The latest Senate effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act is dead. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Tuesday cancelled a planned vote after too many Republicans declared they would not support the Graham-Cassidy bill.

But, as of Tuesday evening, Sen. Lisa Murkowski still was not clearly saying how she would have voted on Graham-Cassidy.

“Everybody wants to know, ‘What would you have done?'” Murkowski told reporters. “You know what?  The real question is, ‘What do we do?’ What do we do now?”

This week was the deadline to pass the health care bill as part of a budget reconciliation bill, which would have required just 50 Senate votes. Under Senate rules, the usual threshold for important bills is 60. Murkowski has been seen as pivotal to the fate of Graham-Cassidy, because she helped block a repeal bill this summer.

Now that the calendar pressure is off, Murkowski said the Senate should hold bipartisan hearings and construct a health care bill that can be thoroughly studied. She said she likes the central idea of Graham-Cassidy, that states should have more flexibility and control over their health care dollars.

“Can I get behind an idea like that? Yeah. But is the devil in the detail? Yes,” Murkowski said. “And so were we there yet? No.”

Apart from money, Murkowski said she wasn’t convinced the bill had adequate protection for people with pre-existing conditions or a strong ban on the return of lifetime limits for insurance claims.

The bill sponsors tried to sweeten the bill for Alaska, with measure after measure that would have sent money to the state. Murkowski said Senators Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Bill Cassidy, R-La., dug into the Alaska particulars and learned how expensive it is to deliver health care in the state. Murkowski said their concern seemed genuine, beyond just courting her vote. She said they may become powerful allies in the effort to lower Alaska’s health care costs.

“If you can get people intrigued with your state and then willing to help, that makes all the difference in the world,” Murkowski said.

Sen. Dan Sullivan didn’t declare a position on Graham-Cassidy, either. He issued a statement saying he was convinced the bill would have brought more funds to Alaska. His office said one provision in the last draft, an increase to Alaska’s Medicaid matching rate, could have brought the state as much as $4 billion over 10 years. Sullivan called the bill “compelling” but said senators ran out of time to study the effects.

The extraordinary sight of a 30-foot long dead humpback whale that washed up on a beach area in Anchorage has drawn dozens of onlookers to gawk at its carcass.

Among them Tuesday were veterinarians working with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) who got a much closer look as they began a necropsy in the hopes of figuring out how the young whale died.

It’s a short walk from Kincaid Park to the dead whale, which, for now, sits in the Anchorage Coastal Wildlife Refuge. NOAA biologist Barbara Mahoney was happy about the easy access.

“It’s affordable. There’s no helicopters involved, we can have a big crew here, so this is actually a great opportunity,” Mahoney said. “And it’s a lovely day!”

Mahoney and her crew, which included veterinarians, hauled coolers, knives and other gear down a hill to the stinking, rotten whale carcass. When they arrived, multiple people, many with small children, were on the beach looking at the whale, which had been cordoned off with plastic orange fencing.

NOAA had issued a warning the day before, saying people and pets should stay away from the whale. That’s in part because of the risk of disease — they don’t know yet how it died, and it could be infectious. There’s also the risk that the smell of hundreds of pounds of whale flesh will attract bears and cause possible interactions between bears and humans.

Despite the warning, NOAA Fisheries law enforcement officer Noah Meisenheimer said he was not surprised to see so many people around the whale, which could help keep bears away.

“Bear activity’s going to be limited,” Meisenheimer said. “I mean there might be some bears that may come out at night, but during the daytime with this many people, I doubt they’ll be making a showing.”

With all their gear strategically laid out in a semi-circle around the whale carcass, veterinarian Kathy Burek gave a safety briefing to the team conducting the necropsy. That included warnings to avoid slipping on blood or blubber and staying hydrated.

Also, there’s the smell.

“Some people, depending on if they’re not used to being around things that smell bad, we have had people pass out, so it’s nothing to be ashamed of, but just kind of be aware of that,” Burek said. “If things are kind of closing in on you, just go ahead and sit down.”

After Burek shared a few more tips and tricks, the team set to work, first measuring the whale, then using long knives and hooks to cut and peel away the blubber. That allows them to get at internal organs like the stomach and bladder, to conduct further sampling.

Burek said they hope to examine the whale’s ear wax, which builds up annually like the rings of a tree and can tell them the whale’s age. For now they are describing it as a yearling.

Mahoney, the NOAA biologist, said there are no obvious signs of broken bones that might indicate the whale was struck by a ship.

The biologists don’t know when they’ll have answers or if they can determine the precise cause of the whale’s death, because of the decomposition.

The Department of Corrections is the largest mental health care provider in the state, and the administrators at Spring Creek Correctional Center want to make it one of the most effective, too. They’re treating inmates who have mental illnesses with new innovations — porches and paintings.

During his three years at Spring Creek, inmate Kaleb Summitt has been in and out of segregation because of fighting.

“And now I’ve been out of seg for seven months. My new record!” he said excitedly one afternoon.

Summitt said it used to be really hard to rejoin the prison community every time he left segregation, where he was locked in a cell for 23 hours per day.

“Cause you’re locked down and you’re nervous being around people,” he said.

Interacting with other people was already a challenge because he has bipolar schizoaffective disorder and his medications weren’t adjusted correctly.

But this time when he left, instead of going straight from segregation to open housing, called a mod, he first transitioned to a room with an indoor “porch” in the mental health mod.

In Spring Creek, the cells line the edges of one main room. The porches are like large cages around the doors of the cells. They provide a space for inmates to leave their rooms, walk around, and talk to people, but they can’t just wander freely in the communal area or have much physical interaction. Inmates are allowed out of their cells and onto the porches for at least three hours a day and eventually more.

It may not sound like much, but Summit said it gave him time to adjust to social interactions. “It’s a lot better to interact you with the mod, not just throw you out the door.”

It also gave him the chance to talk to the mental health mod mentors. The mentors are inmates from the general population who live in the mental health mod and are paid to provide guidance and support. It’s a pilot program for Spring Creek. Originally three people filled the role, but two were dismissed because they caused problems.

One mentor, Kent Matte said he understands what people leaving segregation are going through – he once spent three years in solitary confinement. Every time he left his cell he was fully restrained with two guards.

“I’m an outgoing person and it affected me enough to where I thought I was starting to get a little crazy in my head,” he recalled.

When Matte speaks with people on their porches and other inmates in the mod, he tries to be a role model and help them learn to trust people.
“And the best way to reach them is to talk to them. Communicate like they’re real. Not like they’re below you,” he said. “Or, ‘You got something wrong with you, I can’t be around you.’”

Summitt said it helps him to talk to Matte. He tells Matte about problems that he doesn’t feel comfortable reporting to staff. But sometimes just chatting with Matte or even the mental health counselors isn’t enough to calm him down. Then he turns to another innovation at the prison – the Oasis.

