A truck makes its way south on the Dalton Highway near Coldfoot, Alaska. (Photo by Rashah McChesney/Alaska’s Energy Desk)
A transport driver is dead and cleanup continues after a fuel tanker bound for Prudhoe Bay rolled down an embankment on the Dalton Highway early Friday morning.
The driver, Joy Wiebe, was a Fairbanks resident who had been a transport driver in Alaska for years. She had worked for Alaska-based Colville, Inc. for about four months, according to a statement from the company.
Alaska’s Department of Environmental Conservation is monitoring the incident as the tanker Wiebe was hauling had several thousand gallons of diesel fuel in it.
Nearly 1,780 gallons of that diesel spilled; all but a few hundred gallons of it has been recovered. Neither the state nor the company identified what might have caused the accident.
Colville Inc. is working on a plan for the site that includes soil sampling and environmental remediation. The state identified fiber optic cables and a gas pipeline near the spill site that may be impacted. The spill is in the tundra and could also threaten caribou, fox and migratory birds.
Anchorage Republican Rep. Gabrielle LeDoux sits at Election Central at the Dena’ina Center downtown on Tuesday, August 21, 2018, while she waits for results in her closely-fought GOP primary with Aaron Weaver, a former cameraman at KTUU. (Nathaniel Herz / Alaska’s Energy Desk)
Anchorage Republican Representative Gabrielle LeDoux jumped to a big lead over her primary challenger after an initial count of absentee ballots this morning. LeDoux got 142 absentee votes, compared to 33 for her opponent, Aaron Weaver.
The two candidates were separated by just three votes heading into today’s count. The absentee results put LeDoux ahead by roughly 100.The race for the East Anchorage state House seat has been closely watched. That’s partly because LeDoux decided to take a leadership position two years ago in the House’s mostly-Democratic majority coalition. Alaska Republican Party leaders were furious with LeDoux and campaigned for her defeat in last week’s primary.
The race took a surprising twist yesterday when state elections officials announced they’d found “irregularities” with a small portion of the district’s absentee ballots. Seven had been requested in the names of dead people and two more were returned in the names of people who later said they did not vote.
In today’s count, elections officials separated out 26 absentee ballots for which there were concerns about their authenticity. All 26 of those votes went for LeDoux. Those votes will be included in a provisional count, but they could ultimately be challenged. Today’s count isn’t the last one — absentee ballots can continue to come in until the tenth day after the election, which is later this week. Also today, state elections officials were set to count absentee ballots in two other closely contested legislative races on the Kenai Peninsula.
Students gather on the University of Alaska Southeast campus for the first day of classes in 2013. (Photo by Heather Bryant/KTOO)
Fall classes began Monday at University of Alaska campuses, including the Alaska College of Education in Juneau. While students can still earn a teaching degree at any of the university’s three main campuses, the education college’s administration is based at the University of Alaska Southeast.
Kake resident Louise Kadake found out last spring she had won the 2018 Teach for Alaska Scholarship to study at UAS.
UA staff had arranged for her to join University President Jim Johnsen on a video conference call, telling her she was one of five finalists.
When he told her the real news, she thought he was speaking to someone else. In a video of the call, a staff member interrupts to reassure Kadake that Johnsen is talking about her.
“Oh! I didn’t know where he was looking!” Kadake said, laughing.
Kadake won a $12,000 undergraduate scholarship to study education at UAS. It’s letting the 21-year-old pursue the plans she put on hold after giving birth to her now two-year-old son, Braxton.
Kadake said she’s known she wanted to be a teacher since she was a sophomore in high school.
Since graduating as valedictorian in 2015, Kadake has worked with kids in her community and as a para-educator in Kake City Schools last year. She said her coworkers encouraged her to apply for the scholarship. Once she gets her degree, she plans to return to Kake and teach elementary school.
UAS freshman Louise Kadake and her son Braxton. (Photo courtesy Louise Kadake)
“It’s actually helping me a lot. I actually applied for a lot of scholarships, I was busy,” Kadake said.
Kadake arrived in Juneau last week for orientation and to get her on-campus apartment ready for Braxton.
“It’s a really big change,” Kadake said. “I cried when I left home and my son’s still at home, but he’ll be here next week.”
Recruiting students like Kadake — rural Alaskans and Alaska Natives with a passion for teaching — is one of the main jobs of the new Alaska College of Education.
According to the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development, there were just under 8,000 full and part-time teachers in Alaska last school year. That number has declined by about 500 teachers since 2010.
The college’s new Executive Dean Steve Atwater is tasked with helping the university reach its goal to see 90 percent of Alaska’s teachers trained in-state by 2025.
According to the university, two thirds of the state’s teachers come from outside.
Many of them end up in rural villages. Atwater said they often lack the training or cultural understanding to connect with students.
“What you have is a churn of teachers in rural Alaska, and it doesn’t really help the students in terms of their achievement,” Atwater said. “The students need to form relationships with the teachers and if there’s a fear that they’re going to leave after a year, it’s hard to invest.”
Atwater himself came from out of state. After training at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, he spent two decades in rural Alaska schools. He said he witnessed the churn firsthand with talented teachers arriving only to realize they were unprepared for the challenges of living in remote villages.
To fix that, Atwater said they’re narrowing in on three specific areas: recruitment, preparation and retention.
