Today is Memorial Day and is selected by Congress as a day of rememberance for soldiers who were killed in action. Every soldier who never came home should always be remembered by all the people and politicians who have never gone to war.

Tom Osterman of south Cohoe was selected as an intern for Senator Stevens and Tom will soon travel to Washington DC. His airfare is provided and he will be paid for his work, although he must provide for his own housing. Competition is keen for the 30 internship jobs available each year in Congress. Tom is an exceptional student who graduated with a 3.95 GPA from Skyview High School this spring. He will return June 28 to work in the setnet fishery.

King salmon fishing has been slow in the Kasilof River perhaps due to the early date and cold weather. An adventure there occurred recently aboard guide Tom Corr’s drift boat. A fisherman from out of state took attention from his pole to photo a beaver. Simultaneously, a king ate the bait and his pole vaulted into the river. “It took half an hour to track the pole down, and it still had the king on it.” Tom said.

The first local public hearing regarding a lower Kasilof River boat launch was held on May 21 at Tustumena School. About 100 people attended including Representative Mike Chenault, Senator Tom Wagoner, Department of Fish & Game Sport Fish Director Charlie Swanton, Mayor Williams Chief of Staff Tim Navarre, Acting Area Superintendent of Parks and Outdoor Recreation Jack Sinclair, the unofficial leader of the Satori Way neighbors, Cindy Smith, and many others. The big news of the evening was that Jim Trujillo, owner of Ed’s Kasilof Seafoods, has withdrawn his property for consideration as a public boat launch site. For Satori Way residents and local people with habitat concerns, this was welcome news. Trujillo has allowed his site to be used for a haul out, but most people were more comfortable with Jim’s oversight than the State’s. These people site problems with the state dipnet fishery and its impact on river mouth dunes, bears, and the historic “Watchman’s Cabin” as reasons for their misgivings. Twice the legislature has approved spending more than two million dollars to secure the Trujillo property or another appropriate site. Twice the governor has vetoed the funds. Testimony on the evening ran mostly in opposition of any facility that promoted powerboats on the lower Kasilof. This hearing offered direction for State Parks, who has hired the engineering firm of HDR Alaska, Inc. to evaluate the sites. HDR will look at several sites and make recommendations. Comments were collected in a big box at the meeting and further comments can be sent to Julie.Jessen@hdrnic.com.

Johnson Lake Road, Tustumena Lake Road, and Crooked Creek Road are all scheduled for some paving. According to Representative Mike Chenault about seven miles of these roads will be paved. A $50,000 grant for improvements at the Kasilof Historical Association’s museum was approved by the leislature and survived the governor’s veto process, but a $70,000 grant for a columbarium at Spruce Grove Memorial Park was vetoed.

Delores Carter of Moraine Vista Ave is battling pancreatic cancer. She and her husband, Steve, moved to Kasilof one exciting day in 1976. Their first child was on the way and Steve bet he could get their house done in time to move in before the baby was born. He had to settle for the day after, and they moved in as a threesome with baby Melissa.

Carter’s are from New Mexico and Steve is an oil field worker. Tara and Chase were sequentially born and life was good, but in 1997 the family was thrown into a crisis. Twelve-year-old Chase started running a low fever and then developed bruises the size of dinner plates. Upon finding out that the bruises were linked to school bullies, Delores said, “I went to school and told them this better stop.” Chase got sicker, however, and doctors knew they were dealing with something serious. He and Delores flew to Seattle where suspicions of leukemia were confirmed. But treatment for the disease had progressed remarkably. Survival rates were in the 50-60 percent range and Chase was cured after three years of treatment.

The Carter family rejoiced when Melissa married Brandon Creeze and they had baby Levi. Then a second crisis hit. Brandon died in a plane crash. Melissa was pregnant and Lydia was born several months after the accident. Melissa mourned for a couple years and Delores helped in every way she could. Eventually happy times returned. Tara, who has 7-year-old DeAnna, works as the Director of Activities at an assisted living center in Anchorage. Chase is in college and Melissa has a good job in Texas.