“I love that room,” Summitt said. “It is awesome. It takes me out of the zone, like I’m not in jail anymore for a while.”

The Oasis is a regular cell with no bunks or toilet. The walls are painted with brightly colored murals of beach scenes. Waves lap onto sandy shores next to dense, flower-filled bamboo forests. Inmates can take a sound machine with them and sit on soft couches.

When Summitt said when he leaves the room he feels “refreshed. Ready to try again. I get stressed out sometimes so I just press a button – even at night- and the officer will take me over.”

Superintendent Bill Lapinskas decided to create the Oasis as an experiment. The institution didn’t have money to do anything fancy but he wanted to have a place where prisoners could just be people for a while. A team of inmate artists worked together to paint the room.

“This is what we could do here, right now to see if we could enact a change in behaviors and in mindsets,” he said. “Just give them something different than prison.”

A similar project is being tested for inmates in segregation at the Anchorage Correctional Complex, but it includes a large screen TV showing nature videos in a room painted green.

Spring Creek Inmates have painted murals in other parts of the prison as well, making some areas look like living rooms or storefronts. The intake area for seg has a large painting of a bird and flower that helps calm people down. The porches, the paintings, and the mentors are all part of Lapinskas’ larger mission for Spring Creek: to imbue the institution with more humanity and try to help the inmates, not just punish them.

Want to hear more Solutions Desk stories? Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, or NPR.

Have ideas to share? Text ‘hello’ to 907-885-6055 and join the conversation.

A plan to reform the Alaska Marine Highway System calls for replacing some ferries with smaller, more efficient vessels. Backers want it to be run by an independent corporation and negotiate its own labor contracts.

Many Alaska Marine Highway ferries are showing signs of age. Fares are rising and sailings have become less frequent. Most importantly, funding is dropping, pointing to what could be dark times ahead.

“We can continue to admire the problem, and the resulting report, like has happened so many times in the past. Or, we can do something,” Marc Luiken said. He’s the commissioner of the state Department of Transportation, which includes the ferry system.

And the report Luiken is talking about? It’s a near-final draft of a plan to change how the marine highway is managed, and in some cases, operated.

“I strongly suggest crafting legislation necessary to move this effort forward and create a public corporation that will take over governance of the system,” Luiken said at the Southeast Conference annual meeting Sept. 20 in Haines.

The report was produced by consultants for a statewide committee planning for the ferry system’s future. It’s a cooperative effort involving government and the Southeast Conference. The regional development organization formed in the 1950s to lobby for the ferry system’s creation.

The new corporation would continue to receive state and federal funds. But backers say it would provide a buffer between the ferry system and shifting political priorities. Susan Bell is a former state commerce commissioner who is with the McDowell Group, which contributed to the report.

“It’s not a complete divorce from state government,” Bell said during a panel discussion and presentation at the Southeast Conference meeting. “There’s a lot of ways that the public has accountability. There’s a lot of ways that other agencies, like departments of transportation, law and administration, can continue to support it.”

The corporation would have its own staff, overseen by a seven-member board appointed by the governor. It’s modeled, in part, on the Alaska Railroad Corp.

Former Transportation Commissioner Mark Hickey was part of the effort to create that corporation in the mid-1980s.

“If I were in charge of the world, I would do a bill where I’m as far away from all the rest of state government as I possibly can be. Have your own lawyers, do your own labor negotiations. You can’t do that completely; you’re going to be tied. But generally, push to have freedom and autonomy,” Hickey said.

Another major change is how and when the system would be funded.

Jim Calvin is senior economic analyst for the McDowell Group.

“The reason that you want this sort of advanced planning opportunity, the forward funding that can support this advance planning, is so people can plan accordingly. Particularly businesses that need long lead times to plan their business operations around the service that the marine highway can provide,” Calvin said.

The state Legislature would have to agree for the plan to work. That’s been a difficult battle for the education budget, which has had much broader support.

“Forward funding at a year in advance, in this budgetary climate? I think it’s a bridge too far,” Sen. Bert Stedman, a Sitka Republican, said.

Stedman said the whole reform plan could leave the system open to deeper budget cuts. He called forward funding “a novel idea.” But he pointed to a recently identified budget switch that could leave the ferries without operational funds this spring.

“I think you’re on the wrong track. I think the forward funding issue should be to try to get it funded through June of this year,” Stedman said.

Rep. Sam Kito, a Juneau Democrat, had a different take. He said he’ll introduce legislation to forward fund the system.

A third significant operational change is labor relations.

Bell said the corporation would take over contract negotiations. That would allow it to change work rules, which could reduce staff and bring operational savings.

“We think that the system would benefit from a more direct relationship between marine highway governance and the unions. We believe not only the change to the corporate structure, but direct negotiations will enhance that,” Bell said.

The report said wages and benefits make up about 60 percent of the ferry system’s costs. It recommends moving toward smaller and simpler ships, with fewer staff.

“We’re not going to be helping the workforce,” Capt. Joan Sizemore, a marine pilot working in Southeast Alaska and a former ferry employee, said. “It seems to be that the impetus right now is to cut costs by removing people. And if you have fewer people working on those ferries, that’s fewer dollars spent in Alaska.”

The ferry reform plan calls for the fleet to remain at nine ships, the current number of active vessels.

But two large ferries, the Columbia and the Kennicott, would be gone. The same could happen to the fast ferries.

Capt. John Reeves of the Elliott Bay Design Group said several ships could be phased out and replaced.

“Some of the shorter routes, you don’t necessarily need to have a crew on board 24/7 because the vessel is just making shorter runs. So we can have a different vessel (that) has a smaller crew, it’s cheaper to operate, but still provides the same service to the communities,” Reeves said.

The ferry reform report also includes what it calls a minimal service model.

That would reduce the fleet from nine to seven ships and the annual weeks of service by about 20 percent.

The committee overseeing the ferry reform project is gathering public comments through Oct. 6.

More information is available at Alaska Marine Highway Reform Project website.

This week, we’ve been bringing you the voices of this year’s Alaska Teacher of the Year finalists. There are four candidates and the Department of Education will select the winner in October. Karen Martin teaches 4th grade at Denali borough’s Tri Valley School. Martin has been a teacher for 12 years and was a scientist before she became a teacher. She said educational requirements for younger students have become more strenuous.

MARTIN:The expectation academically for what children are expected to learn, especially early on, is more rigorous than it was when I was younger. And I think, you know, there’s a shift. It kind of impacts the whole schedule for what a school day might look like for a younger child, or even an older child. I know growing up I had three recesses and now, students in our building generally have one. More is expected of younger children, learning to read earlier, and the rigor of the content. And I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, but I think you have to be careful of a balance for a healthy life.

