Alaska and British Columbia officials met virtually this past week to discuss results of a joint water-monitoring study undertaken in the transboundary watersheds of the Unuk, Taku and Stikine rivers.
The two years worth of data was collected by a program created by a 2015 agreement signed by then-Alaska Gov. Bill Walker and then-BC Premier Christy Clark. Back when the program was released in February, the Alaska and BC governments said the river monitoring program had finished its work, citing other sampling programs being planned by state, federal or provincial agencies.
During Wednesdayâs virtual meeting, Terri Lomax of the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation noted existing monitoring being done by Alaska tribes, Canadian First Nations, the U.S. federal government and mining companies, according to a KTOO report of the meeting.