A state lawmaker, who is concerned that the Village Public Safety Officer program isn’t spending money efficiently, wants the program audited.

While lawmakers weigh whether to proceed, program supporters say it plays an important public safety role in villages.

Alaska state Rep. Dan Saddler said he wants more information on why many positions in the state-funded VPSO program are unfilled.

The Eagle River Republican also is concerned about the share of program spending that goes into indirect costs like housing for officers. That’s why he asked for a legislative audit.

“I thought it was important to get some better answers, to find out how we can find some efficiencies and savings, and make our public safety dollars go farther in rural Alaska,” Saddler said.

The VPSO program has seen a decrease in funding, along with the rest of state government in the last three years. The number of program officers has dropped from 92 in July 2014 to 53 this January.

Much of the drop has been from an inability or failure to fill vacant positions. Only two-thirds of the 78 budgeted VPSO positions are filled.

“We have heard information of some folks, who have taken the VPSO training at some cost to the state and declined to work as VPSOs and turned around and worked for private contractors or other employers,” Saddler said.

Since the program was started in 1979, VPSOs have worked for nonprofit Alaska Native organizations. They’re often the first responder to emergencies, and have increasingly focused on law enforcement.

Jason Wilson oversees the work of six VPSOs in Southeast Alaska as the public safety manager for the Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska.

Wilson said they play an essential role.

“They do a lot more than just law enforcement, but they’re highly needed in our communities,” Wilson said. “With the budget cuts to state troopers, troopers are going out to our smaller communities a lot less often, so it’s imperative we have our VPSOs in our communities.”

Wilson said the vacancies are primarily from a widespread decline in applications for law enforcement jobs.

“We used to have people kind of waiting for positions to become available, and over probably the last two or three years, it’s been extremely challenging,” Wilson said. “The view on law enforcement in general has changed, maybe not so favorable. And, you know, it’s not a job that people are looking to do.”

Alaska State Troopers’ VPSO program commander Capt. Andrew Merrill noted that VPSO training has increased from 10 to 15 weeks in recent years, to prepare officers to carry firearms.

This also increases trainees’ job opportunities, qualifying them for a wider range of jobs.

“VPSOs work hand-in-hand with troopers in the field,” Merrill said. “Having personal experience in the Fairbanks region and in the Bethel region as well as the Nome region working with VPSOs, those are an integral part of public safety throughout the state.”

Saddler is looking for an outside perspective on the program.

Saddler requested the audit through the Legislature’s Legislative Budget and Audit Committee.

The committee could decide whether to order an audit at its next meeting, which is expected to be in early November. But the audit could start as late as 18 months from now, because the audit staff has several other audits to complete first.

In addition to determining whether VPSO grants have been administered in a fiscally prudent manner, Saddler also is asking the auditors to evaluate the program’s effectiveness – and if VPSOs could be funded with federal grants.

“There is a real need for public safety in rural Alaska,” Saddler said. “We had decided on the VPSO model. And I think that, in a time of limited financial means, if we spend that money effectively, there’s no reason why we could not even use the same amount of money to get more safety results.”

State Rep. Scott Kawasaki said he’d like to address some of Saddler’s points before an audit is done. Kawasaki, a Fairbanks Democrat, chairs the House subcommittee that oversees the public safety budget.

“I think that a lot of the questions that Rep. Saddler asked are very important questions,” Kawasaki said. “I think a lot of the questions are from an urban lawmaker that may not understand how it’s different in rural Alaska when it comes to the administration of justice.”

Kawasaki said the subcommittee will seek more information on the VPSO program ahead of the annual budget process in the spring.

GCI is looking into what it would take to bring faster internet to Unalaska. The telecommunications company is evaluating if fiber would be a financially feasible solution. Right now, they are in the exploratory process.

Spokesperson Heather Handyside said the company is surveying a route between a fiber facility in Levelock and Unalaska.

“If we are to do a build-out of a fiber cable, it will help us understand how to best engineer that cable so that it can withstand all the elements or obstacles that it might encounter,” Handyside said.

Obstacles like strong currents, shipwrecks and deep and varied terrain.

For GCI, it’s compelling that Unalaska is the top fishing port in the nation.

“I think there’s promise with the change in climate that it could get even busier,” Handyside said. “We’re taking all those things into account when we decide if we want to make this investment.”

If built, Handyside estimates the cable could cost tens of millions of dollars and GCI is planning to foot the entire bill. Currently Unalaska is only served by satellite making the internet slow and expensive. Fiber would allow for faster connections.

“We know in Unalaska, in particular since you are served by satellite, [fiber] would be a game changer for you,” Handyside said.

The marine survey is expected to be completed by mid-October and Handyside said GCI expects to have made a decision about the project by early 2018.

Alaska’s Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott has denied a proposed ballot initiative designed to offer greater protections for salmon habitat from mining or other development.

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The group Stand for Salmon proposed an initiative requiring water quality standards in anadromous fish streams and giving the commissioner of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game greater authority to deny a development project if it would harm or alter salmon streams.

Supporters of the measure were hoping to gather signatures and get the proposal on a statewide ballot.

One of the initiative’s sponsors, Mike Wood of the Susitna River Coalitiion and Su Salmon Company, reacted with disappointment over the state’s decision.

