The City of Sitka is sending residents who have damage claims resulting from a recent power surge directly to the contractor’s insurance company.

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At least 50 homes experienced appliance failures — mostly heat pumps — after a utility contractor snapped a guy wire over a week ago, creating a short between the city’s high voltage transmission lines and lower-voltage distribution lines.

Sitka utility director Bryan Bertacchi says electric grids in Alaska experience faults all the time — usually from downed tree branches, rodents or birds — and they’re cleared before customers are aware of any problem.

But the recent fault in Sitka was a different animal altogether.

“In this case it was a steel cable of large diameter,” Bertacchi said, adding that the fault was very brief. “Probably less than half a second that the fault occured before the protection worked to clear it. But still, significant high voltage levels likely to a lot of the community.”

The guy wire was broken by a utility contractor involved in an extensive water and sewer replacement under DeGroff St., at the intersection of Sawmill Creek Road. The latter is Sitka’s utility corridor, carrying the 69,000-volt transmission lines from Sitka’s hydroelectric projects into town. Below the three transmission lines is the local distribution line.

When the guy-wire snapped, it connected the high- and low-voltage lines, briefly sending an estimated 3-6 times more voltage to customers than normal, and apparently creating a show.

“And I think folks that were nearby saw quite a shower of sparks,” Bertacchi said.

Power was out for about four hours after the fault. Once electricity was restored, people began to notice problems.

Sitka municipal administrator Keith Brady says that city hall has logged calls from 48 residents so far whose home appliances may have been damaged by the surge. He says much depends on what was turned on at the time of the fault.

One appliance seemed especially susceptible to problems.

“You know, outside of water heaters, stoves, coffee makers, microwaves, the big livability problem we have is the heat pumps,” Brady said. “So it sounds like we have a lot of heat pump damage around town, and we want to make sure that people can live in their homes in the winter. We want to make sure that this gets moved as quickly as possible.”

Utility companies are generally not liable for “Acts of God” that damage property, but a contractor backing into support pole doesn’t fall under that exclusion. City Hall is directing all claims toward the contractor’s insurance company, Alaska Adjusters, LLC. A claim number has been established for damage connected to the incident.

And it wasn’t just homeowners. The surge took out “a very large surge arrestor” at Sitka’s Marine Street Substation, which is going to require a scheduled overnight power outage to replace. Also, Sitka has over 20 sewage lift stations — many with older pumps that don’t fire up even under normal conditions.

In addition to yeoman work by electric linemen to restore power, Sitka public works director Michael Harmon says his crews used portable pumps to keep Sitka’s sewage flowing in the right direction over the four-hour outage.

“If we would have had rains — we were very blessed that it was dry — we would have had to overflow sewer into the ocean in this event,” Harmon said.

The city at the moment can only speculate about why the outage was hard on heat pumps — and why only some of them. The geographic distribution of failures doesn’t really provide a clue. Bertacchi suspects it might have to do with which of Sitka’s three-phase transmission wires was first contacted by the broken guy-wire, although it ended up wrapped around all three.

At first, people thought it was just the DeGroff area downtown that was affected — but Bertacchi says that was not the case. And he also says this surge would have been difficult to protect against.

“My heat pump on my house failed on the north end of town,” Bertacchi said, “and I have a whole-house surge suppressor on my main panel. And I’ve never had a surge problem through any lightning strikes with that. But in this particular instance my own heat pumps failed.”

Bertacchi said he is filing a claim himself. 

Sitka community affairs director Maegan Bosak says anyone planning to file an insurance claim from the surge should be prepared to document the damage.

Hackers are using various forms of digital skullduggery to steal frequent flyer miles from customers of Delta, Alaska and other airlines. The thieves then resell the miles on the dark web.

Tech writer Paul Bischoff learned the extent to which this is happening when he went looking for black market airline miles and points in the anonymous, hidden part of the internet known as the dark web.

“It’s basically like Craigslist,” Bischoff explained. “There are a bunch of listings for all kinds of stuff.”

Bischoff discovered that piles of Alaska Airlines miles could be bought in exchange for bitcoin or another difficult-to-trace cryptocurrency called Monero. Hackers most commonly listed Delta SkyMiles and British Airways points.

“Usually, people won’t find out that their accounts have been hacked until many months after when they are ready to spend down those points,” Bischoff said in an interview Thursday.

Bischoff, based in Victoria, wrote about how you can protect yourself in an article for the online site Comparitech. He advises you choose a strong, unique password for your frequent flier account and follow common sense cyber hygiene practices.  He also suggested protecting your airline loyalty account number by shredding boarding passes after flights and not using public Wi-Fi hotspots to access your account.

In a brief emailed statement, the PR department at Seattle-based Alaska Airlines said the carrier is aware of unpermitted trafficking in mileage plan miles.

“Our fraud team monitors the dark web and takes action to protect our customers’ accounts whenever possible,” the statement read. “This is a good reminder for our customers to monitor their frequent flier account and if you ever see unusual or suspicious activity, contact us right away.”

The fine print of all major frequent flyer membership agreements includes a clause that prohibits selling miles for cash. If an airline discovers you using stolen miles or selling miles, it reserves the right to wipe out your entire account balance.

In 2015, American and United Airlines notified thousands of customers that their frequent flyer accounts may have been compromised by hackers. Airline spokespeople said the carriers would replace any stolen miles in those cases.

Bischoff said he doubts the buyers of stolen air miles redeem them to book flights or hotels because those purchases require a person to show picture ID when checking in.

“Usually they are used to redeem different types of rewards,” Bischoff explained. “Gift cards are especially popular because they are difficult to trace.”

Bischoff was not able to confirm how the individual purveyors he found on three dark web marketplaces obtained the air miles they offered for sale. His leading theory is that hackers take over personal accounts by tricking owners to reveal their account numbers and passwords with “phishing” emails (i.e., a fake email inquiry from airline) or through a wholesale data breach.

