the Coast Guard Cutter Healy breaks ice in the Nome Harbor Jan. 13, 2012. (Photo: U.S. Coast Guard)
The U.S. Coast Guard is soliciting feedback on their six new polar icebreakers, which are expected to train in Arctic waters as soon as 2023.
Commander Kenneth Boda works in the USCG office of cutter forces and is the sponsors’ rep for the heavy polar icebreaker acquisition program. He says the plan is to make at least three of the vessels heavy icebreakers, equipped to travel through the Arctic and Antarctic. That means they have to be Polar Code compliant.
“They are going to be the latest technology, current ice-breaking technology, which is really neat, because they are replacing the Polar class vessels, which were built in the mid ‘70s,” Boda said. “We have three key performance parameters for these vessels. We need them to break six feet of ice at three knots, and we want them to break 21 feet of ridged ice. The second is an endurance requirement. We need it to operate between 80 and 90 days without refueling. And the third is interoperability.”
Currently, most of the Coast Guard’s icebreaker fleet has exceeded its shelf life. The USCG Cutter Healy, a medium icebreaker, is the only one who hasn’t yet reached 20 years of service.
“She was built for a 30-year service life, commissioned and delivered to us in the year 2000,” Boda said. “So, we are looking ahead at doing a mid-life on Healy in the upcoming years to try to extend her life out further.”
The Healy is the main Coast Guard vessel that has spent time in Nome’s port and would likely be the icebreaker to respond to emergencies in the Arctic presently, like oil spills. Commander Boda has previous experience with the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and says having a larger Coast Guard presence during those incidents is key.
“If you’re looking at a campaign-type response, a response that lasts more than a week, having a mobile platform like this is the way to go,” Boda said. “So, you could see if you had an oil spill that lasted, God forbid, over a month, you would need to be able to get ships up there, you would need to be able to do command and control, have a vessel that can talk to the other ships that are out there, that can direct cleanup operations; those things are important.”
The other benefits the Coast Guard lists from having six new polar icebreakers includes year-round search and rescue capabilities in Alaska, increased data gathering and collaboration with researchers in the Arctic, as well as enforcing marine laws related to fishing.
When it comes to how these polar icebreakers will affect fish and marine life, that is not yet entirely clear, but the Coast Guard says there won’t be significant impacts to biological resources.
“One of the big things that we did for propulsion is we are requiring industry to provide us with two, at least two, podded propulsors,” Boda said. “These podded propulsors actually make the ship extremely maneuverable, and obviously, as these ships get built, we want to get as much feedback as we can from the villages up here, from the communities, and make sure that we are getting you guys something that you need and something that adds value to Alaska.”
Commander Boda and USCG hosted public scoping meetings in Kotzebue and Nome last week. They plan to visit Utqiagvik and Anchorage this month, as well. Public comments on the draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for these polar icebreakers are being accepted through June 29th.
Paul Schaughency (L) and Martin Aure (R) spoke at the 75th commemoration of the bombing and evacuation of Dutch Harbor. (Berett Wilber/KUCB)
This week, we’re sharing stories from the Battle of Attu and the greater Aleutian campaign of World War II.
The conflict ended in the 1940s, but its legacy is still very much alive — both for the veterans who served and the Unangan people who were forced to leave during the fighting.
Even now, many vets have never spoken to an evacuee, and vice versa.
To commemorate what happened 75 years ago, KUCB invited people on both sides to sit down and reflect together.
Today, we hear from Martin Aure and U.S. Army veteran Paul Schaughency. Aure was sent to Seattle after the bombing of Dutch Harbor, and Schaughency spent parts of WWII on Adak.
Note to listeners and readers: A person in this story uses an offensive word for Japanese people.
AURE: I was four and a half when they bombed Dutch Harbor. We were here when they bombed it.
SCHAUGHENCY: Wow. You remember that?
AURE: I remember it. And I remember planes going over, the place is rocking, and guns are going off. My brother ran outside — the older brother — and came back in and told mom. “Mommy, I can see an airplane go over. I could see the man in it.”
SCHAUGHENCY: Could he tell it was Japanese?
AURE: He said it was a Jap. My mother was notified to get one suitcase packed and she had 25 to 35 minutes to be on-board the ship that was in the harbor. The ship turned out to be a troop transport, the President Fillmore. We got on board her, and we ended up in Seattle. We were the lucky ones.
SCHAUGHENCY: Yeah, I’ve heard since I’ve been here … This 75th commemoration event is for the veterans and the evacuees. You were technically an evacuee, but you went to Seattle.
AURE: Yeah, they sent us to Seattle. The troop transport — that’s where she was going, so that’s where she took us. Luckily, we had relatives in Kent, Washington, which is just south of Seattle a bit. So we went to Kent for a year or so.
SCHAUGHENCY: You really hit it kind of lucky …
AURE: Very lucky. Eventually, my father who was still up here — he got a hold of one of my uncles down there. An old Norwegian. Told him to find a house for us. So my uncle found us a house by Green Lake in Seattle, and my father paid him back for it when he finally came down.
SCHAUGHENCY: I got in the Army late, and I got up in January of 1944 to Adak. My wife — she’s an Aleutian veteran. I lost nothing by signing on for a year. The regulations said you can’t take your dependants with you unless you have a year of service or more. Well, bingo! I signed. I got a year, so I could get my dependent. So my wife of seven days —the rest was an absentee two years — I got her up and we lived in a Quonset hut on Adak. It was prepared for dependents. It had a kitchen, a bathroom, and two bedrooms.
AURE: That was a big Quonset hut.
SCHAUGHENCY: Yeah, it was a regular one. They were nice and tight and insulated and so forth. We had a year here. People say, “Seventy-three years! What do you credit for the longevity of your marriage?” I’ve been thinking about it. That year [on Adak] was the first year. She couldn’t pick up the phone and say, “Mother, do you know what he said to me today?” We had to work it out, and we did.
AURE: I fished out of Adak.
SCHAUGHENCY: You did?
AURE: Yeah, king crab. Out of Adak.
SCHAUGHENCY: That reminds me of a story. We had these guys go out — not only hunting crab at the right time, but geese. They’d shoot the geese, and we’d have something nice to eat. Different than Army food.
Well, we hadn’t had any Alaskan department inspections. Then we did have it. The guys had been out hunting geese, and we had Captain Buck Slaughter from Virgina.
AURE: Is that a real name now? [laughs]
SCHAUGHENCY: Yeah.
AURE: Kind of like Daniel Boone. [laughs]
SCHAUGHENCY: No, no. It’s Buck Slaughter. And so the inspector goes to the mess hall and opens up the refrigerator, and there are these geese all hanging there. He says, “Captain, don’t you know it’s against the regulations of the Alaskan department to be hunting out here?” Well, Buck Slaughter — fast thinking — says, “Well, sir colonel, we’ve got these williwaws out here. These geese were flying by and that williwaw hit them and bashed them up against the mess hall, and my good mess sergeant grabbed them, had some of his men dress them, and put them in the refrigerator.”