TOWNSEND: So let’s talk about technology a little bit. You’re teaching younger students, so maybe not as challenging as if you were in high school. But still, technology is everywhere. How does that change what you’re doing in a classroom?

MARTIN: I think there’s a lot of new skills that we need to be mindful of helping young students develop in this age of technology. And I think there’s a lot of value that comes from integrating technology in the classroom in terms of not only how — the skill set to help them use information on the internet or in other resources wisely or critically. But also, it’s a world that they understand that I don’t necessarily, and things that they learn and things that they communicate through technology that I can’t shy away from just because its not my world. Like, I think it’s important to help them develop them into that because that is their future.

TOWNSEND: Is it harder to get young children to pay attention for long periods of time? Do you see a change in attention span with students now?

MARTIN: I guess not necessarily, not necessarily because some of our most important work is to help kids engage with whatever content, whatever information, whatever learning that we are designing for them. And that that’s part of our responsibility is to help them be engaged with that and help them take ownership of that learning and be responsible for their learning. And kids, it’s fascinating to me, if you give them a choice sometimes doing something with their hands or doing something with technology, they will choose to do something with their hands.

TOWNSEND: One of the things that you said was, “I trust my students to be leaders in their own learning.” What did you mean by that?

MARTIN: As a cohort of colleagues, we’ve been looking at how do we really allow students to do their own learning? How do we allow them and when do we recognize that struggle is okay if it’s productive? You know, do we need to sell in and as teachers, we feel like that’s what we do. We need to — we’re nurturers, we come in, we have the answer, we give it to them. But really, what we do is we take away the learning. And so, part of it is being more mindful of when they’re working on their own. When they’re working together, allowing them to do the learning, to do the work of learning. And then the other part is, is I try to — every opportunity I can if there’s a learning experience or a learning intention, to create an opportunity where the students together can find the solution to a problem. I don’t — and like, the converse of that would look like I stand at the board and I show them the algorithm or I show them the solution. Instead, I’ll give them the problem and see if they come up with a strategy, and when they do, because they do, then allow them to come up and teach each other.

Environmentalists are warning that the Republican plan to cut taxes could include a move that would open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling.

A draft of the Senate budget plan for 2018 is likely to emerge next week. No one expects the document to mention the Arctic Refuge by name. Lydia Weiss of The Wilderness Society said she’s concerned it will include vague instructions to the Senate Energy Committee to find a billion dollars or more in revenues.

“There is no doubt that that is an invitation to Sen. Murkowski to attach an Arctic Refuge drilling rider,” Weiss told reporters Wednesday.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski chairs the energy committee. Opening the refuge to drilling is a top priority for her, as it’s been for Alaska’s congressional delegation for 40 years.

Neither her office nor Sen. Dan Sullivan’s answered questions about the strategy Wednesday. Murkowski had little to say about it, according to reporters who caught up with her.

“I have heard rumors from many of you, but I have not heard that anything has been confirmed,” Murkowski says on ANWR in Senate FY18 budget.

— Jeremy Dillon (@jeremydillonCQ) September 27, 2017

Weiss and other environmentalists say ANWR doesn’t belong in the budget.

“Drilling in the coastal plain of the Arctic Refuge is wildly unpopular, and always has been across the Lower 48,” Weiss said. “This is America’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. It is public, federal land. It belongs to all of us.”

But ANWR could hold a lot of oil, and the idea of exploring it has a lot of support in Alaska.

The Trump administration has revived hopes for development. The Interior Department is trying to allow 3-D seismic work on the coastal plain.

If ANWR is included in the 2018 budget reconciliation package, it would only need 50 votes to pass in the Senate, because that kind of bill can’t be filibustered.

Several Republican senators oppose ANWR drilling, along with nearly all the Democrats, so passage is not assured.

Restrictions on king salmon sport fishing will be lifted soon for most of Southeast, except Haines and Skagway. Sport fishing for king salmon in the region has been nearly non-existent for the last few months. Concerns over alarmingly low numbers prompted the shutdown of king salmon retention for sport and commercial fishermen in August. Conservation worries are still affecting Northern Southeast Alaska.

Starting Oct. 1, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game is reopening sport fishing for king salmon in most of Southeast Alaska.

That means fishermen will soon be able to keep the fish they catch. For the last few months, they’ve had to return them to the water unharmed.

In the Upper Lynn Canal, that’s been the case all summer.

Rich Chapell is an area management biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game in Haines. He says reopening the king salmon sport fishery shouldn’t harm important fish populations.

“Less than 5 percent of the annual sport harvest of king salmon happens after Sept. and through March,” Chapell said. “So, we’re just returning to regional regulations based on the abundance index under the Pacific Salmon Treaty. And we just anticipate very few king salmon are going to be harvested during this winter fishery period.”

After last season, nine out of 11 king salmon systems in Southeast didn’t meet escapement goals.

In initial escapement surveys taken in August, the department found production and productivity of kings was lower than anticipated.

That prompted Fish and Game’s unusual decision to shut down commercial and sport fishing for king salmon throughout Southeast.

In the Haines and Skagway area, Chapell said those restrictions will stay in effect.

“Chilkat Kings are a little bit different than other Southeast king salmon stocks, like the Taku River,” Chapell said. “Because Chilkat kings mainly stay in the inside waters of Northern Lynn Canal during winter. Most of them don’t go out to the Pacific Ocean to rear. So because of that concentration of Chilkat Kings and because of the very low abundance of Chilkat kings we’ve seen in recent years, we’re just being extra conservative here.”

Looking ahead to 2018, Chapell said he expects restrictions to return to sport fisheries in Southeast.

“Based on the extremely low returns to Southeast Alaska King Salmon spawning areas, I expect the abundance index to be quite a bit lower and fishing regulations should be quite a bit more restrictive in all of Southeast Alaska next year,” Chapell said.

But for now, starting Oct. 1, sport fishermen outside of the Upper Lynn Canal can try to harvest kings again. The resident bag and possession limit is two king salmon, 28 inches or greater in length. For non-residents it’s one king salmon, with a limit of three per year.

Southeast Alaska will open to commercial fishing for red king crab this fall for the first time in six years. The crab population has seen a steady increase, according to state surveys.

Red king crab are the largest shell fish in the state and can weigh up to 24 pounds and have a leg span of five feet. What commercial fishermen in Southeast haul in is smaller, usually around eight to nine pounds but they are still worth a lot. Red king crab brought nearly $11 a pound during the last opening in 2011. So, it’s not unheard of to bring in a hundred-dollar crab. The last fishery was worth nearly $1.9 million at the dock.

But whether the opening set for November 1 will be lucrative is still to be seen.

Joe Stratman is Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s lead crab biologist for Southeast. He said the red crab population has been on the rise since 2013.

“Basically, in the last four or five years we’ve seen improvement in legal, mature biomass estimates in Southeast,” Stratman said. “And now they’ve gotten to the level where we reached this harvestable surplus.”

