Kenai River management advisory board meets Nov. 12 in Soldotna and online, takes written comment

The Kenai River Special Management Area Citizen Advisory Board meets Thursday, Nov. 12, at 5:30 pm at the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge Visitor Center in Soldotna, according to a state public notice. The meeting is hybrid, and the public can take part in person or online.

The board serves as a public forum on the Kenai River watershed and advises the governor and the commissioner of the Alaska Department of Natural Resources on watershed matters. Fisheries allocation, or how fish are divided among user groups, is outside its role. It has 12 public members and five non-voting agency representatives, and it meets on the second Thursday of each month from September through May.

Residents can email written comments to Alaska State Parks before the meeting, with the board's full name in the subject line. The state gives those comments to board members to consider.

Committee meetings may be held before the full board meets. The notice lists an Alaska State Parks contact for committee schedules and for details on joining online.

The Alaska State Legislature established the special management area as a state park unit in 1984, in response to growing threats to the health of the river system. The first advisory board, created the next year, wrote a comprehensive management plan for the river and disbanded in 1986 after finishing it.

A new board was appointed in 1988 to advise the department on carrying out the plan. It helped update the plan, and the revised version was adopted in December 1997. The Legislature changed the board's makeup in May 2004.