“Some of these vendors have miles in such great quantities that we think that there might be some other means that they’re using to get them,” Bischoff said. “Maybe they have some back channel through the frequent flyer programs because they seem to just have an unlimited amount.”

Bischoff said dark web vendors sell credentials to access individual frequent flyer accounts or may choose to transfer miles to a newly created mileage account advertised as “clean.”

A table published on the Comparitech website showed a wide range of prices for the stolen loyalty points. Fifty-thousand Alaska Airlines miles could be bought for the equivalent of about $96, a fraction of how much it would cost to buy that many miles legitimately from the carrier. Forty-five thousand Delta SkyMiles ranged from $101 to $884 after converting the price listed in cryptocurrency.

The State Department of Education will pick Alaska’s Teacher of the Year next month.

This week we’ll have profiles of each of the five finalists, from across the state.

Chohla Moll is a science teacher at Mt. Edgecumbe High School in Sitka. Moll’s teaching style is rooted in making sure her students know about the culture and history of the land around them.

When asked how she’d identify herself, Moll begins by explaining the meaning of her name.

“My name, Chohla, is a Cherokee word, and it means cardinal, like the red bird. And my middle name is Agehya, and I share my middle name with my daughter,” Moll said. “And so Chohla Agehya in Cherokee means ‘cardinal woman,’ and my daughter is Walela Agehya, and she’s a ‘hummingbird woman,’ one of these days when she’s not five.”

Moll is Cherokee and was born in Colorado, but moved to Sitka early in life when her father got a job at Sheldon Jackson college. She grew up immersed in two Native cultures.

“I started learning Tlingit in the Sitka Native Education Program when I was five, and so, I identify with both of those cultural backgrounds,” Moll said. “And I have a really strong connection to place in Sitka, with the Tlingit people.”

Both of Moll’s parents were teachers. So is her sister. Moll initially thought that she’d be a rebel and just be a scientist, but later she changed her mind.

“I was so excited about all the cool things that I was getting to do in Glacier Bay National Park where I was working for the USGS biological research station, and on the research vessel, and getting all this cool oceanography stuff,” Moll said. “And then I went into my sister’s classroom, and I realized that’s really fun, too. And when you’re in education, you’re surrounded by givers, and you get to be a giver.”

The Department of Education highlighted Moll’s passion for sharing her background in the world of science with her students as a main reason for her nomination for Teacher of the Year. She teaches life sciences: biology, marine science… stuff like that. Her class load includes beginner level integrated science as well as more specific courses.

“I’m right now teaching a field research class, so I get to kind of take that background that I had in research and get to expose kids and give them some real hands-on experience doing real stuff and asking real questions,” Moll said.

Moll says she isn’t just focused on tying her students to where they live physically; she also wants them there culturally. Mt. Edgecumbe has students from villages across the state, and Moll says she works to relay her sense of place in her teaching, as well as connect the students back to their homes. She gave an example of a student from Savoonga.

“And he started asking questions about the stable isotope ratios of carbon and nitrogen in walrus and in his subsistence food, his whales. And so his mom sent him samples down, and he was actually able to test them,” Moll said. “And then he found a conference that was happening in Nome. And he was the only high school student presenter at the conference, and he was able to make that connection back to home, even while he was away from home.”

Moll says creating a passion for identity and connections between her students and their homes is the biggest source of pride for her. Well, that and being a mom and an auntie.

The timber industry in Southeast Alaska has blamed a decline in business on fewer federal timber sales. And now, it risks being penalized by one of its biggest customers.

Tariffs will be placed on trees shipped to China: a response to President Donald Trump’s latest wave of tariffs on Chinese goods.

Eric Nichols says about 80 percent of the trees his Ketchikan-based company harvests in Southeast Alaska goes to China. Alcan Forest Products sells mostly young growth. Spruce trees make up a big part of that, and last week it got 10 percent more expensive to send that timber abroad. The tariff on hemlock went up 5 percent.

Nichols figured the Chinese tariffs were coming. To stay competitive with the global markets, his company is going to have to eat that cost — at a loss of millions of dollars.

It’s a blow in a series of blows, Nichols says. Already, the supply of timber is way down.

“Got no timber coming from the state or the forest service — that’s going to put me out of business. And I got a tariff that’s probably going to put me out of business,” Nichols said. “So which level of worry do I want to worry about first here?”

A big concern, he says, is that the tariff could increase to 25 percent.

The Trump administration has threatened to raise tariffs on Chinese products by early next year. And Nichols worries that China will retaliate with the same, which he says could be the death of Alcan Forest Products.

“How do I make business decisions for today when I don’t know what the tariff level is going to be in January?” Nichols said. “So, it’s almost impossible to run your business beyond a day-to-day basis with the threats of tariffs out there with the products that you sell.”

His company helps employ about 30 people.

As of this morning, Nichols was on his way to a remote logging camp in Southeast Alaska, and he says he hopes this trade war gets resolved soon.

Alaskans protesting the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court were arrested Tuesday morning outside the D.C. office of Sen. Dan Sullivan. It’s a sign of the mounting tension in the Senate, where a hearing is scheduled for Thursday on a 36-year-old sexual assault allegation, which Kavanaugh vehemently denies.

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Even hours after her arrest, Suzanne Walsh of Anchorage still wore the plastic ID band the police put on her wrist, and she clutched her charging documents.

“They wrote ‘mass arrest.’ I believe that’s civil disobedience,” Walsh said. “There’s a word for when you block the hall.”

Walsh flew to Washington, courtesy of an advocacy group called Center of Popular Democracy, to tell both Alaska senators not to vote for Kavanaugh. She and other protesters filed into Sullivan’s waiting room. He wasn’t available. Walsh says they chose to stay.