Fish and Game monitors the population through annual surveys where they catch and sample crab. They also work with local fishermen on a mark and recapture project. They track two groups of king crab: the legal biomass or crab that are big enough to be harvested in the commercial fishery. And the mature biomass, which also includes crab that are sexually mature but not big enough to be landed.

Stratman said both numbers look good this year.

“These adjusted biomass estimates amount to a 40 percent increase in the legal male biomass and the 41 percent increase in mature male biomass from last season,” he said.

Stratman said that’s the largest increase in a few decades.

The state can open Southeast’s commercial season if the estimated amount of legal size, male king crab tops a harvestable surplus of at least 200,000 pounds. This year, it’s just above that. Managers will be keeping close tabs on the fishery. They are splitting the region into six fishable areas. They will open for only 24 hours, then close for four days for sampling. Then two areas will reopen for a length of time that will be decided later by managers.

59 fishermen in Southeast have permits to participate in the fishery. KFSK contacted some of them in Petersburg.

Nick Versteeg, a life long fishermen, said the opening is short but it’s better than nothing.

Craig Evens, who has been fishing in Petersburg for 40 years, said he was confused by the announcement. He said he’s not sure how it’s going to work with a 24 hour opening, then a closure and then a reopening. Still, he said he’s glad there is at least some kind of opportunity.

Several other fishermen say they aren’t happy with the opening but didn’t want to be interviewed.

The population of Southeast’s red king crab has been in flux, according to Fish and Game. Back in the 1990s and early 2000s there were commercial openings nearly every year. But then there was a decline for about 12 years. The population was dropping about seven percent annually and then it started to rebound.

Stratman said they aren’t sure why the population has changed.

“We know what we see in the survey,” Stratman said. “And we’ve seen a decrease in the early 2000s and it was fairly prolonged but now we’re seeing an increase.”

This fall’s commercial opening will allow fishing in more Southern, non-traditional areas than in previous fisheries. Stratman said managers have created Northern and Southern non-surveyed areas, with two separate harvest levels.

“Based on what we’ve heard from the fleet, I think splitting it up this way, I think it will allow for the time that they’re looking for,” Stratman said.

Fishermen can also take blue king crab in the fishery. But they are incidental catches representing only about one percent of the king crab population in Southeast.

The increased population of red crab is also allowing more liberalized bag limits for the personal use fishery outside of the Juneau area. Starting in November, the bag limit will increase from one crab a day to three or six depending on the location. But red king crab aren’t easy to get. They prefer deeper water starting around 150 feet.

Fish and Game managers are asking that fishermen comply with call-in rules during the fishery so they can track the harvest and coordinate port sampling.

Two Japanese naval destroyers are in Anchorage for a “good-will” port call.

The Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force has been traveling the world since May, making port calls in South America, Canada, along the East Coast and even Pearl Harbor. About 500 sailors are on board both ships, but the six-month tour is primarily part of an effort to train 200 new cadets.

The ships were docked in Homer earlier in the week before heading toward Anchorage. Sailors toured the VA hospital and observed military exercises at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson. The new cadets also plan to volunteer at a local food bank and members of the naval band will perform a short concert at the Anchorage School District’s Japanese immersion program on Thursday.

Such visits from the Japanese Navy are not new, they happen every four to five years. The ships will be docked at the Port of Anchorage for three days.

The jet stream circles the globe from west to east affecting weather, climate and even the length of many airplane flights.

This week on Ask a Climatologist we’re answering a question from a listener who asked how the jet stream affects weather in Alaska.

Climatologist Brian Brettschneider said the jet stream is basically a ribbon of air circling the globe at high speed.

Interview Transcript:

Brian: It’s generally the boundary between cold, polar air and much warmer mid-latitude or subtropical air. It’s always present, all year round, but it varies in intensity quite a bit and when it’s not quite as cold, in the summer months and fall months it’s in the vicinity of Alaska. In the heart of the winter, usually it’s farther south so it doesn’t really affect us that much. But it’s always there, so it’s something that’s of great interest to the weather and the climate community, to the aviation community. So a lot of people are focused on where the jet stream is, how it’s moving and what it’s going to do over the next number of days.

Annie: But in Alaska, it doesn’t affect us too much?

Brian: The jet stream does affect us here in Alaska. Particularly in the fall and the spring months, we are right at the boundary of where the cold polar air is and the much warmer air farther to the south. The jet stream moves like a ribbon, so at times it goes up and other times it goes down and it has to stay in equilibrium. Where it comes down, you actually spin up low pressure areas and those then form precipitation and have wind. We do have these large fall storms and sometimes in spring as well, those are very frequently associated with these dips in the polar jet stream as they’re situated near Alaska.

Annie: And how is climate change affecting the jet stream?

Brian: In the last few years, there’s been a fair bit of research that’s looked into this issue of what does a warming world do, what will it do to the jet stream. The strength of the jet stream is the temperature difference between the high latitude, arctic polar latitudes, and the equatorial or tropical latitudes.

In a warming world, high latitudes warm faster and that difference in temperatures is reduced which then reduces the strength of the jet stream. The jet stream in a weaker state is more susceptible to these wild gyrations. When you have this jet stream that’s more susceptible to moving around, in the lower 40 you can get paradoxically more arctic outbreaks. But then you can also get more dramatic warm ups in the winter. So, more variability and more storms are possible.

It’s something that’s an emerging area. It makes sense from a physics point of view and now researchers are trying to put that puzzle together and confirm what they think the theory indicates.

The beluga whale population in Cook Inlet has been steadily declining since the 1970s.

The number of whales in the area today is just a third of what it once was, and the Alaska Department of Fish Game wants to help belugas recover.

In order to do that, Fish and Game needs to answer other questions about mating and their habitat, and two new studies aim to do just that.

Back in the 1970s, beluga whales were common around Cook Inlet, with a count of about 1,300 in the area. Now that number is closer to 340.

Cook Inlet belugas were officially listed as endangered in 2008, and things have not gotten better.

Cook Inlet itself was listed as critical habitat in 2011.

Two new Fish and Game studies aim to find out more about where belugas feed and their social behaviors.

“Both of these studies have been based on samples and research that have been going on for ten years or more,” Fish and Game wildlife physiologist Mandy Keough said.

Keough samples teeth found in stranded belugas in order to get a better idea about their feeding habits.

“One of the reasons why both these proposals have been funded is that we are finally at a point where we have enough samples and enough collaborators with various expertise working together to be able to address these questions,” Keough said.

Fish and Game hopes both past data and new samples help find where Cook Inlet belugas have fed in the past and if feeding grounds have shifted.

Fish and Game anchored audio recording devices to track where whales are finding food.

“Looking for that acoustic signature, that whistle that they make. It’s actually a buzz that signifies that they have had a successful forage,” Keough said.

