Cook Inlet Keeper is celebrating its 10th anniversary with a name change.

The community-based, nonprofit environmental organization’s board and staff opted to adopt a variation on its existing name to show support for the more than 150 other grassroots keeper programs nationwide that collectively make up the Waterkeeper Alliance, said Keeper Director Bob Shavelson on Monday.

From now on Cook Inlet Keeper will join inlet and keeper into one word and be called Cook Inletkeeper, adopting a uniform naming convention for “riverkeepers,” “soundkeepers,” “inletkeepers” and similar names used by other keeper alliance-member groups around the country.

The change will allow those groups to “better distinguish their work from industry-backed groups who have tried to adopt similar sounding names,” Shavelson said. For example, Shavelson said a developer on the Missouri River whose real interest appeared to be in dredging and filling wetlands attempted to adopt the name Missouri River Keeper even though there already was a Missouri Riverkeeper.

Such conflicts usually have been resolved peacefully and without litigation, Shavelson said.

The decision to change Cook Inlet Keeper’s name followed a long discussion in which some reluctance was expressed because of the attachment to the original Cook Inlet Keeper name.

“But ultimately, it was recognized that the change was in the best interest of not only this organization, but of alliance groups nationwide,” he said, adding it was a matter of looking ahead long-term.

“The Waterkeeper Alliance is the fastest growing conservation movement in the nation, and possibly in the world,” Shavelson said. “The purpose of this is to have that consistency within that family of names to make sure it doesn’t get co-opted by other interests.”

Cook Inletkeeper’s mission is to protect Alaska’s Cook Inlet watershed and the life it sustains. The organization has offices in Homer and Anchorage. For more information, see www.inletkeeper.org

Hal Spence is a reporter for the Peninsula Clarion.