Teacher-specific scholarships and investing in existing programs like Educators Rising, a career pathway for high school students, are a big part of that.
Atwater said the college will also hire a full-time recruiter based in Juneau.
Besides undergraduates and high school students, they will also look to college graduates who might already be out in the workforce and considering a career change.
Improving teacher preparation will hinge on finding operational efficiencies between the three campuses.
“Really what it’s going to take is the collaboration between all three units to come up with best practices and share best practices and really to think in terms of operating as a unit even though we are issuing separate degrees at the three,” Atwater said.
Looking at retention strategies, the university wants to expand its role in the Alaska Statewide Mentoring Project, partnering with school districts to provide support for early-career teachers.
As for campus-specific changes, Atwater said classes and faculty remain largely the same.
Later on, they may look to have campus programs concentrate in specific areas of education, like special ed or early childhood.
In the meantime back in Juneau, efforts are still underway to meet the City and Borough’s commitment to create a $1 million endowment for teacher education.
The city made that promise to the university’s Board of Regents back when it was deciding where to base the education college.
A fundraising committee spent the summer recruiting local donors. Committee chair Laraine Derr said they’re still a few thousand dollars away from reaching their goal.
“A bird in the hand is worth, what is it, three in the bush? But I got a couple more donors yesterday so I’m hoping by the end of the week we will be there,” Derr said.
The campus has said the CBJ Teacher Excellence Fund will go toward additional scholarships and support programs for students in Southeast and the rest of the state.
More than 30 residents of the Airport Heights neighborhood in Anchorage are installing solar panels on their roofs this year. It’s part of “Solarize Anchorage” a program that brings together neighbors to purchase solar panels in bulk.
Shortly after the earthquake, as many GCI customers wondered why they hadn’t gotten alerts automatically on their phones, the company said it was still working to update its systems.
GCI spokesman Josh Edge says that update now in place, but there’s one more step customers with iPhones will have to complete. Edge says, to get the alerts, GCI’s iPhone users still need to update their carrier settings and may have already received a message notifying them of the available update.
Alaska Aerospace Corporation launch facility in Narrow Cape. (Photo courtesy of Alaska Aerospace Corporation)
A report from the Pentagon says a Chinese spy ship sailed near the Aleutian Islands last July “likely to monitor” a missile test underway at the Kodiak spaceport. That’s according to a story Monday in the Kodiak Daily Mirror newspaper.
The U.S. military conducted two tests of its Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system at the Pacific Spaceport Complex in July 2017, according to the story.
It was unclear which of the two tests was likely monitored by the Chinese according to the report, titled “Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China,” released publicly on August 21.
The THAAD missile defense system, manufactured by American company Lockheed Martin is a missile interceptor designed to destroy ballistic missiles in their late stage or “terminal” flight phase.
Last summer’s test missiles intercepted dummy targets fired from military jets near Hawaii. Both tests were successful, according to the Missile Defense Agency.
The report, an annual document mandated by Congress since 2010, outlines economic, strategic and military progress made by the world’s most populous country.
Representatives of the Alaska Aerospace Corporation, which owns and operates the spaceport situated on Kodiak’s Narrow Cape, told the Kodiak Daily Mirror newspaper that they could not comment on the probability of Chinese spying because of confidentiality agreements with the U.S. military.
The site of the proposed Donlin gold mine, which would be one of the biggest in the world (KYUK photo)
A public hearing is being held in Bethel today about Donlin Gold’s plans to clean up its proposed mine, and how the company will pay for the clean up. The proposed gold mine could be one of the biggest in the world, if completed, and this step is essential before it begins mining.
Cleaning up a mine is an expensive and time-consuming endeavor. Dan Graham is in charge of Donlin Gold’s reclamation plans and permitting process.
“We’ve learned from the past and advanced through the environmental review process,” Graham said
Reclamation is relatively new in the long history of mining in the United States. It came into existence in the late 20th century as more information came to light over the damage that mining does to the environment. What it means is that mining companies must restore the patch of land that they mined. And according to Alaska law, they have to pay for it.
The Kuskoswkim Corporation (TKC) owns the surface rights to the proposed mine site, while the Calista Regional Native Corporation owns the subsurface rights. Both are major players in drafting the reclamation plan.
“So the state, TKC, and Calista will not be on the hook to pay for the reclamation and closure,” TKC vice president Andrea Gusty said.
The reclamation plan and paying for it are separate, but they go hand in hand in Alaska. Both have to be approved by the state Department of Environmental Quality and Department of Natural Resources before the mine can move forward.
Donlin’s draft reclamation plan is more than 450 pages long. And it explains in detailed technical language how it plans to reclaim the mine site during operations and afterwards. The gold mine would permanently disturb about 3,500 acres of wetlands in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta and would permanently eliminate two salmon streams. It also requires big treatment facilities for the cyanide used during mining and the mercury that would be released from the rocks. And it has a tailings dam that is a mile long and a mile wide. All of that has to be cleaned up after the mine closes. So how is Donlin going to do that?
The reclamation process is divided into two phases: the physical phase and the water treatment phase after the mine closes. The physical reclamation process includes reseeding the patch of ground that is disturbed by mining operations; Graham says that the mine would try to use as much natural vegetation as possible.
