Reflecting pond blues—Alaska News Brief July 2026
I’m going to be straight with you. My mood keeps swinging like an old clock’s pendulum from tick to tock, grumpy to shock, sorrow to overwrought. I guess I’m feeling the reflecting pond blues, and that just won’t do.
There’s so much more to life, like World Cup fan antics, ice cream cones, wedding parties, parades, dog walks, knitting projects, rainbows and wildflowers, and new energy-efficient windows and doors on the old house. They’re bigger and better windows, too, and that means more sun!
An Alaska dog park reflecting pond. Photo by Dawnell Smith.
Except that the rain keeps pouring and puddling everywhere.
The political and legal downpour doesn’t help. How can constitutionally mandated birthright citizenship be upheld by a mere 5-4 vote of the U.S. Supreme Court? How many ways can agencies erode public lands, hand them to private hands, subject them to industrial thrashings? Where is all that Venezuela oil money anyway, and why has the U.S. given so little of that $8 billion that is supposedly being protected to a country that suffered back-to-back major earthquakes that killed thousands?
I mean, we’re not machines; a deluge can soak to the bones.
When I look back at the year, though, I recognize and admire the work Trustees’ staff has done already—the lawsuits and motions filed, briefings submitted, administrative comments made, oral arguments presented, and all the outreach and connecting, sharing of information and knowledge, learning and guiding, collaborating and coordinating. What pulls me out of the blues is witnessing these folks doing the hard work of learning, listening, and building the case for caring for land, wildlife, and their essential connection to human health and wellbeing.
I am heartened by the people I work with every day. I am awed about how everyone shows up, supports each other, and celebrates the things we can. I am nourished by the kindness and care they show.
We’ve got two new attorneys starting this month and we’re hiring another. (Know anyone? If so, share this job posting.) Not long after that, two new legal fellows will join the team.
What lifts my mood is knowing that our staff has worked hard at supporting each other and that the folks joining our team will benefit from that hard work. What lifts my mood is that the new folks coming in will lighten the load a bit for those who have been doing the work for so long.
Stomping through the mud. Photo by Dawnell Smith.
The saga of the reflecting pond may offer a true-story satire of this administration’s wasteful legacy of narrow minded, heedless, corrupt, and willfully ignorant uses of power, but it’s not a parable for the future. For that, I look to the people at Trustees, to our clients and partners, and all those making good trouble by standing up for Alaska’s landscapes and communities of life.
It’s true that the cold rain has left mucky ponds everywhere, but we’ve got the XtraTufs to stomp through them.
PS. Thanks to supporters like you, we can continue fighting to protect Alaska’s land, water, air, wildlife and people.
Walrus haul out in Izembek National Wildlife Refuge lagoon. Photo courtesy of Running Wild Media for Defenders of Wildlife.
The State wants public money to pay for a privately owned road in Izembek
Shotgun slug cartridges are visible on the tundra near a deceased adult bear on state land within the Mulchatna intensive management area in southwest Alaska in May 2026. (Photo by David Rossow/Alaska Wildlife Alliance)
Look to the tundra—the truth of the Mulchatna bear killing program
From overhead the north fork of the Koyukuk River. Photo by Suzanne Bostrom
On beings and biomes—the role of the river
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