But another crisis descended. Deloris had pneumonia in 2006 and a long bout of diarrhea followed. After many doctor visits, in Dec 2007 cancer of the pancreas was determined. She had chemotherapy treatments in Anchorage, but then went to Tulsa, Oklahoma for two months of treatments. Chase dropped out of school to accompany her. At the time he was ready to student teach English classes in Russia and his sacrifice meant a lot to Delores. “He said I took care of him 10 years ago and he was going to take care of me, now,” she related, with a catch in her voice.

Now Chase is in summer school and on May 19 Delores goes to the Mayo clinic in Minnesota. Doctors say there are six types of pancreatic cancer. They hope to discover her type and direct treatment designed specifically for it. Meanwhile, Steve is set to retire from Chevron on May 31 and Melissa is transferring back to the Peninsula and going to work at Tesoro.

The Kasilof-Cohoe Cemetery Association met on May 13 at the McLane Center. Jan See chaired the meeting. Among those in attendance were Brock See, Mary Jo McElroy, Jerry & Peggy McGerry, Dick & Jean Evenson, Dave Letzring, Lyle Cole, Joan Lahndt, Susan McLane, Catherine Cassidy, and myself. The association is in the process of applying for non-profit status and attempting to get additional property from the state. The state has not yet let the association know of the fate of their grant. Cemetery plots can be bought for $300 and it s possible to bury two people on one plot.

The Soldotna Lions club will hold its annual Spruce Grove Memorial Park clean-up May 24 at 10:00 a.m. Lunch will follow at See’s. Jan See, the clerk of the Kasilof-Cohoe Cemetery Association, and Lyle Cole, the sextant; are held in high regard. Jan has served graciously for four years and Lyle for 46 years. Jan had invited the Lion’s Club (and any other workers who show up) to lunch.

Last week I mentioned Paul Fischer’s heart tune up. He didn’t get a stent, he got a Pacemaker and defibrillator implant. Now he can’t carry a cell phone in his left shirt pocket because they may interfere with his heartware. He suggested that I make a bundle by marketing right-pocket shirts. But I sew so little and know you dear readers can put money in your pocket with Paul’s Right-Wing idea.

Razor clams are a bust at Clam Gulch again. This failure is accentuated by their consistency for the past hundred years. In fact, having personally dug in barbaras, I can attest to clam shells being a common find. According to Nicky Szarzi, a Homer biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish & Game, the clams ran into trouble in 2001, but the problem didn’t show up until that age class matured, in 2004. Before the age of three years, clams are too small for people to notice. Clams eat phytoplankton, but biologists don’t know why the clams are failing to grow. Typically, razor clams are considered good eating size by the age of 5 or 6 years, and clams live to about 13 years old. Since the problem appeared beginning with the 2001 age class, it is not yet known whether the clams will also die prematurely.

Nicky says there are still plenty of little clams and digging won’t impact them. I can vouch for digging having no great impact —there aren’t many diggers. For more than 30 years low tides have attracted hundreds of diggers. Last week we had a couple extreme low tides, tolerable weather, and squat for diggers. The high price of gas and tiny size of clams seems to have withered the shovel wavers.

Mysteriously, the clams at Ninilchik are still big. Whatever the problem is, it starts several miles north of that hamlet. Clams reach sexual maturity at the age of 2 or 3 years, and yes, there are two sexes. Apparently, clams lead a sheltered life and dating doesn’t happen. Both sexes simply release their seed into the sea and the mixing Inlet joins the twain to form a life. The system has merit. There are none of the dating hardships so rampant with humans and moose. Baby clams go through a six-week phase as free swimmers. This is pretty amazing if we consider the tides. Somehow these lambs of the clam family stay on location, or enough of them make it back to the Clam Gulch area to sustain their existence. Eventually, clams grow a tiny shell and drop down out of the water column to the sand. The clams are protected by a state recognized beach designation. Clam Gulch State Critical Habitat Area stretches from Happy Valley to Cape Kasilof.