A lot of the phsyical reclamation takes place while the mine is still operating and shortly after it closes. And then, once the mine shuts down, Donlin will divert the water it uses during operations into a pit lake and let it sit for about 50 years, after which Donlin will monitor the water indefinitely.
Donlin is the first mine in Alaska’s history to propose monitoring the water forever; usually mines have come to that decision during operations, according to Allan Nakanishi, DEC’s technical engineer in the Wastewater Discharge Authorization Program.
Closing the mine and monitoring is expensive. Donlin Gold estimates that the cost for the the first phase of reclamation is $240 million. A second funding mechanism must be put in place to cover the water monitoring after the mine closes, Graham said. That funding mechanism will likely be a trust fund account that would be used to pay for the monitoring in perpetuity. That price tag is roughly $100 million.
But discussions around the trust fund are still ongoing, and the mine can’t move ahead until the issue is settled. Meanwhile, Donlin Gold has already received three major permits from federal and state agencies this month. The company expects to have most of the major permits out of the way this year.
Explainer: What’s going on with the District 15 House race in Anchorage?
Nathaniel Herz, Alaska’s Energy Desk – Anchorage
Anchorage Republican Representative Gabrielle LeDoux jumped to a big lead over her primary challenger after an initial count of absentee ballots this morning.
Republican Governors Association buys ads in Alaska
Andrew Kitchenman, KTOO – Juneau
After Dunleavy’s primary win last week, the association spent more than $200,000 for ads in Alaska.
State regulator raises bonds required for drilling
Rashah McChesney, Alaska’s Energy Desk – Juneau
The Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission proposes a sliding scale for the new bonds from $500,000 to $30,000,000 for potential drillers, operators.
After 8 months of silence, family of Juneau man killed by police in Fairbanks demands answers
Jacob Steinberg, KTOO – Juneau
The family of Cody Eyre said it’s preparing to file a federal civil rights lawsuit for access to information and monetary damages.
Tanker truck rollover and fuel spill on the Dalton Highway leaves driver dead
Rashah McChesney, Alaska’s Energy Desk – Juneau
Alaska’s Department of Environmental Conservation is monitoring the incident as the tanker Wiebe was hauling had several thousand gallons of diesel fuel in it.
Donlin Gold talks about reclamation and finances ahead of public hearing
Krysti Shallenberger, Alaska’s Energy Desk – Bethel
A public hearing is being held in Bethel today about Donlin Gold’s plans to clean up its proposed mine, and how the company will pay for the clean up. The proposed gold mine could be one of the biggest in the world, if completed, and this step is essential before it begins mining.
New Alaska College of Education prepares to step up teacher recruitment and retention
Adelyn Baxter, KTOO – Juneau
Among the College of Education’s new initiatives is hiring a full-time recruiter based in Juneau and expanding its role in a new teacher mentorship program.
Ask a Climatologist: What Anchorage’s rainy season really means
Casey Grove, Alaska Public Media – Anchorage
August is often wet in Anchorage but this year feels exceptionally so, with 26 days consecutive days of some rain.
Julie Husmann, a supervisor at the Alaska Division of Elections, counts absentee ballots in the closely-watched House District 15 primary election Tuesday. (Photo by Nathaniel Herz / Alaska’s Energy Desk)
A new count of absentee ballots Tuesday appeared to give Anchorage Republican Rep. Gabrielle LeDoux an insurmountable lead in her GOP primary, but questions are still swirling about evidence of voter fraud that’s been turned over to state prosecutors.
State elections officials counted more than 200 absentee ballots Tuesday, with the vast majority going to LeDoux. She now has 113 more votes than Aaron Weaver, her GOP primary challenger, which appears to be an insurmountable lead.
But LeDoux is now parrying attacks from the Alaska Republican Party, and questions from reporters, about the “irregularities” that state elections officials publicly disclosed Monday. They include absentee ballots requested in the names of seven dead people, and two more ballots returned from people who later told the state they hadn’t voted.
Elections officials haven’t pinned responsibility for the irregularities on any campaign or candidate. But they did separate out a batch of 26 absentee ballots Tuesday that had questions about their authenticity. And all 26 of those votes went for LeDoux.
Confused about why this race is important, and how it’s all playing out? Let’s explain:
A: LeDoux, the incumbent, is a really polarizing figure. She represents Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, an Anchorage military base, as well as part of the Muldoon neighborhood in the eastern part of the city.
Two years ago, LeDoux made Republican Party leaders really angry. Typically in the state House, Republicans stick together in their own caucus. But LeDoux flipped and took a leadership spot in a mostly-Democratic majority, along with a couple of her Republican friends, Paul Seaton of Homer and Louise Stutes of Kodiak.
Then, the state announced Monday that it had discovered evidence of the “irregularities” in the district’s absentee votes, which they’d noticed even before the primary election took place last week.
A state attorney, Margaret Paton-Walsh, said Monday that the irregularities are palpable evidence of voter fraud.
Q: What happened Tuesday?
A: The state elections division counted about 200 absentee ballots in LeDoux’s district. Because of these irregularities and the intense focus on the race, they had a special process.