“Since statehood you know we had a very strong fish habitat permitting system,” Wood said. “It’s been whittled away from administration to administration over the years in favor of industry and development. And we’re just trying to restore it back to where it was originally intended, to have some teeth and not just stop projects but to be sure to give everybody on both sides assurance that if development happens it will happen in a way that will not impact our fish resource.”

Mallott’s decision can still be appealed. Wood said the group may look to challenge the state’s decision in court.

The proposed law could have made it more difficult to develop proposed projects like the Pebble Mine in the headwaters of Bristol Bay or a dam on the Susitna River.

Assistant attorney general Elizabeth Bakalar recommended against certifying the initiative. In an opinion, she wrote the proposed bill would deprive the legislature of its exclusive discretion to allocate state assets among competing needs.

Bakalar wrote “The initiative contains restrictions and directives that would require the Commissioner to reject permits for resource development or public projects in favor of fish habitat” unquote.”

Bakalar noted this version of the proposed law was similar to one already withdrawn by the bill sponsors because of constitutional concerns cited by the state.

The Kodiak Electric Association received a permit to start its Terror Lake Hydroelectric Project expansion, which would increase the lake’s clean energy production.

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Part of the project includes construction through federal land, which requires a lengthy permitting process with some steps KEA called “duplicative.”

It had started on a legislative path to try to speed up that process, but KEA President and CEO Darron Scott said an agreement between the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reached the same goal.

“We actually a while back started the process with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife, and they worked together with FERC to kind of come together on some of the process as well, some of the permitting process, to kinda streamline the time on that, and with all that, we recently got our right of way permit with U.S. Fish and Wildlife,” Scott said.

According to legislative documents, FERC and Fish & Wildlife entered a Memorandum of Understanding for FERC to take the lead on that permitting process and avoid duplication.

KEA plans to divert two streams in the Upper Hidden Basin into the reservoir through a 1.2-mile tunnel under Kodiak Island National Wildlife Refuge land.

Scott said the expansion would help meet Kodiak’s growing population and energy needs.

“This gives Terror Lake about 25 percent more energy than it had before, so this should provide us [with] several years for load growth as we see electrical loads growing in the town, and it’s renewable and keeps us in that renewable, near-100 percent renewable portfolio that we have, which has been incredibly successful for our town,” Scott said.

Scott said KEA will put the project out to bid in the fall and line up contracts in the winter. He said construction should start next summer, and they hope to complete the project in two years, but it could easily take three.

The University of Alaska Fairbanks is building a heat and power plant to replace the old facility that went into service in 1964. The new $245 million powerplant, scheduled to come online next year, will feature updated technology that’ll reduce most pollutants – but it will continue to emit greenhouse gases blamed for warming the planet. Many on campus say that conflicts with UAF’s leadership in Arctic climate-change research.

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The work on UAF’s 17-megawatt combined heat and power plant is about halfway done. And when the state-of-the-art facility goes online around December of next year, Senior Project Manager Mike Ruckhaus said it’ll be among the most environmentally friendly coal-fired power plants in the country.

“From an environmental standpoint, this meets all the current regulations and criteria,” Ruckhaus said during a tour last week around the construction site.

That includes regulations related to the tiny particles called PM 2.5, produced by combustion, which can foul Fairbanks’s air during winter inversions.

“So it’s about as clean as you can get on PM 2.5,” Ruckhaus said.

But the plant will emit nearly 132,000 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent annually. That’s 3 percent less than the old facility, but still roughly the amount of CO2 generated by 26,000 cars annually. Coal-fired power plants are the main source of atmospheric CO2. And even though it’s a done deal and construction is well under way, UAF’s new powerplant still bothers some university researchers who study climate change and its impact on the Arctic.

“From a scientific perspective, I understand the consequences of burning fossil fuels – and particularly for people who live in the Arctic and the subarctic,” Scott Rupp said.

Rupp is a professor of Forestry and deputy director of UAF’s International Arctic Research Center. He said when UAF officials were debating a decade ago over what kind of power plant to build to replace the old one, he and others favored renewable-energy options like hydro and solar.

“It’s disappointing,” Rupp said in a recent interview. “And my personal preference would be to have been able to continue to be a showcase of not only great science on climate change but be able to put some of our innovation into how we power the Arctic university that we are.”

Rupp and others acknowledge that locally mined coal, from the Usibelli operation in Healy, was the only practical option for fueling powerplants in Fairbanks.

“We still don’t have natural gas in town, so obviously you can’t rely on that,” University Regent John Davies said. Davies favored that type of fuel for the new powerplant.

And because the need to replace the old facility was urgent, Davies added, “You have to at some point have a plan and move forward on it.”

Davies said UAF’s old plant was well past its design life and that university officials had to make a decision.

“We had replace the powerplant because it was 50 years old and it was failing,” Davies said. “And it could’ve been a major catastrophe if that plant had gone down in the middle of winter.”

Davies is a longtime advocate for clean air and energy efficiency, and he says he still feels conflicted over the university’s decision to build another coal-fired power plant.

“There certainly remains the irony that this is the only coal-fired powerplant in the nation that’s being built – and we’re also the leading group on understanding climate change and the need to reduce the emissions of fossil fuels to reduce the amount of greenhouse warming,” Davies said.

Davies referred to reports from two media outlets, ClimateWire and Alaska Dispatch News, that pointed out the UAF powerplant is the only one under construction in the United States.

Davies said he hopes university officials will be able to choose natural gas, or renewable energy, when UAF replaces the power plant again a half century from now.