“Then we decided to just start telling our stories that we wanted to tell him personally, anyway,” she said.

Many had stories of abuse they and their family members had suffered. They sang and chanted.

A spokesman for Sullivan says the senator was at a hearing at the time and says no one from his office called the cops. But there are rules about protesting in the Hart Senate Office Building, and a limit on how many people are allowed in Sullivan’s reception area.

Capitol Police came and arrested the protesters in the hallway outside the senator’s office suite.

Walsh said about 15 people were arrested. She’s not sure how many were Alaskans, but she said she was proud to be among them.

“All day today I felt my mother’s energy, and my sister’s energy and my grandmother’s energy. None of them are alive anymore,” Walsh said. “They were all abused in their lifetimes, in unspeakable ways. And my sister committed suicide because of it. So yeah. I felt proud.”

She paid a $50 fine and was free in time for an afternoon protest outside Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s office.

Molly Haigh, originally from Fairbanks, helped organize that demonstration. She says a lot of Alaska girls are young when they suffer sexual abuse, like Christine Blasey Ford was when Kavanaugh allegedly attacked her. Haigh says many girls don’t feel they’ll be believed.

“And I want a world where all teenage girls believe that we’re going to care, even 50 years later,” Haigh said. “I wish somebody had told me that when I was 15 years old, and I want to tell every Alaskan girl that: that we are fighting because we want you to matter, today and tomorrow and in 50 years.”

Haigh says she thinks Murkowski is receptive to their message.

“Oh, 100 percent. I think that if there’s one thing we’ve seen today it’s that Sen. Murkowski has been more aggressive than any other Republican senator about an FBI investigation to try to find out more information,” Haigh said.

But Murkowski isn’t actually calling for a FBI  investigation. In the morning, the senator sounded like she might be.  She told CNN, “It would sure clear up all the questions, wouldn’t it?”

.@mkraju Should there be a full FBI investigation into allegations from Kavanaugh’s past?

Sen. @lisamurkowski: “It would sure clear up all the questions, wouldn’t it?”

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) September 25, 2018

Murkowski struck a different note with me.

“The response that I made was perhaps somewhat flip in that if there was an investigation here, there wouldn’t be as many questions,” the senator said.

Murkowski said few people realize the Senate Judiciary Committee staff has continued to investigate.

“And that part of the information gathering process, I don’t think has been clearly articulated,” she said.

Among the other Alaskans arrested outside Sullivan’s office was Fred John of Delta Junction. He’s 75 years old and wore a sweatshirt printed with a photo of his mother.

“My mom is Katie John,” he said. “She fought for our way of life for over 30 years and she came out pretty good, and we want to keep it that way.”

Fred John said he worries Kavanaugh could undermine the Supreme Court’s Katie John decision that guarantees important subsistence rights. John said he was happy to get cuffed for a cause and said this wasn’t his first arrest for political protesting.

“In 1967, I was in L.A. and I marched with the black people, and we got beat up,” John said. But, he added, this time the police were very gentle and polite.

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

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Alaskans arrested in anti-Kavanaugh protest at US Senate

Liz Ruskin, Alaska Public Media – Anchorage

Alaskans protesting the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court were arrested Tuesday morning outside the D.C. office of Sen. Dan Sullivan. “I want a world where all teenage girls believe that we’re going to care, even 50 years later,” one Alaskan organizer said.

State faces $200 million in budget costs just to stand still

Andrew Kitchenman, KTOO – Juneau

Some candidates for governor and the Legislature say they’ll cut the state budget next year. A recent report by the Legislature’s nonpartisan budget analysts shows why that may be difficult.

Chinese tariffs hit Southeast Alaska’s struggling timber industry

Elizabeth Jenkins, Alaska’s Energy Desk – Juneau

Tariffs will be placed on trees shipped to China: a response to President Donald Trump’s latest wave of tariffs on Chinese goods.

Hackers are selling Alaska Air, other airline miles for cheap on the dark web

Tom Banse, NNN – Washington

A tech writer’s leading theory is that hackers are stealing the miles through phishing emails or through wholesale data breaches.

Larsen Bay School to close, Karluk School may be next

Maggie Wall, KMXT – Kodiak

The Kodiak Island School Board last week voted to proceed with plans to close the Larsen Bay School. 

Passion for identity: Mt. Edgecumbe science teacher nominated for Alaska Teacher of the Year

Wesley Early, Alaska Public Media – Anchorage

Chohla Moll is a science teacher at Mt. Edgecumbe High School in Sitka. Moll’s teaching style is rooted in making sure her students know about the culture and history of the land around them.

Ask a Climatologist: What is Alaska fall so short?

Casey Grove, Alaska Public Media – Anchorage

Temperatures and yellow leaves are dropping across the state, and that means fall is here, in spirit if not in technical meteorological terms. And for folks from other parts of the country – who might lament the enjoyable and longer autumn seasons back home – the fall in Alaska can seem all too quick.

Climate predictions show a warmer October for the state this year

Dan Bross, KUAC – Fairbanks

Warmer than normal temperatures are expected across Alaska next month.

Warmer than normal temperatures are expected across Alaska next month. National Weather Service climate science and services manager Rick Thoman says that’s the October outlook from the agency’s Climate Prediction Center.

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”All of the state, better than 50 percent chance for significantly warmer for the month as a whole,” Thoman said. “It doesn’t mean every day is going to be warm, but a very strong forecast from the Climate Prediction Center for all of Alaska in October.”

Thoman says the probability is especially high for the state’s Northwestern coastal region.

“Better than 80 percent chance that temperatures will wind up much above normal, and that is the first time ever that the Climate Prediction Center has used probabilities that high anywhere in the United States,” Thoman said.

Thoman says the forecast, and level of confidence, reflect extreme ocean conditions.

