History

Over 60 participants and guests are hosted by EPC every year at the 5-Mile Eyak Lake Home. This represents engagement with thousands of people over the course of our history.

2010 Bering River Coal Conservation Opportunity

EPC explored possibilities in the Federal Government for including the Bering River coal conservation opportunity in the federal budget. Significant bullet point histories and policy papers regarding the Bering Coal field and its subsequent conservation opportunity were produced and distributed. EPC is seeking additional funding opportunities to either buy outright or augment a Federal purchase or land exchange of the resource. Federal agencies (Forest Service and Dept. of Interior), Chugach Alaska Corporation and significant new conservation & policy partnerships have moved the 12,000 acre Bering River coal conservation opportunity significantly forward. EPC has kept negotiations alive for 13 years.

2009 - 2010 Shepard Point

EPC reached an agreement with the owner of the Orca Cannery to be submitted (again) as a viable and favorable site for the oil spill response facility. Significantly, then the Army Corps of Engineers approved the site as an available, practical and less environmentally damaging location than the Shepard Point deep water port site. EPC along with a community contingent plans to apply for the oil spill response funding to be used for a viable Cordova oil spill response facility at Orca Cannery, and to block this proposed Shepard Point project permanently. EPC participated in three radio interviews and debates about the issue, and promoted community involvement and letters.

2009 - 2010 Education and Awareness

EPC hosted 51 and 62 people respectively, from all over the country at the 5-mile home and the Sea Otter Lodge.

2008 - 2010 Eyak Language

Through a federal grant, EPC directed and managed a time-sensitive project that preserved and archived all that is known about Eyak history, culture, and their unique Athabascan language. This includes the documentation, archiving, and consolidation of all known Eyak language resources, and the production of 4 DVD's for awareness and learning. EPC, along with our language team, Dr. Michael Krauss, Laura Bliss Spaan and now Guilluame Leduey, have had three subsequent meetings, designed next steps and have one proposal out with several more pending for this important task. EPC has also helped organize and attended meetings with Eyak people, and the search is on to locate every Eyak possible. A facebook site has been formed, as well as a public email informational area for networking.

2008 - 2009 Hawkins Island

The Department of Natural Resources (DNR) was planning on doing a survey on Hawkins Island, splitting it into lots and put 379 acres of pristine land and coastline up for sale and development. Because of EPC's fast-acting and focused organizing and actions DNR dropped their attempt to subdivide and sell the eastern half of Hawkins Island. (Copper River Wild Salmon Forever program area)

2008 - 2009 Steyr engine installations

EPC's promotion of new bio-diesel compatible engines has resulted in a commitment from two international manufacturers to advance with a serious interest in the Alaska Copper River and Prince William Sound fishery. One boat is now installed with a cleaner, fuel-efficient Steyr engine, which operates with 1/3 the consumption of other diesel and gasoline marine engines, proving that cleaner fuels also mean increased savings and more money for the fishermen. (Sustainable Communities program area).

2007 - 2009 Alternative energy installations

The EPC "Otter Island retreat" now hosts solar panels that move with the sun. A water catchment system is in progress. Associate David Titcomb's Knight Island lodge is using hydro, solar and now this year, wind power to completely power year-round a large isolated lodge in Prince William Sound. EPC's encouragement and promotion instigated this commitment. These facilities are available to EPC for use. EPC is actively offering these facilities for events, conferences and retreats. (Sustainable Communities program area)

2007 Alaska Marketplace Award and Cultural Conservation Initiative

In keeping with our revised mission stressing sustainable communities EPC has been instrumental in moving fish processors and the City of Cordova forward into serious talks of value-adding historically discarded fish offal into fish meal, fish oil, organic fertilizer and bio-diesel. In tandem with this, EPC and Dune has received support for the Cordova Community Cold Storage project through an Alaska Marketplace award and was recently chosen as one of the Hunt Alternatives Fund's Prime Movers.

2006 - 2007 Exxon Re-Opener

The EPC-led, deadline-driven use it or lose it option, the "Reopener Clause Campaign", which organized the communities of Prince William Sound and had to then force the State of Alaska and the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council (EVOS) to act and decide, resulted in a victory. The state and federal government have demanded that Exxon pay an additional $92 million for continued restoration and preservation of injured habitat and wildlife in Prince William Sound. Exxon is appealing the decision.

2005 WaterWorld

EPC successfully led a surprise campaign to stop the proposed floating gas station in Prince William Sound (WaterWorld) and stopped the Prince William Sound Borough annexation that would certainly have led to more unsustainable development.

2005 Abercrombie Rapids

With the support of our EPC rafting program, and our EPC vigilance and monitoring of the Copper River, it was discovered that a hunter and developer had intentions to purchase and build a bear feeding platform/cabin in a wilderness area at Abercrombe Rapids on the Copper River. Because of quick action, and determined follow-through, under the Eyak Corporation Shareholder Land Use program, Dune Lankard was granted a 99-year lease for the Abercrombie Rapids site, clearing the way for a wilderness sanctuary for brown bears.

1998 Defeat of the Chugach Road Rider

Through on-the-ground activism, building community support and ensuing footwork in Washington DC, EPC's involvement directly thwarted the Chugach Road rider (Bering River/Carbon Mountain road access easement) introduced by Alaska Representative Don Young and the Chugach Alaska Corporation. This legislation would have granted a perpetual and irrevocable 250-foot wide road right-of-way in the roadless wilderness of the Copper River Delta to extract all resources from ancestral Eyak lands.

1995 Alaska Supreme Court grants public interest litigant status to the Eyak Tribal Elders Council, ultimately resulting in permanent protection of over 700,000 acres of land in the Exxon spill zone. Scheduled to be clear-cut by ANCSA corporations, it was instead permanently protected with conservation easements by showing corporation leadership and shareholders an economic incentive to leave the trees standing.