The Research Triangle Institute (RTI) of North Carolina has been in the local area performing interviews for the Substance Abuses and Mental Health Services Administration, a branch of the U.S. Public Health Service. RTI is conducting the 2008 National Survey on Drug Use and Health. Lucky people who are selected for the 45-minute interview get paid $30 for their cooperation. The questions relate to substance abuse, income, and insurance. The government uses the information to determine the success of drug prevention programs and the need for treatment facilities, as well as numerous other applications. Lynda Purvis, one of the interviewers, was born in Fairbanks and has been staying at Clam Gulch Lodge.

The Spruce Grove Memorial Park cemetery association is holding a meeting at 5:30 May 13 at the McLane Center. The public is welcome.

Last week I mistakenly credited Nancy Kitchen with a bronze medal in a state bowling tournament. Louise Snyder actually won that medal, which was for a local seniors tournament. Her husband, Charles, died in November, and she will have a ceremony for scattering his ashes on Memorial Day at Snyder’s Hole in the Kasilof River. Louise plans to eventually move to Virginia to be near a son who lives there.

The Bush family has started a petition to name the Kasilof River bridge after Bobby Bush Jr. He was 41 when he died last July following a battle with diabetes and liver failure. The disease showed up out of the blue after he returned from a four-year stint in the army and a tour of duty in Iraq. Bobby was in a tank division involved in the initial attack of Desert Storm. At the time he got the disease, no one on either side of his family had any history of it. For Bobby, diabetes led to kidney failure and dependence on dialysis machines.

Soldotna’s bridge is named after David Douthit. Like David, Bobby graduated from Soldotna High School in 1984. David was the only Alaskan killed in Desert Storm. He was 24 and left behind a pregnant wife. Captain Benjamin Tiffner, son of Timothy and Judy Tiffner of Soldotna, was killed in action on November 7. Tiffner’s have called Soldotna “home” since 1998, but their roots are in West Virginia. That state has named a major highway bridge after Benjamin. Seventeen service men and women from Alaska have been killed in the on-going Iraq war. Including soldiers stationed in Alaska, that number jumps to 109.

Before joining the Army, Bobby Bush Jr. married a local woman and had a son, Blade, and daughter, Lacy. His marriage broke up, however, and while stationed in Germany he married a German who already had several children. They added a son, John, together but also divorced. Later Bobby had a second daughter, Mantanya, but didn’t remarry.

Frank Bush served in the Navy during WWII. Frank and his wife, Irene, moved to Kasilof in 1958. They raised nine children, several of whom, like Frank, have worked in the petroleum industry. Their children are Jimmy, Billy, Eddy, Bobby, Shiela, Ronny, Donny, Johnny, and David. Bobby married “Buttons,” and they had two children, Bobby Jr. and Karen. Buttons, from Tacoma, is an only daughter with 10 brothers. Karen works at the Mercantile, where the petition is available. Ultimately, the authority for naming a state bridge belongs to the state legislature.

Kasilof Public Library raised over $2,000 in their book fair, an amount considered excellent by librarian, Katja Wolfe. She extends her sincere thanks to the community for their support.

Assemblyman Paul Fischer had a Pacemaker and defibrillator installed during surgery in Anchorage on May Day.

On May 8 at 9:00 p.m. PBS television will air “Alaska, Off The Beaten Path,” a movie about the Haeg’s life in Chinitna Bay.

Last November Anita Hedger won the state bowling championship for the women’s league, master’s division. Anita is nearly 79 and lives off Rowlinda in Cohoe. The master’s division is for bowlers 75 years old or older. There are five different age divisions with competitors throught most lanes in Alaska, making her win pretty special. Louise Snyder of Kasilof won a bronze metal for third place in the state for her division. In June Anita goes to Reno to compete in the national tournament. Senior citizens have league bowling twice per week in Kenai, three games for $6.

The Kenai Peninsula Historical Association spring meeting is May 3 in the Kasilof Community Church building, next to Kasilof Mercantile. Members from Seward to Kenai to Homer will be attending. The featured speaker is Dr. Linda Chamberlain of east Homer. She is an authority on dogmushing mail delivery and will speak on that subject at 1:00. Kasilof Historical Association will be hosting the meeting and the public is invited. After the meeting, a tour of the McLane Center museum and historic cabins will be offered.