”The dramatic loss of sea ice in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas over the last few years, compared to the historical period,” Thoman said. “Also, sea surface temperatures in the Bering and Chukchi Sea are extremely warm this year, even warmer than last year.”

Thoman also points to another factor in play: the forecast of an El Niño, which historically have made the Interior warmer than normal. In the near term, the forecast is for wet weather to be pushed out the Interior. Weather Service meteorologist Jim Brader says the region is forecasted to transition from clouds and rain to clear skies.

Brader says the clear skies will bring daytime high temperatures in the 50’s with freezing lows overnight.

Some candidates for governor and the Legislature say they’ll cut the state budget next year. A recent report by the Legislature’s analysts shows why that may be difficult — the state will have to pay more next year for the same level of services as this year.

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The state budget this year includes several items that will raise costs by $200 million next year, according to the Legislative Finance Division. They’re the experts who provide nonpartisan budget analysis for lawmakers.

David Teal, the division director, said the report lets lawmakers know that some of the things the Legislature did this year can’t be repeated.

“It’s a heads-up to the finance chairs and to other legislators that what they did with one-time money, etc., in the prior session can leave some holes,” Teal said.

The biggest hole will be from Medicaid. This year’s budget includes $50 million less than the program is projected to cost. Teal said there isn’t much state officials can do to avoid this cost.

“If you’re eligible and you go get medical services, the state’s obligated to pay those costs,” Teal said. “And you can’t simply tell someone: ‘Spend less,’ because … the bureaucrats don’t control the costs.”

The second biggest budget hole is from the pension obligation. Based on the latest numbers, the state should contribute $38 million more next year to shore up government and school workers’ pension funds.

Another problem is that the Legislature won’t be able to draw on some funds that it used this year. An example is a program that has phased out: the Alaska Comprehensive Health Insurance Fund. There was more than $30 million left in this fund that the Legislature used to pay for other costs. Teal said this was understandable.

“We’re not pointing any fingers at anyone for doing these things,” Teal said. “Some of them are perfectly normal, you know, good ways to spend money. They’re just not repeatable.”

Sitka Republican Sen. Bert Stedman asked for the report. He’s the chairman of the Legislative Budget and Audit Committee. He said the report makes the true size of the budget clearer.

“If you can’t clearly see the problem, it’s difficult sometimes to get the correct solution,” Stedman said.

Stedman said the report highlights the challenge of cutting the budget.

“So the likelihood of the Legislature going in and removing required expenditures … well, it’s going to be politically challenging – put it that way,” Stedman said. “And we haven’t had that discussion yet in the Legislature.”

The report points out an even bigger challenge for balancing the budget in the future. In addition to paying out the $200 million spelled out in the report, it would cost nearly $900 million more to pay the full permanent fund dividends under the formula in state law.

Teal noted that the Legislature passed a law drawing from permanent fund earnings to pay for state government services.

“As soon as we begin drawing from the earnings of the permanent fund and using them for government services, then the dividend competes with those other government services,” Teal said. “There’s no difference mathematically between paying dividends and spending money on K-12 or Medicaid.”

Here’s the 10-page report.

The State Department of Education will pick Alaska’s teacher of the year next month.

This week we’ll have profiles of each of the five finalists, from across the state.

Steve Hall is a math and science teacher at the high school in the Mat-Su town of Houston. Hall’s style of teaching emphasizes a lot of hands-on learning.

Growing up in small-town Wisconsin, Hall joked that one of the few ways to apply science in the area was to be a veterinarian working with dairy farmers. His passion for science was always a little different.

“I just was really good at it and enjoyed it a lot,” Hall said. “I’ve got a couple uncles that were, if you will, rocket scientists for 3M, and so I think I just got predisposed to that kind of field.”

Hall says he found his calling as a teacher when he was in the army, where he learned just how valuable effective teaching could be.

“There was a grenade safety course that was being taught by a sergeant, and he forgot to mention the secondary safety pin,” Hall said. “And so, he got dropped for push-ups, and I thought, ‘If I ever have to teach something like that, I’m gonna have a diagram or something.’ And so, sure enough, I had to teach that course, and I had my diagram. I really enjoyed that.”

After his service, Hall went to college for his teaching degree and taught for five years near his hometown. But after budget and staffing cuts, he started looking for a job somewhere else. His wife’s sisters had settled down in Houston, Alaska and suggested he apply for jobs there. He says when he got to Houston in 2003, he knew it was the place for him.

“Oh, I loved it. The hunting, the fishing,” Hall said. “I said to my mother-in-law, ‘I’m home now.'”

When Hall first arrived in the Valley, he taught at Palmer Junior High, but was soon hired at the brand new Houston High School.

The Department of Education highlighted Hall’s extensive use of labs in his lessons as one of the reasons he was selected as a Teacher of the Year nominee. Hall says these activities help his students see where chemistry fits into their everyday lives.

“We talk about what things are going on around the house,” Hall said. “So if you’re mixing oil and gas, and you have to go 50-50, why do they mix? So you can talk about solubility of different liquids. Same with antifreeze, stuff like that. We also make ice cream, so we can make it fun — food science.”

Hall is also a strong advocate for making sure every student in his classes is actively involved in the coursework. He teaches kids at a variety of levels, from his beginner classes to his Advance Placement courses, and he pushes all of them to work to their potential.

“What I’ll do when we’re doing an activity is get all the kids to participate, to learn it,” Hall said. “I’m like, ‘You’re not walking through that door ’til you know XYZ. And then, once they see that success, they keep working at it, so they can understand it. And then you get the application.”

Hall has been teaching for over 20 years, so long in fact, that a former student of his now teaches biology at Houston High.

“It’s good. It makes me feel a little old, but that’s alright,” Hall said.

Between his work with the recently started AP Chemistry class, to his technology-infused inquiry labs, Hall says he’s happy when his students go out into the world contributing to society and understanding the importance of science in everyday life.