Nutrition related health concerns plague the United States as a whole, and rural Alaska is no exception. People in village of Igiugig are aiming to improve their health this fall with a Native Foods Challenge.

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Igiugig’s high school literature class read “In Defense of Food” by Michael Pollan last school year. In the book, Pollan details a seven-week project. A group of Aboriginal Australians who lived in the city and ate a Western diet moved to the outback and ate traditional food for seven weeks. At the end of the period, all saw health improvements.

“The kids in the class thought that’d be a great idea if we were to do this,” Tate Gooden, Igiugig School’s head teacher, said. “We pitched it to the community as a community idea, and the community members were very excited about it. Now here we are, we’ve been preparing for eight months now.”

For six weeks, starting September 17, the adults and children in the village are challenging themselves to eat only traditional foods, locally raised foods and oatmeal.

For the past eight months, the village has been putting away fish, berries, greens and game.

“It’s gotten people a lot closer together and talking about food and subsistence. I think a lot of people harvesting things they’ve never harvested before. We have people putting up sour dock and different greens. We’ve got people boiling down caribou bones and making fat cake,” Gooden said.

The project is a health experiment, so residents have already begun regular health screenings. Every month in 2017 they have taken their weight, blood pressure, blood sugar and heart rate. They will compare the results from before and after the challenge.

The final component of the challenge is a trek to Big Mountain. It lies 23 miles east of Igiugig. For four days in the last week of September the village will hike to the mountain, which is a traditional meeting place between Igiugig and the village of Kokhanok. At Big Mountain they will have a Native Foods potluck, and then they will fly home.

The project’s focus is much broader than watching weight or blood sugar or even honing subsistence skills.

“This project focuses on the relationships and interdependence of food, culture, identity, community, subsistence and health,” Gooden said.

The challenge concludes on October 28.

The Ahtna Native Corporation board has rejected a proposed settlement with the State to allow continued public use of Klutina Lake Road. The 25-mile road off the Richardson Highway near Copper Center, crosses Ahtna land, to the Klutina River and Klutina Lake. Ahtna declined an interview request, but a corporation press release said the proposal compromised Ahtna’s private land use rights. State Department of Law spokeswoman Cori Mills said it would have maintained some public access.

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”It would be a 100-foot right-of-way, and people would be able to park on it, launch their boats from it where the river met the 100-foot right-of-way,” Mills said. “What the public would not be able to do is to camp or overnight park within the state right-of-way. Instead, Ahtna promised if the settlement had gone forward, to provide camping areas for a fee.”]

Mills said the proposed settlement drew over 400 public comments, representing a range of views.

”We had people who really were worried about the litter and other waste from people who use the area for camping and boating, and then we have the people who are avid users of the river who wanted to maintain it as open as possible,” Mills said.

Ahtna’s rejection of the settlement sends the access issue back to court. Ahtna initially sued the state after a 2007 Department of Transportation maintenance project it says illegally widened the roadway and removed Ahtna Corporation signs and a fee station. Mills said the state considers the road an RS-2477 public right of way.

”The state claims that this is one of those rights-of-way that, through historic use, became a public road,” Mills said. “And so that’s kinda what instigated this whole case back in 2008.”

Mills said resolution of the case could set some precedent in regard to state claims on numerous other contested RS-2477 routes around Alaska.

Attorneys for the state and Ahtna have to submit status briefs to the superior Court by October 31st. A trial date has yet to be scheduled.

Efforts to drill for oil in the Arctic Ocean put Alaska at the center of an international debate. It’s a highly political topic, one both former President Barack Obama and President Donald Trump weighed in on. And to this day, there hasn’t been any oil produced from Arctic waters solely owned by the federal government.

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So today, when it comes to drilling for oil in Alaska’s Arctic Ocean, you’d be forgiven for thinking not a lot is happening.

Yes, Shell’s multi-billion dollar effort to find oil in federal Arctic waters is a thing of the past. And yes, the Obama administration then took several steps to cut back on drilling in Arctic waters — actions the Trump administration is now working to undo.

But it turns out there is movement to get oil out of federally-owned parts of the Arctic Ocean. It’s happening slowly, steadily and without a lot of fanfare. Two companies’ efforts to drill for oil in the Beaufort Sea are chugging forward and, at least for now, they’ve largely avoided the national spotlight.

First, the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is reviewing the Texas-based Hilcorp’s Liberty project. The plan calls for producing oil from a man-made, gravel island east of Prudhoe Bay as early as 2020.

The other project, led by Italian company Eni, is at an earlier stage. Eni is working to get the final go-ahead to explore for oil west of Prudhoe this winter, using a gravel island in state waters. They aim to drill thousands of feet down and then tens of thousands of feet horizontally to the north — to see if there’s any oil worth recovering.

Farthest from the finish line, but still of note, is Arctic Slope Regional Corporation. The Native corporation acquired federal leases from Shell late last year, and is now asking the federal government for approval to extend the leases, which are set to expire this year.

Both Eni and Hilcorp had their leases before the Obama administration limited Arctic development, so they’ve slipped past the influence of both Obama’s and Trump’s executive pens.

Another reason the two projects are happening below the national radar? Jim Kendall, regional director for the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management in Alaska, said in many ways, they don’t compare to Shell’s massive Arctic undertaking.

“It’s kind of apples and oranges,” Kendall said.