After they locate where these sounds are coming from, people can go to the sites and research further.

The second half of the project focuses on belugas in Bristol Bay.

Fish and Game thinks that population could give some insight into the mating habits for whales back in Cook Inlet.

Lori Quakenbush heads up that study and works for the Fish and Game Mammal Program.

Over in Bristol Bay, the beluga whale count is double Cook Inlet’s numbers.

More beluga whales means a larger dataset to pull information.

Using skin samples from Bristol Bay whales, researchers can see how the whales are related, giving them an idea of which whales are mating.

Quakenbush thinks belugas might have a pack mentality, almost like wolves.

“You might have 10 adult males and 10 adult females in any given years,” Quakenbush said. “It may only be one or two of them mating and reproducing as opposed to all of them.”

Quakenbush wants to use the data to inform best practices for increasing the population in Cook Inlet.

While Quakenbush hopes to come up with a strong game plan, she notes the answer may be inconvenient.

“We will investigate that large genetic dataset that we have and see what we can learn about belugas overall,” Quakenbush said. “That might affect how quickly a population like Cook Inlet can expand. It might be very different than what we’re thinking,”

So, where are the Cook Inlet whales now? The belugas mostly stay in Upper Cook Inlet.

However, there is not substantial research as to why. Keough said that is another goal of the project.

“We don’t know if that’s just because there are fewer animals available, or if they are relying on more fresh water fish than they have historically,” Keough said.

After the study, Fish and Game hopes to have more answers than questions, and that those answers will lead to more belugas in Cook Inlet.

A federal court upheld a rule limiting road construction and logging on about 50 million acres of national forestland nationwide.

The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia’s decision Thursday was hailed by Alaska conservation groups defending the U.S. Forest Service’s roadless rule. Meredith Trainor is the executive director of the Southeast Alaska Conservation Council which opposes expanded logging in the Tongass National Forest.

“It’s a huge victory,” Trainor said  “The state of Alaska has been attacking the roadless rule almost since the rule was first written back in the early 2000s. The roadless rule protects intact forested lands within the national forest system, so it obviously has a big impact on the people of Southeast Alaska and the Tongass National Forest.”

The roadless rule was put into place by the Clinton administration and has since seen numerous challenges from Alaska and other states in federal courts all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Alaska Assistant Attorney General Cori Mills said the state is still reviewing whether it would appeal.

 “We are disappointed in the District Court’s ruling,” Mills said. “It upheld the 2001 roadless rule and that just has huge impacts on Southeast Alaska and the needed responsible resource development in the region.”

Alaska’s timber industry sided with the state. It said the rule denied access to some of the more valuable timber stands in the Tongass.

Anchorage Police Department officers plan to take over patrolling the Seward Highway along Turnagain Arm on October 1, with help from a state grant.

The move comes after state budget cuts forced the Alaska State Troopers to close their Girdwood post in the area and scale back in the last year.

Featuring rocks on one side and water on the other, the patrol zone — from McHugh Creek to Ingram Creek — is a scenic stretch of highway and one of the most heavily trafficked and dangerous in Alaska.

“Clearly, that stretch of highway should have some law enforcement presence,” Anchorage Police Chief Justin Doll said.

Doll, a former traffic sergeant, said the police department has added officers to its ranks recently, enough so that he feels comfortable the highway patrols will not take away from officers’ ability to respond to calls in the city, which has seen an uptick in crime recently.

Officers will respond to specific calls in communities along the highway under an agreement with a newly created police service area. But Doll said Anchorage police vehicles will not be looking for traffic violations on the highway around the clock.

“It’s not going to be an every second of every day type of patrol,” Doll said. “It’s going to be something that we do when they have the staffing to do that and not impact service inside the city.”

While state budget cuts have left the gap for Anchorage police to fill, it is a state grant paying for the patrols. And the $200,000 grant is only set to last one year.

After that, the question of who provides traffic enforcement in the area will again be uncertain.

In October, the state department of education will honor the important work of teachers by selecting the next Teacher of the Year from four finalists. We’ve been bringing those teachers to the air this week. Today we’ll hear from the final candidate Eric Rush. He teaches 3rd grade at Ticasuk Brown elementary in North Pole and has been a teacher for nine years. He said he’s had many inspiring teachers in his life, but credits his wife, who is also a teacher, with encouraging him to become a teacher. Rush said even in 3rd grade, technology can be a challenging distraction, but also a terrific tool for creating interest and excitement for learning.

RUSH: If I have kids that are reluctant readers — that don’t want to read a book — I’ll say, “Hey. Have you ever seen an interactive book?” And they’ll be engaged in that. They’ll wanna know what’s an interactive book. And I can show them an interactive library on an iPad. I mean, it’s still reading, but it’s reading in a different way, and that kinda gets them really excited about reading.

TOWNSEND: How do you think classrooms today — the students that you’re teaching in your classroom — is different, both challenges and benefits, than when you were a student?

RUSH: The teacher was my main information, you know? If I wanted to know something new, the teacher was the main focus. If I didn’t listen to the teacher, I was missing out on a lot of information. Now the information’s all out there. Information’s at our fingertips. Now we’re no longer the focus of the information. We need to guide those children, the students, to find the information, find what’s fact, what’s fiction. All those things. And I feel teachers now, shouldn’t think that we’re the main speaker. The speaker should be the students. That’s how they’re learning. It’s a shift. The teacher’s no longer the main source of information. It’s kids learning how to use the information that’s already out there.

TOWNSEND: One of the things you said was, “I don’t teach to a class. I teach to the individual.” What did you mean by that?

RUSH: So, when I think of old teaching styles or old methods, I think the teacher up in the front of the blackboard or white board, and the crowd of students sitting and waiting for whatever the teacher’s saying. And the teacher’s teaching to the class. Well, some student might be putting his head down, might be paying attention to something else, but the teacher’s still going on with the lecture, or the presentation, or the lesson. I said that I teach to the individual. I make sure I make contact with those students. Each student, checking in with them and making sure they’re understanding the content that I just showed. So I usually do that with stations, so that if I introduce content to the whole class, then I break up my students to where I can met with them in small groups. Sometimes individually, so that’s what I meant about I teach to the individual instead of just the whole class.

TOWNSEND: When you think about the future of education and teaching, what do you think it will look like?

RUSH: It’s hard to say what it will be. What I hope it won’t be is where teachers are not in the classroom. What I would love to see is every school is incorporating devices but also having enough professional development and trainings in those areas. Certain devices or programs that will work for the child so that the child can progress at their own pace because not every kid is going to be third grade-ready at the beginning of the year for me. And I know that, and I wanna make sure that I have things available for that child to not feel like they’re going to keep being behind. I want them to feel like they’re getting success. The teachers that we have here, the three other teachers, I feel like it’s the momentum starting. Just to hear a lot of their ideas, just collaborating with other teachers, the movement has started but how much will it take to make it really change and adapt? I don’t know.