A team appointed by Governor Bill Walker collaborated all summer to produce a comprehensive policy to address climate change. Their directive was to act bold. And on Wednesday, the group formally handed over the plan.

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But the work has only just started. It will be up to state agencies and elected officials to prioritize what’s there.

The state of Alaska recognizes that climate change is happening. And rather than wait around for outside help, the 37-page document outlines the prospect of local solutions to mitigate the damage. For instance: set targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, invest in a diverse economy less reliant on fossil fuels and educate the public about the impacts of warming.

At the press conference in Anchorage, Governor Walker acknowledged there have been cutbacks to climate change programs at the federal-level.

“There has been a change in that regard,” Walker said. “We don’t change what we do because somebody else changes what they do. So that didn’t change. If anything, it perhaps might have escalated it a bit.”

The Walker administration did go ahead and greenlight dozens of the team’s suggestions spread out across various state agencies.

Most of that focuses on developing a framework to address the climate change challenges that are already here and the ones that are still to come.

The climate action plan also includes the possibility of Alaska supporting some kind of national carbon pricing legislation, while also investigating a state carbon tax.

When asked about that, Governor Walker wouldn’t commit to endorsing it.

“I have said, and I remain, that I’m not interested in anything that’s going to raise [or] increase the cost of energy to Alaskans.” Walker said.

Walker said continuing to utilize the Climate Action Leadership Team comprised of stakeholders around the state was important, and he was confident no matter what happens in the November election, whoever was in charge would see the benefit of continuing that work.

The team is still appointed for the next two years. But that could change with an administrative order from a governor.

The big hearing in the U.S. Senate is tomorrow. Christine Blasey Ford is expected to testify about a drunken attack she claims Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh inflicted on her when they were in high school. The confirmation vote in the full Senate is likely to turn on two Republican votes – Sen. Susan Collins of Maine and Alaska’s own Sen. Lisa Murkowski.

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Alaska Public Media’s Washington correspondent Liz Ruskin, has been talking to Murkowski all week about the case. Here’s an edited version of Ruskin speaking to Alaska News Nightly Host Casey Grove.

GROVE: The left has been very vocal, urging Sen. Murkowski to vote no on Kavanaugh. Has she given any signs that she might buck her party and vote against him?

RUSKIN: Not that I’ve seen! Yesterday she seemed for a minute to be calling for the FBI to investigate. That had the anti-Kavanaugh crowd celebrating. Murkowski later clarified that she thinks all the allegations should be investigated, but by the Judiciary Committee staff, which she says is set up for such inquiries. And that disappointed the left and had conservatives super-happy.

GROVE: How is she handling the pressure?

RUSKIN: She seems to be in good spirits, mostly. Around the Senate, she’s been answering reporters’ questions, maybe not to their satisfaction because everyone is really looking for clues as to how she’ll vote and she’s not supplying any. There was one moment where she had just, you know, had it.

GROVE: Yeah, tell me about that.

RUSKIN: I have some tape for you I’ll play. A group of reporters jumped into her train car –

GROVE :This is the train that runs under the Capitol?

RUSKIN: Right, an underground train from the Capitol to the Senate office buildings. An MSNBC reporter asked her a kind of big-picture question. It was whether we’re at a turning point in history and whether that’s a factor in her decision. And she answered that. And then a Bloomberg reporter asks her a really pointed question about Kavanaugh and Roe v. Wade, the landmark abortion case.

And she kind of deflated and took this really long pause. (She said she was trying to get her head out of one question and into the other.)

“And you know what?” Murkowski said. “I think I’m done answering the questions for right now. Is that OK?”

GROVE: Liz, was she mad?

RUSKIN: No, it was more like a sudden loss of cabin pressure. But the reporters switched to just chatting with her and she rallied for a few more questions.

GROVE: So what’s her answer about whether this “Me Too” moment puts us at a turning point in history?

RUSKIN: Oh, she says we’re having a cultural moment. The discussion about Kavanaugh she says is still about whether is qualified but here’s what she told me:

“It’s now a greater dialog, a national conversation, about women who’ve become victims and their ability to tell their story.”

GROVE: Is Murkowski saying that’s unfair to Kavanaugh?

RUSKIN: She says there’s a lot here that’s unfair here, to him, and to the women accusing him. She says that’s just where we are. But she clearly doesn’t like where we are.

GROVE: Have you got much of a sense of how she’s feeling about this vote or feeling about all of this?

RUSKIN: Not really (as it relates to how she’ll vote). But I did ask her a personal question.

“A lot of American women are saying that they’ve had me-too moments,” I said. “And I’m wondering if you have.”

She answered with an immediate and emphatic “yes.” And that’s about all she wanted to say about that.

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

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Murkowski: Kavanaugh debate now about ‘victims and their ability to tell their story’

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

Alaska senator says the discussion has moved beyond the nominee’s qualifications and become “a greater dialog, a national conversation, about women who’ve become victims.”

Fairbanks City Council greenlights reality show showcasing local police

Robyne, KUAC – Fairbanks

A reality TV show featuring Fairbanks Police was given the OK by the City Council Monday night. Mayor Jim Matherly will contract with New York based Engel Entertainment to produce the program.

Alaska has a climate change policy. Now what?

Elizabeth Jenkins, Alaska’s Energy Desk – Juneau

The state of Alaska recognizes that climate change is happening. And rather than wait around for outside help, the 37 page document outlines the prospect of local solutions to mitigate the damage.

Supporters outnumber opponents in salmon habitat ballot initiative public hearing

Krysti Shallenberger, Alaska’s Energy Desk – Bethel

State officials hosted a public meeting on a controversial salmon habitat ballot initiative in Bethel on Tuesday. The salmon habitat ballot initiative would toughen the permitting process for proposed projects built on salmon habitat, and could hinder the development of the proposed Donlin mine.