Shell’s exploration was 70 miles from shore and in waters around 170 feet deep. Hilcorp and Eni’s operations would be closer to land and pipelines, in waters not a lot deeper than an Olympic diving pool.

“And maybe that’s why it just hasn’t caught a lot of attention. I mean — it’s another gravel island, it’s been done before. It’s close to shore; it’s not 70 miles offshore,” Kendall said.

When Kendall said ‘it’s been done before,’ he was referring to a handful of existing man-made gravel islands in the Arctic Ocean companies are already drilling from. The key detail, though, is that these islands are in state waters. If it gets the final go-ahead, Hilcorp’s Liberty Project would be the first to produce oil in solely federally-owned Arctic waters.

It sounds like a big deal — and it is — but Hilcorp also wants to hit home the message that they’re not doing something completely new. In Alaska, the company faces an extra level of public scrutiny after safety incidents like a gas leak from one of its fuel lines in Cook Inlet this spring.

Mike Dunn, Hilcorp’s project manager for Liberty, argued the drilling plan isn’t especially risky.

“From our perspective it’s — I won’t say it’s simple. But it’s been done often enough where we don’t have to come up with some new technology,” Dunn said. “A lot of folks before us have figured this out.”

Michael LeVine, senior Arctic fellow with the Ocean Conservancy in Juneau, acknowledged that compared to what Shell was trying to do, the risks for Hilcorp and Eni’s projects are at least better understood. But, LeVine said, any drilling in Arctic waters is worth paying close attention to.

“They’re still massive industrial undertakings in a risky and remote place,” LeVine said.

But do these projects mean there’s still a promising future for oil drilling in Arctic waters? Oil industry supporters hope so. But beyond politics, Kendall said there are larger forces that have a big influence on that future: oil prices and climate change.

“If we have a longer drilling season, less ice, for some reason oil prices go up again. Then, of course, the market changes,” Kendall said. “And then industry, they have to decide what they would like to pursue.”

Kendall said it’s too early to say if the Eni and Hilcorp projects herald the triumphant return of big-time oil development in the Arctic Ocean.

Stories are posted on the APRN news page. You can subscribe to APRN’s newsfeeds via email, podcast and RSS. Follow us on Facebook at alaskapublic.org and on Twitter @aprn

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Beneath political firestorm on Arctic Ocean drilling, two projects make steady progress

Elizabeth Harball, Alaska’s Energy Desk – Anchorage

Yes, Shell’s multi-billion dollar effort to find oil in federal Arctic waters is a thing of the past. And yes, the Obama administration then took several steps to cut back on drilling in Arctic waters — actions the Trump administration is now working to undo. But there is movement to get oil out of federally-owned parts of the Arctic Ocean.

For third year in a row, Alaska seabirds wash up dead

Elizabeth Jenkins, Alaska’s Energy Desk – Juneau

For the third year in a row, seabirds are washing up dead along the coastline in Alaska. Hundreds of birds have been discovered along a stretch of the Bering Sea, on the Pribilof Islands and as far north as Deering.

Stampede suspected in dozens of walrus deaths

Associated Press

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says 64 walruses died on a northwest Alaska beach, and the animals may have been killed in stampedes.

National labs to field test microgrid tech in Cordova

Rachel Waldholz, Alaska’s Energy Desk – Anchorage

Several national labs and universities will partner with the Alaska community of Cordova to field test new technologies on the city’s power grid.

State denies ballot initiative on salmon habitat

Joe Viechnicki, KFSK – Petersburg

Alaska’s Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott has denied a proposed ballot initiative designed to offer greater protections for salmon habitat from mining or other development.

Arctic climate change researchers still conflicted over UAF’s coal-fired powerplant

Tim Ellis, KUAC – Fairbanks

The University of Alaska Fairbanks is building a heat-and-power plant to replace the old facility that went into service in 1964. The new $245 million powerplant, scheduled to come online next year, will feature updated technology that’ll reduce most pollutants – but it will continue to emit greenhouse gases blamed for warming the planet.

Ahtna rejects continued public use of Klutina Lake Road

Dan Bross, KUAC – Fairbanks

The Ahtna Native Corporation board has rejected a proposed settlement with the State to allow continued public use of Klutina Lake Road. The 25-mile road off the Richardson Highway near Copper Center, crosses Ahtna land, to the Klutina River and Klutina Lake.

Terror Lake hydroelectric project expansion gets the go-ahead

Kayla Desroches, KMXT – Kodiak

The Kodiak Electric Association received a permit to start its Terror Lake Hydroelectric Project expansion, which would increase the lake’s clean energy production.

Igiugig is set to embark on its Native Foods Challenge

Avery Lill, KDLG – Dillingham

Nutrition related health concerns plague the United States as a whole, and rural Alaska is no exception. People in village of Igiugig are aiming to improve their health this fall with a Native Foods Challenge.

Unalaska-bound cruise ship changes destination to Sitka

Zoe Sobel, KUCB – Unalaska

A 2000-passenger cruise ship was supposed to dock in Unalaska today [WED] instead it decided to go to Sitka. Although Unalaska is known as America’s top fishing port, tourism — in particular the cruise ship industry – is a growing source of revenue especially for small businesses and non-profits.

For the third year in a row, seabirds are washing up dead along the coastline in Alaska. Hundreds of birds have been discovered along a stretch of the Bering Sea, on the Pribilof Islands and as far north as Deering.

