The State and the National Park Service are teaming up to improve safety on the Parks Highway near the entrance to Denali. Alaska Department of Transportation project engineering manager Carl Heim said the area around milepost 231 where the highway crosses a bridge over the Nenana River, is a popular place with park visitors walking to trails on the other side.
”There’s a large amount of pedestrians that walk up on the road onto the bridge,” Heim said.
Heim said the state plans to rebuild the bridge with an attached sidewalk.
”We’re basically building one bridge and we’re just gonna separate the traffic from the pedestrians,” Heim said.
Another part of the project will use a different means to separate people crossing the highway from vehicle traffic.
“We’re gonna put a tunnel under the road,” Heim said.
The National Park Service is proposing to build new visitor amenities along the same stretch of the Parks Highway. Denali National Park outdoor recreation planner Molly McKinley says the plan calls for a highway wayside on two-and-a-half acres of park land.
”That would have parking as well as trailheads and restroom facilities,” McKinley said. “And then there would be connector trails that leave the wayside and tie into existing area trails.”
The $2-million-wayside will be paid for by the Park Service. The state’s road, bridge and tunnel work are estimated to cost $26 million. An environmental assessment for the combined project is available for review and public comment. The DOT’s Heim anticipates construction will occur in either 2019 or 2020.
The village of Kivalina is one of several Alaska locales threatened by eroding coastlines and rising sea levels. Photo: Joaqlin Estus KNBA
When asked about climate change, the nominees for senior posts at the departments of Interior and Energy have very similar answers – the climate is changing, and humans play a role. But how big a role, they can’t say.
“Mr. Walker, do you believe that human activity accounts for the majority of climate change since the Industrial Revolution?” Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., asked Bruce Walker at his confirmation hearing last month.
“I think there is a contribution from man. I couldn’t quantify exactly what that is,” Walker, now an assistant secretary of Energy, said.
And here’s Douglas Domenech, a new assistant secretary at Interior: “I do agree that the climate is changing and man has a role in that.”
Their written responses were even more uniform.
Susan Combs, an Interior Department nominee: “I believe that the climate is changing and that man has an influence.”
Brenda Burman, another Interior nominee: “I believe that climate change is not a hoax and that man has an influence.”
Joe Balash, an Alaskan nominee for Interior: “I believe climate change is not a hoax and that man has an influence.”
Paul Dabbar, the nominee for undersecretary of science at Energy: “I believe the climate is changing and we have some impact on it. If confirmed, I look forward to getting a better understanding of these dynamics.”
Over and over, the nominees acknowledge humans have “an influence or “some impact” on climate. But they won’t go as far as American science organizations which have for years said human activity is the “primary driver.”
White House Homeland Security Advisor Tom Bossert said the administration is committed to dealing with the impact of climate change – just not the causes.
“I will tell you that we continue to take seriously the climate change, not the cause of it, but the things we observe,” Bossert told reporters last month.
David Hayes was Deputy Interior Secretary in the Obama and Clinton administrations. He said the uniform responses of Trump’s nominees suggest senior staff will not be free to make decisions based on climate science or help communities.
“That signals to me that they’re not going to have the discretion, the wherewithal, the air cover, to bring the resources to the table to help those Alaskans that are rightly very concerned about what’s happening to their coastline, to their fire risk, to their wildlife et cetera,” Hayes said. “And that’s that’s just not right. ”
President Obama made climate change a major emphasis of his second term. For evidence, he repeatedly pointed to coastal erosion in Alaska villages. But the boost in high-level attention on rural Alaska was not paired with a lot of funding to meet the need. And now the White House attention is gone, too. President Trump has called climate change a hoax and has announced he will pull the US out of the Paris climate agreement. He shows no sign of making climate change a priority.
“Let’s be clear about a couple of things: the public doesn’t care that much about global warming,” Frank Maisano said. He’s a communications specialist at the Washington policy shop of the law firm Bracewell, where his clients include energy companies. He used to work as a press secretary for GOP members of Congress and says when Republican politicians and nominees say “man has some impact” on climate, they may mean a range of things and they have different levels of knowledge. (He also said nominees have assistants to help keep their written answers in line with the administration, which explains the uniformity.) Maisano said many Lower 48 Republicans just don’t have much experience talking about climate change.
“Because this isn’t that big of a priority issue for them,” Maisano said. “And they see it as not that big of a priority issue because the politics surrounding it hasn’t been a priority issue for their supporters.”
Maisano said Alaska leaders seeking government help for the effects of climate change should make their most compelling case, but he points out Republicans and Democrats like infrastructure projects.
“I think certainly the climate change case is going to be less … well received in this administration, because this administration is different than the previous administration in terms of where they stand on it,” Maisano said. “And no one should be surprised by that.”
One outlier among the Trump nominees is David Bernhardt. He has the No. 2 spot at Interior, deputy secretary. At his confirmation hearing, he agreed with the statement that most of the increase in global average temperatures since the middle of last century is very likely man-made.
“And I personally believe the contribution is significant,” Bernhardt said. “Very significant.” But he said his personal view won’t carry the day in the department.
“We’re absolutely going to follow the policy perspective of the president,” Berhardt continued. “And here’s why: That’s the way our republic works and he is the president.”
Whatever the rhetoric, there hasn’t been a complete about-face on the ground. State of Alaska employee Sally Russell Cox works on village relocation. She said so far, the same federal agencies are still cooperating with her.
“I don’t want to jinx any of it, because maybe it hasn’t come to somebody’s attention. I don’t know,” Cox said.
That could change. The Trump administration is not fully staffed yet. At Interior, only three presidential appointees had been sworn in by early October, out of 17 positions requiring Senate confirmation.