Science around the house: Houston High teacher nominated for Alaska Teacher of the Year

Wesley Early, Alaska Public Media – Anchorage

Steve Hall is a math and science teacher at the high school in the Mat-Su town of Houston. Hall’s style of teaching emphasizes a lot of hands-on learning.

Homer City Council revisits plastic bag ban

Aaron Bolton, KBBI – Homer

The Homer City Council is contemplating a ban on thin single-use plastic bags. The move would follow other communities that have passed similar ordinances.

‘Quite an influx’: Numerous army convoys to traverse highway for big training exercise

Tim Ellis, KUAC – Fairbanks

Some 6,000 military personnel from Fort Wainwright and Joint Base Elmendorf Richardson will deploy next week to the Fort Greely area for a big, two-week field training exercise to test the Stryker Brigade’s combat readiness.

The man who translates climate change data for Alaskans is retiring. Here’s a Q&A

Nathaniel Herz, Alaska’s Energy Desk – Anchorage

If you’re looking for concrete evidence of climate change in Alaska, here’s some: Fairbanks’ typical time between the last spring freeze and the first autumn one has increased by a full month in the past century.

That fact is courtesy of Rick Thoman, a federal climatologist based in Fairbanks. For the past five years, Thoman has been something like the voice of climate change in Alaska, measuring new trends against old baselines.

He retires this week after spending more than three decades with the National Weather Service, and next week he starts a new job with the Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Policy, based at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Some of his work will be similar to his old job, and he said he plans to keep his Twitter account as active as ever.

Thoman sat down Monday for an interview with Alaska’s Energy Desk. He started by talking about how personal memories of climate and weather don’t always align with the data, making it important to keep broader context in mind.

The interview has been edited and condensed.

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THOMAN: We are seeing changes in parts of Alaska and in some seasons that are beyond anything that’s occurred not just in living memory, but now we can push that past living memory. And I think going forward, as Alaskans make decisions about our future, that context is very important. It’s more than just, ‘What I happened to remember except for those two years when I was gone to Hawaii.’

HERZ: Can you talk to me a little bit more about people’s memories aligning with what the data tells us happened? Is there anything specific you can point to that helps illustrate that?

THOMAN: People base their expectations on a relatively short time frame. The classic example is this summer in Anchorage. Many people thought it was unusually cool and rainy, and in fact it was significantly warmer than the multi-decade average. But it was cooler than some of our recent summers. So it’s pretty clear that people aren’t judging what’s happened this summer from the World Meteorological Organization’s 1981 to 2010 normals, which is the standard. They’re basing it on the last few years. That’s perfectly valid. The problem becomes when the last few years get projected back into, ‘Oh, that’s the way it was so this year was, in fact, cool.’ Well, in fact, in the longer term we can see that this was actually quite a mild summer, but not as mild as some of the recent years.

HERZ: Are there any other interesting things you take away about how Alaskans are seeing and experiencing climate change?

THOMAN: I think it would be fair to generalize and say that there are quite different perceptions of what’s happening with Alaska’s environment and climate between rural Alaska and urban Alaska.

HERZ: Talk to me more about that.

THOMAN: So, I think that in rural Alaska, where most of the communities are fairly strongly subsistence dependent and people are out on the land, there’s a general recognition that things are changing. And of course, when you’re doing subsistence hunting or gathering, weather and climate is just one part of the equation. How are the times that animals are available? How’s that changed? When are plants, if you’re berry picking, when are they coming ripe? Those are all part of the equation. When is the snow melting? When are rivers and lakes freezing, so you can get out in the winter time? That’s a very different experience than if you’re living in urban Anchorage or Fairbanks and your experience of the changes is driving to work.

HERZ: Or skiing at Alyeska?

THOMAN: Or skiing at Alyeska. Those are very different experiences. They’re equally valid but they’re quite different perceptions, potentially, than a rural subsistence-based community.

HERZ: What are the things you’re most curious about, as far as trends that might continue or things that might develop in the next five, 10, 15 years?

THOMAN: Particularly, changes in the seasonality of things: When does snow cover come? When does it melt off? Potentially, precipitation trends. I think those are going to become more clear over the next decade or so. Things like seasonality have big impacts beyond just mere dates. For instance, the Alaska Fire Service is spinning up operations weeks earlier now than they used to, because of a run of early snow melt. Before greenup. So, very flammable fuels. It’s already starting and will likely accelerate.

The Homer City Council is contemplating a ban on thin single-use plastic bags. The move would follow other communities that have passed similar ordinances. But this isn’t the first time the council has dabbled with the issue, setting up yet another contentious debate over the role of city government in Homer.

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The bag ban that was introduced Monday is largely the same ordinance city council members passed back in 2012.

The ban would prohibit retailers from providing plastic bags thinner than 2.25 mils, which supporters argue would incentivize storeowners to either eliminate plastic bags entirely or provide thicker bags that can be reused. However, the ordinance does provide retailers with a list of exceptions such as bags for frozen foods or fresh produce.

The original ban stayed on the books for less than a year and a citizens’ initiative later repealed the ordinance. Former Homer resident Justin Arnold led that charge and reminded current council members – all of which are serving their first terms – that voters spoke on the issue back in 2013.

“I’m hoping it doesn’t go farther than tonight. I don’t really want to spend the time to do another repeal,” Arnold said. “I moved out of the city. I live in Anchor Point now, but I still own property in town and can move right back in to do it.”

The initiative Arnold led argued that protecting the environment is not the city council’s role, an argument Homer residents are familiar with. Similar disagreements about the purpose of the council led to a contentious attempt to recall three city council members in 2017 and a clash over a mayoral proclamation declaring June pride month earlier this year.

Some council members agreed that voters had already settled the issue.