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Julia Parrish, an associate dean at University of Washington, said seabirds have to work really hard just trying to find dinner.

“You’re spending a heck of a lot of your time flying around for food,” Parrish said.

That means the birds have to consume enough fatty fish to sustain themselves. But Parrish said the thin bodies of the dead fulmars and shearwaters washing up on shore suggest the birds are struggling to find enough to eat.

So far, about 800 have been discovered along the coast of the Bering Sea. Parish said early lab results don’t point to disease. It looks like the birds are starving to death.

In 2016, scientists documented the largest seabird die-off in the state in the Gulf of Alaska.

“This is the next step in that progression,” Parrish said.

Parrish said the mortality rate this year isn’t as high. Still, scientists are concerned about the frequency of the die-offs. Before 2014, it wasn’t uncommon to see seabird deaths every three or four years as the ocean ecology shifted.

“Now we’re seeing one to two a year. So that’s a big difference,” Parrish said. “And it just points to more rapid and persistent shifts in the system.”

The Bering Sea has shown a trend of warming for about the past 50 years, according to the National Weather Service in Alaska. Last year was the warmest one on record.

Parrish said that could be affecting the seabirds’ regular feeding spots.

“So if there’s a shift in the system that takes away the prey that you’re used to and replaces it with prey you’re not used to, you may be going to the wrong grocery store,” Parrish said.

But Parrish said that doesn’t mean the seabirds can’t adapt if the warming trend continues. Humpback whales snack on commercial hatchery fish, which is an altered feeding behavior. She said Alaska seabirds could eventually learn to visit new grocery stores, too.

“So if the system changes majorly and everyone goes to the place they think the food is going to be, and the food is not there? It’s somewhere,” Parrish said. “It’s a bit of an arms race.”

Whether the seabirds can keep up with their changing environment remains to be seen. Scientists are watching closely, as seabird deaths can signal the health of the entire ocean.

Several national labs and universities will partner with the Alaska community of Cordova to field test new technologies on the city’s power grid.

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The goal is to find innovations that could help the rest of the country avoid the kind of widespread power outages that have followed Hurricanes Irma and Harvey.

The U.S. Department of Energy has awarded $6.2 million for the project.

Cordova Mayor Clay Koplin, who’s also CEO of the city’s electric cooperative, called the grant a win-win.

“The project works both ways,” Koplin said. “Cordova Electric is going to learn a lot about this technology, but the labs are going to learn a lot about actual microgrid environments and what does and doesn’t (work).”

Microgrids, or stand-alone electric grids, are a necessity in much of rural Alaska, where there’s no larger grid to connect to.

But there’s growing interest in the Lower 48, especially after Hurricane Sandy in 2012 – and now Hurricane Irma – left millions of people without power for days or weeks. Hospitals, military bases and whole towns want to be able to disconnect from the larger grid and generate their own power in an emergency.

Cordova currently runs on a combination of hydro power and diesel generation. The grant will allow the community to add a battery for energy storage, and test out new system controls to get the different parts of the grid talking to each other. That technology can also be key for integrating more renewable energy into a grid.

Koplin said Alaska is a perfect laboratory, because communities have decades of experience running small grids.

“It gives us an opportunity to share some of our capabilities, which are becoming in increasing demand from other countries, they’re starting to recognize that Alaska has a lot of energy leadership on the electric energy side,” Koplin said. “And it also gives us access to world-class technical resources.”

Cordova will work with three national labs and several universities, along with the Alaska Center for Energy and Power at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, and the Alaska Village Electric Cooperative.

An international big mountain ski and snowboard competition that brought an economic boost to Haines for three winters is not returning to Alaska in 2018.

Freeride World Tour organizers say the expense of putting on a competition in the remote Haines backcountry is the main reason they are not coming back this winter.

Commentators marveled as skiers and snowboarders carved descents through the deep snow of the Haines mountains in March of 2017.

The Freeride World Tour includes a series of stops, where athletes build up points based on the skill and creativity of their runs.

Most of the Freeride’s competition venues are near ski resorts, in places like Verbier, Switzerland and Fieberbrunn, Austria.

That made the Haines stop unusual.

There is no ski resort here – people either hike, snowmachine, or take helicopters into the backcountry.

“The things that make Haines so challenging are also the things that make it so special, so wonderful,” Tom Winter, a spokesman with the ski and snowboard competition, said.

Winter said the wildness and remoteness of Haines makes it appealing. Some athletes call it a ski “Mecca.” But those same factors make it very expensive.

In Haines, the Freeride used helicopters to fly all the athletes, event personnel, and equipment to the mountaintop venue. That was the biggest expense.

“I think you’re looking at a million-plus (dollars) for the Haines stop,” Winter said. “It’s quite expensive. And that’s mostly based on the logistics side and that’s based on the fact that you can’t just pack your gear in a Sno-Cat and bump it up the mountain.”

People in Haines already knew the chances of the Freeride returning in 2018 were slim.

The event lost its title sponsor – Swatch. Without that financing, organizers said coming back to Alaska would be difficult.

The decision was made official Sept. 12, when the Freeride announced its schedule for the 2018 competition.

The Haines and Chamonix, France, stops were replaced by brand new venues in Hakuba, Japan, and Golden, British Columbia.

“We’ll miss them,” Deborah Davis, the store manager at Haines’ Mountain Market Café, said.