Typically, election workers open all the absentee ballots, mix them together and count them all at once. But Tuesday they wanted to keep each absentee ballot associated with the person who sent it, to ensure there’s a paper trail in case someone decides to challenge the results. One election worker would open the absentee envelope and remove the ballot, which remains in a “secrecy sleeve” that hides the markings inside. Then the election worker would hand the ballot, inside the sleeve, to another worker, who would feed the ballot through a counting machine without seeing any of the voter information on the envelope. That allowed the state to maintain the secrecy of people’s votes. It also was a little more strenuous for the election workers — one joked about how many steps her Fitbit had recorded by midday: 5,814.
Q: What do we know about the “irregularities,” and who could be responsible for them?
A: Not much, aside from the details that the state has already released. But there’s a lot of speculation swirling around LeDoux, in part because the 26 absentee ballots that the state described as suspicious all were votes for her.
Election materials sit at the Anchorage offices of the Alaska Division of Elections on Tuesday, August 28, 2018. (Photo by Nathaniel Herz / Alaska’s Energy Desk)
Right now, the state is not talking about where it thinks the irregularities came from. The elections division said it referred its concerns to state prosecutors, and those prosecutors declined to comment Tuesday. Meanwhile, the Alaska Republican Party alleges that the irregularities trace back to LeDoux – specifically, to a consultant that she hired to do outreach with the Hmong community in East Anchorage. But they haven’t shown any evidence that directly links LeDoux or the consultant to the irregularities. Still, GOP leaders now say they’re going to try to find someone to mount a write-in campaign against LeDoux in the general election.
Q: What’s LeDoux saying?
A: She denies that she’s done anything wrong. After two days where she didn’t answer reporters’ questions, she released a prepared statement Tuesday afternoon calling the GOP’s accusations “absurd.” She acknowledges that she hired the consultant to do outreach and get-out-the-vote work among her Hmong constituents. But she said she’s “never looked for ways to manufacture votes,” and said such an effort would be absurd “in this day and age of voter verification.”
Q: What else happened with elections results Tuesday?
A: The elections division, at a separate office in Juneau, counted absentee ballots in two other really close races on the Kenai Peninsula. One will decide who replaces Mike Chenault, the Republican representative from Nikiski who used to be House speaker. The other will determine if Senate Majority Leader Peter Micciche, a Republican from Soldotna, keeps his seat in a tight race against challenger Ron Gillham.
The elections division hadn’t released official updates by late Tuesday afternoon. But the Juneau Empire reported that Micciche had taken a substantial lead in his race. It also reported that Ben Carpenter, a peony farmer and longtime member of the Alaska Army National Guard, was narrowly leading Wayne Ogle, the president of the Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly.
Mike Dunleavy accepts the presumptive nomination as the Republican Party’s candidate for governor on Aug. 21. The Republican Governors Association is buying TV advertising to help Dunleavy. (Photo by Zachariah Hughes/Alaska Public Media)
The Republican Governors Association is buying TV advertisements to help elect new nominee for governor Mike Dunleavy. After Dunleavy’s primary win last week, the association spent more than $200,000 for ads in Alaska.
The Washington, D.C.-based association has been buying TV ads in Alaska since the spring. It’s paying for the ads through the Alaska-based group Families for Alaska’s Future.
There’s been nearly $1.7 million in total this year in ad buys from the RGA and Families for Alaska’s Future with the Anchorage and Fairbanks network affiliates. Most of the money has gone to KTUU-TV in Anchorage.
“The Alaska governor’s race is a very high priority, and it’s a top pick-up opportunity for Republicans,” RGA spokesman Jon Thompson said.
There are 36 gubernatorial elections this year, and the Republicans are defending seats in 26 of them. Thompson said Alaska presents a unique opportunity for the party to pick up a seat.
“One, because Bill Walker has failed the state, and it’s ripe for Republican pick up, and because Mike Dunleavy is the only candidate with a clear plan to reform the state’s economy and make Alaska’s government more efficient,” Thompson said.
The Republican Governors Association is dedicated to electing and supporting Republican governors. In previous years, the association has been funded by corporate donors. They included the businesses owned by prominent party donors Sheldon Adelson and the brothers Charles and David Koch.
The bonds are meant to cover the cost of plugging wells and abandoning them. But in some cases, it’s not enough. For example, the state currently has just one $200,000 bond to cover the cost of plugging and abandoning all of BP’s wells at Prudhoe Bay.
Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commissioner Hollis French says when a company goes bankrupt or stops operating and leaves without plugging its well properly the state is on the hook to pay for cleanup.
“I think the easy way to think about bonds is like a security deposit on an apartment. When you rent an apartment you put down a security deposit to make sure you leave it just the way you found it and it’s the same concept with these wells. If you clean up after yourself and do all the work, then you get your bond back,” French said. “But if you don’t, the landlord, the state, is holding some money to do the work itself. ”
The commission is proposing a sliding scale based on how many wells an operator has. At minimum, a company would pay $500,000 for one or two wells. That figure goes up to $30 million for companies with more than 3,500 wells.
French says the commission will collect additional bonds from companies already operating in the state. In BP’s case, the company operates about 1,776 wells and would owe the state about $20 million. Companies already operating in the state will have four years to come up with the money.
The commission is taking comments on the new fees until October 16 and will hold a public hearing on that day in Anchorage. French said they hope to have the new regulations in place by the beginning of 2019.