That colonel shook his head, slowly closed the door, and I’m sure he said that anyone who comes up with a story that fast deserves not to be gigged for it. That was the last time we heard about the geese in the refrigerator.
AURE: Those were imperial geese. They come from Japan, so you were shooting Japanese geese. [laughs]
SCHAUGHENCY: Oh, good for us! [laughs]
AURE: I’ve shot a bunch of them and took them home. We dressed them, put them in the blast freezer, and took them home. And I couldn’t give them away. They were so dry. Had a fishy taste.
We’ve got some very common interests, you know. Now that we’re talking about the war and so on. I’ve had a lot of things in life that I really treasure, you might say, and I’m sure you have too, Paul. This is one of them here — right now, talking with you.
This story was produced by Laura Kraegel and Zoe Sobel with KUCB.
Railroad spokesman Tim Sullivan says that’s because the Susitna River ice jam flooding left behind a mess.
“A six- to eight-foot-high wall of ice over the course of well over 1,000 feet, maybe close to half a mile of ice that we need to get cleared out of there,” Sullivan said. “And in some places it has pushed the track off the track as far as 25 feet, so our crews are working to get the ice out of there and get the track back on the track bed.”
Sullivan says the impacted track is in the Curry area, about 22 miles north of Talkeetna. He says the railroad’s final winter season trains were halted by the flooding Saturday, and buses were used to move the passengers. He says the goal is to complete cleanup and repairs in time for Wednesday’s scheduled start of the railroad’s daily summer passenger service between Anchorage, Denali and Fairbanks.
”This window is something we’re gonna try to take as much advantage of as we possibly can,” Sullivan said. “And get those tracks cleared up and everything back into good shape so we can have our service going on Wednesday.”
Sullivan says some cargo scheduled for transport has been shifted to truck.
Alaska spent millions. So why is this historic building still a wreck?
Casey Grove, Alaska Public Media – Anchorage
The Jesse Lee Home is a nearly century-old former children’s home and the birthplace of the Alaska state flag. The nonprofit Friends of the Jesse Lee Home had millions in grants and more than a decade to fix it up, but they now say time is running out. The problem, according to state officials, is that the group mismanaged state funds. Now the Jesse Lee Home is closer than ever to being demolished.
Anchorage emergency rooms can’t handle number of patients needing psychiatric care
Lori Townsend, Alaska Public Media – Anchorage
Emergency rooms in Anchorage hospitals cannot keep up with the numbers of patients needing psychiatric care. It’s a problem that’s pushing people experiencing acute mental crises into more traditional ER’s, overburdening staff, delaying care to other patients, and straining an already thin system.
Anchorage organization to buy LIO building for $14M
Zachariah Hughes, Alaska Public Media – Anchorage
The Anchorage Community Development Authority is moving to buy the building at 716 W. 4th Avenue for potential commercial clients.
Railroad traffic still stalled as Talkeetna flooding recedes
Dan Bross, KUAC – Fairbanks
Flooding that halted Alaska Railroad trains north of Talkeetna Saturday, has receded, but train traffic remains shut down.
Juneau’s child care providers concerned by proposed licensing changes
Adelyn Baxter, KTOO – Juneau
Proposed regulations may make it harder for child care facilities statewide to do business. In Juneau, some daycare directors say the new rules would reduce capacity and worsen the shortage of affordable child care.
Paul Schaughency And Martin Aure reflect on evacuating Attu
Zoe Sobel and Laura Kraegel, KUCB – Unalaska
Today, we hear from Martin Aure and U.S. Army veteran Paul Schaughency. Aure was sent to Seattle after the bombing of Dutch Harbor, and Schaughency spent parts of WWII on Adak.
The Jesse Lee Home is a nearly century-old former children’s home and the birthplace of the Alaska state flag. The nonprofit Friends of the Jesse Lee Home had millions in grants and more than a decade to fix it up, but they now say time is running out.
The problem, according to state officials, is that the group mismanaged state funds. Now the Jesse Lee Home is closer than ever to being demolished and lost forever.
The Friends of the Jesse Lee Home still hold onto their hopes of restoring the property to something at least close to its former glory, with plans to transform it into a state-owned magnet school.
The Jesse Lee Home’s cathedral is still intact but has some graffiti on its walls. (Casey Grove/Alaska Public Media photo)
The enormous building is abandoned, guarded by a chain-link fence, and some say it looks like a big haunted house. It sits on a hill above Seward, covered in weathered beige stucco. There are no window panes, nor a fully functional roof.
But Dorene Lorenz, who chairs the Friends of the Jesse Lee Home, says it’s still worth saving.
“It’s a stout sturdy building, and it really is a testament to the engineering, the quality of the materials and the quality of the guys who built it,” Lorenz said during a tour on a recent rainy day.
The Jesse Lee Home was a refuge and school for hundreds of children from 1926 to 1964. Most were Alaska Native kids displaced from tuberculosis- and flu-ravaged villages. Famously, a 13-year-old Alutiiq boy named Benny Benson won a statewide contest to design Alaska’s flag while living at the home. This became the first place ever to fly it.
That’s just one part of the rich history that the Friends of the Jesse Lee Home want to preserve. And past Legislatures have agreed. Lawmakers have appropriated roughly $7 million in grants to restore the building and plan a new school.
There’s been an architectural study, curriculum development and some structural reinforcement work. But after all that, there’s still rainwater pouring into parts of the building and smashed asbestos tiles strewn around.
“It’s so complicated,” Lorenz said. “And it’s frustrating as all get-out, because if it was up to me, this building would be done by now.”
The project does seem complicated. The nonprofit needed to develop school curriculum to know how certain rooms would be used before remodeling them, Lorenz said. She also blames Alaska’s economic downturn, lean state budgets in recent years and unfair scrutiny from Governor Bill Walker’s administration.
Dorene Lorenz chairs the Friends of the Jesse Lee Home board. (Casey Grove/Alaska Public Media)
“Unfortunately, since the Walker administration we haven’t been able to access funds,” Lorenz said. “We used to go every spring and batten it back down. We did that for several years and did a really good job of keeping the building dry. But we haven’t been able to do it for years.”
That part about not being able to “access funds” is something Lorenz has said in two recent TV news stories and several times on her group’s Facebook page, imploring supporters to call or write their legislators.
Lorenz left out a key detail, though.
“Well the grants are actually terminated,” Fred Parady said. Parady is deputy commissioner of the Department of Commerce, Community and Economic Development, which had been overseeing the grants.
Parady said the grants were terminated “for cause.”
“We just had a series of reporting issues and accountability issues back and forth between us and the Friends of Jesse Lee Home, disallowed or questionable costs that were identified, and it became clear that the process wasn’t working and we needed to terminate the grants, so we did,” Parady said.
The termination letter from July of 2015 says, “it has become painfully apparent this project will not be successful.” It points to nearly $700,000 in improperly documented spending and lists expenses on travel and a film festival, as well as alcohol, an office remodel and stereo equipment sent to a home address. There was even a tub of bikini wax.