The market was a popular gathering spot for the Freeride athletes. Skiers and snowboarders ordered lots of coffee and smoothies, Davis said.

“They’re familiar faces, we look forward to seeing them and they spend a lot of time here on their down days,” Davis said.

Haines’ new tourism director, Carolann Wooten, was welcoming visitors at the cruise ship dock on the day the Freeride announced its 2018 schedule.

In the summer, Haines sees a steady stream of tourists from cruise ships. But in the winter, business is much slower.

Big events like the Freeride make a difference.

“Freeride brought in people who were staying in our hotels, eating at our establishments and shopping in our stores,” Wooten said. “We would like them to come back.”

Winter said the, with the Freeride coming back to Haines is a possibility. After all, it was dubbed “The Dream Stop” by organizers.

“It’s not gonna happen this year but that’s OK, change happens,” Winter said. “If things line up, I definitely think that we’ll be back there and I hope so because Haines is special and people will always remember Haines as a special place.”

Even though the competition dropped Haines from its calendar, and the financial chances of it returning are uncertain, Wooten said it likely raised Haines’ profile as a winter recreation destination, which means Haines could still get an economic boost from the Freeride, even if it’s not an official stop on the tour.

Earlier this week, University of Alaska President Jim Johnsen wrote Alaska’s congressional delegation urging it to quickly resolve the Trump administration’s directive to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA.

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The Obama-era immigration policy protected certain undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children. Alaska has 138 DACA recipients, according to the Center for American Progress.

Johnsen said in his letter that failing to resolve the issue through congressional action could prevent students from fulfilling their academic and professional goals and would ultimately hurt the state’s economy.

The letter comes as the University of Alaska Board of Regents is meeting this Thursday and Friday at the University of Alaska Southeast campus in Juneau. It’s unclear if it plans to address the DACA issue.

The regents will discuss a plan to create a College of Education at the Juneau campus, a proposal meant to respond to Alaska’s teacher shortage by filling those vacancies with UA graduates.

Regents will also hear updates on Strategic Pathways, a plan to cut costs throughout the university system by consolidating academic programs, and campus efforts to improve the handling of sexual discrimination and assault cases in light of a Title IX investigation by the Department of Education.

The regents livestream their meetings at alaska.edu.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has announced $7 million in grants to 14 Alaska tribal organizations, much of it for housing.

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Many of the grants will fund village construction, from Chignik Lagoon to Chistochina. But HUD also selected one Anchorage grantee. Cook Inlet Tribal Council and Cook Inlet Housing Authority are due to receive $600,000 to rehabilitate a commercial building in Midtown. Sezy Gerow-Hanson, a spokeswoman for the Housing Authority, said the plan is to add 20 apartments to the second floor of 3400 Spenard Road. But she said the HUD grant is just the first piece of a complicated funding package.

“The building is old and needs new mechanical systems,” Gerow-Hanson said. “There’s a lot of work that needs to be done and we’re not sure whether that’s going to pencil out to be the smartest use of the money.”

Gerow-Hanson said the demand for affordable housing in the area is high, and she says the project would help revitalize a section of the road her organization calls “Middle Spenard,” between Benson and Minnesota boulevards.

“There are a lot of mom-and-pop businesses along the roadway. We feel if you start to add that housing component, it adds to the neighborhood, it adds to the vibrancy,” Gerow-Hanson said.

All 14 Alaska grants were awarded competitively. The $7 million total is a slight dip from prior years and comes on top of the roughly $95 million in Indian Housing Block Grants that’s distributed annually in Alaska.

The F/V Akutan no longer has a crew and the ship’s 130,000 pounds of salmon has been offloaded.

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The processor has been anchored in Unalaska’s Captains Bay since late August and there’s no indication the boat will be leaving soon.

“The reality of it is, there’s just a huge legal ball that needs to be worked through before any real decision can be made,” Unalaska Ports Director Peggy McLaughlin said.

After a disastrous fishing season as a processor in Bristol Bay, the vessel’s owner went broke, the crew went unpaid. and now the ship is disabled and unable to move.

McLaughlin said the interagency task force that united to prevent the boat from spilling fuel, oil and other chemicals into the bay are in limbo unless the situation turns dire.

“Right now — with the exception of the possibility that the responsible party is willing to step up — there’s kind of this big gaping hole of no jurisdiction until something more dramatic happens with the vessel,” McLaughlin said.

McLaughlin thinks the boat is stable for now and not in danger of sinking. That said, there is still fuel on board and the ship is in a precarious location for the environment.

“It’s in front of salmon streams, it’s in front of native allotment land,” McLaughlin said. “It’s also in close proximity to Westward Seafoods’s intake. It’s not in a good place to have a problem.”

In late August, responders removed almost 16,000 gallons of oil and sludge from the Akutan. The Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation estimates 20,000 to 23,000 gallons of marine diesel and other chemicals remain on board.

McLaughlin said the city’s ultimate goal is to keep the vessel intact and get it out of Unalaska waters. A team of responders is monitoring the vessel.

The University Of Alaska Board Of Regents meets in Juneau Thursday and Friday. Today’s agenda includes an update from UA President Jim Johnsen on the university’s Strategic Pathways, downsizing initiative. It calls for dissolving the Schools of Education in Fairbanks and Anchorage , and consolidating the program in Juneau, but UA spokesperson Roberta Graham said concerns raised by the North-West Commission on Colleges and Universities has resulted in a new plan, which keeps students, faculty and staff in Anchorage and Fairbanks.