Arelene Soxie is considered a grandmother of the Community Health Aide Program. She started in Wales in the early 1960s. (Hillman/Alaska Public Media
Fifty years ago, Alaska had a really big problem. It was hard to get medical care in small, rural communities. If someone was injured or if there was a tuberculosis outbreak, there was no one to turn to. To solve the problem, the Indian Health Service worked with local governments and Congress to create the Community Health Aide Program.
Arelene Soxie was one of the first health aides in the country, and taking the position in her home village of Wales was not an easy decision.
“I had to think very deeply on whether I could do it,” she said as she sat in a recliner in her small apartment at the senior center in Nome. The local government had asked her to apply for the position. “I knew it involved helping people. It involved scary situations, which can occur in life and death.”
Soxie eventually decided to become an aide because two of her small children had recently passed away, and she thought she could help prevent other tragedies.
When Soxie started in the early 1960s, she only knew the basics, like taking temperatures and blood pressure. She began seeing patients immediately with only the support of a thin little health aide manual and a handheld radio to call the doctor, who was stationed a plane flight away. She’d pass on messages from other health aides, too, when the radio signal wasn’t strong enough to go directly from a village to the hospital.
Arlene Soxie’s old stethoscope hangs from her lamp, a reminder of her 38-year-long career as a health aide. (Hillman/Alaska Public Media)
Through these radio calls, the health aides across the region became friends and supported each other through emotional challenges. Sometimes, because of patient confidentiality, other health aides were the only people they could share their grief and stress with.
“You feel very helpless,” Soxie said about some of the situations she encountered. “And another thing that causes that helpless feeling is when people don’t understand mental problems within the village.”
Her son had schizophrenia, and no one locally could support their family.
Though Soxie was a health aide for 38 years, most don’t last that long. The position has a high turnover rate, even now. The stress of treating your own family and having the entire village depend on you doesn’t go away.
Dan Thomas, a health aide trainer based in Nome, said the job is stressful but necessary. Doctors can’t visit small villages very often but health aides are always there, keeping people healthy.
Patients’ “problems are just going to be addressed a lot sooner than they otherwise would, so they are going to be healthier,” he said. “They’re not going to suffer from some medical problem for weeks or months before they finally get treated.”
New technology is making the job even more effective, if more complicated. Thomas trains the aides to use telemedicine carts for transmitting photographs, videos, EKGs, photos of the inner ear, and other data directly to doctors in larger towns.
Health aides also draw blood, run lab tests, and dispense medicines.
“They function like what takes multiple departments in the hospital to do,” Thomas said.
The aides have to learn things very quickly. They start seeing patients during one-on-one sessions with medical providers during their first week of training. After four different month-long classes, health aides can do everything from taking care of the common cold to responding to trauma to treating chronic illness.
They take in a lot of knowledge in very little time. But they don’t have to remember it all. During every patient visit, health aides consult their Community Health Aide Manual.
Norma Kavairlook (l) and Phyllis Farrell (r) were both long-time health aides in the Norton Sound region. (Hillman/Alaska Public Media)
Long-time health aide turned-instructor Phyllis Farrell said they go through every step, every time, even if they’ve been aides for dozens of years.
“You have to follow the manual because there might be just one question in there that could turn what’s going on with the patient,” she explained. If you miss that question then the case could go in the wrong direction.
The manual used to be a small bound book with hand-drawn images. Now it’s an iPad with internal links and photos. Health aides ask the patients questions and depending on the answers, follow the instructions in the manual about what to do next.
Farrell said the work can be stressful and traumatic, but it never gets boring. Despite the challenges, she said it’s worth it because the patients needed you.
“They were supportive in their own way, too. Encouraging,” she said.
The Community Health Aide Program is unique to Alaska and has grown to include behavioral and dental health aides, too. An Indian Health Service Tribal Advisory Group is looking to expand the program to the Lower 48.
Donlin Gold predicts that it can extract 33 million ounces of gold over the initial 27 years of the proposed mine. The gold is present in microscopic flecks embedded within the extracted sample rock. (Katie Basile / KYUK)
Cleaning up a mine is an expensive and time-consuming endeavor. Dan Graham is in charge of Donlin Gold’s reclamation plans and permitting process.
“We’ve learned from the past and advanced through the environmental review process,” Graham said.
Reclamation is relatively new in the long history of mining in the United States. It came into existence in the late 20th century as more information came to light over the damage that mining does to the environment. What it means is that mining companies must restore the patch of land that they mine. And according to Alaska law, they have to pay for it.
“So the state, TKC [The Kuskokwin Corporation] and Calista will not be on the hook to pay for the reclamation and closure,” TKC vice president Andrea Gusty said. TKC owns the surface rights to the proposed mine site, while the Calista Regional Native Corporation owns the subsurface rights. Both are major players in drafting the reclamation plan.
The reclamation plan and paying for it are separate, but they go hand-in-hand in Alaska. Both have to be approved by the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) and Department of Natural Resources before the mine can move forward.
Donlin’s draft reclamation plan is more than 400 pages long. And it explains in detailed technical language how it plans to reclaim the mine site during operations and afterwards. The gold mine would permanently disturb about 3,500 acres of wetlands in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta and would permanently eliminate two salmon streams. It also requires big treatment facilities for the cyanide used during mining and the mercury that would be released from the rocks. And it has a tailings dam that is a mile long and a mile wide. All of that has to be cleaned up after the mine closes. So how is Donlin going to do that?
