Dear Mountaineers:The Conservation Executive Committee (CEC) held its January meeting on the 21st, and I am pleased to announce that we had four guests who are interested in becoming active members of the CEC: Sarah Owens, Sandy Bowman, Jessie Dye, and Greg Barnhouse. Greg has volunteered to work as communications issues for the CEC, which will greatly help us keen connected wwith the club membership. We also welcomed Peter Teigen, who is a graduate student in the Evans School at the UW. Peter will be working with the CEC as an intern as part of his graduate work at the UW. We are honored by Peter's willingness to work with the CEC and the Mountaineers.
The CEC is likely to take action on two important issues in the next few weeks. Gov. Palin of Alaska has sued the Fish & Wildlife Service over the agency's listing of the Beluga Whale as endangered. CEC member Dyche Kinder is drafting a letter to Gov. Palin that the CEC will likely approve and ask President Eric Linxweiler to sign. The CEC has a long history of work on wildlife issues in Alaska, so a letter on whales should be within the parameter of our previous wildlife issues. The other issue is signing on to a letter about the workings of the state's forest management at the Department of Ecology (DOE). The Environmental Caucus seeks our support for a letter to the new Public Lands Commissioner, Peter Goldmark, about some forest practices of the DOE and the conduct of its meetings where important forest decisions are made.
The next CEC meeting is Wednesday, February 18Th at the clubhouse at 7 PM. Join us!
Cheers,
Michael Shurgot
