For thousands of years, the Yukon and Kuskokwim watersheds have sustained people, fish, birds, and other wildlife, supporting strong and resilient communities and ways of life. Traditional foods including salmon, caribou, moose, and migratory birds are vital to food security and Indigenous cultures for the more than 100 Tribes who have stewarded the regions’ lands. In recent years, these communities and the ecosystems they depend on have suffered as climate change has impacted the Arctic. The rate of warming in the Arctic is up to four times faster than other parts of North America. One example of these impacts is the decline of Pacific salmon populations, leading to subsistence salmon fishing closures and empty smokehouses for people who have relied on salmon for more than 10,000 years.
Restoring and improving natural freshwater systems is one of five topic areas of projects funded by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. These projects restore damaged and degraded freshwater systems (streams, wetlands, riparian areas) to increase biodiversity, improve fish passage, protect tribally important and sacred sites, and contribute to healthy communities in both rural and urban disadvantaged areas by providing clean water, reducing flooding, and allowing for recreational activities and access.
Gravel to Gravel: A Department of the Interior Keystone Initiative
Gravel to Gravel is a Keystone Initiative of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law-Ecosystem Restoration to support the goal of resilient freshwater ecosystems and projects that assess, monitor, and restore physical and biological processes in the Arctic-Yukon-Kuskokwim basins. It benefits salmon habitat through a collaborative and inclusive process across DOI agencies and Tribes. The restoration and resilience framework is intended to leverage this historic investment in climate and conservation to achieve landscape-level outcomes. The National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and Bureau of Land Management are partnering with Tribes, state agencies, and community partners to launch Gravel to Gravel, designed to enhance the resilience of Alaska’s ecosystems and communities through transformational federal, philanthropic, and other investments.
Alaska Project Summaries
Showing results 1-10 of 13
- Locations: Denali National Park & Preserve, Katmai National Park & Preserve, Kenai Fjords National Park, Lake Clark National Park & Preserve, Wrangell - St Elias National Park & Preserve
In the mountains of Alaska’s national parks, melting ice and snow patches are revealing artifacts that contain valuable cultural and historical information. With funding from the Inflation Reduction Act, archeologists are performing high-elevation surveys to find and inventory the artifacts before they degrade from exposure to the elements.
A new project, funded by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, is underway and it will help Alaska parks increase their capacity to collect and raise native seed for restoration and revegetation projects throughout the state.
- Locations: Kenai Fjords National Park
- Offices: Natural Resource Stewardship and Science Directorate
The National Park Service (NPS) will conduct a time-sensitive mining waste removal project at the Glass-Hefner mine site located in Beauty Bay, Alaska to prevent contamination of a creek that supports several salmon species in Kenai Fjords National Park.
- Yukon - Charley Rivers National Preserve
Bipartisan Infrastructure Law Project to Address Lasting Impacts of Mining in Coal Creek Alaska
- Locations: Yukon - Charley Rivers National Preserve
The National Park Service and multiple partners will address salmon habitat, flooding and erosion issues along Coal Creek in Alaska through projects funded by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The restoration projects will focus on habitat along Coal Creek while preserving the area’s historic features.
- Locations: Aniakchak National Monument & Preserve, Bering Land Bridge National Preserve, Cape Krusenstern National Monument, Denali National Park & Preserve, Gates Of The Arctic National Park & Preserve, more »
- Offices: Natural Resource Stewardship and Science Directorate
The rugged beauty of Alaska has been the homelands of Alaska Native people for thousands of generations. Today the relentless march of climate change threatens a range of cultural resources from archeological sites to historic cemeteries. Now the National Park Service is in a race to document heritage across the parklands in Alaska.
- Locations: Bering Land Bridge National Preserve, Gates Of The Arctic National Park & Preserve, Lake Clark National Park & Preserve
- Offices: Natural Resource Stewardship and Science Directorate, Region 11
Salmon are the lifeblood of much of Alaska. Extensive river and lake systems protected in Alaska national parks provide significant habitat for all five species of Pacific salmon. As the climate warms, rising temperatures may threaten these important salmon resources. This project, funded by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL), will describe reference conditions and potential targets for ecosystem recovery due to climate change, wildfires, oil spills, and other events.
- Locations: Denali National Park & Preserve, Gates Of The Arctic National Park & Preserve, Katmai National Park & Preserve, Lake Clark National Park & Preserve, Wrangell - St Elias National Park & Preserve
- Offices: Natural Resource Stewardship and Science Directorate, Region 11
Alaska has one of the most productive salmon fisheries in the world but an invasive plant threatens the quality of lakes for salmon spawning. Funds from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) have energized early detection efforts to find and prevent the spread of non-native Elodea to freshwater salmon habitat.
- Locations: Wrangell - St Elias National Park & Preserve
- Offices: Natural Resource Stewardship and Science Directorate, Region 11
Alaska has a long history of mining that continues today. Often, mining sites are far from roads and accumulate debris such as trash, fuel barrels, and contaminated mining waste that is difficult to remove. This debris can be harmful to nearby waterways and communities. This project will clean up non-historic and unsightly refuse that poses a potential threat to the environment.
- Offices: Region 11
The National Park Service will build Alaska's bank of regional and site-specific native seed for local restoration projects. Project outcomes include creating private sector jobs, increasing plant materials, and expanding agency botanical capacity to implement the National Seed Strategy.
- Kenai Fjords National Park
Project Profile: Conduct Removal Action at Beauty Bay Mine in Kenai Fjords National Park
- Locations: Kenai Fjords National Park
The National Park Service will conduct a time sensitive contaminated mining waste removal project that will prevent the contamination of a creek that supports several salmon species in Kenai Fjords National Park.
Last updated: December 28, 2023