TOWNSEND: And when you say the movement, the movement toward what?

RUSH: The movement towards personalized learning where kdis are working at their own pace and they are feeling successful in schools. Where they’re not feling that they don’t want to go to school. They want to go to school. Have that excitement back. And I feel like that movement’s starting and I’m excited to see. What is it going to be like in 30 years, I don’t know. But I feel like because it’s moving it’s in the right direction.

On one of Ketchikan’s rare sunny days this summer, a group of local residents gathered on the downtown cruise ship dock to board the Holland America ship Zaandam. The group had a fancy lunch on board, and then took a tour of not-so-fancy areas that most people never see: wastewater treatment, emissions filtration and garbage sorting.

After lunch, the group of Ketchikan business owners, elected officials, media and municipal employees watched a short video in one of the ship’s theaters.

“Every week on average, a cruise ship carrying 1,700 guests will produce up to 60,000 gallons of sewage,” the video’s narrator said.

It explained how much waste the floating cities produce, and what they do to manage it.

“We have an environmental officer on each of our ships, who provides environmental training and overseas shipboard compliance with environmental laws, regulations, industry standards and company policies,” the video continued.

Adrian Daniels is the Zaandam’s environmental officer. After the video, he took the tour through a door where opulence ends, and utility begins. Gone was the lush carpet, replaced with a painted metal floor. He walked up to a door with a key-card lock.

“We just going to go to the engine control room,” Daniels said. “Without stating the obvious, please don’t touch anything.”

About 95 percent of the ship’s automated systems are controlled from here, with three people minimum on watch at all times. Alexies Varon is the senior watchkeeper and is in charge of the ship’s wastewater plant.

“All the black water and gray water that comes from the cabins – is pumped by the jet pumps,” Varon said.

Blackwater is anything flushed in a toilet. Graywater is pretty much everything else – whatever goes down a sink or shower drain, for example. Varon explained that the Zenon-brand wastewater system mixes those, and treats both the same.

The water is sent into a filtration system to separate solids. The liquid is sent into a bioreactor and membrane filtration system to further filter impurities. Then, there’s a final step.

“It goes also on your UV filter to kill all the germs in there,” Varon said. “And then… it goes overboard or (we) keep it in the ballast tank to pump it outside 12 miles.”

The Zaandam, with its advanced wastewater treatment system, is one of the ships the state allows to discharge continuously, including when it’s docked next to a community. A local resident asked Daniels what is discharged in port.

“We discharge permeate,” Daniels said.

And what’s permeate?

“It’s been through the reactor. It’s been sterilized. It’s like clear water,” Daniels said. “It’s tested twice a month by laboratory and we have a random unannounced sampling as well to check for the criteria within that permeate.”

Daniels said that testing looks at levels of bacteria and dissolved metals. He said they meet international, federal and state regulations for discharge. And, he said, the permeate meets standards for drinking water.

But is that enough?

“That may be the case for human drinking water standards. But they may be releasing concentrated levels of metals that are completely intolerable to baby salmon, for example,” Michelle Ridgway said. She’s a marine ecologist who grew up in Ketchikan and now lives in Juneau – two of the largest cruise ship towns along Alaska’s Inside Passage.

Ridgway also was a member of the state cruise ship science and technical panel. In that role, she examined state regulations governing cruise waste and emissions, and procedures ships use to manage it.

While the science panel as a whole signed off on the state’s cruise ship wastewater regulations as adequate for marine life, Ridgway is concerned about discharge near shore and in port, even when the water is clear.

“Water can be crystal clear and contain quite a number of chemicals,” Ridgway said. “Heavy metals, such as copper, has been one of the constituents of the wastewater that’s of particular concern for us in Alaska.”

The science panel’s report notes that the state’s criteria for copper if 3.1 parts per billion. Cruise ships like the Zaandam are subject to state testing in addition to other tests.

But, Ridgway said even a little bit of copper can harm a salmon’s sense of smell. And they use smell to find their way back to the correct stream for spawning.

“We certainly know how much we like our king salmon. I don’t know about some areas in Southeast, but in the north area, we have seen a major decline in king salmon recently,” Ridgway said.

Ridgway said other marine animals are affected by dissolved metals. Krill is one example, and that’s an important food source for many ocean creatures, including whales.

Ridgway also questions how effective the systems are at removing tiny particles such as viruses and pharmaceutical residue.

So, what should the ships do to reduce their impact? Ridgway suggests cutting back on the amount of water used, along with continuing to improve on-board treatment systems. That includes more controls on temperature and acidity of wastewater, to make sure ships aren’t adding to ocean acidification or warming waters.

Ridgway said she’s definitely not anti-cruise ship.

“I was raised in the maritime and fisheries culture of Alaska,” Ridgway said. “I love ships and shipping, and I’m thrilled that people get to come to Alaska to enjoy wild Alaska.”

But, Ridgway said the cruise industry needs to do everything it can to maintain the wild Alaska that its customers come to see.

The cruise lines, at least according to the video, seem to recognize that, as well.

“Keeping the ocean safe and clean is good for the environment,” the video started. “It’s good for global ecosystems. It’s good for plant life; it’s good for animals; it’s good for our guests; it’s good for our crews; and it’s good for business.”

A new documentary film looks at how climate change is affecting Arctic ecosystems.

Between Earth and Sky-Climate Change on the Last Frontier was created by scientists.

Executive producer David Weindorf is a dean at Texas Tech. He said bringing students to the edge of ANWR to examine arctic soils was life changing for them because the remote arctic places was no longer an abstract place on a map.

“They got to see how the pipeline and mining exploration are impacting the land surface in Alaska so I started bringing students up every year,” Weindorf said.

Weindorf said Arctic soils are rich and deep with organic material, something that isn’t seen in Texas. The students studied the differences between the stunted growth of black spruce on the northern side of the slope where permafrost is prevalent.

“Whereas on the south facing slopes you typically don’t have permafrost, there’s more solar radiation there, keeps things warmer so seeing that kind of dichotomy, going around the slope, one side to the other, you can see tremendous differences in the soil profiles in Alaska, it was just dramatic to see that,” Weindorf said.

Weindorf said the scientific changes he’s observed in the arctic over the last decade are striking and the interviews he conducted with Alaska Natives and other Alaskans back up what the science reveals.

“We felt like that was a really important piece of the film, to go to Kotzebue and Shishmaref and Nome and those areas that are really on the front lines of these changes, and hear from those people and how that science is impacting and their everyday lives,” Weindorf said.

Weindorf said he wants the film to be educational for people in the Lower 48, saying the film has no other agenda than scientists documenting the truth about a changing climate.