The Housing First Project under construction on November 17, 2016. (Photo by David Purdy/KTOO)
Some solutions for Alaska’s housing shortage are exciting and innovative small-scale projects, like student-built housing in the village of Nikolai. Others are steadfast, long-term solutions that lay the groundwork for housing development statewide.
Brian Wilson is the Executive Director of Alaska Coalition on Housing and Homelessness and knows about some of those long-term ideas. Full disclosure – Brian is married to another reporter you hear on Alaska Public Media, Elizabeth Jenkins from Alaska’s Energy Desk.
Anne Hillman: Brian, communities around the state talk about housing and homelessness. Is that actually a problem?
Brian Wilson: Yes, it’s a big problem in the state. You know, in the last two years we’ve really made a lot of improvements in our data reporting system that tracks homelessness across the state, and we’ve mapped out where our resources are. We’ve really seen that there’s been a rise in chronic homelessness in our state — so people who are consistently homeless and are trying to find a solution to that through a Housing First or a permanent supportive housing intervention.
But we’ve also seen that those interventions just don’t exist, especially in the balance of state [which is everywhere outside of Anchorage.] The resources that we do have are in our urban hubs – Fairbanks, Juneau, and Anchorage for the post part. But for many areas, if someone is presenting as homeless, their closest intervention could be a thousand miles away.
AHFC’s new affordable housing development in Russian Jack, Susitna Square. (Hillman/Alaska Public Media)
Anne: Other states have come up with different ways to address that. How do we develop the specific solutions? Is there a policy to look at?
Brian: The first thing that we’re trying to advocate for is to get this conversation happening on a consistent basis at the legislative level. We’re one of the few states that doesn’t have a legislative committee assigned to housing and homelessness issues. And so what we’re really trying to push right now is to get that conversation happening consistently at the statewide level.
In addition, we really want to have communities have this conversation at the local level. Every community by state statute is required to have a comprehensive plan in place. And those things typically cover land use, transportation, community facilities. The reason why they include those similarities is because that’s what’s required of them in their planning process by the statute. What we’re advocating for is to amend that statute to include housing and homelessness issues in there as this is a problem that every community is facing.
Anne: So we have the conversation on the state and local levels, we figure out our needs. Then, how do we pay for it?
Brian: As it stands right now, there are a lot of different agencies that address homelessness in some way through existing grant streams. But the problem is that those different grant streams are not really connected in an easy way for folks to access and leverage those funds together to put up new programs.
And so what we’re calling for is called a funder’s collaborative. This is a best practice from many different states, where all the different agencies identify that the lack of supportive housing in our state is a problem and it’s a priority area. And we’re going to look at this from an interagency perspective where we work together to ensure that the funds that we do have, that we manage right now to address this issue, are as accessible as possible to communities that may have a very limited knowledge of how to access those funds.
Anne: Will collaborating and coordinating funding streams be enough to solve Alaska’s housing problems, or do we need another source of money?
Brian: We don’t have this pot of gold that we’re sitting on and not disbursing out. A lot of these existing grant streams are just keeping existing programs afloat. And there’s a lack of new programmatic money out there.
What we’re trying to do — the long-range plan is how do we create a fund where we can have money for new programs out there.
Alaska is one of only three states in the entire country that does not have a statewide housing trust fund or a statewide fund that is earmarked to address housing and homelessness issues on an annual basis. That’s something we need to start thinking about, even in these tough financial times, we need to start planning for how to solve this problem. Because if we don’t start investing in housing, we’re just going to continue to see more of the same, or even worse, the problem elevate to a larger level.
During its Tuesday night meeting, the Anchorage Assembly debated dueling measures concerning Senate Bill 91, the omnibus crime overhaul signed into law last summer. One of the non-binding resolutions asked lawmakers for specific improvements to rules that are on the books or set to go into effect soon.
The other resolution told lawmakers to scrap SB91 and start over from scratch, incorporating only a handful of tougher penalties for serious crimes laid out in the original bill. That effort was lead by conservative Assembly member Amy Demboski of Eagle River, who said SB91 is fundamentally flawed.
“Essentially what we’re doing is taking a pile of mud and trying to turn it into an apple pie,” Demboski said of the reform effort under discussion. “I’m not going to pretend all these little amendments are going to fix SB91. It’s not.”
The effort failed three to eight. Instead, the Assembly incorporated several amendments into a measure that is intended to instruct state lawmakers on local issues arising from parts of SB91—not all of which have gone fully into effect.
Liberal-leaning Assembly vice-chair Forrest Dunbar thinks the move encourages state lawmakers to continue down the same path they have already started on when they take up Senate Bill 54, the legislative vehicle for further changes to state criminal law.
“I think this is a strong resolution, a strong message to the Legislature, that we want you to take this step, pass SB54, and then let’s talk about other issues as well,” Dunbar said. “Let’s talk about staffing, let’s talk about treatment, let’s talk about the bail schedule.”
The measure urging specific reforms passed the Assembly 10 to one.
Local airlines are no longer flying into Tununak’s small airport. (Courtesy of Andrea Pokrzywinski)
About a year ago, Tununak opened a $19 million, state-of-the-art airport. But now, local airlines are refusing to fly there. The village’s shifting permafrost is buckling the runway, and both Ravn Alaska and Grant Aviation say that it’s too dangerous for pilots to land on it safely.
According to Gordon Tester, Tununak’s school principal, the airport has been effectively shut down since last Thursday. Community members weren’t really told what was happening.
“We were calling the airlines [and] asking when the next plane was coming in,” Tester said. “And they just said they’re not landing until further notice. Well, then you have to ask, ‘well what is further notice?'”
It was only then, said Tester, that Tununak residents discovered that Ravn and Grant had stopped flying to their village altogether.
Like most Alaskan communities off the road system, Tununak relies on air travel for many goods and services.
“It’s impacted the community because the shelves on the store are pretty much empty,” Tester said. “We haven’t received mail in over a week or so.”