Lorenz has explanations for some of the spending and she said an audit later found some of the expenses to be justified. For example, the wax was needed to develop a possible lesson on how not to remove hair from animal fur. She also said their former executive director once ordered a margarita that went onto a reimbursement receipt for a meal by accident. That was paid back, Lorenz said.
But in about 15 minutes of back-and-forth about the state’s broader claims — that the grants were terminated for a variety of reasons, including a general lack of controls on spending — Lorenz did not have a clear answer.
“I can’t give you an explanation for this because no explanation was given to me on why before, for years, everything was fine, and then all of a sudden it’s not fine, and not only is it not fine today but it’s not fine in the past either,” Lorenz said.
Parady admitted the scope of the grant agreements allowed for more than just construction costs, and, to be clear, he doesn’t think anybody stole money. But Parady said the Friends of the Jesse Lee Home might have gotten off track with developing school curriculum that distracted them from the more immediate needs of the deteriorating building.
A contractor installed bracing in this room at the Jesse Lee Home to prevent it from caving in on itself. (Casey Grove/Alaska Public Media photo)
Ultimately, the questions about how money was being spent were grave enough that the state felt it had to act. Parady said this is rare: The department has hundreds of grantees across the state.
“There’s only a handful that are really trouble, and this is one of them,” Parady said. “Reports were late, they were incomplete, they were internally contradictory, they were duplicative. It took us quite a while to sort it out.”
Meanwhile, the building itself is now at risk, and that’s related to the broken asbestos tiles, as well as asbestos-wrapped pipes and lead paint. Removing those hazardous materials is among several things the nonprofit promised to have done by the summer of 2019.
If they do not complete that checklist, a contract with the the city of Seward expires and the city will take ownership of the Jesse Lee Home. City officials have said they might have to tear it down.
Seward Mayor David Squires said the city simply doesn’t have the resources to deal with it. The city manager has suggested that the city would have no choice but to demolish the building.
“They would have a choice,” Squires said. “(Seward) could raise taxes up to save it.”
But is that really likely to happen?
“No. I don’t think anybody in the community would vote to raise their taxes to save the Jesse Lee Home,” Squires said. “I could be wrong, but I don’t see that happening.”
The city has no official position on what should happen to the building, Squires said. After all, they don’t own it. Not yet anyway.
But Seward also recently got the Legislature to take the remaining $1 million from the nonprofit’s locked-up grant money and set it aside for the city instead.
That’s because the city does not want to get stuck with the cleanup costs, Squires said.
“The city of Seward does not have the funds to mitigate the hazards that are up there that’ve been identified in the contract. So we need funds from someplace,” Squires said.
The Friends of the Jesse Lee Home had their own request in to the Legislature, to unlock the money and transfer oversight of the grant to the state’s Historic Preservation Office. That failed, though, when lawmakers passed the state capital budget, going with the city of Seward’s request instead.
Lorenz, with the Friends of the Jesse Lee Home, worries this has doomed the restoration project. If the building is lost, a physical piece of Alaska’s short history and a reminder of how the state cared for hundreds of children in need goes with it, she said.
The group still hopes to be able to raise further funding to complete the project.
The glassy, modern building at 716 West 4th avenue was rebuilt at the request of state lawmakers to upgrade the Anchorage Legislative Information Office. But the deal came under criticism, leading to a lawsuit, and legislators ultimately abandoning the site in favor of an office suite above a midtown bank.
Now, the Anchorage Community Development Authority is seeking to buy the building.
“Legally it’s not a done deal,” Melinda Gant said. Gant is a spokeswoman for ACDA, which manages revenues from parking facilities and redevelopment projects for the municipality. According to Gant, ACDA has kept an eye on the vacant property since legislators walked away from it in 2016.
“We see this as prime real-estate. So we jumped on it,” Gant said. “We want to see it as earning some revenue for ACDA with a tenant that we’re going to bring in (at) market rate.”
It’s not clear yet who that tenant might be. The building has a unique open design combined with offices that were built specially to accommodate the needs of the legislature and local constituents. No one is presently lined up.
According to the development agreement, ACDA will pay $14 million plus closing costs to Everbank, which currently owns the building. That’s far below the $37 million price lawmakers originally agreed to pay before the sale turned politically toxic and was deemed unlawful by a judge.
ACDA is putting down a parking garage on 7th Avenue as collateral, and potentially a parking lot on 3rd Avenue and C Street, as well, in order to pay for the new building. The organization has already made a cash deposit, and is aggressively trying to ensure the sale goes through.
“The agency could risk losing the deposit, so we are very serious about moving forward with the purchase of this building,” Gant said.
The sale still has to go up for public testimony and be approved by the Anchorage Assembly. Gant estimates that if everything proceeds on time, the deal could be done in three months.
Alaska Psychiatric Institute (Photo courtesy of the Alaska Department of Health and Human Services)
Emergency rooms in Anchorage hospitals cannot keep up with the numbers of patients needing psychiatric care. It’s a problem that’s pushing people experiencing acute mental crises into more traditional ER’s, overburdening staff, delaying care to other patients, and straining an already thin system. Devin Kelly is a reporter with the Anchorage Daily News and wrote recently that patients staying in the ER longer than 20 hours went from 450 to 700 in one year. She says her reporting found several causes.
KELLY: The big one is that there has been a nursing shortage at the Alaska Psychiatric Institute. So, only about two-thirds of the beds at that hospital are being used. And that has created a bottleneck where people are staying in the emergency room longer because there’s no place for them to go next. And so, between July of last year and January of this year, the Providence Psychiatric Emergency Room went from telling police and paramedics that they had reached basically unsafe levels to continue receiving new psychiatric patients. It was about 52 hours being on that status last July, and it went to more than than 300 hours in January. And what happens in that case is Providence can’t legally turn anyone away, but they’re telling people that are driving the ambulances that if there’s any way to take a patient to Alaska Regional, to Alaska Native Medical Center, then that would be preferable at that point.
TOWNSEND: Twenty hours seems like a long time to be in the ER, and some of these patients are there for days. Talk a little about the strain that this creates for hosital staff and other patients.
KELLY: What I was hearing was that it’s very disruptive. The psychiatric emergency room is designed for people, specifically again, who are experiencing that kind of crisis. And the people that are working in the emergency room are trained in that kind of special care and stabilization. The general emergency room is really for all kinds of emergencies. If you break your leg, you’re going to that emergency room. And if you’re there with a dozen psychiatric patients who are experiencing a pretty high level of trauma, again that’s just a very disruptive environment, from what I was hearing. It also really is a demand on resources. Somebody needs to sit with a psychiatric patient at all hours; it’s a 24-hour round the clock watching process. That really takes away a lot of resources from the main emergency room.
TOWNSEND: Devin, you wrote in your article that the shortage in psychiatric care in Alaska goes back decades, but the problem was exacerbated in 2015. What happened then?