The reclamation process is divided into two phases: the physical phase and the water treatment phase after the mine closes. The physical reclamation process includes reseeding the patch of ground that is disturbed by mining operations; Graham says that the mine would try to use as much natural vegetation as possible.
A lot of the phsyical reclamation takes place while the mine is still operating and shortly after it closes. And then, once the mine shuts down, Donlin will divert the water it uses during operations into a pit lake and let it sit for about 50 years, after which Donlin will monitor the water indefinitely.
Donlin is the first mine in Alaska’s history to propose monitoring the water forever; usually mines have come to that decision during operations, according to Allan Nakanishi, DEC’s technical engineer in the Wastewater Discharge Authorization Program.
Closing the mine and monitoring is expensive. Donlin Gold estimates that the cost for the the first phase of reclamation is $240 million. A second funding mechanism must be put in place to cover the water monitoring after the mine closes, Graham said. That funding mechanism will likely be a trust fund account that would be used to pay for the monitoring in perpetuity. That price tag is roughly $100 million.
But discussions around the trust fund are still ongoing, and the mine can’t move ahead until the issue is settled. Meanwhile, Donlin Gold has already received three major permits from federal and state agencies this month. The company expects to have most of the major permits out of the way this year.
F/V Pacific Knight (Photo courtesy of Bruce Ilutsik)
A salvage team is in the process of refloating the F/V Pacific Knight this week. The ship sank on July 25. It had been operating in Bristol Bay as a tender during the commercial salmon fishing season. The United States Coast Guard has not yet determined what caused the vessel to capsize.
The initial Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation Report estimated that the Pacific Knight was carrying 800 gallons of diesel and 300 gallons of hydraulic fluid. However, in the week after the boat sank, a dive team with the Resolve Marine, the company contracted to salvage the boat, removed 1,400 gallons of fuel from the vessel.
“Because the numbers don’t actually add up, which is not actually that unusual to be honest with you, it’s real difficult to say exactly what got spilled,” Todd Duke, a Resolve Marine manager, said.
The company is now going through the labor intensive process of raising and refloating the Pacific Knight.
“The past few days we’ve been passing chains underneath the vessel and connecting them to our crane barge,” Duke explained. “We’ve turned it, and we’ve picked the vessel so it’s sitting somewhat upright now. We’ve been using a tool we call an airlift to remove sand and silt from around the vessel so that we can get the chains underneath, and we’ll continue doing some airlift and more chain connections to go ahead and lift this thing completely out of the water.”
Once the ship is lifted, Resolve Marine will attempt to stabilize it so it will float on its own. Then the Pacific Knightwill be towed to Dutch Harbor where stakeholders can examine the vessel further.
Duke estimates it will take about a week to refloat, stabilize and move the boat. The USCG is continuing its investigation into the situation.
Walker made the announcement at the troopers’ Mat-Su West post near Wasilla, which he says has been hit hard by vacancies as troopers have left for better pay and benefits elsewhere. There and elsewhere, troopers have been stretched thin.
The 7.5 percent raise takes effect Sept. 1. That’s for more than 300 troopers, all except the two colonels in charge. Walker says this raise does not require legislative approval because it’s an amendment to an existing contract, but his administration is seeking an additional 7.5 percent increase officials say would require legislative approval.
Asked about the timing, Walker says the troopers have been facing a retention crisis. They now have more than 50 vacant trooper positions, and they need to be a competitive employer.
“It’s now, because as we’re going into another winter season, we have a big class coming out of the academy,” Walker said. “This is the culmination of about a year-and-a-half of sort of getting to this point of what’s the right number, what’s the right amount.”
Walker says the increase fits legislative intent in the state operating budget to increase trooper pay by 15 percent total.
The troopers union says the closest pay comparison was to the Anchorage Police Department. Depending on how long they’ve been with the department, comparable positions make 16 to 19 percent more.
Walker says losing recruits or longtime troopers to departments like APD or, say, King County in Washington, means wasting the money spent training them and the loss of a great deal of experience.
“This is about fixing what we have now,” Walker said. “I get a lot of input around the state about ‘We need more troopers.’ And we certainly do. And I have nothing against King County, but I don’t necessarily want us to do the training for King County, and that’s what we’ve been doing.”
Walt Monegan, Walker’s public safety commissioner, says the administration will pursue increasing the overall number of trooper positions, while it addresses the vacancies.
A campaign spokesperson for Walker’s Republican opponent for governor – Mike Dunleavy – said the campaign had no comment on the trooper pay increase.
Anchorage is joining a growing list of communities around Alaska that ban plastic bags. During a meeting last night, the Anchorage Assembly overwhelming voted to phase out disposable plastic bags within six months.
As the bag ban ordinance has made its way through the Assembly, there’s been general support for it among members, but pointed disagreement about the specifics. Ahead of the 9-2 vote, there was a split on how severe the ban out to be. And there were differences on the timeline for implementing it. Assembly member Chris Constant pushed aggressively for a tougher version of the measure, one that bars retailers from giving or selling even thick, multi-use plastic bags at the point of sale.
“The fact is that the waste stream is voluminous, and we have an opportunity now to break that cycle,” Constant said.
That tougher version of the ordinance won out. Under the new rules, retailers can sell customers paper or heavy-duty reusable bags, but they will face fines if they give out thin, single-use plastic ones.