According to Tribal Administrator James James, several elderly residents are concerned about receiving their medications, some of which need to be refilled by mail.
For now, community members are driving across the tundra on four wheelers to pick up their groceries and mail in Toksook Bay. Tester drove himself there the other day to pick up vegetables and an order of plastic lunch trays for the school.
People have been joking about their bumpy flights in and out of Tununak for a while now, and Tribal Administrator James James said that he notified the Department of Transportation about the faulty runway earlier this year. The lower third of it is riddled with potholes, and now it’s starting to sink.
According to Department of Transportation spokesperson Shannon McCarthy, the melting permafrost may be buckling under the airport’s weight.
“We do expect some of that settling whenever we’re building on tundra or ice-rich soils,” McCarthy said. “We did expect some, but we didn’t expect this level of settling.”
Tununak’s old airport didn’t have these sorts of problems, but McCarthy said that it still needed to be replaced. The old runway was built near the coast, and winter weather conditions made it difficult for planes to land there.
As far as the new airport is concerned, McCarthy said that the Department of Transportation is sending one of its expert grader operators to Tununak with construction workers to assess the situation, but that their flights have been delayed by the autumn storms. Because their assessment has been delayed, McCarthy said that the Department of Transportation does not have a timetable yet for when Tununak’s runway will be fixed.
A 3-D rendering of Hilcorp’s proposed Liberty project as represented in the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s draft environmental impact statement. (Image elizabeth
Regulators are taking input on what could be the nation’s first oil production platform in federal Arctic waters.
The oil and gas company Hilcorp wants to build a gravel island in shallow waters in the Beaufort Sea, east of Prudhoe Bay. The Liberty project would be similar to several gravel islands built to produce oil in nearby state waters.
The federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, or BOEM, held its last hearing in Anchorage, on Tuesday, asking the public to weigh in as it prepares its environmental impact statement.
Many of the speakers were from industry or trade groups, who all argued in favor of the project.
“The Liberty Project represents a positive step towards perpetuation of the oil and gas industry in Alaska by curtailing oil production decline at this crucial time in Alaska’s history,” Bob Stinson said. He’s with Price Gregory, a company constructs pipelines.
Most of the speakers echoed Stinson, saying the Liberty project would give a much-needed boost to the trans-Alaska pipeline. The pipeline is now running at about 500,000 barrels per day. Hilcorp plans to produce up to 70,000 barrels per day from Liberty.
There were a few dissenters. Protesters with the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group, briefly held up a banner in the hallway reading, “NO ARCTIC DRILLING.” During the hearing, the Center’s Blake Kopcho argued Hilcorp’s record in Alaska should disqualify it from a project in the Arctic Ocean.
“Hilcorp has a documented history of accidents and safety violations, which heighten the numerous inherent risks with offshore drilling in the Arctic,” Kopcho said.
Hilcorp was responsible for a months-long natural gas leak in Cook Inlet this spring.
The company did get a vote of confidence from a top state regulator. Andy Mack, who leads the state Department of Natural Resources, delivered the final public remarks.
“There’s no doubt — there’s no doubt at all — that the economic benefits are substantial,” Mack said. “It’s one of the projects in Alaska that’s been studied very, very extensively and I think that it’s a good project.”
The public comment period for the Liberty Project ends November 18.
Mary Worm of Kongiganak laughs while telling a story during KYUK’s “Waves of Wisdom” series, featuring interviews with YK Delta elders. This video and others are now available online through the American Archive of Public Broadcasting. (KYUK image)
Remember KYUK’s old TV shows from decades past? “Waves of Wisdom” with Yup’ik elders, “Tales of the Tundra” ghost stories with John Active, or “Ask An Alaskan,” KYUK’s game show? Selections of these programs and more are now available online. KYUK has begun adding its self-proclaimed “world’s largest collection of Yup’ik and Cup’ik videos” to the internet. The collection captures glimpses of nearly half a century of life on the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, and for the first time it’s available to anyone searching the web.
In one video, an elder, Neva Rivers of Hooper Bay, is sitting on a floor strewn with dry brown sea grass. She’s using the grass to sew together stripes of dried, translucent seal gut. She tells the camera in Yup’ik that she takes care of everything that she’s going to use, from the seal to the blades of grass.
John Active has worked for KYUK for 40 years and helped film many of these videos. Watching the screen he said, “When they started talking, we tried to keep quiet so they wouldn’t lose their train of thought. Because they were becoming a lost art. They’re a lost art now. I don’t know of any elders right now who sew seal intestine rain coats.”
Another video opens on a laughing elder in her 80s, wearing large glasses and a red sweater. Mary Worm, from Kongiganak, shared her stories as part of KYUK’s “Waves of Wisdom” series.
In Yup’ik she says, “You know how they tell us when we’re young that you’re going to get married and then the child says, ‘I’m not going to get married.’ That’s what I thought.” Then she talks about her husband. The video tells a story about how elders’ advice to the young is valuable, but often unheard.
John Active remembers holding this interview with Mary Worm at her home.
“I walked into her house, knocked on the door, no answer,” Active said. “So I opened it and heard music in the background. There she was, sitting in front of the TV set watching Jaws. And she pointed at the screen to Jaws and said, ‘That fish in there is very wise. It knows how to catch people and sink boats.’ So I had to watch it with her before we did the interview.”
That’s one of many videos that feature John Active. Another is a New Years segment from the 1980s.
In the video, a young John Active, sporting a full head of black hair, sits at a desk strewn with papers. Looking at the camera, he says, “Burning illegal firewood brings excitement and intrigue during otherwise cold and dreary winters like we have here.”
Active goes on to instruct people downriver on how to steal trees from upriver.
“Because those upriver Eskimos didn’t want us downriver Eskimos to go up and cut their wood,” Active explained, watching the video.