KELLY: That was when the state could not find enough psychiatrists to work at the psychiatric hospital, API. So, there weren’t enough people to cover the beds where people were being hospitalized. So they had to reduce the number of beds that were available. And that was the beginning of what’s really been an ongoing staffing shortage, as I understand it, and has continued to this day, and has placed a lot of pressure on the emergency room to hold onto people for longer.
TOWNSEND: What’s happening to address this? Are there things in the works on the state and also the corporate hospital side of the equation to alleviate some of the psychiatric overflow in emergency rooms?
KELLY: In the very short term, there is state money that is going to nursing positions and salary increases for nurses at API. Nurses were not really making what was comparable to other hospitals, so they’re trying to remedy that situation in hopes of attracting more nurses to working at API and doing what is a challenging job. There’s also money going to emergency rooms at hospitals for renovations and security increases, things that are associated with seeing increased number of patients who are experiencing psychiatric conditions. That’s on the order of about $10 million between those two things. That was something that the administration of Gov. Bill Walker asked for. And then in the next two years, the state is planning on embarking on a wide-ranging overhaul of the way that we do mental health care in the state. And that’s something to keep tabs on.
The ferry Malaspina sails out of Juneau’s Auke Bay terminal in 2012. It’s one of 10 active vessels in the Alaska Marine Highway fleet. The system’s new executive director, Shirley Marquardt, will begin work June 1. (Photo by Ed Schoenfeld/CoastAlaska News)
The Alaska Marine Highway has a new top official.
State Transportation Commissioner Marc Luiken on Tuesday appointed Shirley Marquardt as executive director of the ferry system.
Marquardt served as mayor of Unalaska, the ferry system’s westernmost port. She represented her region on the state’s Marine Transportation Advisory Board for more than a decade. She’s also worked for seafood processors and a barge line.
Shirley Marquardt was named executive director of the Alaska Marine Highway System May 15. (Photo courtesy State of Alaska)
Marquardt will oversee an initiative to change the system from a state agency to a public corporation. She said that’s part of what attracted her to the job.
“It’s such a different way to look at operating the ferry system, but clearly what we’ve been doing in the past almost 20 years is not working real well,” Marquardt said.
Marine Transportation Advisory Board Chairman Robert Venables said Marquardt will bring business experience to the system, as well as what’s called the Ferry Reform Project.
“She really understands the maritime industry and she understands the community importance of the marine transportation mission of the Alaska Marine Highway System. And so, she’s very well rounded and I think she’s going to bring a great depth of expertise and executive decision making,” Venables said.
Venables said transportation officials discussed the new hire with the advisory board Monday. He said support was unanimous.
Marquardt will begin her job in early June. She’ll move to Ketchikan from Anchorage, where she’s been the governor’s director of boards and commissions.
General Manager Capt. John Falvey will continue to oversee marine highway operations, as he has for more than a decade.
“He will continue to be the ferry whisperer. That’s his bailiwick. That’s his wheelhouse,” Marquardt said.
The marine highway system has reduced service and dropped vessels in recent years as budgets have become tighter.
Its 10 ferries serve 35 communities from Bellingham, Washington, to Unalaska-Dutch Harbor.
A sign at the end of Glacier Highway in October 2016. The Juneau Access Improvements Project extension would begin here. (Photo by Andrew Kitchenman/KTOO)
The Legislature passed a spending bill that funds several projects throughout Southeast Alaska.
For decades, backers have pushed for a closer connection to Haines and Skagway, which have road links to the mainland highway system.
Gov. Bill Walker halted the Juneau Access Project two years ago, saying it was among a group of large projects that Alaska could no longer afford.
Juneau Sen. Dennis Egan, a Democrat, said that was a mistake.
“Everybody you talk to in the Railbelt, especially, says, ‘Why can’t you drive to the capital?” Well, unlike Honolulu, we could make a way to drive to Juneau,” Egan said.
Egan and other state senators put a little more than $20 million in the capital budget.
It’s money Walker reallocated to other projects in the same general area.
So rather than new spending, it’s shifted back.
First Things First Foundation executive director Denny DeWitt points to a recent survey suggesting more than half of capital city residents support the project. Fewer than 40 percent of respondents opposed it.
“It’s not the whole package, but it will continue moving the process through the decision-making process,” DeWitt said. “Hopefully what we’ve done in terms of looking at what Juneau wants in its transportation policies, hopefully it will have some impact on elected officials.”
Opponents say the project would damage the ocean and shore where the approximately 50-mile road would be built.
Travelers also would still have to take a short ferry ride to connect to the mainland road system.
The governor could possibly veto the re-appropriation.
Diesel generators in the Kake Powerhouse provide electricity to the town’s residents. The Gunnuk Creek hydroproject would replace about two-thirds of the power. (Photo courtesy Inside Passage Electric Authority)
The Legislature’s capital budget funds a hydropower project near Kake, a small Southeast city dependent on diesel generators.
Inside Passage Electrical Cooperative CEO Jodi Mitchell said it plans to build at Gunnuk Creek.
“The project will actually provide an estimated two-thirds of the current Kake load,” she said. “At times, we’ll be able to turn the diesels off, which is kind of the gold standard for hydro.”
Close to $4 million is appropriated to the project. The nonprofit also hopes to win a $3 million federal grant, Mitchell said, which would complete the funding.
But if it doesn’t, the cooperative could take out a loan.
Gunnuk Creek is the second of at least four hydroprojects planned for Hoonah, Kake and Angoon.
Mitchell said each one will lower rates – and pollution – in all communities the cooperative serves.
“I really am excited to find out when all these projects are done how much of our load is covered by renewable energy,” Mitchell said.
Young salmon are raised in concrete raceways at the Crystal Lake Hatchery about 17 miles south of Petersburg. Funding in the capital budget will repair parts of the hatchery. (Alexis Kenyon/KFSK)
Another project in the capital budget would upgrade the king and coho salmon hatchery at Crystal Lake, near Petersburg, which Southern Southeast Regional Aquaculture Association runs.
Production Manager Bill Gass said in an interview earlier this year the $1.5 million will replace raceways that have been leaking for several years.
“The danger now is that we’re afraid that this leak could turn into a catastrophic failure, at which point we could lose the whole thing,” Gass said. “It buys us continued time to operate.”
The budget also includes $5 million to help dispose of lead-contaminated soil from an old junkyard in Wrangell. The state plans to store it locally, but leaders want it shipped south.
Other Southeast Alaska capital project funding includes:
Operating funds for Inter-Island Ferry Authority – $250,000
Ketchikan cruise ship berths expansion – $3 million
Ketchikan Houghtaling Elementary School roof – $2.4 million
Ketchikan Pioneer Home structural upgrade – $1.25 million
Craig Middle School gym floor replacement – $418,000
Craig Elementary School door and flooring replacement – $111,000
Craig Middle School siding and windows – $119,000
Wrangell junkyard contaminated site cleanup – $5 million
Petersburg Middle/High School entry renovation – $30,000
Petersburg Middle/High School underground storage tank replacement -$115,000
Crescent Boat Harbor improvements, Sitka – $5 million
Hoonah central boiler replacement – $183,000
Rebuild tender dock at Icy Strait Point tourist attraction in Hoonah to accommodate more ships – $1.1 million
Juneau Court Plaza Building exterior improvements – $1 million
Shayla Shaisnikoff hands a microphone to an elder at a storytelling session at the 75th commemoration of the bombing and evacuation of Dutch Harbor. (Photo by Berett Wilber, KUCB)
This week, we’re sharing stories from the Battle of Attu and the greater Aleutian campaign of World War II.
