The only danger to Cook Inlet fish is the 1,100 commercial permit holders, the same guys (and gals) who are busily destroying king and coho runs from Kodiak to the MatSu.  The same guys who destroyed schools of steelhead in the 1960s and '70s.  The same business that destroyed king and dungeness crab fisheries in Cook Inlet.   

Happily, the coal is not going anywhere and when it is mined, it will bring 1,500 - 1,600 high paying, full time jobs for a generation or more to Southcentral AK.  Couple the mine with a stocking program on Middle Fork downstream of the mine, and you will double the 150 or so coho and reds pulled out of that part of the watershed yearly.  

If we can figure out a stocking program that will provide a return of 5,000 coho to Campbell Creek here in ANC, we can most certainly do the same thing downstream of a modern mine.  Cheers -