The young Active continues, “The best time to gather these clandestine logs is at night, when most everyone is at bingo, church, watching R-rated programs on cable or satellite TV.”
The video is from “Frost Bits”, small segments used to fill out the half-hour newscast. TV was still new for many people at the time, and the news team used the often irreverent “Frost Bits” to hook viewers.
But money is not the only problem; memory is another.
KYUK needs help. Over the decades, labels were lost and we don’t know who the people are in many of the online videos, or where they were filmed. Many were elders who have passed.
One example is a video of a man talking about moose hunting near Kwethluk. He explains how he would store his dried foods in the bluffs where he’d sleep during the August hunt. Unidentified wooden tools lie in front of him. If KYUK knew his name, then his grandchildren could search his name and hear his story, as could schools, villages and others searching for traditional knowledge.
To help identify people featured in the videos, email KYUK’s Multimedia Director Katie Basile at katie@kyuk.org.
In this 2011 photo, an exploration camp sits on top of the Pebble deposit, one of the largest undeveloped copper, gold and molybdenum deposits in the world. (Photo courtesy U.S. EPA)
The proposed Pebble Mine is gaining momentum again, based on a settlement with the Trump Administration.
Last week, developers released a new vision for the project in southwest Alaska. Now that the federal government has removed a major roadblock, Alaskans can expect a lot more action at the state level.
When Pebble CEO Tom Collier took the podium at an industry gathering in Anchorage earlier this month, he recalled a speech he gave to the same crowd during the Obama years.
“I gave a detailed presentation on how we were going to win this battle with EPA — how we were going to get them off our backs and be able to go into permitting,” Collier said. “And as I looked around I saw a lot of very skeptical faces at the time.”
Fast forward to this year, and Collier’s prediction has come true.
In 2014, the Obama administration effectively halted the project after hearing concerns that the mine could harm the Bristol Bay salmon fishery. The Environmental Protection Agency took the unusual step of proposing steep restrictions before the normal permitting process could begin. Pebble argues this amounted to blocking the project.
But after a meeting with Pebble’s Collier this spring, new EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt announced a settlement allowing Pebble to move forward with permitting.
Collier — who claims he can build the mine without hurting the fishery — aims to start that process in December.
In an interview after his speech, Collier said all Pebble needs is a chance — if the project is allowed to go through the normal process, he believes the mine will be approved.
“You know when you’ve invested $750 million getting ready to go into permitting, it ought to go pretty smoothly,” Collier said.
That smooth permitting process is exactly what Pebble’s opponents are worried about.
“I thought the fight was over when EPA proposed its determination, and I thought that it would be finalized during the Obama administration,” Lindsey Bloom said. Bloom used to fish for salmon in Bristol Bay, and has opposed the mine for years as part of advocacy groups SalmonState and Commercial Fishermen For Bristol Bay.
Now that the federal government is back to following the process Pebble demanded, the mine’s opponents are increasingly turning their attention to the state.
They worry that Alaska’s existing laws might not be tough enough to protect Bristol Bay’s salmon.
“What we’ve seen is a permitting process that at every turn is geared and interpreted to get to the ‘yes,’ and to get to the permit,” Bloom said.
So Pebble opponents are trying to change state laws. This week, a judge upheld a ballot initiative that, if approved by voters, would significantly beef up protections for Alaska’s salmon streams. The measure’s backers say it’s not intended to block projects, but an attorney for the state said building the Pebble Mine would be impossible if the measure becomes law.
Opponents are also lobbying Gov. Bill Walker — and he’s listening to their arguments.
“I am not supportive of the Pebble mine,” Walker said in an interview in early October, the day before Pebble rolled out new details on the proposed mine.
“When it comes to two resources, renewable and non-renewable, I always go for the renewable and that certainly is the fish,” Walker continued. “So I’m a fish-first person, and I have been historically and I stand there today.”
Walker didn’t propose any specific steps he’d take to halt the mine, but multiple state agencies will be involved in approving the project.
Unlike many of the Pebble’s opponents, the governor expressed confidence in the state’s existing laws.
“I don’t know that there’s a lever for me to pull that’s going to absolutely stop it. I think there are a lot of protections that are already in place,” Walker said.
As the groups fighting the mine ramp up pressure on the state, Pebble isn’t sitting idly by. It plans to challenge at least one current state law that could spell trouble for the project. In 2014, voters approved a ballot initiative requiring the Alaska legislature to approve a large-scale gold and copper mine in the Bristol Bay region. Last week, Collier announced plans to sue, claiming the statute is unconstitutional.
Alaskans can expect a lot more of that back-and-forth as the state takes on a bigger role in deciding the future of the proposed mine.
EPA is accepting public comments on withdrawing its restrictions on the Pebble project through October 17.
Pebble says it might use a ferry to haul ore across Iliamna Lake, rather than construct roads from the mine to a new port in Cook Inlet. (Image: Pebble Partnership)
Opponents of the proposed Pebble Mine in Southwest Alaska are getting a boost from Democrats in Congress.
42 members of the U.S. House and Senate wrote President Trump Wednesday and asked him to overrule EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt. This spring, Pruitt announced plans to get rid of special Clean Water Act protections his predecessor proposed to protect the Bristol Bay watershed.
The lawmakers, led by Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and Rep. Jared Huffman, D-Calif., say a mine would threaten Bristol Bay’s world-class fishery and thousands of American jobs that rely on it.
Pebble Limited Partnership has argued the EPA’s use of the 404(c) provision in the Clean Water Act wrongly blocked the mine before the developers even had a chance to apply for a permit. The partnership recently announced a scaled-back mining plan, far smaller than the massive open-pit operation the owners previously outlined in a financial disclosure.
The letter comes a day after CNN aired an 8-minute story about the issue.
The CNN report focuses on the EPA administrator’s quick decision to remove the Obama administration’s protection for Bristol Bay.
