Fish habitat permits for work in anadromous streams in Alaska, 2008-2018

This dataset contains a list of all the Fish Habitat Permits and permit amendments issued under The Anadromous Fish Act (AS 16.05.871- .901) for authority for work in anadromous streams from July 1, 2008 through Jun 30, 2018. The Anadromous Fish Act (AS 16.05.871- .901) requires that an individual or government agency provide notification and obtain permitted approval from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADFG) before conducting activities that may alter or affect “the natural flow or bed” of an anadromous water body. The location of specified anadromous waterbodies is contained in the “Catalog of Waters Important for the Spawning Rearing or Migration of Anadromous Fishes,” also called the Anadromous Waters Catalog (AWC) is updated annually, and is the legal record of known anadromous fish streams in the state. All activities within or across a specified anadromous waterbody require permitted approval from the ADFG Habitat Division. These activities may include construction; road crossings; gravel removal; mining; water withdrawals; the use of vehicles or equipment in the waterway; stream realignment or diversion; bank stabilization; blasting; the placement, excavation, deposition, or removal of any material. This dataset includes information on the water body of proposed activity, the location name of the activity, the name of the applicant, the date the permit was approved, and the activity type. This dataset deliberately excludes small scale/recreational mining permits over-the-counter permits (similar to a general permit). These small scale permits are numerous (around 6000 over the total time period), but are similar to a general permit and are issued to individuals over-the-counter. A region for the State of Alaska's Salmon and People Project (SASAP) is assigned to each permit based on a combination of the waterbody code, and in the event of an ambiguous or unknown code, the location description. The original dataset activity types were also consolidated, grouping together related types into the same name (eg oil and gas; oil and gas exploration). Data were reformatted from the original file into the cleaned up habitat_permits.csv using the RMarkdown document habitat_permits.Rmd. The original dataset includes some permits without a permit number - these represent permit reviews that resulted in a 'no permit required' determination or where an applicant withdrew their application. The original dataset also contains duplicate permit numbers, representing permits with multiple locations in the same general area (such as multiple crossings of the same stream) or permits with amendments. Both the duplicate permits and permits with no permit number were removed in the reformatted version of this dataset to reflect accurately the number of permitted activities, as opposed to the number of locations in which these activities occurred.