Alaskan river golf game suspended

A complaint from an environmentalist has driven a hotel and restaurant in Fairbanks, Alsaka, to stop offering guests the opportunity to hit golf balls across the Chena River.

Pike’s Landing suspended the long-running game after a complaint that most golf balls fell short of the “green” about 100 yards away on the far side of the Chena, entered the water and washed downstream, and therefore endangered wildlife.

Mike Solter, a water rules compliance manager for the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation, confirmed that Pike’s Landing had suspended the game but is looking for a way to resume it.

“This is something that, as I understand it, is important to them and they would like to continue it,” Solter said. “We want to work with them to see if there’s a way we can make that happen.”

The game was stopped after a complaint by Anchorage environmental activist Rick Steiner, a former University of Alaska Fairbanks professor, who stopped by at the restaurant. Steiner in an email said Alaska’s rivers are “sacred shrines” that should be respected and protected.

“Disposing of golf balls in them does the opposite,” he said.

Steiner asked the DEC to investigate what appeared to be a violation of state and federal water pollution regulations — intentionally discarding plastics into a salmon stream.

“Golf balls are a prominent component of plastic marine debris in the global ocean, and they are often mistaken as prey items by seabirds and other marine animals,” he said.

They easily flow downstream, he said, and at the rate of 1 mph, could reach the Bering Sea in one to two months. Scores of golf balls have been found in in dead albatross stomachs on coral atolls in the central Pacific, Steiner said, and in the stomachs of dead whales.

Pike’s Landing could look into biodegradable balls, Solter said, an alternative that Steiner finds unacceptable.

“They would contribute organic matter to the river system as salmon are migrating and spawning,” he said.

Steiner recommended Pike’s Landing pay reasonable restitution for decades of plastic pollution in the form of a contribution to the Gulf of Alaska Keeper, a group dedicated to removing marine debris.

Steiner is also targeting the Bering Sea Ice Golf Classic, a tournament played on sea ice. Steiner referenced a news article noting how many golf balls are lost in snow on top of sea ice.

“If indeed the golf contest is using real, plastic polymer golf balls as was Pike’s, it needs to be suspended as well, as it is also clearly illegal,” he said.

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