“The meeting at EPA headquarters was brief and to the point,” the CNN story begins. “By the time it ended a mining company hoping to dig for gold and copper got just what it wanted.”
CNN said the reversal came before the scientists and professional staff of EPA had a chance to brief Pruitt, and directly after he met with Pebble CEO Tom Collier.
Collier told CNN the administrator’s decision was a matter of due process, not science.
“I don’t have a ‘friend’ at EPA,” Collier insisted in a CNN interview. “What I’ve got is someone who is following the damn law.”
The EPA’s comment period for the proposed withdrawal of Clean Water Act restrictions ends Oct. 17. In their letter, the Democratic lawmakers ask for a 90-day extension.
A U.S. House panel took up a bill Wednesday that would, among other things, block new environmental and safety standards the Obama administration imposed on Arctic offshore drilling.
The Obama administration argued that environmental concerns and difficult operating conditions required tougher standards in the Arctic than in other parts of the country.
At the House hearing today, Alaska Congressman Don Young asked a witness from the American Petroleum Institute to expand on why he says the Arctic rules put the nation at a disadvantage.
Erik Milito with the American Petroleum Institute told Young the Obama administration’s rule was too rigid.
“So there’s some question as to whether or not those additive Alaska Arctic rules were actually providing any additional benefit,” Milito said.
“He basically … took us out of the playground, with those added requirements,” Young said. “That’s what he did.”
The bill would also rescind President Obama’s decision putting most of the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas off-limits to drilling. And it calls for a study of the inefficiencies of the two agencies that regulate ocean drilling.
Democrats on the panel argued again several provisions in the bill
“Are we going back to a time when everything is about revenue collection?” Rep. Alan Lowenthal, D-Calif, asked. “What impacts could this have on safety?”
The bill includes revenue-sharing for Alaska and other states where off-shore drilling would occur. This was the first hearing for the bill, which still must go before the full House Natural Resources Committee.
2018 Alaska Teacher of the Year Ben Walker hugs his two children as ASD superintendent Deena Paramo speaks to an assembly held in Walker’s honor. (Photo by Wesley Early, Alaska Public Media – Anchorage)
Today, 41-year-old Anchorage teacher Ben Walker was selected as the 2018 Alaska Teacher of the Year. Walker is a 7th grade science teacher at Romig Middle School and was granted the honor at a surprise assembly in the school gymnasium.
Walker was one of four teachers from across the state who were finalists for the award. He was just back from breakfast with Bob Williams, the Director of Educator and School Excellence with the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development, when he found out.
“I was fairly surprised. I mean, nobody gave me any hints,” Walker said. “Bob told me that it wouldn’t be a bad idea to wear a suit today. But that’s all he said.”
Staff and students were waiting in the gym to celebrate Walker’s accomplishment. So was a lot of his immediate and extended family. Deena Paramo, the superintendent of the Anchorage School District, made the announcement.
“Alaska has over 8,000 teachers and only one was the teacher of the year, and that is your teacher from Romig,” Paramo announced to cheers from the students.
Walker was nominated by his colleagues and community. Romig Middle School principal Carrie Sumner said Walker deserved the award for inspiring his students with hands-on learning and experience. She also praised his character.
Ben Walker’s son holds up his plaque for being 2018 Alaska Teacher of the Year. (Photo by Wesley Early, Alaska Public Media – Anchorage)
“He takes the time to get to know you as people. He actually cares about what’s going on with you,” Sumner said at the assembly. “And he makes those connections. And he does that… (as) part of his nature. It’s not like he’s faking it ’til he makes it. That’s who he is as a person, making those connections with all of us.”
Walker grew up in Ketchikan and graduated from Whitman College in Wallawalla, Washington. He got his Master’s degree in teaching from the University of Alaska Anchorage. Walker has taught science at Romig for 12 years in the same classroom and said he doesn’t plan on moving from it.
His wife teaches science as did his mom — in the same classroom where Walker teaches now. Walker said he learned a lot about his mom from teaching at Romig.
“You know, I think as adults we realize the things that our parents do when we were younger that we had no clue on, which is for my mother, a fantastic teaching career,” Walker said. “So I think being here… and a lot of the people that she knew as teachers, some of the younger ones, were still around when I started teaching so I met them and they always had fabulous things to say say it’s kinda nice to learn that about your parents.”
Ben Walker in his science class following the assembly. (Photo by Wesley Early, Alaska Public Media – Anchorage)
After all of the hoopla of the ceremony, Walker went right back to that classroom to teach. This week, they’re learning about taxonomy and animals. Walker said he never tires of teaching science.
“I feel it’s the most fun subject but that’s just me,” Walker said. “It’s all about the same. It’s fun to do physics because we get to smash things. But it’s fun to do anything, like we just did with microorganisms with kids not even knowing they existed really, or what they looked like. And being able to have them discover that.”
And Walker’s students certainly appreciate his passion.
“He’s awesome. He’s the best science teacher ever. Yeah he really is,” his students said of him.
“I will tell you, they will tell you I’m the best 7th grade science teacher they’ve ever had,” Walker said, jokingly. They agreed.
Walker is now Alaska’s nominee for the 2018 National Teacher of the Year which will be decided next spring.
A young Pacific Walrus bull in coastal Alaska waters. (Photo by Joel Garlich-Miller/USFWS)
An environmental group announced on Thursday that it plans to sue the Trump administration for refusing to list the Pacific walrus under the Endangered Species Act.
The Center for Biological Diversity first petitioned the feds to list the walrus in 2008 — the same year the polar bear was listed as threatened. The Center argues the same forces that threaten polar bears — including climate change and disappearing sea ice — also put the Pacific walrus at risk of extinction.
Retreating Arctic sea ice has caused more female walrus to crowd onto beaches in coastal Alaska and Russia. The crowding can turn deadly when stampedes occur.