The conflict ended in the 1940s, but its legacy is still very much alive — both for the veterans who served and the Unangan people who were forced to leave during the fighting.
Even now, many vets have never spoken to an evacuee, and vice versa.
To commemorate what happened 75 years ago, KUCB invited people on both sides to sit down and reflect together.
Today, we hear from Shayla Shaisnikoff and Karen Abel. One is the granddaughter of internment survivors, and the other is the granddaughter of a fighter pilot.
ABEL: My name is Karen Abel, and my grandfather served in the Royal Canadian Air Force in World War II. And he was stationed in Alaska — Kodiak, Umnak, Adak. Who are you?
SHAISNIKOFF: My name is Shayla Shaishnikoff. I am a descendant of two evacuees actually. My grandfather Larry Shaishnikoff was evacuated when he was 11 years old. And then my great grandmother Maria Turnpaugh was also evacuated and actually gave birth to two of my great aunts in Burnett Inlet.
ABEL: And were they do they live here?
SHAISNIKOFF: Yes. Well, my great grandmother passed, but my grandfather still lives here. Yes.
ABEL: Were they evacuated from here?
SHAISNIKOFF: Yes. From Unalaska.
ABEL: So … Ber — Bernard? Bernard Inlet?
SHAISNIKOFF: Burnett Inlet.
ABLE: Burnett Inlet. And where is that?
SHAISNIKOFF: That’s in southeast Alaska. They lived in an abandoned cannery. My grandpa said that when they arrived it was pretty much a shack. It wasn’t in living conditions. So the military — or the government or whoever it may have been — handed them a pile of wood and said, “Here you go. Fix it up.”
ABEL: They did that too. The higher government ordered the military to do the same kind of thing to the troops that were coming in when they landed on Umnak. They said, “Well, there’s your tent. Dig a hole.” The same kind of inhumane …
SHAISNIKOFF: Conditions.
ABEL: Terrible conditions.
SHAISNIKOFF: Yeah, and I was surprised to hear about that actually. One of the veterans said that he had served and he visited multiple different locations. And all the while, he was wondering where everyone was. He had no idea that the Natives were evacuated.
ABEL: They didn’t.
Karen Abel atop Bunker Hill. (Photo courtesy of Karen Abel)
SHAISNIKOFF: And he only found out a few months ago, I think. And that just blew my mind, because I had no idea. Coming from Unalaska, I guess, and growing up with the stories, I guess I never really thought that much about the perspective of the veterans. I never even considered that they didn’t know what was happening.
ABEL: I think what I’ve found — now having talked to a lot of the veterans, and this is several of them — they have made that comment that they had no idea. And I think it bothers them. And they don’t agree with it. They think it’s flat-out wrong and inexcusable. So I hope it doesn’t give them shame, because it wasn’t their decision to make. Because they still should be proud to have served.
SHAISNIKOFF: Yeah, I’m definitely grateful for the soldiers who — you know, they defended my home. And I know that the Unangax were evacuated for their own safety. It’s a shame that no one was prepared and it happened the way it did. But that’s just life sometimes, I guess.
ABEL: Hindsight is a wonderful thing. So your family was able to return. How many people other people — other villagers — returned with them? Do you know?
SHAISNIKOFF: With numbers, I don’t know. I know that 881 Unangax were evacuated from nine different communities and that one out of every ten would not return home.
ABEL: Hmmm. I started researching my grandfather’s war history about five years ago. He never talked about it — ever — and it wasn’t until he passed that we found all his briefcases of documents. And it led me to want to find out what exactly he did. So I started learning a lot about the relocation camps. I guess you call them “relocation camps”? And I found it difficult to celebrate what my grandfather and the other military did, knowing that there were so many people — our own people — who suffered because of it. How do I still have honor for those who served but not disregard those who got relocated and had their homes taken away?
SHAISNIKOFF: It’s definitely an interesting balance. I guess I could say I’m extremely proud of my grandparents for coming through that. I like to say that they persevered in a world that didn’t favor them. My grandfather really made something of himself. He was a very successful fisherman and today the “Deadliest Catch” boat — the Wizard — actually catches his quota for him. He also owned the Elbow Room, which was a very popular bar here in Unalaska. My great grandmother had 14 children, so we’ve got a big family.
ABEL: Wow. [laughs]
SHAISNIKOFF: And she was a very talented artist. So I’m very proud of them, and I’m proud of who it’s shaped us all to be, I guess. It’s even a part of me. Even though I didn’t experience it, it’s sort of incorporated itself into my personal history. So there is that balance of — we don’t celebrate it, per se. The evacuation, that is. But I guess we just honor everyone who was involved. The military and the locals who had to leave their homes.
ABEL: So do you hold resentment towards what happened?
SHAISNIKOFF: I don’t hold resentment against the military. I guess I could say that I’m upset that the government wasn’t more prepared for this to happen. And … I don’t know how to word it, really. I’m upset with the way it happened because I know it hurt a lot of people and a lot of people were lost. But I’m not upset with the soldiers who were here and who fought. I guess I’m upset with those who made the decision. Those who were there with the Unangax in the internment camps. Those who told them not to speak their language. Those in particular people who looked down on the Natives — I guess I could say that I do resent them. But against the military and the United States as a whole, I can never say that. No.
ABEL: Yeah. War is not pretty. For everyone.
SHAISNIKOFF: Every side.
ABEL: Every side.
This story was produced by KUCB’s Laura Kraegel and Zoe Sobel.
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt endured criticism from senators and protestors at a hearing Wednesday. Image: C-SPAN.
Democratic senators on Wednesday accused EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt of betraying the public trust with luxury travel and by cozying up to lobbyists. Sen. Lisa Murkowski did not ask confrontational questions, but she did not leap to Pruitt’s defense, either.
Murkowski chairs the Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior and was the only Republican senator at most of the hearing.
Democrats, like Sen. Pat Leahy of Vermont, accused the administrator of letting his ego run amok. Leahy ridiculed the idea that Pruitt had to travel first class and be guarded at all times to ensure his safety.
“Oh, somebody might criticize you. You’ve got security people like we’ve never seen before. But you have to travel first class,” Leahy said. “Oh, come on.”
Murkowski says she agrees with many of Pruitt’s policy goals, but she says controversies surrounding Pruitt are overshadowing his work.
“I’m being asked, really constantly asked, to comment on security, on housing and on travel,” Murkowski told him. “Instead of seeing articles about your efforts to return the agency to its core mission, I’m reading about your interactions with representatives of the industries that you regulate.”