One of the members who lobbied hardest for the milder version of the ban was John Weddleton, himself a business owner. He spoke of the harsh retail environment stores in Anchorage are facing. Though Weddleton’s more modest approach to the ban was ultimately defeated, he still voted for the overall measure.
“I think this is an extreme ban here, more than we needed, but I don’t think it’s a crisis for anyone,” Weddleton said during remarks ahead of the vote.
One of the most direct sentiments offered against taking a moderate approach on the measure came from Lily Spiroski, the youth representative who sits on the body but does not get a vote on proposals. She told Assembly members she reached out to peers in person and through a poll on Instagram.
“And the majority of them are in support of a downright, all out plastic bag ban,” Spiroski said.
In spite of opting for stricter provisions, the ordinance has a number of allowances for plastic bag variants, such as those used for produce, meat products, flowers, newspapers, meat products, dry-cleaning and ice. Those and others will still be allowed.
From Wasilla to Koyuk, more than a dozen communities across the state have enacted similar measures recently.
Within the Municipality of Anchorage the bag ban goes into effect March 1st of 2019.
Voters in Sitka during the August 2014 state primary election. Photo: Rachel Waldholz/KCAW
Two Alaska newspapers initially misreported who was eligible to vote in the primary election. And it turned out that fewer than 100 votes could have made the difference in two races in one of the paper’s areas.
The Kenai-based Peninsula Clarion reported on the morning of the Aug. 21 primary that voters registered in one of Alaska’s official political parties could vote. However, it failed to mention people registered as nonpartisan or undeclared, who could vote either primary ballot.
The Sitka Sentinel misreported that only Republicans could vote in the Republican primary. Sentinel editor and co-publisher Thad Poulson said the error was based on information on who is eligible to be candidates.
“From reading the sample ballots, which say what parties – or what candidates – are eligible to be on that ballot, we took that to mean, these are voters who are eligible to vote that ballot,” Poulson said. “Of course, that isn’t correct.”
None of the Sitka elections were close. But in the Kenai Peninsula, the Republican race for Senate District O was separated by a single vote at one point on election night. And the Republican contest in House District 29 is still separated by only 13 votes as of Wednesday.
The two ballots have different rules about who can vote. And the political parties have different rules about who can run on their ballots.
The Democratic, Libertarian and Alaskan Independence parties allow anyone registered to vote to cast a primary ballot. The Democratic Party allows Democratic, undeclared and nonpartisan candidates to run in its primary.
In contrast, the Alaska Republican Party allows registered Republican, nonpartisan and undeclared voters to cast ballots. Only Republicans can run in its primary.
Both the Peninsula Clarion and Sitka Sentinel addressed the errors – the Clarion posted a clarification online the morning of the primary, while the Sentinel published a correction in print the day before the primary.
Alaska Division of Elections spokeswoman Samantha Miller said the division provided clear information to the public and to the news media about the primary.
“Elections are complex by nature,” Miller said. “And each party has their own rules, which is why we do make attempts to make ourselves available to talk with media.”
Miller also said that the rules about who can vote are posted at voting locations.
Gov. Bill Walker announced today that Alaska State Troopers are getting a pay raise at the start of next month.
BSEE employee claims whistleblower protection
Liz Ruskin, Alaska Public Media – Washington D.C.
The U.S. Office of Special Counsel is a federal agency that protects whistleblowers, and it is supporting an Alaska employee who complained the Interior Department took shortcuts in its environmental review of Royal Dutch Shell’s Arctic offshore drilling program.
Kenai and Sitka newspapers misreported voter eligibility before primary
Andrew Kitchenman, KTOO – Juneau
Fewer than 100 votes could have made the difference in two races in the Kenai area.
Anchorage bans plastic bags, starting in 2019
Zachariah Hughes, Alaska Public Media – Anchorage
The measure is a tougher version of similar ordinances that have passed in communities across Alaska.
Fourth suspected arrested in Anchorage attempted murder case
Associated Press
A fourth suspect has been arrested in an Anchorage assault in which a man suffered brain and skull injuries and was delivered to a hospital in an animal cage.
Agencies map tectonic fault that touches southeast Alaska
Associated Press
Federal agencies have completed the first high-resolution mapping of a fast-moving underwater tectonic fault that extends from Vancouver Island, Canada, to southeast Alaska.
GCI updates emergency alert system
Casey Grove, Alaska Public Media – Anchorage
GCI’s more than 100,000 customers will no longer have to download a special app to get wireless emergency alerts pushed to their cellphones.
Donlin Gold says they can clean up their proposed mine, and pay for it too
Krysti Shallenberger, Alaska’s Energy Desk – Bethel
Cleaning up a mine is an expensive and time-consuming endeavor.
UAF program helps science-oriented youths ‘broaden expertise’ with hands-on learning
Tim Ellis, KUAC – Fairbanks
Four Fairbanks-area high-schoolers got a chance to get down and dirty last month as part of a class that helps them learn how archaeologists uncover the past.
Kunniak’s Spices brings new flavors to Native dishes
Erin McKinstry, Alaska Public Media – Anchorage
One way to make money in a slow economy is to fill a gap in the market. But a local spice blend company is doing more than building bank accounts — it’s also connecting people with Native dishes in a new way.