But the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service said the animal has “demonstrated an ability to adapt to changing conditions.” The agency declined to grant the walrus more protections because it said the population “appears stable.”
The Center for Biological Diversity asserts there’s evidence from government scientists to refute that claim. The organization can sue the Trump administration after 60 days — if nothing changes with the listing decision.
Transportation Security Officer Renier Cava preps passengers’ carry-on belongings for X-ray screening at Juneau International Airport on Wednesday, Oct. 11, 2017. (Photo by Lorie Dankers/TSA)
Airport security screening rules for carry-on bags are changing again.
Soon, any electronics larger than a cell phone must be put in bins with nothing on top or beneath for X-ray screening. That’s already the status quo for laptops.
The Transportation Security Administration said the change will raise baseline aviation security. It will be implemented at airports in Juneau, Sitka, Ketchikan, Wrangell, Cordova and Yakutat over the next five weeks.
The roll out is nationwide, but gradual as training is completed in different places.
TSA spokeswoman Lorie Dankers acknowledges there will be inconsistencies – even within Alaska between Anchorage and Southeast airports – during the transition. The TSA held a demonstration Wednesday in Juneau.
The TSA, specifically addressing Southeast travelers, says to arrive 90 minutes early for flights.
Anuska Wysoki from Koliganek told EPA its withdrawal of proposed Clean Water Act restrictions “is a threat to me and my people and our very existence as a people of this land.” (Photo by KDLG)
The Environmental Protection Agency is backing away from the use of preemptive Clean Water Act restrictions against large-scale mining in the Bristol Bay watershed. That comes as part of a settlement with the Pebble Limited Partnership, and the company now said it is preparing to file for permits.
EPA is taking public comment on its proposed withdrawl, and is holding two meetings in Bristol Bay to hear from residents directly.
The EPA staff ran into the palpable disappointment of well over a hundred residents Wednesday afternoon.
(KDLG has since learned that local police and state troopers were contacted by EPA criminal investigators asking about the “mood” in town and whether security was necessary to protect the bureaucrats.)
Dozens testified over three and a half hours, most speaking from the heart about their love for the region and their existential fear of a large mine.
Bristol Bay’s largest hub sits downstream of and more than a hundred miles as the crow flies from one of the largest copper and gold deposits in North America.
It is home to some of Pebble’s most ardent opponents.
All who spoke Wednesday, including Peter Christopher from New Stuyahok, called for their one-time ally EPA to reverse its current course.
“I would appreciate if you guys would pass that on to Scott Pruitt, to consider not withdrawing from the Clean Water Act,” Christopher said.
The EPA staff on hand spoke at length about the Trump administration’s approach.
Palmer Hough, from EPA’s Wetlands Division, reminded the audience that the agency had never finalized the pre-emptive restrictions, and is in no way limited from still blocking mining with Section 404(c) of the Clean Water Act.
But if that authority is used, it will now likely happen within the normal permitting process, after an Environmental Impact Statement has been completed.
Dan Dunaway from Dillingham told the EPA he’s not sure the Obama administration was following a just course, but he doesn’t necessarily like the alternative either.
“I get a sense that the process for mining permits, there’s not really a clear avenue to get to a ‘no mine’ versus ‘a mine’. I think the process for mining permits in that sense is somewhat flawed and stacked against those of us who do not want to see a mine,” Dunaway said.
The Pebble deposit is located on state lands set aside for mineral development.
Sensing the state was not up to the task of protecting the ecosystem and downstream fishery, Bristol Bay tribes asked for federal intervention back in 2010.
That triggered the EPA’s Bristol Bay Watershed Assessment, which led to the proposed mining restrictions.
This was an outcome Katherine Carscallen, a commercial fisherman from Dillingham, wants to see upheld.
“Our state permitting process is not equipped to consider the long term impact of Pebble’s ‘phase one’ plan, which is what I consider it, but the domino effect of the mining district this would bring,” Carscallen said. “That’s why 404(c) allows for proactive decision, and there’s no better place to apply this than Bristol Bay.”
Alaska state House Speaker Bryce Edgmon, who hails from Dillingham and represents the region, blasted the EPA for backing down, and also agreed Alaska doesn’t do enough to protect its salmon habitat.
“That’s been the history of our state that all major development projects get the benefit of the doubt. That’s just been a fact of life in Alaska,” Edgmon said. “It’s time to change that now. EPA can play a large role in that. Please don’t defy the wishes of the people of the region, the people of the great state of Alaska, and our country as whole.”
Most of those who lined up to speak to EPA Wednesday have done so many times over the past seven years.
The opposition that focused on the federal side felt they had won the battle under President Barack Obama, but the rug was pulled out from under them after the 2016 election.
Robin Samuelson from Dillingham told EPA again, and probably not for the last time, that the world’s greatest sockeye salmon fishery and its intact ecosystem deserve unique protection.
“My people here rely on this resource and be damned if we’re going to see that mine happen,” Samuelson thundered, before wrapping up with a catchy new zinger. “You guys better stay the ‘Environmental Protection Agency’ and not ‘empty promises to America.’”
The EPA planned to be in Iliamna for a second listening session Thursday. The public comment period closes Oct. 17.
This is NOT a photo of the cat reportedly seen in Ketchikan. This is a mountain lion in the Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming. (National Park Service public domain image)
Mountain lions in Ketchikan? There were a couple of reported sightings recently. But, local Alaska Department of Fish and Game officials say they’d like more evidence.
Ketchikan resident Shauna Lee lives near the bottom of the Schoenbar Bypass in the Newtown area. She said she was standing at her kitchen window when she saw something moving outside.