White, vacuum/tank trucks are frequently seen driving through Kasilof and are involved in gas field operations. Gas wells produce by-product fluids, which are separated at well sites. These fluids are picked up by vacuum trucks and, for proper disposal, hauled to the Kenai Gas field on Kalifornsky Beach Road. Gas field drilling operations are planned for local gas fields and will begin as soon as road restrictions go off, enabling the drill rig to be mobilized. Kenai Gas Field is technically in Kasilof.

Backhoes in Kasilof should be extra careful in the future not to dig up phone lines. Alaska Communication System (ACS) owns a fiber optic telephone line, which is buried through Kasilof. ACS has contracted with Tyco Telecommunications to lay a submerged fiber optic cable from Anchorage to Nikiski. It will then hook to the existing line, which runs thorough Kasilof to Homer. From Homer, Tyco will lay a new cable on the ocean floor all the way to Florence, Oregon. The work is planned for this summer. In the past a broken phone line could disconnect half the Peninsula, in the future it could disconnect Alaska from the States.

Mike Sipes of the tallest hill in Cohoe is back from Quito, Ecuador. He has been to South America more than ten times. Originally he went for adventure, but recent trips have been for possible involvement in agribusiness and for personal dental work. Mike has had major dental reconstruction at Quito over the course of a couple years. He has nothing but praise for the Ecuadorian people and dentists.
“I have to do something to offset Borough taxes,” Mike said. “They are taxing me out of my house.”

A work party from Kasilof Community Church has recently built a 1200 square foot house for the MacRae family on Elaine Ave off Cohoe Loop. Chuck Morse headed up the work party. Jim and Dianne McRae already had a basement and recently bought material for their house, but after surgery on his brain, Jim was unable to build it. MacRae’s have a chicken farm of about 300 birds.

Kasilof Eagles Club offers Sunday breakfast potlucks from 10:00 -1:00 at their “Aerie” (Eagles nest) on Jason Road. They are raffling off a large framed print called “The Bear.” Tickets are $1 each, or 6 for $5 and the drawing will be on Mother’s Day.

Kasilof River flows out of Tustumena Lake, which has a 114 square mile surface. Skilak and Kenai lakes combine for 60 square miles of surface area. At 950 feet, Tustumena Lake is not only deeper than its neighbors, it’s deeper than Cook Inlet!

Kenai Peninsula has 11 public libraries. The one in Kasilof is housed in Tustumena School and they are holding a book fair this week. Hours are Mon-Thu 9:30-6:00, and Fri 9:30-noon. Katja Wolfe is the public librarian and Rosy Thompson is the school librarian. The public library hours are normally Mon, Tue, and Thu, 2:30-6 p.m.

Kelly Hagelund and Willow King had baby Brynn on February 3. She was born at the Women’s Way Midwifery in Soldotna and joins siblings, 6-year old Caius and 4-year old Adarra. The family lives on Capella Drive, across from Kasilof Storage. Kelly is an electrician and has been working for Kiner Electric on the Soldotna Hospital project. Willow is a connoisseur of cannery work. Her dad, Rich King, is a Cook Inlet drift fisher who has seen some water under his bridge. Willow grew up in awe of Wards Cove cannery, in Kenai. She has spent the past few summers working at the old Wards Cove plant, now leased to Kenai River Seafoods. This summer Willow will wield a spoon and a spatula as she heads up the galley.
Kasilof Historical Association will be hosting the Peninsula Historical Association spring meeting May 3 in the Kasilof Community Church building. Members from Seward to Kenai to Homer will be attending. The featured speaker is Linda Chamberlain, PhD, MPH, of east Homer. She is an authority on dogmushing mail delivery and will speak on that subject at 1:00. The public is invited.