“The citizens overturned the plastic bag ban by a substantial margin, a huge margin: 56 to 44 percent. Many people would deem that as a mandate,” Council member Tom Stroozas said.

Council member Heath Smith echoed Stroozas, but they did put some stock in public comments, most of which were in favor of revisiting the ban.

But both Stroozas and Smith ultimately voted against introducing the ordinance, and they were not swayed from their stance that Homer residents should revisit the issue, not the council.

“I went back and I read the minutes. It was by and large people that sat and testified that were in favor of the plastic bag ban,” Smith explained. “There’s no questioning that, but when it went to a vote, it did not play out the same way.”

Council member Caroline Venuti sponsored the ordinance, and she acknowledges the results of the 2013 referendum.

Venuti is largely concerned about a growing amount of research on microplastics working their way into seafood. She argued that waiting another year to let voters weigh in would amount to standing on the sidelines as other communities take action.

“I’m doing this because I think the timing is right now, and I think we’ve been educated enough and we’ve seen enough damage,” Venuti added.

The council did introduce the ordinance in a 4-2 vote, and it also voted to hold two public hearings on the issue, the first of which will be on Oct. 8. The council is set to hold the second hearing and vote on the ordinance at its meeting on Oct. 22.

A plane crashed in Katmai National Park and Preserve on Sunday. There were no fatalities or serious injuries.

According to the park, a de Havilland Beaver floatplane attempted to step taxi the river near the mouth of Moraine Creek at Kukaklek Lake. In other words, it was moving on the water at high speed. It crashed into a bank.

The emergency locator transmitter was activated. The Coast Guard and Alaska Rescue Coordination Center were notified and began assembling a response. However, emergency response was ultimately declined.

Another airplane that saw the incident was landed and assessed the six people who were on board. They were transported back to a lodge. According to the Federal Aviation Administration, two passengers reported minor injuries and four were uninjured. Damage to the aircraft was substantial.

The names of the company, pilot and passengers have not been released. Wind and sandbars in the river were likely contributing factors in the incident, according to the park.

This most recent bout of unrest began September 4, when people in the village of Perryville spotted ash coming from the volcano. It last erupted in 2013.

“So far, it’s been producing a lava flow on the South flank of that intracaldera cone. It’s about 800 to 850 meters in length, and there have been some minor ash emissions as well,” Chris Waythomas, a geologist at the Alaska Volcano Observatory, said.

(Veniaminof erupting on September 11. Credit: Joe Timmreck via Allison Eckert, Ace Air)

According to Waythomas, however, it is highly unlikely that ash will reach the village – or the Chignik communities – at the volcano’s current level of activity.

“So far, the ash fall has been very limited and largely confined to the summit caldera. So roughly five miles at most from the vent,” Waythomas explained.

Lava extruding from the mountain is visible from the air and Perryville. If the volcano begins to exhibit heightened signs of unrest, like bigger earthquakes or plumes, that could mean ashfall in Perryville. But it probably won’t be dangerous.

“This would likely be equivalent to a thin coating of dust on your windshield, and probably not going to be in amounts that are a hazard in any way,” Waythomas said.

Three other volcanos on the Alaska Peninsula are showing signs of unrest: Cleveland Volcano, the Great Sitkin Volcano and one of the cones on Mount Cerberus at Semisopochnoi volcano in the western Aleutians. As for Veniaminof, Waythomas said that the current activity could continue for weeks.

The State Department of Education will pick Alaska’s teacher of the year next month.

This week we’ll have profiles of each of the five finalists, from across the state.

Jacob Bera is the fine arts chair at Eagle River high school. As Alaska Public Media’s Wesley Early reports, he has students at all levels, from kids who’ve never considered art as a hobby, to those who are just as passionate as he was in his AP Studio Art class.

Growing up in Wisconsin, Bera’s grandfather was his biggest inspiration. Not only did he inspire him to serve in the military, but he instilled a lifelong passion for art.

“My grandpa was an artist, and he was a poet, and he was very creative. When I was growing up, my parents split, so I was always kinda grandpa’s shadow,” Bera said. “And watching him work in the woodshop and watching him create really started to instill a passion for art. And then as I moved through school, I had inspiring teachers that kept that passion going.”

After eight years in the marines, Bera went to college to study art. During his summers, he worked at a camp in Wisconsin that inspired him to become a teacher.

“We worked with kids with disabilities, so hearing impairments, visual impairments cognitive disabilities,” Bera said. “It was a really life-changing experience, and so that’s where I really figured out that I wanted to take art and use it as a way of teaching.

Bera loved paging through Alaska magazine as a kid and always had plans to come to the 49th state. He and his wife, also a teacher, moved here in 2003.

Bera taught at a few schools in Anchorage before Eagle River High opened in 2005. He was hired as the visual arts teacher and fine arts chair. In selecting Bera as a teacher of the year nominee, the department of education highlighted that Bera grew a comprehensive arts program from the ground up, teaching everything from drawing to ceramics — Bera’s specialty.

Bera was also highlighted for helping start the annual Fine Arts Cabaret, an event that brings together students from art and music programs to showcase their work to the community.

“You know, when the audience comes in, and they walk around and they see the work, it’s fun just to sort of step back and watch my students interact with the community and speak about their work,” Bera said. “To me, that’s the best advocacy, is having a student speak about their passion for the art and what they’re doing in schools.”

Bera is happy to instill a passion for art in his students, but he also finds he’s inspired by the work of his students.

“I will bring in some of my work and set it out, talk about how I made it, and all of a sudden, you’ll look in the back room where pots are drying out, and you’ll see five or six little mugs that look like mine,” Bera said. “But I’ll be honest and say that sometimes there’s a teapot or a vase that a student makes that I get back into my studio and say, ‘that was pretty cool how they did that.’ And so it’s definitely reciprocal in terms of the learning and teaching.”