“Which is not irregular for this area, we have a lot of deer that cross the street. But when I looked at it, my brain tried to register, ‘Oh, it must be a dog.’ But as I looked at it, I realized no, it’s a cat because the shoulder blades were rotating really prominently,” Lee said. “And then I looked at the back and the tail went all the way down to the street and it had a dark end to the tail. And I thought, ‘Oh my gosh! That is a mountain lion.’”
Lee said she tried to get a photograph of the animal, but it leapt over a cement wall and then a fence separating the road from the woodsy hillside. She said the cat was about half as tall as that cement wall.
“So it was about the size of a Labrador retriever,” Lee said.
Lee said she called Fish and Game to report the sighting, and was told that there had been another report of a big cat, maybe a mountain lion, from someone in the nearby Bear Valley area.
Boyd Porter is a Fish and Game wildlife biologist. He said there were two reports of possible mountain lion sightings. But he’s not convinced that it wasn’t just a particularly large domestic cat
Porter said there have been previous sightings of mountain lions, also called cougars, in the region.
“There’s been one confirmed sighting around the Margaret Creek area on Revilla Island, so it’s not out of the question,” Porter said. “There’s also been other sightings over the years in the early ‘90s out on the Cleveland Peninsula – Myers Chuck.”
For the most part, though, Porter said this area doesn’t offer the right kind of habitat for cougars. He’s never seen one in this area, and never seen signs of one anywhere near town.
Shauna Lee said it could have been a really large domestic cat, like a Norwegian mountain cat. But she did a little research, and what she saw was pretty similar to online photographs of mountain lions.
Porter said fully grown mountain lions are bigger than most dogs, even large dogs. They weigh up to 150 pounds, and their tails are about as long as their bodies.
Porter said anyone who believes they’ve seen a cougar in the Ketchikan area should try to get a photograph, and send it his way.
There’s renewed optimism about finding a deposit of natural gas in the Nenana Basin that can be developed. Doyon, an Interior regional Alaska Native Corporation, has explored the area for 10 years without commercially producing gas, but their president and CEO said new data is yielding promising results.
The Fairbanks North Star Borough’s Interior Gas Utility has a big decision to make. The voter former IGU is considering taking control of the state backed Interior Energy Project. Its aimed at increasing the supply of natural gas in the Fairbanks area, and the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority has shepherded the effort to a point where it’s ready for transfer to the local non-profit utility. The IGU is weighing risks and benefits as it looks at taking on the project.
Originally envisioned to provide a low cost natural gas as an alternative to wood and oil, the Interior Energy Project is falling a little short. That was the message from Interior Gas Utility general manager Jomo Stewart at a recent Fairbanks Economic Development Corporation hosted meeting.
”This project is simply not going to look, at least not coming out of the chute, the way we wanted it to look,” Stewart said.
The primary issue is the projected price of natural gas to customers along a limited distribution network in the core areas of Fairbanks and North Pole. The project targeted a price equivalent to heating oil, or $15 dollars thousand cubic feet, but Stewart shared a current projection of $20.20.
Stewart said there’s potential for the price to drop if more than expected property owners convert their heating systems to burn natural gas. The price could also go down if the project secures a better Cook Inlet gas supply deal, after the current contract expires in three years.
”We have that back-end option, or opportunity, to try to find that more favorably priced gas,” Stewart said.
The price tag for the Interior Energy Project is $346 million. That includes Cook Inlet gas processing, Fairbanks area LNG storage and distribution facilities, as well as the gas transportation and distribution systems owned by Fairbanks Natural Gas, a private company purchased by the state’s Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority to forward the project. Stewart said Fairbanks Natural Gas checks out financially.
“The corporation, its personnel, its assets and operating systems, is solvent and sound, and adequate to provide a foundation for utility system growth and expansion,” Stewart said.
The cost of FNG is 60 million dollars, a price critics contend is as too high, but under the deal with state, the non-profit IGU would benefit from very favorable financing, including bonding and super low interest loans.
”So no interest payments, no principle payments, no interest accruing for the first 15 years,” Stewart said. “With a 35-year payback period thereafter, .25% interest. As I’ve described it, it’s the sweetest student loan you ever heard of.”
Stewart also describes the terms as necessary to finance a high risk project, hinged on hope that people will convert to natural gas. That was a slam dunk proposition ten years ago when oil prices were high and the project was first envisioned, but less so now, leaving the possibility of fewer than expected customers. Stewart said even in the worst case, the project should remain viable.
”To continue to operate, to provide service and even meet its debt service,” Stewart said.
The Interior Energy Project goal has always been providing lower cost, cleaner energy to as many people as possible. That’s key to reducing pollution from wood heating. Local air quality advocate Patrice Lee, who attended the FEDCO meeting, said the current Interior Energy Project plan is a tough call given local air quality and economic constraints, and citizens should not feel pressured to accept it as is.
”The original goals of the Interior Energy Project, I think, are still good goals,” Lee said. “They can be met. We just need to think outside the box perhaps and use our resources very wisely.”
Lee will have some say in what happens in the future, as a newly elected member of the IGU board. FEDCO CEO Jim Dodson, stresses that even though the Interior Energy Project has fallen short of initial targets, it has potential, noting the possibility of federal subsidies to help customers convert to gas, but only if the community commits to the project.
”That will allow people to step forward and say ‘Let’s find ways to make this work,'” Dodson said. “It is up to us to make this happen if we want to.”
Draft contracts to take over the Interior Energy project from the state are being reviewed by the IGU board. The utility’s Stewart emphasizes that the public will have opportunities to learn about, and comment on any deal this fall, before the board votes.
Major General Laurie Hummel with the DMVA and the Alaska National Guard stands beside Verdie Bowen during a public presentation at the VFW in Nome. (Photo by Davis Hovey, KNOM )
Major General Laurie Hummel, the Adjutant General of the Alaska National Guard and Commissioner of the Department of Military and Veterans Affairs, is touring through Western Alaska this week, along with her military entourage from Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson.