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“There will still be one College of Education. It will still be headquartered at the University of Alaska Southeast with one executive dean,” Graham said.

Graham adds the move will still trim jobs and streamline operations.

“The colleges themselves would be dissolved and the dean’s essentially at those two campuses would go away,” Graham said.

Regents will also hear about the university’s compliance with a Voluntary Resolution Agreement with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights. Graham said there is a new scorecard showing steps made by each UA campus to meet Title IX requirements.

“The scorecard now reflects new information that both support the complainants the respondents and in Title IX cases,” Graham said.

Regents will also consider President Johnsen’s performance and compensation package.

Kodiak College, which is part of the University of Alaska Anchorage, will soon make a bachelor’s degree the go-to for aspiring nurses.

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In previous years, students have been able to get an associate’s degree at the college and then add classes to build up to a bachelor’s. In fall 2018, the college will revise its program to reflect the changing job market and offer only bachelor’s degrees.

Margie Mete is the associate professor of nursing at Kodiak College. She said not only do hospitals now want job applicants with at least a bachelor’s, but they also want the most educated nurses they can get.

“So, the whole scale, the whole shift in education has moved up along with the baccalaureate program, the master’s program went to the doctorate, and so on,” Mete said.

Mete said that’s a barrier some associate degree students run into once they earn their degrees.

“And when they leave and go to the Lower 48, they call me and tell me that they have trouble finding a job down there, because there’s baccalaureate nurse preference for hiring down there,” Mete said.

Mete said Providence Health and Services hires most of Kodiak College’s local graduates, and the program change is in large part a response to the hospital’s new policy.

Providence communications specialist Carlie Franz said, starting on January 1, 2017, a bachelor’s degree in nursing became a prerequisite for new hires. She said hospitals across the country have been trying to implement this kind of policy change for many years.

“What you get additionally with a bachelor’s in nursing is you learn more leadership skills, and it sort of preps you more to be a nurse leader, so that’s an added advantage and it makes those nurses a lot more marketable,” Franz said.

Franz said Providence will not ask nurses hired before January 1 to go back for further education.

The Alaska Fire Marshal’s Office has determined the fire that claimed the lives of five girls in the Mat-Su Valley Butte area last week was accidental and “cooking-related.”

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The State Medical Examiner’s Office positively identified the deceased as 3-year-old Jaelynn Flores, 6-year-old Sofia Flores, 7-year-old Lillyanna Flores, 8-year-old Nevaeh Flores, and 12-year-old Alexis Quackenbush.

Fire Marshal Dave Tyler told reporters today that all five girls died of smoke inhalation after their mobile home caught fire early last Thursday morning.

Tyler did not give specifics on what appliances may have been in use when the fire started, but said burn marks and other indicators pointed definitively to the kitchen. He said the fire was not caused by faulty outlets or wiring. According to Tyler, fires in mobile homes are prone to spreading quickly due to airflow and materials used.

Tyler said there is no evidence of functioning smoke detectors in the mobile home at the time of the fire.

It’s unclear when the cooking that started the fire began, and Tyler said criminal charges are “absolutely not” being considered at this time.

Additional details are on hold until the fire investigator makes a complete report.

Stories are posted on the APRN news page. You can subscribe to APRN’s newsfeeds via email, podcast and RSS. Follow us on Facebook at alaskapublic.org and on Twitter @aprn

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How Kodiak got to almost 100 percent renewable power

Rachel Waldholz, Alaska’s Energy Desk – Anchorage

Since 2014, Kodiak has gotten more than 99 percent of its electricity from renewable energy, using a combination of wind and hydropower. It’s part of a growing trend, as cities around the nation aim for a hundred percent clean energy.

Strategic Pathways on the docket of UA Board of Regents meeting

Robert Hannon, KUAC – Fairbanks

The University Of Alaska Board Of Regents meets in Juneau Thursday and Friday. Today’s agenda includes an update from UA President Jim Johnsen on the university’s Strategic Pathways, downsizing initiative.

UA president calls for action on DACA ahead of regents meeting in Juneau

Adelyn Baxter, KTOO – Juneau

Earlier this week, University of Alaska President Jim Johnsen wrote Alaska’s congressional delegation urging it to quickly resolve the Trump administration’s directive to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA.

Fire marshal: Butte fire that claimed the lives of five girls was “cooking related”

Phillip Manning. KTNA – Talkeetna

The Alaska Fire Marshal’s Office has determined the fire that claimed the lives of five girls in the Mat-Su Valley Butte area last week was accidental and “cooking-related.”

HUD sends money to Alaska communities, including ‘Middle Spenard’

Liz Ruskin, Alaska Public Media – Washington D.C.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has announced $7 million in grants to 14 Alaska tribal organizations, much of it for housing. One grantee aims to redevelop a commercial building on Spenard Road.

Two new contracts could ship Sitka water to potential buyers soon

Emily Kwong, KCAW – Sitka

Raw water may be shipped out of Sitka within the next three years. At least, that’s the promise of two bulk water contracts — approved by the Sitka Assembly on Tuesday night. One came from start-up in the business of bottling, while the other is a repeat customer who has spent decades trying to sell raw water to countries around the world.

Freeride ski and snowboard competition not returning to Haines in 2018

Emily Files, KHNS – Haines

An international big mountain ski and snowboard competition that brought an economic boost to Haines for three winters is not returning to Alaska in 2018.

