Fishing and Safety: Rapid Melt and Wild Rivers
Welcome to Green-Up in Interior Alaska everyone. With that said, I'm here to write about the rapid melt that is happening and causing quite a bit of commotion through the Interior region.
First to speak of on this is what rapid melt causes. In the Interior, we had a record amount of snow. The highest point on the measure was 100" of snow. That's three full feet over your average person and still enough snow to bury Shaq. Even in a normal scenario, it is not uncommon to get 3-5 feet of snow a year. All this snow has to go somewhere in the spring and summer.
When rapid heat moves in afterwards, this snow melts, causing a trickling effect. I use those words in that place because if you were to go up to the high points, and it's the end of May right now, you would see big blogs of snow with trickling streams of water coming from underneath it. These trickling streams merge, then merge again, and eventually dump into the river, causing a MASSIVE influx of water, super currents, ice jams, and generally unsafe environments to be in.
Yet people still go out there to fish like they normally would, risking their life for the catch of a single fish. Here are a few links to hopefully deter that. If you know anyone that fishes in these conditions, I encourage you to not let them.
US Forestry Service Water Safety
US National Parks Service Water Hazards
Next we have have the ice jams. An ice jam is just that - ice that has jammed up a river, normally because the slightly warmer melted water breaking up the ice and shuttling it downstream, where the jagged pieces eventually block the river. In the lower 48 you see it more often happening with logs or silt being washed down. The river jams up and blocks the water behind it. The worst part is we also get the log jams as well from trees entering the river through erosion in the spring or snow weight felling them in the winter.
This brings about the floods to low-lying areas. As of today, at least one or more areas in the Interior have been under some kind of flood watch. Currently the Chena is under a flood warning. You might be shrugging your shoulders, but flooding is very real.
History Time: In 1967, the Chena River flooded because of this very same scenario - unusual amount of rain, ice melts, ice jams, etc. all caused the Chena River to rise. Being right on the river, downtown Fairbanks felt it the most as the river rose 50 feet above the flood line - a height of a river where it officially counts as flooding the surrounding area.
This cause a good bit of damage to structures, economy, transportation, and a few other things, as outlined in the below link - Fairbanks Flood of 1967 Walking Tour Brochure.
Since then, the US Corp of Engineers built a water control dam and a levee around the area to hopefully prevent and/or control an event like this in the future. The link breaking down their project is below as well.
Fairbanks Flood of '67 Walking Tour
Corp of Engineers 1907 Chena Flood Control
In conclusion, I implore you to be safe this spring and if the water looks even remotely unsafe, do not fish it. Be aware of rapid waters and the ice and logs that could be in it. No fish is worth your life.
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