The team has many goals for their visit, some of which include bolstering National Guard forces in rural Alaska as well as seeking out veterans. Colonel John James, the Commander of the Alaska State Defense Force, or ASDF, said:
“One of the things that we wanted to accomplish while we were here is talking to elders, community leadership, about starting and establishing an Alaska State Defense Force attachment here at the armory in Nome.”
Colonel James said emergency preparedness and response is a major component of ASDF:
“It is the mission of Alaska State Defense Force to augment, to enable, to be a force multiplier for the Alaska National Guard during emergencies, and we are also building a domain awareness capability and capacity,” James said. “We want to do that throughout the entire state of Alaska. So we are looking specifically for veterans or retirees in the community. We greatly appreciate folks who are trained, and we also appreciate the contributions of non-priors, so we’ll train those folks up.”
In addition to recruiting more National Guard members, the purpose of Hummel and her team’s visit to Nome, Brevig Mission, and Teller, is to survey inactive National Guard facilities.
According to the Major General, there used to be 86 armories in operation throughout Alaska, but that number has dropped.
“As of today, we have 17 active armory facilities around the state,” Hummel said. “And so the facilities at Brevig Mission and Teller are two of the facilities that have been earmarked for repurposing. Repurposing someday for the use by communities, or other state agencies — really whoever has the ability to maintain them and wants to use them.”
The operations and training officer for the Alaska Army National Guard, Colonel Lee Knowles, spent years of his life serving and living in Nome. He recalls that not only were there more active facilities in Western Alaska but more active servicemen and women too:
“There used to be a substantial footprint of soldiers here in the Norton Sound region in past years. Unfortunately, because of changing global security environment and requirements for national security, the size of the army, that force structure kind of shrank and went away. And one of the reasons why we’re out here right now, is to try to reinvigorate that to the extent that resources will allow us to do so.”
Verdie Bowen, the Director of Veteran’s Affairs, concurs with Colonel Knowles and also pointed out that the Alaska Territorial Guard (ATG) originated in the Norton Sound region.
Bowen is traveling with the entourage to reach out to some of the 1,600 ATG veterans that have not yet been given their honorable discharges.
“It’s quite an arduous task, because number one: there’s a lot of family members that aren’t there. Number two: some of the villages are gone,” Bowen said. “And the last part is, that when they disbanded them — actually here is where they did the disbandment, here in Nome — the issue that we ran into was there really wasn’t a very good record of who they were, and so it took us several years to get that master list certified and accredited through the United States Army so they would go ahead and issue those discharges.”
According to Bowen, once his office has finished contacting all ATG veterans on the master list, there will most likely be a couple thousand names who were not included on the list, but his team won’t give up until 6,400 members are properly discharged.
Bowen, Major General Hummel, and the Colonels, along with the accompanying service men and women, plan on visiting elders and school children during their stop in Brevig Mission and Teller today.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski at the Capital in July, 2017 (Photo by Liz Ruskin).
On Thursday, Alaska Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski sent a letter with her Democratic colleague Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts to the president regarding the nation-wide opioid epidemic.
The four-page document frames the health crisis as a bipartisan issue, and lays blame for a lackluster policy response squarely in one place.
Murkowski and Warren are critical of President Donald Trump’s response to the opioid crisis, specifically what they believe is a lack of action from the administration after promising to tackle the issue.
The senators point to a statement the president made in August at his Bedminster, NJ golf club.
“The opioid crisis is an emergency, and I’m saying officially right now it is an emergency, it’s a national emergency,” Trump said August 10th in a response to a question from a reporter. “We’re going to spend a lot of time, a lot of effort and a lot of money on the opioid crisis.”
“But do you need emergency powers to address it?” the reporter followed up.
“We’re going to draw it up and we’re going to make it a national emergency,” Trump replied. “It is a serious problem, the likes of which we have never had.”
The designation of a “national emergency” is significant because it unlocks funding and can potentially waive federal rules that would make access to treatment more widely available.
Just two days earlier, on August 8th, former Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price stopped short of pushing for an official declaration, saying the federal government could bring the necessary resources to bear on the problem without the designation.
In their letter to Trump, Warren and Murkowski wrote, “We are extremely concerned that 63 days after your statement you have yet to take the necessary steps to declare a national emergency on opioids, nor have you made any proposals to significantly increase funding to combat the epidemic.”
Alaska and Massachusetts are two of the six states that have declared health emergencies related to opioids and heroin.
In the months since Governor Bill Walker declared a public health emergency, first-responders, volunteers and law enforcement officials have been able to get thousands of doses of the overdose-reversing medication nalaxone. The move also allowed state officials to pursue federal grants and new treatment programs aimed at curbing addiction, and it spurred the Legislature to pass bills that reduce access to prescription pain medications.
The senators point to guidance issued by the Trump administration’s Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis, which recommended the federal government follow steps taken by states like Alaska and Massachusetts.
Both Warren and Murkowski sit on the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions committee. They’ve been signatories together on similar bipartisan efforts under the current administration, like a March letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions asking for clarity on federal marijuana enforcement.
A spokesman for Senator Dan Sullivan said he didn’t sign the letter because had not had time to thoroughly review it in advance.
Division of Institutions Director Bruce Busby and Deputy Director Caitlin Price no longer work for the Department of Corrections, according to department spokeswoman Megan Edge.
Edge wouldn’t provide any information about how their employment ended.
“The Department of Corrections can’t provide any information on personnel matters,” Edge said. “It’s all confidential.”
Edge said the department is looking to fill the positions. Deputy Commissioner Clare Sullivan will be overseeing the division until then.
“She is the deputy commissioner of institutions,” Edge said. “She will be handling all matters related to the institutions.”
Busby is the former superintendent of Lemon Creek Correctional Center in Juneau.