Crew abandons F/V Akutan in Unalaska’s Captains Bay

Zoe Sobel, Alaska’s Energy Desk – Unalaska

After a disastrous fishing season as a processor in Bristol Bay — the F/V Akutan’s owner went broke, the crew went unpaid and now the ship is disabled and unable to move.

GCI looks into bringing fiber to Unalaska

Zoe Sobel, KUCB – Unalaska

GCI is looking into what it would take to bring faster internet to Unalaska. The telecommunications company is evaluating if fiber would be a financially feasible solution. Right now, they are in the exploratory process.

Kodiak College nursing program adapts to hospital policy change

Kayla Desroches, KMXT – Kodiak

Kodiak College, which is part of the University of Alaska Anchorage, will soon make a bachelor’s degree the go-to for aspiring nurses.

Since 2014, Kodiak has gotten more than 99 percent of its electricity from renewable energy, using a combination of wind and hydro.

It’s part of a growing trend, as cities around the nation aim for a hundred percent clean energy.

But most of those communities are connected to the country’s major power grids – grids that depend on fossil fuel plants to keep them reliable.

Kodiak doesn’t have that option.

To understand Kodiak’s grid, it helps to check out the town’s shipping crane. It’s a black and orange beast on the Kodiak waterfront. At more than 340 feet tall, it is way bigger than anything else around.

This crane serves the nation’s second largest fishing port, loading freezer containers full of salmon and halibut and cod onto ships. Plus it handles just about anything else that needs to come in and out of Kodiak.

“If you’re buying it at Safeway, chances are we brought it in the night before,” Rick Kniaziowski said. He runs the Kodiak terminal for the shipping company Matson.

And, like everything else that runs off electricity here, the crane is entirely powered by renewable energy.

So when Kniaziowski approached the head of the local utility to propose replacing Matson’s old, diesel-powered crane with a giant electric one, the answer at first was: no.

“His eyes got really big, and he’s like, I just don’t see it, Rick,” Kniaziowski said. “Everyone’s TVs are going to brown out and they’re going to hate you or they’re going to hate us.”

Jennifer Richcreek works for Kodiak Electric Association, or KEA, the local co-op. She said an electric crane was a big ask.

“The idea of having an electric crane – great! This is our vision, we’re electrifying the town with renewable energy,” Richcreek said. “But, that load draw on a massive crane was huge! And so looking at it, it was a pretty daunting engineering task.”

Spoiler alert: they did figure it out – with some seriously sci-fi stuff.

Kodiak Electric first set a goal of 95 percent renewable power back in 2007.

It was pretty ambitious. The Kodiak waterfront is lined with fish processors. Down the road is the nation’s largest Coast Guard base. To the south is Kodiak’s rocket launch facility. Those are a lot of big energy users who need rock-solid, reliable, affordable electricity.

Which is not exactly what renewables were known for.

But the co-op also had a major motivation: the cost of diesel. Ten years ago, Kodiak got about 20 percent of its power from diesel generators. The rest was hydro – so in a dry year, diesel use could spike. And the cost of diesel was very high and totally unpredictable. Businesses had trouble forecasting their electricity bill.

Richcreek said it was like being held hostage to diesel.

“When you have that threat of a diesel bill hanging over your head every month, that is very motivating to find solutions,” Richcreek said.

So the co-op decided to try something Kodiak has a lot of: wind.

In 2009, they installed the first three wind turbines on Pillar Mountain, above town.

But wind isn’t easy to work with.

“Wind is a wild child,” Richcreek said. “Wind does as it pleases. You don’t know when the wind is going to blow. You don’t know how long it’s going to blow. It’s unpredictable, it’s variable, it’s all over the place.”

That’s the opposite of how a traditional power plant works. With coal or natural gas, it’s there when you need it.

So KEA had to figure out how to make its wild child play nice. Specifically, they had to figure out how to manage the hand-off from wind to hydro power. Wind might change intensity second to second. Meanwhile, the town’s hydro power takes minutes to ramp up.

The solution? A bank of batteries. Those can supply energy quickly while the hydro ramps up behind them. That system worked pretty well.

Then came the crane.

Every time the crane lifts a shipping container, it’s a massive, immediate pull on the grid. And when it drops that container, all that power comes rushing back.

So here’s where it gets a little sci-fi. Kodiak looked around and decided to try a flywheel – a six-and-a-half ton spinning mass.

“It’s in a frictionless vacuum chamber hovered by magnets… which is so cool,” Richcreek said.

The flywheel stores energy as motion. When there’s a surge of energy onto the grid, it spins the flywheel…and it keeps spinning, until that energy is needed again.

Altogether, it’s like a dance, or an orchestra: each piece is watching the rest, and responding second by second, millisecond by millisecond.

The wind drops suddenly and the flywheels kick in. As the flywheel fades, the batteries step in, and behind it all, the hydro ramps up.

All of this is really unusual. KEA’s head, Darron Scott, said as far as he knows, Kodiak is the first to combine batteries and flywheels in this kind of cascading energy storage system. To integrate lots of variable energy like wind or solar onto a grid, especially a small grid like Kodiak, you need that storage and moment-by-moment communication. Not many places have mastered it.

But Richcreek said this is the future.

“The solutions are out there,” Richcreek said. “They’re outside the box. They may be different. But the industry is changing.”