Murkowski attributed some of that to adversarial politics.
“But I do think there are legitimate questions that need to be answered,” Murkowski said.
Murkowski offered Pruitt essentially an open mic – an opportunity to say whatever he wanted to about the accusations against him.
Pruitt did not apologize or accept blame. He attributed much of the criticism to competing political agendas.
“There are worldviews that drive the decisions we should make at the agency and over the last several years we’ve seen a competition with respect to how we should approach our business,” Pruitt said.
Pruitt acknowledged making some decisions he would not make the same way again. But in other cases, he said the agency just didn’t have processes in place to prevent abuse from taking place.
Pruitt cited the $43,000 secure phone booth he had installed in his office as an example.
“There were not proper controls, early, to ensure a legal review,” Pruitt said.
The stated purpose of the hearing was to review the EPA budget for next year. The Trump administration wants to reduce or eliminate programs to improve water infrastructure in Alaska Native communities. It also wants to eliminate a grant program that has helped Fairbanks reduce air pollution by replacing wood stoves with cleaner burning models. Murkowski opposes cuts to both programs. She says the final spending plan for EPA won’t much resemble the one the Trump administration proposes.
Jahna Lindemuth, the Attorney General of Alaska. (Photo by Graelyn Brashear, Alaska Public Media – Anchorage)
The state is taking steps to expand the criminal justice authority of Alaska Native tribes. Attorney General Jahna Lindemuth talked about the initiatives at a tribal court conference in Fairbanks last week. Lindemuth says one allows tribal courts to take over low level misdemeanor cases from the state.
”It keeps that person outside of the state’s criminal justice system. And many times, that can be really important,” Lindemuth said. “Especially for a first offender or somebody who’s just starting out with dabbling with crime. We want to avoid them getting into the whole system and starting that lifelong pattern that we see so often. And so, I really hope that tribes will look at this closely and that they will consider working with the state on the civil diversion agreement.”
A second change allows state funded village public safety officers to enforce tribal laws.
”If you have a VPSO in your community, and you want that person to help enforce your tribal code, you need to sit down with your VPSO person and work that out. And it’s just a matter of if you can have that agreement in place, then that can go forward. And I really encourage all of you to do that.”
A third initiative allows crime evidence collected by tribal officers, under state complaint search warrants, to be used for prosecution in state court.
“We can prosecute that case in state court, even if a trooper never shows up in your community and investigates.”
Lindemuth says the three tribal justice initiatives are included in a broader public safety action plan being developed by the state, with public input.
“We don’t have a trooper or VPSO in every community, but we need law enforcement in every community. We need public safety in every community,” Lindemuth said. “So how can we do this better? That’s what this is all about.”
Tanana Chiefs Conference Executive Director of Tribal Government and Client Services Will Mayo greeted the initiatives with enthusiasm, saying it wasn’t too long ago that the state did not even acknowledge the existence of Alaska tribes.
“Their belief was that the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act terminated any existence of tribes,” Mayo said. “Tribes did not exist in Alaska. That was the official position. They did not even use the word tribe.”
Mayo credited tribes with bringing the state around. The TCC Tribal Court Conference offered training on the new state initiatives.
U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (Photo by Skip Gray/360 North)
Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski joined two other Republicans who broke GOP ranks to vote with Democrats on Wednesday in an effort to protect an Obama-era rule on “net neutrality.”
The Federal Communications Commission repealed the net neutrality rule in December after heavy lobbying by telecommunications companies. The FCC decision would go into effect next month, removing a ban on internet providers blocking or slowing down certain content.
But Murkowski and her fellow Republican senators Susan Collins of Maine and John Kennedy of Louisiana made the vote 52-47 to block the FCC’s repeal.
In a recorded statement, Murkowski said internet regulations should not shift depending on who runs the FCC.
“I voted to pass this resolution today so that we can reset the discussion and really move beyond the politics that are at play here,” Murkowski said.
Murkowski also said she supported the resolution because of rural Alaska’s unique reliance on internet access.
“In Alaska, at stake are rural health clinics and schools that rely on life-saving tele-medicine services and access to educational resources,” Murkowski said. “Tele-health and tele-education in Alaska are not just important, it’s critical.”
Murkowski said she wants to see legislation to prevent internet service providers from blocking certain sites or throttling down speeds.
Alaska’s other senator, Dan Sullivan, said he agrees with that. But Sullivan split with Murkowski and voted against the resolution.
In a written statement, Sullivan said he thinks repealing the rule will remove a regulatory burden on Alaska telecommunications companies and encourage infrastructure investment.
However, keeping the rule intact is still seen as a long shot. It’s unlikely to get support in the Republican-controlled U.S. House, or to survive the veto pen of President Donald Trump.
Sen. Murkowski did not ask confrontational questions of the embattled EPA administrator, but she did not leap to Pruitt’s defense, either.
State has started delaying Medicaid payments to some hospitals
Andrew Kitchenman, KTOO – Juneau
State Medicaid money will run out before the end of June. That means many hospitals and other health care providers won’t get paid until July.
State attorney general wants to give more criminal justice options to tribes
Dan Bross, KUAC – Fairbanks
The state is taking steps to expand the criminal justice authority of Alaska Native tribes.
Murkowski cites rural Alaska in ‘net neutrality’ vote with Dems
Casey Grove, Alaska Public Media – Anchorage
Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski joined two other Republicans who broke GOP ranks to vote with Democrats on Wednesday in an effort to protect an Obama-era rule on “net neutrality.”
Walker’s trade mission highlights links to China, opportunities for Alaskans
Rashah McChesney, Alaska’s Energy Desk – Juneau
From seafood companies to the gasline corporation and even a brewery — the group is hoping to spotlight shared interests between China and Alaska.
Legislature resurrects Juneau Access Project, sort of
Ed Schoenfeld, CoastAlaska – Juneau
A spending bill passed by the Legislature revives plans for a road north out of Juneau. The capital budget also funds a hydroproject in Kake and a fish hatchery near Petersburg.
Shayla Shaisnikoff and Karen Abel discuss internment and the military during Aleutian campaign
Laura Kraegel and Zoe Sobel, KUCB – Unalaska
Today, we hear from Shayla Shaisnikoff and Karen Abel. One is the granddaughter of internment survivors, and the other is the granddaughter of a fighter pilot.
Becky Hultberg responds to a health care question last year @360 in Juneau. Hultberg is the president and CEO of the Alaska State Hospital and Nursing Home Association. She has expressed concern about Medicaid funding. (Video still courtesy 360 North)
State Medicaid money will run out before the end of June. That means many hospitals and other health care providers won’t get paid until July.
The state budget includes $20 million less for Medicaid than state officials say they’ll need. That’s to cover services provided through June 30.
Hospital advocates criticized the Legislature’s decision against fully funding what’s known as a supplemental. They include Becky Hultberg, president and CEO of the Alaska State Hospital & Nursing Home Association.
