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Thursday, July 18, 2002
History of the Center for Alaskan Coastal Studies
In 1982, volunteers complete construction on the original unfinished building the organization purchased from the Wongs. In 1983, Paul Banks Elementary School brought the first school group to Peterson Bay and by the following year 400 kids would go through the China Poot Bay Society's marine education program. In 1986, the society received the National Science Teachers Association's award for exemplary work in environmental education. In 1989, the Exxon Valdez oil spill put the group's volunteers to work surveying Kachemak Bay's beaches for signs of contamination. The survey mirrors the annual beach clean-up walk that has now become a tradition for the center. In 1990, the center installed its dock in Peterson Bay. In 1995, the Carl Wynn Nature Center opened on 126 acres of spruce forest off of Skyline Drive, donated five years earlier by Wynn, who homesteaded the land. In 1997, the center completed mortgage payments on its Peterson Bay facility. In 1998, the Center for Alaskan Coastal Studies purchased and opened its office headquarters on Lake Street in downtown Homer.