“To let them know, ‘Hey. You’ve never been to Alaska. You’ve never been to the Toolik research station, up on the North Slope. You haven’t seen the kind of things that we’ve seen. But we can tell you things are really accelerating as far as changes that are going on up there,'” Weindorf said. “These aren’t just abstract things that we might hear about in the news. This is impacting people’s lives.”

Between Earth and Sky-Climate Change on the Last Frontier will show on Sept. 29 at the Bear Tooth Theater in Anchorage and Sept. 30 in Palmer.

The first cohort of Alaska Salmon Fellows is wrapping up its pilot year with final projects.

The program brings together different innovators in the state, from policy makers to artists, and prompts them to start discussions about the salmon industry.

Local Salmon Fellow Anjuli Grantham organized one recent art event at the Baranov Museum as her final project.

The museum and its partners invited the public to see a slideshow of artists whose work reflects the relationship between Alaskans and salmon.

People gather on the museum grounds. A projector plays a slideshow on a screen outside. It’s perfect weather for an event like this – not raining hard, but just overcast enough to keep people in town instead of out camping or hiking.

A salmon Fellows organizer has made it in for the occasion.

Kitty Farnham is the director of leadership programs at the Alaska Humanities Forum, which organizes the program. She wore an Alaska Salmon Fellows jacket which featured an icon of colorful fish.

At the beginning of the event, Farnham explained all 16 Salmon Fellows are doing projects in their particular areas, like education, history or policy.

“Being the Humanities Forum, we’re really looking at it though the people lens, and all the data in the world is valuable, but without having the relationships between people in different sectors, there’s really no way to address solutions that don’t become embroiled in win-lose, and we’re looking for solutions that really work across our communities,” Farnham said.

After wandering in, some people stopped in the yard to chat and a couple play a game called corn hole, aiming bean bags at a hole in a board. The sacks thump against the wood.

This is the kind of gathering Salmon Projections aims for. Farnham said the project is meant to spark conversation.

“There’s some parallel projects around looking at management systems, relationships between organizations and the official regulating bodies, education,” Farnham said. “Really also trying to change the narrative from one of we can’t agree on, you know, a sense of zero sum game and allocations to what’s best for our communities and for our salmon.”

On the porch, attendees snack on sushi.

Just inside the building, seaweed salad and smoked salmon are available alongside tea bags and a samovar full of hot water. By the end of the night, the platter of salmon is empty.

That’s one thing most people who attend have in common. No matter what their relationship to the fishing industry, they usually eat fish.

And they tend to agree that the larger aim is to keep the fisheries healthy and strong.

Sports fisherman Brent Pristas said the state should focus on industry sustainability.

“I think we keep doing what we’ve been doing,” Pristas said. “As long as we value it and place a proper emphasis on the salmon over other kinds of development, I think it will continue.”

Ginny Austerman, a longtime Kodiak resident, said the local fishing industry needs community growth.

“Things like cold storage and more processing plants and jobs for local people are very important as well as making sure that there’s fish for next year,” Austerman said.

Rita Stevens agreed it’s important to build up local infrastructure.

“Like improve the dock situation for the boats and the storage of boats and the dry dock and having repair shops here instead of having to go down to Seattle [and] take the business away from Kodiak,” Stevens said.

The museum encourages more conversations like these by setting up pieces of paper covered with questions about fisheries and sustainability and asking people to scribble their responses.

The Salmon Fellows will convene again in a couple of weeks. Farnham said they’re recruiting now for the next round of fellows, and the application period opens at the beginning of the year.

Thursday saw a first-of-a-kind concert in Anchorage.

Japan’s Maritime Self-Defense Force (the country’s Navy) is in Anchorage for four days as part of a training mission. Two ships are anchored in the city’s port. The crew of about 600 has been at sea since April, visiting different countries to promote goodwill. Part of that mission involved a very prestigious concert inside a school gym.

Hundreds of students at Central Middle School near downtown Anchorage filled up the bleachers early Thursday afternoon. They were there for a concert, but several looked perplexed: in front of the band’s normal chairs, microphones, and music stands were stout wooden drums propped on small stands.

They were taiko drums, a traditional Japanese percussive instrument.

After a brief introduction, the crashing sound of the drums filled the gym, making every surface vibrate. Drummers slammed sticks thicker than broom handles in perfect coordination, circling their arms overhead, and lunging their fists forward every few measures, like martial arts set to a beat.

“It’s energetic, almost like artistic sport in a way,” Erika Ninoyu, director of bands at Central, explained.

Ninoyu, who grew up in Anchorage, is second-generation Japanese, and president of the Japan Alaska Association. That put her in a perfect position when she heard that for the first time in seven years the Japanese Navy would be stopping in Anchorage.

“I just asked, ‘would they be interested in performing for my school,’ and they said yes!” Ninoyu explained.

Part of the reason for Ninoyu’s excitement was that the performers in the Maritime Self-Defense Force are the best of the best. The visiting crew has been traveling all over the Pacific, from Pearl Harbor in Hawaii to as far south as Chile, along with stops in the Atlantic in Havana, Cuba and the U.S. Part of the mission is to get 200 newly commissioned officers better acquainted with seamanship. But another reason is cultural ambassadorship. These musicians are the A-Team. And Ninoyu was thrilled that they had been willing to play, flanked by basketball hoops, for her students.

“It’s rare. I don’t know when they’re ever going to hear a professional performance of this caliber,” Ninoyu said.

The students seemed enthused, too. After the first song, they erupted with applause so loud it almost rivaled the drums.

The band was bigger than the taiko drummers. There was a brass section, woodwinds, a keyboard, electric bass, as well as a jazzy saxophone.

According to Ninoyu, the hour-long concert is the first time the Japanese Navy has ever played inside an Anchorage school. And she believes that’s significant.

“I do a lot of work outside the school, and also promote to my students, that all of us need to be bridge builders,” Ninoyu explained. “Especially someone who speaks two languages or is bicultural. In a sense, I think it’s our duty to share and empathize and learn from each other.”

None of the members of the squadron visiting Central Middle School were cleared to talk on record with members of the media. Their time in Alaska included a short stop in Homer earlier in the week, and they are set to attend a ceremony at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson.

After departing Alaska, the sailors’ next stop is Vladivostok, Russia.

Two things that Petersburg has a lot of are fish and wood. And one thing the local rocky terrain is short on is dirt. But given the right circumstances you can get dirt out of fish and wood. A new business venture by the local tribe, Petersburg Indian Association, has begun to provide the town with locally-made, environmentally friendly compost.

Listen now

Walking on the road into the landfill, you pass by piles of automobiles and rubber tires, and eventually come to three large, white portable buildings. This is where the local tribe makes compost. In one of the tents is a large stainless steel machine that’s cylinder in shape sitting on top of a trailer. (It’s called a Nioex Biovator) The tribe paid $15,000 for it and had it shipped in this fall from Manitoba, Canada.