“We are very disappointed with the Legislature’s decision on the Medicaid supplemental,” Hultberg said. “Full funding of the supplemental was obviously tied up in end-of-session negotiations and ultimately, Medicaid was short-funded. That’s going to be a significant problem for many of our members.”
Normally, the state Department of Health and Social Services pays Medicaid bills within a week. But starting this week, department officials are delaying some payments to large providers that don’t rely on Medicaid money to keep the lights on.
Shawnda O’Brien, department assistant commissioner, is in charge of the department’s finances.
“We’re trying to do the least amount of harm possible to the smaller providers who are reliant on Medicaid funding,” O’Brien said.
That means department staff are going through each provider bill and sorting them by category. So community health centers and behavioral health clinics are receiving top priority for payment.
“Those entities tend to be in communities where they’re maybe the sole provider for that service, and so it’s detrimental for them if we don’t continue to provide them with the resources they need to keep their doors open,” O’Brien said.
Not all Medicaid bills are treated the same. Patients eligible for the Indian Health Service are having their bills paid without delay. That’s because the federal government is picking up 100 percent of the bill. And people who joined Medicaid due to the expansion three years ago also are having their bills paid now, since the federal government pays 94 cents of every dollar. But the feds only pay 50 percent of the cost for others on Medicaid. The payment for some of those bills are those ones that are being delayed.
All of this is happening because Medicaid costs are higher than projected. State officials say this is primarily due to the recession. But Soldotna Republican Sen. Peter Micciche noted that the state has built up a backlog of applicants for social services. He said this has been made worse by the increase in the number of people receiving Medicaid.
“We’re going to work with the department to make sure we’re going to meet those needs, but we also need the department to prioritize services for the most needy, as opposed to expanding services,” Micciche said early Sunday morning, after the legislative session ended.
State officials said the backlog in applications is the result of funding cuts.
The House originally supported paying the full amount for Medicaid that Gov. Bill Walker’s administration requested. But it agreed to reduce the funding in a compromise with the Senate.
Anchorage Republican Rep. Gabrielle LeDoux said the state should follow through on its commitment to pay Medicaid providers.
“The bottom line is, we got Medicaid here. And … we got Medicaid expansion,” LeDoux said. “And when you hire somebody, like a doctor, like a hospital, and you tell them that they’re going to get paid, you really ought to pay them in a timely manner, regardless of what you think about, you know, the philosophy of Medicaid.”
The state is looking to take steps to reduce Medicaid costs, following up on a bill the Legislature passed two years ago. That includes hiring contractors to help patients who use health care the most.
For example, it’s cheaper to remind patients about doctor’s office appointments than to pay for an emergency room visit after they miss the appointment.
Micciche said he wants the state to lower unnecessary use of health care. He also wants the state to be more aggressive in shifting people eligible for the Indian Health Service to IHS billing. This is expected to save the state $20 million over the next year.
But Hultberg, the hospital advocate, said efforts to control Medicaid costs are a separate issue from the state following through on its commitment to pay for services.
“We support efforts to address Medicaid utilization and to ensure appropriate utilization of health care services. Unfortunately this does not move us any closer to doing that,” Hultberg said.
Health care providers can look forward to a similar problem next year. To pay for the short funding next month, the Legislature may be short funding June 2019.
On top of this, the Legislature included $10 million less for Medicaid in the new budget than the administration said it would need.
Alaska Gov. Bill Walker peeks out for a photo after a group signs an agreement to study a partnership between China and Alaska to build a gas pipeline megaproject on Nov. 9, 2017, in Beijing, China. (Photo courtesy Alaska Governor’s Office)
From seafood companies to the Alaska Gasline Development Corporation and even a brewery — the group is hoping to spotlight shared interests between China and Alaska.
At the 49th State brewpub in downtown Anchorage on Tuesday, about 30 people gathered in a private room to talk about the trip, and how they’re going to woo Alaska’s largest trading partner into developing deeper ties with the state.
Representatives from more than 20 businesses, along with state officials and politicians will leave for China this weekend. There, they’ll peddle everything from baby food to seafood to tourism to Chinese consumers.
49th State Brewing Co. owners David McCarthy and Jason Motyka at their Anchorage brewpub on May 15, 2018, in Anchorage, Alaska. McCathy and Motyka are headed to China with a trade delegation, seeking to bring Alaska beer to Chinese stores. (Photo by Elizabeth Harball/Alaska’s Energy Desk)
They’ll also bring beer.
David McCarthy co-owns Denali Visions 3000, the corporation that owns the 49th State Brewing Co. He is hoping to expand the brewery’s reach and get Alaska beers into Chinese hands.
“So when we had a meeting the other day in the governor’s office with the entire group… there’s seafood companies that are going there presenting seafood and we said ‘oh, can we match up our beer?’ But how do we get it there?” McCarthy said. “So they’ve been working hand-in-hand actually to get our beer over to China to have there available for people to try as part of these events over there. So, obviously we’re extremely excited about it.”
It isn’t all just food and travel. Two potentially major infrastructure projects are also hoping to find access to oil and gas markets in China.
“From the point of view of the Asian business community, this is a great opportunity to achieve access to raw materials out of the north of Canada and Alaska,” Peter Wallis said. Wallis handles public affairs for the railway corporation.
The delegation will travel throughout China for the 10-day trip with stops in Shanghai, Beijing and Chengdu.
Conservation groups and a tourism operator are suing the U.S. Forest Service over the Kuiu Island timber sale. The lawsuit was filed on Wednesday in Alaska’s federal district court.
In 2016, the wood from the parcel was approved for export, but the forest service received zero bids in the sale.
On May 5 of this year, the timber sale went out for bid again. This time, with less acreage than what was originally planned. The forest service removed some of the more sensitive watershed areas.
The plaintiffs in the lawsuit allege the forest service’s environmental analysis is outdated and violates federal environmental protections. They’re concerned the logging would still damage important salmon habitat and wreck the view, which tour operators have come to rely on. The original environmental assessment was conducted by the forest service 11 years ago.
The forest service is accepting bids on the Kuiu Island timber sale until June 5.
Pat’s Lake is a popular fishing area near Wrangell that could be the site of a restoration project under the Southeast Alaska Mitigation Fund. (Katarina Sostaric/KSTK)
Wrangell’s tribe and city have won a year-long fight to protect a fishing stream and popular recreation site. The state had planned to dispose of tons of lead-contaminated soil at a rock pit near Pat’s Creek as soon as possible. But many in the community spoke out against dumping at the contentious site. Legislators took note of those concerns and allocated $5 million to ship the waste entirely off the island.
The Wrangell Cooperative Association never budged from its original position: no dumping near Pat’s Lake. The tribe looked for alternative sites, extra federal funding and outside scientific opinion. All options were on the table, but most did not pan out.
Then, the tribe reached out to elected officials and met with Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott. And Gov. Bill Walker went to bat for the concerned citizens of Wrangell. He requested $5 million to ship the soil off Wrangell Island. Then, the Senate and House just passed that appropriation in its capital budget.