April 10 the McLane Center was bulging with history as early homesteaders took turns reliving events. Among the speakers were: Joan Lahndt, who was born in a Kasilof cannery building in 1927; Pat McElroy, who homesteaded in 1958 and ran into some impromptu situations while welding, firefighting and bear hunting; Ruth Johnson had never seen a woodstove when she left Chicago in 1942. Now she knows the ups and downs of woodstoves better than Santa Claus. Grant Phillips hired Morris Coursen in the deep-snow spring of 1956. Morris dozed a trail from the Sterling Highway to Grant’s homestead near Ciechanski Road. This became the first road on that side of the Kenai River and much of it was eventually adopted into Kalifornsky Beach Road. Stan McLane was born in Seldovia in 1922 and raised in Kasilof. Marge Madden filed on a homestead in 1954, but her children caught polio and delayed her move to Kasilof until 1958. Katie Vasilie Macleod was a nurse with doctors Gaede & Isaac in 1968. She was the head nurse when the hospital opened in Soldotna, and became a nurse at Tustumena School. Bob and Mary Haeg went to live with the bears at Chinitna Bay in 1975. They have retired to Kasilof.

Grant and Shirley Fritz are celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary on April 18. Grant was born in North Carolina, raised in Texas, and came to Anchorage with his parents in 1948. Grant’s high school coach took him and seven other students to Bristol Bay in 1949. They worked in a cannery and got to see the Bristol Bay sailboat drift fleet. Grant met Chuck Simon in school and began coming to Kasilof in 1950 to setnet with Chuck’s dad. Grant graduated from what was then Anchorage’s only high school in 1951. With the help of Archie Pearmain, the superintendent for Libby, McNeil & Libby Cannery, he bought Simon’s setnet site. He also soon bought five acres from Charlie Heckle on the Kasilof River, upstream from Pollard’s place. Heckle’s had bought the property earlier as an investment. They lived much further down-river. In 1954 Grant filed on a homestead adjacent to his five acres. Johnny Parks built a cabin for him.

Meanwhile, Shirley Karlen was born in Oregon, raised on a dairy farm and attended Lewis & Clark College. In 1951 Shirley went to Anchorage with her mom, who moved there because she had relatives at Elmendorf Air Force Base. Shirley decided to attend college at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks in 1952. She returned to Lewis & Clark in 1953, however, and graduated as a lab technician. The next year she got a job in Anchorage at the Native Hospital. By then Shirley had fallen in love —with skiing. So she attended the University of Colorado for adjacent skiing opportunities and acquired additional medical certification. Afterward she returned to Anchorage to work in a hospital for the Territory of Alaska.
Eventually, interest in skiing drew Grant and Shirley together and they married in 1958. By then Shirley’s mom had married Dick Nielson and moved with him to the Sterling area, where (in 1956) they ran Naptown Inn. Shirley joined Grant on the Kasilof homestead, but in 1959 they sold their setnet site to Pat McElroy. Grant drifted in the Inlet until 1968, when he began seining in the lower Inlet. Eventually he fished Kodiak and Prince William Sound, as well as chasing herring from Southeast to Togiak.

Grant and Shirley have three girls. When they were old enough for high school, Grant built a log home above the river on Sandwick Ave. Grant and Shirley also have a cabin in Halibut Cove and have been retired from fishing since about 1998. In the interim, their daughters have all married, had children and live in Kasilof. In addition to racing as a youth, Grant spent several winters working at Alyeska and skiing there. He recently visited a couple of his grandkids in Montana, where they are attending college. They all went to a ski resort there and enjoyed the slopes.

Kasilof Public Library holds their annual Scholastic book fair the week of April 21-25. The Tustumena School library holds their book fair in the fall and the sales from their 2006 event was over $2,000. The library’s cut is 25% of that money, but they realized a $1,100 value by buying items from the company putting on the fair. The public library sales were $1,500 in their 2007 book fair and they also realized a value exceeding 25% by buying from the bookseller. The library will look like a bookstore for the event. If someone prefers regular library visits to owning their own books, cash donations are always accepted and appreciated.

Quality Asphalt Paving has equipment staged by the Kasilof airport, waiting for the frost to go out to start work on Kalifornsky Beach Road.

