Popular Kenai Fjords National Park gets a new chief

The national park nearest Alaska's population center will have a new superintendent next month.

Eric Veach, 45, will move south from his post as chief of natural and cultural resources at Wrangell-St. Elias National Park next month to take over at Kenai Fjords National Park, which attracted nearly 300,000 visitors last year.

Kenai Fjords includes popular Exit Glacier and the enormous 700-square-mile Harding Ice Field, both of which are melting and became better-known poster children for climate change when President Barack Obama stopped by last year during his visit to Alaska. Its headquarters is in Seward.

"I think as Alaskans we're more aware of changes in the climate than people are in a lot of places," Veach said. "It's certainly a subject that interests me. With all the glaciers of Kenai Fjords, there are some great opportunities to understand climate change a little better."

Harding Icefield and glaciers like Exit that spill off of it are some of the biggest ice-losers in Alaska, according to a recent study by the University of Alaska Fairbanks, the University of Washington, and the U.S. Geological Survey.

[Harding Icefield research]

Land glaciers account for 94 percent of the estimated 75 billion tons of annual Alaska ice melt that is pouring into the ocean, according to the study, making them far bigger contributors than the calving tidewater glaciers.

[Measuring ice melt]

Regional park service director Joel Hard says Veach is a good fit. "Eric has established his credibility as a knowledgeable biologist and manager in a region that demands you earn it," Hard said in a press release. "He brings a strong but disarming and reasoned approach to park leadership that people appreciate."

Since 1990, Kenai Fjords has seen a 309 percent increase in visitors, many of them viewing glaciers and remote portions of the park aboard Seward cruise ships. But since 2011, visitors are down 14 percent.

At Wrangell-St. Elias, where Veach worked 16 years, he was chief of natural resources at the nation's largest national park, responsible for a $2 million resources budget and studies ranging from fisheries to archeology. He oversaw planning for rehabilitating the Kennecott Mill site near McCarthy, perhaps the biggest visitor draw to the 13.2 million acre national park. Between 1911-36, Kennecott processed $200 million worth of copper and provided jobs for some 300 people.

Veach has a bachelor's degree in fisheries science from Oregon State University. He's put in time as acting superintendent at Wrangell-St. Elias, Denali and Katmai national parks.

"I've never had opportunity before to work at a park with more visitation," he said. "So I'm really looking forward to challenges."

One challenge he'll miss, though, is balancing his national park job with farming. Veach owns 360 acres in Glennallen, with 60 of it cleared. That plus a couple of greenhouses support a U-pick vegetable operation that he'll mothball when he heads south.