Lawmakers to hear mixing zones plan

The Alaska House Special Committee on Fisheries took up consideration Jan. 20 of House Bill 328, a bill that would prohibit mixing zones in freshwater spawning streams. (See related story on page 3 of this issue.)

Mixing zones are used throughout the state, mainly by municipal wastewater treatment plants, seafood processors and some placer mines.

State officials are confident newly revised, but controversial, Department of Environmental Conservation mixing zones regulations will protect Alaska's fish, including freshwater species such as grayling, trout and whitefish as well as spawning areas of salmon.

But legislators from fishing communities, led by Rep. Paul Seaton, R-Homer, want to set the mixing zones prohibition in state statute to prevent an undermining of those rules over time.

The committee was scheduled to hear the bill again on Jan. 27.