Kasilof is a bedroom community for folks who work in town or at the oil patch. Commuting is a polluting, but regular activity for workers who sleep in Paradise. Since the gas price hike hit, however, sourdoughs are ready to hitchhike. Thumbing is legal on the Sterling Highway, but not safe. Carpooling is the way to go and bicycles would be better, if the highway had a pair of docile and paved shoulders. There are, however, ways to save gas. According to CNNMoney.com, fuel savings of up to 30 percent can be achieved by driving passively; accelerate gently, avoid hard braking, and reduce speed. For an illustration try walking a quarter mile, and then turn around and run the same distance. Einstein wrote something like: mass x speed = energy, so less energy (gas) is needed for less speed. This is true even without the “wind factor.” At 40 mph the energy used to displace air is moderate. At 65 mph it is tremendous.

Bob Vaderwege has been chosen as the new principal of Tustumena Elementary School. His wife, Carol, has been a “Title I” teacher at there. Shay Montoya is a kindergartner at Tustumena and her family won the Easter basket at the Kasilof Easter egg hunt.

Dave and Dawnie Watson of Cohoe Loop are back from Macedonia where they spent three weeks visiting their daughter, Anna. She grew up in Cohoe but is teaching school for Quality Schools International in Skopje, the capital of Macedonia. Anna and a classmate from Northwest Nazarene University in Idaho are roommates and both teaching at this facility. Typical students have English speaking parents who work in Macedonia, but that hasn’t stopped Anna from learning to speak Macedonian. The school had spring break while Watson’s were there, which allowed them to travel together. They enjoyed the sights and were especially impressed with Meteora, an area with butte-like rock formations several hundred feet high, topped with monasteries several hundred years old. “Meteora” is Greek for, “suspended in air.” Dave observed the drivers and felt the Macedonians smacked of danger. “I wouldn’t want to drive there,” he said. “The traffic is insane.”

Kasilof artist Zirrus VanDevere has a mixed-media exhibit, “spirit moves through everything,” at the Kenai Visitors and Cultural Center. The display is open for viewing Mon-Fri 9-5 and Sat 11-4.

Ice racing is over for the year. Weekly races were held this winter as usual on the lake behind Decanter Inn. Ralph Mills and his wife, Roxy, took home a trophy each, one for the Men’s and one for the Women’s division. Tracy Harris won the Pitman’s division and Brianna Kitchen pulled a fast one on the boys to win the Teen division. Six cars participated on big days. Everyone involved will gather for a season finale banquet.

The public is invited to a 7 p.m. April 10 meeting of the Historical Association at the McLane Center. A video of pioneer Freda Lewis will be presented with a panel of Kasilof post World War II homesteaders. The Kasilof Historical Association’s $50,000 grant was veto by Governor Palin for the second year in a row. The money was to be used to upgrade the water system and make repairs at the McLane Center museum. Also on their agenda was cabin restoration projects which are on-going.

Weight restrictions are posted on Kasilof roads as of March 24. A myth has road maintenance men sticking long poles in potholes. When they feel an automobile, weight limits are assigned. Actually, there are 10 probes located in the highway between Anchorage and Homer. A hole was drilled, and the six-foot long probes were installed through the asphalt and wired to pedestals. Some of these are hooked to phone lines, sending information to the Department of Transportation (DOT), the University of Alaska and other agencies. Information from the other probes is obtained by a site visit. The probes record the temperature every three inches for the first foot and every six inches for the next five feet. By this information the DOT knows when to put up the weight restrictions. A DOT worker told me the date for putting up the signs is about typical, maybe a couple days early.

Quite a bit of thought went on at the Borough Assembly over the past couple years regarding roads. Terry Cowart, a Kasilof land developer, was very involved in the process. He attended numerous meetings about “roads” and “material sites” or gravel pits. He developed written analysis and suggestions for changes in borough code and advised against adopting an ordinance requiring the construction of roads in some subdivisions before the Borough approves subdivision plats. Terry’s opinions were respected and that ordinance was not approved.