Bera says seeing students progress from freshmen to seniors, not only in their art, but also in their aspirations, is what keeps him driven to teach,

For the first time, the state’s Department of Transportation and Public Facilities is in the driver’s seat when it comes to navigating the legal environmental requirements that come along with big transportation projects.

The state doesn’t have a dedicated fund for state highway projects. So, something like 90% of the projects in the state get federal money. That means that when the state wants to work on a highway — build a new one, widen an old one — there’s usually some kind of federal environmental review.

Typically that review falls under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which requires federal agencies to consider the impact that any decision they make might have on the environment.

In the past, the Federal Highway Administration handled that review. But an Obama-era law gave states the option to take control of some of that process. Last year, Alaska joined six states that have taken the feds up on that offer.

There’s evidence that the states that have taken over this work are saving a lot of time in the permitting process.

In early September, the Federal Highway Administration put out the results of its first audit of how Alaska’s Department of Transportation is handling the new responsibilities.

There are few areas that could be improved, like one instance where the state should have held a public hearing, but didn’t. And there are questions about having enough staff and allocating the time and money they need for training.

But there are other areas where federal auditors say the state is doing well. Like, bringing in legal help early-on in the process.

With this new power comes new responsibility — namely legal liability. It means it can be sued in federal court.

The state added a new attorney in the Department of Law — specifically to make sure that projects are legally defensible. The state’s Department of Transportation and Public Facilities added four other positions to cope with the new responsibilities too.

The Federal Highway Administration is taking comments on the audit until October 5.

Alaska Public Media Washington Correspondent Liz Ruskin and Alaska News Nightly Host Casey Grove discuss Thursday’s extraordinary U.S. Senate hearing. Professor Christine Blasey Ford alleged she was attacked when she was 15. The man she accuses, Judge Brett Kavanaugh, denied he did any such thing and fought to keep his nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court alive. This transcript has been lightly edited.

GROVE: Liz, the whole world wants to know what Sen. Lisa Murkowski thinks about this. What can you tell us?

RUSKIN: Casey, I have a confession to make: I did not find Sen. Murkowski today… I know she canceled an Energy committee hearing so that she and every senator on the committee could watch the Kavanaugh hearing in real time. I do know one reporter from the energy trade press talked to her briefly today. Murkowski told E&E News that she found Ford “very credible” but she was withholding her judgment until she heard from Judge Kavanaugh, who at that point hadn’t testified yet.

I do have one vignette to relay.

GROVE: OK. Set that up for me.

RUSKIN: I went to the Hart Senate Office Building, where Murkowski’s office is, and ran into, of all people, Joan Baez who was there as part of a solemn, slow moving protest in the atrium. They were doing this call-and-response thing.

(Plays tape of chanting crowd.)

I think they were echoing Professor Ford’s words there: “I believe it’s my civic duty to tell what happened to me.” And if you listen really carefully you can hear the Capitol Police telling them to cease and desist.

GROVE: Interesting. Liz, Do we know what Sen. Murkowski is hearing from Alaskans?

RUSKIN: Certainly she’s hearing  from a lot of Alaskans, particularly Native groups, and women, and advocates of the Affordable Care Act urging her to vote no. Pollster Ivan Moore just released some survey results showing more Alaskans want her to confirm than reject. But among her base, the people who said they had a positive view of Sen. Murkowski, far more of them wanted her to vote no on Kavanaugh. And Moore said the survey ran Friday to Tuesday, and he said opinions were in flux.

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

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Murkowski said to find Kavanaugh accuser ‘very credible’

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

Sen. Murkowski told a reporter at midday that she was withholding her judgment until she heard from Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

After one year, Feds examine how DOT takeover of environmental reviews is working

Rashah McChesney, Alaska’s Energy Desk – Juneau

There are few areas that could be improved — like one instance where the state should have held a public hearing — and didn’t. And there are questions about having enough staff and allocating the time and money they need for training.

Mount Polley engineers face disciplinary hearings

Jacob Resneck, CoastAlaska – Juneau

Engineers at the Canadian mine that discharged millions of cubic yards of tailings stand accused of negligence by their professional peers. The copper-gold mine waste discharged into salmon-producing rivers that are important to Alaska fisheries.

Bank employee suspected of stealing $4.3M extradited to US

Associated Press

A former Alaska bank employee suspected of leaving the country with $4.3 million seven years ago has been extradited from Mexico to face federal charges.

Lava continues to flow from Mount Veniaminof

Isabelle Ross, KDLG – Dillingham

Mount Veniaminof, located on the Alaska Peninsula north of Perryville, has been emitting lava and sporadic plumes of ash since early September.

Former Providence Hospital CEO now working to reduce Anchorage homelessness

Zachariah Hughes, Alaska Public Media – Anchorage

In April, Dr. Richard Mandsager retired as the CEO of Providence Hospital. Now, he’s starting a new chapter working for the Rasmusson Foundation as a senior fellow, and will spend the next three years trying to leverage the foundation’s resources to partner with other groups reducing homelessness in Anchorage.

Showcasing your work: Eagle River art teacher nominated for Alaska Teacher of the Year

Wesley Early, Alaska Public Media – Anchorage

Jacob Bera is the fine arts chair at Eagle River high school. He has students at all levels, from kids who’ve never considered art as a hobby, to those who are just as passionate as he was in his AP Studio Art class.

Haines Borough Assembly discusses Alaska Excursions tour permit

Henry Leasia, KHNS – Haines

The Haines Borough Assembly has been discussing the status of a permit for tour operator Alaska Excursions. In February several former employees complained about the company’s safety practices.

‘Bush Blues’: An ordinary cop solves crimes in an extraordinary world

Robert Woolsey, KCAW – Sitka

A new crime thriller based in western Alaska was penned by a newcomer to fiction, but a veteran in law enforcement.