Brandon Thynes is the Tribal Resource Director.

“We have a load in it right now and it’s been cooking since last Friday,” Thynes said. “You just kind of layer it like lasagna with wood chips and fish waste and wood chips to cover it so it doesn’t smell.”

Thynes and his assistant, Clifton Gudgel opened up the lid and he was right; it didn’t smell. It just looks like dark brown wood chips.

“The temperature should get up to 160, 140 [degrees]. It’s pretty crazy to open up your pile and steams just rolling out of it,” Thynes said. “It’s pretty amazing.”

Before working for PIA, Thynes used to be a commercial fisherman. He knew there was a lot of fish waste. It gets ground up and dumped into the water in front of town by local processing plants. Now, Thynes gets some of that leftover fish for free. The tribe uses up to 500 pounds a week for composting.

“It’s a great year round business for the tribe, helping the environment by not pumping that fish waste into our Narrows,” Thynes said.

If there’s a shortage of fish, Thynes said they could always use kelp.

The wood they get from scraps around town that would otherwise get burned at the landfill. It’s usually alder because it grows fast and people often want to cut it back. PIA puts it through a wood chipper and its ready for composting. But they won’t just use any scraps. They have to know where it’s from and that it hasn’t come in contact with pesticides or other chemicals.

“It’s not labeled organic but it is organic because we don’t add anything to it,” Thynes said.

The composting machine is on a timer so it rotates every two hours. It takes about two weeks for the fish and wood to become dirt and then it needs to sit and cure for a month before it can be used.

After a batch is done, they’ll filter out any leftover pieces of wood to go into the next batch.

“It’s actually like a little starter, kind of like sour dough where the microbes are on these pieces already,” Thynes said. “So, it spreads throughout the compost a lot faster.”

PIA has been making compost for years. In the past, the tribe used an older model composting machine that kept breaking down. Then workers made compost by hand by what’s called static aerated piles. Wood chips and fish were layered in a heap on the ground, which would get aerated and turned occasionally. But the process was lengthy. And when Thynes started working for the tribe a year and a half ago, he wanted to expand. He says they were missing opportunities.

“Juneau wanted quite a bunch, like 50 cubic yards and we just couldn’t, I couldn’t make enough to get what they wanted,” Thynes said. “So, it was stuff like that, opportunities to make it a business, and hire some more tribe members so they can have a [full-time], year round job that pays well.”

Gudgel, Thynes’ assistant, said he likes having a job where he can work outside.

“Getting out there and getting the materials and throwing it all together,” Gudgel said, “and just doing something different rather than standing behind a desk or stocking things on shelves.”

Thynes keeps a detailed notebook of batch results, what goes in when and at what temperature. On average, this machine can produce about 40 pounds of compost a day.

PIA plans to sell it in 40 pound bags within a few months. It will cost about the same price as imported compost sells for at the store. But Thynes says this stuff will be pure, local product.

“You know the big companies that do it, they don’t care what they throw in there, they just throw it in, ‘Throw it in–it’s a nitrogen, throw it in–it’s a carbon,’ and people are just getting a mixed bag of who knows what’s in it but with us, you’ll know what’s in it,” he said.

And when it’s done?

“It kind of looks just like dirt,” Thynes said, laughing.

It’s like a fluffy, “mulchy” dirt.

PIA’s composting project is funded by IGAP, the Indian Environmental General Assistance Program.

The next statewide election is more than a year away, but electoral politics may already be affecting the chances for lawmakers to agree on a lasting solution to the state’s dire financial situation.

Listen now

Candidates have been announcing plans for governor, lieutenant governor and the Legislature since July.

And they’re taking positions that could make a budget deal more difficult.

Almost two-thirds of legislators have already indicated they’ll run in next year’s election, by registering or filing a letter of intent with either the Alaska Public Offices Commission or Division of Elections, through Thursday, Sept. 28.

Anchorage Republican Sen. Kevin Meyer is one of three lawmakers who’ve filed for statewide office. He wants to be lieutenant governor.

Rep. Mike Chenault and Sen. Mike Dunleavy have filed for governor, although Dunleavy suspended his campaign.

Meyer said Gov. Bill Walker’s call for a special session on Oct. 23 has led candidates to file early.

“I’m going to blame the governor on that, because when we’re in session — whether it’s special session or regular session — we can’t raise money,” Meyer said. “We are forced to get an earlier start, like now, to make our announcement, do our paperwork, and start doing the fundraising. … We are in the campaign mode, whether you’re running for a House seat, or a Senate seat, or statewide office. That will have an impact on the success of this special session.”

Walker has called for the Legislature to consider a 1.5 percent tax on wages and self employment income. It would raise $320 million, roughly one in eight dollars needed to close a $2.4 billion gap between what the state spends each year and what it raises in revenue.

Walker spokeswoman Grace Jang said the special session was needed.

The independent governor also has put a bill related to criminal sentencing on the session agenda.

“Gov. Walker called the special session to fix the economy and address public safety, because neither of those things can wait,” Jang said.

Meyer said Walker’s tax proposal is similar to an income tax the Senate has already voted against. He noted the Senate majority caucus is asking Walker to make more cuts to spending before asking for new revenue.

It’s been nearly two years since Walker proposed a plan to balance the budget. If lawmakers can’t reach a compromise before the election, it could take at least another year and a half to settle on a plan.

Anchorage Democratic Rep. Les Gara said a delay will hurt the economy.

“I’m always hopeful for compromise,” Gara said. “Politics right now, with a growing recession, losing 14,000 jobs in the last two years, you’re always in danger that politicians will sell fake sound bites and destroy the economy and get elected.”

Gara said the Senate majority plan to cut the size of government further will lower employment.

“You’re killing jobs by sound-biting your way into a bigger recession,” Gara said.

It’s not just sitting lawmakers who are dissecting potential plans to balance the budget.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Scott Hawkins said he supports parts of a plan to draw money from permanent fund earnings to pay for government. But he opposes the size of the cut the Legislature made to permanent fund dividends.

“I supported certain elements of it,” Hawkins said. “The fatal mistake it made was arbitrarily setting the value of the dividend. And setting it at a lower level than it really needs to be.”

The lack of agreement on a long-term plan disturbs Gunnar Knapp, a retired professor at the University of Alaska Anchorage.

“It’s frustrating to see us go year after year after and not be able to come to a resolution about our fiscal situation, and now to hear that, well, we’ve got an election coming up, and so expect another year to go by without anything real happening,” Knapp said.

Knapp said the uncertainty is hurting the economy.

“Who’s going to move to Alaska to take a job here and start a new career if they don’t know what kind of public services we’re going to have, what kind of taxes there are going to be, what kind of future we are looking at,” Knapp said.

The October special session will be the ninth of Walker’s three years in office.