State denies ballot initiative on salmon habitat

Pink salmon spawn in City Creek near Petersburg. (File photo by KFSK)
Alaska’s Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott has denied a proposed ballot initiative designed to offer greater protections for salmon habitat from mining or other development.
The group Stand for Salmon proposed an initiative requiring water quality standards in anadromous fish streams and giving the commissioner of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game greater authority to deny a development project if it would harm or alter salmon