Mary Toll is another Kasilovian involved in roads. She has been a platting officer for the borough since 1990 and has been the head platting officer for several years. Mary and Terry attended a March 17 meeting of the Borough Roads Service Area Board to offer their expertise on a stream-crossing ordinance. Before the assembly now is the matter of protecting stream habitat at road and trail crossings. Millie Martin of Homer was the only member of the assembly in attendance, but 27 other interested people were sardined in the room. Everyone there seemed sincerely interested in protecting salmon, and a consensus arose that the borough code should require the use of an engineer to design each stream crossing. Several people lamented about the cost but an engineer was present and thought that the simplest engineering job over the smallest anadromous stream might run as high as $3,000 - $5,000. Given the value of salmon to the people of the Borough and the high cost to tax payers for fixing stream crossings run amok, engineering gained favor.

It has been reported that an unknown person planted wooden tulips in Mary Toll’s yard last week. Of curse, this can only be a message from Woden Two Lips, the ancient Viking god. For sure he means to send kisses Kasilof way. Spring will be early and salmon in the river will be standing room only.

Solid rumor has Bob Vanderwege chosen as the new Tustumena School principal. His wife, Carol, has been the Title 1 teacher at Tustumena in the past.

A community Health Fair will be held on April 5, 9 a.m. - 1:00 p.m. at Soldotna High School. For blood work, don’t forget to fast for 12 hours prior.

Alaska State Parks is planning to invest $300,000 in Johnson Lake State Recreational Area, a site that sees almost 24,000 annual visitors. The money is for deferred maintenance and will be used in 2009 for the following priorities:
1. Replace and relocate the well.
2. Install a toilet between the boat launch and the day use area.
3. Upgrade campground loop to include 15 “back-ins,” each with a gravel campsite, picnic table, fire pit and tent pad.
4. Erect a centrally located entrance station / orientation kiosk.
5. Develop road alignment and parking for efficient circulation and day-use.
6. Repair picnic tables and fire pits as necessary.
Parks continues to invite public comment on the project and recently held two local hearings to gather information. They hope to encourage lakeside vegetation, both to prevent erosion and to beautify the shoreward view from boats. Johnson Lake is for non-motorized boating, fishing and swimming. The Department of Fish and Game stocks the lake with 7” trout. The first stocking is April 29, in conjunction with Salmon Celebration. This is a yearly event that many Peninsula schools and the public participate in. F&G plans to release 5,800 trout at the first stocking and an additional 3,200 in late June. These fish are grown at Elmendorf Hatchery on Ship Creek in Anchorage.

F&G is planning a second project in Kasilof, this one for $3,500,000. Federal funds are earmarked to contribute $750,000 and the remaining $2,750,000 will come from the state. The project would establish a boat launch on the lower Kasilof River and was approved by the legislature in 2007 but vetoed by Governor Palin. On March 18, 2008 it was again approved by the legislature. Two sites are considered for the project: Ed’s Kasilof Seafoods off Satori Way, or Foxhills Estates Subdivision.
In the two years that this project has simmered, promoters have failed to invite Kasilovians to participate in a single, local public hearing. Dissent over this issue has echoed through my e-mail like a cherry bomb in Quiet Canyon. Complaints are based on four things: Satori Way neighbors are terrified about thunderous traffic. Kenai Area Fisherman’s Coalition, a sportfishing group, says the project would provide an outlet for 2-cycle outboards displaced by a recent ban from the Kenai River. They fear the current drift-boat friendly Kasilof could suffer habitat losses and become a motor razed zoo. Commercial fishers fear a motorized influx might change the dynamics of the person-use fishery or impact king salmon. The Kasilof Historical Association wants to be assured that if Ed’s Kasilof Seafoods passes into public hands, the historic values thus inherited will be protected. Ed’s has a long history. In the early 1920s Al Hardy started a fox farm there. Al drowned and his widow married Heine Berger, who built a dock for his shipping business.

Promoters want to get the money and then listen to input. Since their advice hasn’t been sought, locals doubt it will be taken seriously once promoters have the money.

Per Osmar and Jennifer Dulmage are hosting the 7th annual Clam Gulch New Year’s Eve Procrastinator’s Ball at 3 p.m. on March 29 at Clam Gulch Lodge. Remember, Clam Shell Lodge and Clam Gulch Lodge are not the same. The ball is at the one south of the tower.

Happy Birthday 90th birthday on March 28 to Glenn Bush of Coal Creek Estates.