kenai
Caring about fishing includes upholding the rules
Living on the Kenai Peninsula, the natural order is to get in on the action down at the river and provide for yourself, and have a good time catching fish. After all, we do have world-famous fishing here. The problem, though, is not the fun we all have or the food we are providing, it is the number of fish being taken from the river and not being appropriately used. The other side of the overfishing is also the people who inappropriately fish. We all know the rules of the river and it is to hook in the mouth or release and, as of lately, do not keep king salmon. Now, do not get me wrong, I am not on the river every single day, but it is very close to every day during the season, and I have gone years without seeing Fish and Game be involved, whilst also watching fisherman illegally snag, and keep fish they are not supposed to. How do we claim to care about our fishing cycle if no one is upholding these rules and restrictions? The answer is, we don’t.
I have worked for a few processing plants on the Kenai, and the number of illegal catches would amaze you, along with the amount of people who do not get their fish like they were supposed to, and so it sits in the freezers taking up space and slowly over-freezing until it is considered less than consumable. This needs to be stopped before we hit a point of no return. In the regulations and permits section of the Alaska seafood processors handbook there is no rule or law to hold anyone accountable for the timeframe of holding fish in a processing plant for customers, it is left to the plant’s discretion. This could be days, weeks, months or even years. I propose setting a regulation on how long plants keep customers’ fish before donating the fish to local food banks, because then not only is the fish being used, it is also still fresh enough to become a meal for someone who is in need. This takes care of some of the misuse of fish but it does not change the illegal snagging (not hooked in the mouth) and unlawful keeping of fish species not currently allowed.
Alaska Fish and Game do as well as they can, I suppose, but we should increase the number of officers we have during the busy months and make it mandatory to stop in at local “hot spots” to prevent people from breaking the laws that we have to help sustain the salmon population. I wish I could give some number to show the amount of people who unlawfully fish — however it is not a recorded number, because truthfully no one knows, but I’m sure everyone has seen or knows someone who does not follow the rules. A study was done about the proper handling of fish while being snagged in the wrong location and over half of the fish that get hooked and released do not spawn after because of the stress and abuse. So even if the fish are thrown back, the lack of respect is why our salmon population is dying. For some, this fish is their main food source, and for others it is just a sport. It is our job as a community to come together to change the way we treat our fish.
One day there will not be the same salmon run the way we are blessed with now. The idea of absolutely destroying such a unique and mutually beneficial as well as a beautiful experience is grotesque and we should not stand by and overlook this issue. Not being involved is part of the problem — not only do our fish feed our community, it also brings in people from all around, and that helps our local businesses sustain throughout the year. Our salmon are more than just a fish, they are the livelihood of our community and we should respect them as such.
Bailey Berger
Soldotna