The U.S. Office of Special Counsel, a federal agency that protects whistleblowers, is supporting an Alaska employee who complained the Interior Department took shortcuts in its environmental review of Royal Dutch Shell’s Arctic offshore drilling program.
The Special Counsel’s office announced Tuesday it’s filing a whistleblower retaliation complaint with the Merit Systems Protection Board for Jeffrey Missal. He was an environmental officer in Anchorage with the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, within the Interior Department. (The U.S. Office of Special Counsel is not involved in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of the 2016 election.)
The events of Missal’s case date to the Obama administration, but it’s no doubt of interest to environmentalists who hope to derail future offshore exploration. The Trump administration has proposed to reboot ocean drilling in the Arctic with a series of lease sales starting as soon as next year.
Missal started complaining in 2012 that the Interior Department was violating the rules for environmental review to allow Royal Dutch Shell to go ahead with its Arctic drilling plan.
“He refused to violate the law,” Tom Devine said. Devine is the legal director of the Government Accountability Project, a nonprofit representing Missal. “He wouldn’t make a false statement that the regulations had been obeyed, and he started blowing the whistle on it within the chain of command at the agency.”
When those complaints didn’t produce results, Devine said Missal went to the Interior Department’s Inspector General.
“Within a couple of hours of learning Jeff had gone to the inspector general, the agency opened up a retaliatory investigation of him,” Devine said.
Devine said Missal was taken off his job and put in a position with no duties.
Some of the activity in Missal’s case occurred during an awkward period for the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, as well as its sister agency at the Interior Department, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.
In 2014, federal courts invalidated the environmental review of an Arctic lease sale, known as Lease Sale 193. But the lease sale had already taken place. And while the Interior Department was redoing its analysis to determine whether Lease Sale 193 was appropriate, employees of the agencies were working with Shell on its plans to explore and drill on acreage it attained in Lease Sale 193. Missal argued the department couldn’t act as though the lease sale would be affirmed when the environmental reviews weren’t complete.
Missal was fired in 2016. Devine said the Interior Department was later forced to temporarily reinstate him, though not to his old job.
“So he’s been essentially paid to fill up space for the past year,” Devine said.
In cases like this, whistleblowers sometimes seek full reinstatement to their jobs, but often they look to settle with the government for enough money to start fresh somewhere else. Devine said negotiations with the department were unsuccessful.
Interior Department spokeswoman Heather Swift said the department can’t comment on the matter because it’s in litigation.
Connor Scher stands in front of the original Government Hill Wireless Station building. The Alaska Engineering Commission built it in 1917 to facilitate communication for construction of the railroad. (Erin McKinstry, Alaska Public Media)
There’s no placard marking the historical significance of the Government Hill Wireless Station.
The property played an essential role in Alaska’s history. The Station used to connect Anchorage with the rest of the world. But now, it’s just three dilapidated buildings sitting in an overgrown lot surrounded by suburban homes. Yellow paint peels from around broken and barred windows.
Connor Scher appears from around the corner wearing a wooden bow tie and a rubber rain jacket. He pulls out a drill to open the door of the main building. It’s topped with the original cupola, which once served as a beacon for Anchorage’s port.
“This has sunken through, so don’t step on it,” Scher cautioned as we step inside.
Graffiti covers the walls and bits of glass litter the sunken floor. But there are some reminders of the building’s glory days: like an old telephone and a painted map of Alaska.
For more than three decades, the Station supplied radio communication between Anchorage and the outside world. Station employees radioed Nome during the winter of 1925 to tell the community life-saving serum was on its way, a trip that later inspired the Iditarod. And it was instrumental in the construction of Alaska’s railroad.
But now, it’s abandoned.
The inside of one of the original Government Hill Wireless Station building. “I believe the building won’t be occupiable within the decade,” Scher said. “So there’s that added impetus to do something.” (Erin McKinstry, Alaska Public Media)
“I believe it won’t be occupiable within the decade. So there is that, that added impetus to do something,” Scher said.
Scher wrote his master’s thesis on the station. He wanted to memorialize it by telling its story. He started researching the buildings while interning for the city’s historic preservation plan.
“I just continued to get interested and inspired by the story and history that was here and how specifically that no one really remembered it. Outside of the neighborhood, no one has really heard of this structure,” Scher said.
Some residents of the Government Hill neighborhood want to see the buildings restored. Some want the property turned into a tourist destination. And some want it to serve the community in some way, like as a library or housing. That’s what Scher wants too.
“There is a chance for it to serve the neighborhood with an actual use, not just as a spectacle in a field, which too often is the fate of historic buildings,” Scher said.
The federal Alaska Engineering Commission built the first of the three buildings in 1917 to facilitate communication for railroad construction. Scher says the development of the station corresponded with the development of Anchorage.
“This was an arrival of modernization to this frontier,” Scher said. “And this building represented that development.”
Connor Scher walks outside the historic Government Hill Wireless Station property. He wrote his master’s thesis on the buildings. (Erin McKinstry, Alaska Public Media)
In 2015, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The city now owns the property, and last year, they put out a request for proposals for someone to develop it. But no one responded. Dealing with extensive repairs and hazards like asbestos would be pricey.
Until someone foots the bill, an important piece of Alaska’s telecommunications history will continue to crumble.