“I told my children and my daughter Natalia was so happy she said, ‘Mom this means we can go ice skating on Pat’s Lake this winter,’” said Esther Ashton, WCA’s tribal administrator.
The contaminated soil comes from the old Byford Junkyard, where residents dumped dead cars for decades. The lead came from their batteries. The Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation cleaned up much of the junk and treated the soil with a stabilizing agent.
The state agency proposed placing the soil at the rock pit, and still says it is a more-than-safe option for hundreds of years to come. But DEC’s director Jeff Rogers understands the public’s concern.
“When you have a contaminated site in your backyard it is a passionate local issue. We believe the site at Pat’s Creek to be environmentally viable. But people don’t want it in their backyard and there is a higher cost option and the governor supports that option,” Rogers said.
The city also contacted politicians in support of the off-island option. Wrangell’s representative in the House, Dan Ortiz, voted in favor of the funding during House Finance Committee meetings.
“I felt like I was advocating for what I felt to be the majority opinion in Wrangell,” Ortiz said.
Of course, not everyone in the Southeast city wanted this option.
Brett Woodbury is a local contractor. He has been working with the Department of Environmental Conservation on the cleanup. He says he’s prepared tons material for the rock pit that he might not be paid for. And work for him and his employees has shut down at times, when he could be pursuing other contracts in town.
The state is in the early stages of shifting gears for off-island disposal. Officials are unsure exactly where the waste will go. And it may have to find additional funding later. But the state says one thing is for sure: no dumping near Pat’s Lake.
Zephyr Sincerny nets hooligan to keep as a healthy treat throughout the year. (Henry Leasia / KHNS)
Once again, the Chilkat and Chilkoot rivers are turning black with little fish scrambling upstream. The eulachon, commonly known as hooligan, are running in full force and all kinds of different species are loving it.
At the mouth of the Chilkoot river, there’s a feeding frenzy happening. Birds dip beaks and talons into the water, pulling out small black and silver fish with every swoop. Off in the distance, a raft of sea lions gorges on the scaley bounty of the lutak inlet. A couple humans are enjoying the run as well.
Zephyr Sincerny waded out in the river barefoot, scooping up hooligan with a net. He said his net is a bit heavy for harvesting the fish, but he has worked out a system.
“What I end up doing is I take it out into the fish and set it on the bottom a little bit, and then I just wait,” Sincerny said. “They usually end up flowing back and kind of swimming into the net or settling into it. Then I just lift up, and out we go.”
Sincerny said the run seems a little bit smaller than last year, but in just 20 minutes he can fill two five-gallon buckets. That is all he needs. At home, he will smoke, brine and add spices to the fish. Then he will vacuum seal and freeze them to enjoy for the rest of the year. He always makes sure to set aside some fish for his dog, though.
“You know we were buying fish oil to feed him, and that didn’t make a lot of sense figuring that that’s pretty expensive and we have a really great resource,” Sincerny said.
Just upstream from Sincerny, a team of researchers from the Chilkoot Indian Association (CIA) collected data for a study on hooligan. Shaleena Bott is doing an internship with CIA. She used a metal y-shaped fish trap to collect the fish.
“We are capturing some hooligan, and we’re clipping the adipose fin. And then we’ll send up another team in a little bit to go up and count each of the hooligan to see if we can either see a marked fish or not. And then we put in a bunch of numbers to see what their biomass is,” Bott said.
Despite their popularity and abundance during runs, little is known about hooligan. Takshanuk Watershed Council’s Executive Director Meredith Pochardt, who is involved in the hooligan study, said researchers are still trying to figure out questions about their life cycle.
“Do they actually die after they spawn? There’s also some evidence that points to maybe having multiple spawners in certain populations. And also learning a bit more about the age they return to the rivers,” Pochardt said.
Unlike salmon, it is believed that hooligan return to a stream in their region rather than the stream where they were spawned. According to Ted Hart, a fisheries specialist for the Chilkoot Indian Association, the location they return to depends on a variety of factors.
“Usually see a good amount go to Chilkoot, so I think they might prefer Chilkoot. But if the conditions aren’t right then they’ll head off and they can go to Skagway or they can go Ferebee also, or the Katzehin.” Hart said.
CIA started collecting data on hooligan populations on the Chilkoot River eight years ago. Last year the association secured a grant for the study, and with help from the Takshanuk Watershed Council the research has expanded to 11 different rivers around the Upper Lynn Canal. Pochardt said this has given a much broader perspective on the fish.
“When we have the lower returns on the Chilkoot, that perhaps doesn’t mean that the whole northern Lynn Canal population is in decline, that could mean that maybe another river is seeing a higher return than normal,” Pochardt said.
For generations, people have subsistence fished for hooligan, or saak in Tlingit. Hart said the oil from the fish has countless health benefits and has long been a valuable resource for this region.
“It’s like liquid gold,” Hart said.
Hart hopes this research will ensure that future generations can depend on this harvest.
This year’s run was a few days later and smaller than last year’s unusually large run of 12 million fish. Hart attributed this to colder temperatures this spring that kept Chilkoot lake frozen for longer.
“Presumably, some came up to the Chilkoot and the river may have been too low, so some decided to go over to the Taiyasanka. Looked like a pretty decent showing over there,” Hart said.
Initial estimates show that 8.7 million hooligan came back to the Chilkoot this year.
Rep. Don Young in his Washington, D.C. office. 2017 Photo: Liz Ruskin
It took some doing, but Rep. Don Young squeezed the House for votes Thursday night and got an amendment into the Agriculture bill to exempt Alaska forests from the Roadless Rule.
It was a feat that played out on the House floor like political cinema.
During debate earlier in the day, Young said the rule severely curtails logging and hampers timber management in the Tongass National Forest.
“I’m saying this roadless rule takes away the opportunity for people to survive for their family and take and have a sustainable silvicultural industry, taking care of our forests in Southeast Alaska,” Young said.
The drama came a few hours later, during the vote, when it looked like Young, the most senior member of Congress, might lose. He stalked the aisles with his list, shouting the names of colleagues he needed to get on board. The vote clock ran to zero and he was still short, but the rolls were held open for about 12 extra minutes.
“I need four more votes,” Young shouted at one point.
Young got one yea. Then another. Then Rep. Ryan Costello, R-Penn., made a big show of changing his vote, from no to yes. Costello looked over at Young, to ensure the favor was noted.
And then Young had it: 208-207. He raised both arms in victory. A few minutes later he and other Congress members were at the elevators to leave for the night.
How did Young get the votes?
“It’s what you call kindness. Kindness,” Young said. “I can be nice.”
The Congressmembers laughed as the elevator doors closed.
The Roadless Rule has been a thorn in the side of Alaska’s congressional delegation since 2001. Environmental groups and their allies among Southeast Alaska fishermen and business owners say it preserves habitat and protects old-growth trees.
The agriculture bill still has a long way to go. It includes restrictions on food stamps that Democrats oppose. The House is expected to vote on the full bill Friday. The Senate is writing its own version.
