Two Utqiaġvik whaling crew members die in apparent whaling accident
Ravenna Koenig, Alaska’s Energy Desk – Fairbanks
North Slope Borough Mayor Harry K. Brower Jr. said that the Borough is not releasing details about the incident until all the facts are gathered and all family members have been notified.
Public safety persists as top issue for Y-K Delta tribes
Anna Rose MacArthur. KYUK – Bethel
This time last year, there were eight Village Public Safety Officers across the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta. Now there are nine, and one more is undergoing a background check as part of the application process. The region contains 56 tribes, and many don’t have any law enforcement at all.
Poll shows challenger closing in on Rep. Young
Liz Ruskin, Alaska Public Media – Washington D.C.
A new poll suggests Alaska Congressman Don Young, the most senior member of Congress, may be in a tight race.
Republican Governors Association plays dominant role in Alaska campaign funding
Andrew Kitchenman, KTOO – Juneau
The Republican Governors Association has paid more than two and a half million to a group backing Dunleavy’s campaign for governor.
ConocoPhillips heralds first oil at Alaska petroleum reserve
Associated Press
ConocoPhillips Alaska has reached a milestone at the first drill site on federal leases within the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.
Ask A Climatologist: How much would society have to adjust to curb climate change?
Casey Grove, Alaska Public Media – Anchorage
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a special report that says, among other things, “limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius would require rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society.”
How much can a city like Anchorage cut down on carbon?
Zachariah Hughes, Alaska Public Media – Anchorage
One place where there’s an effort to go greener is in Anchorage. The administration of mayor Ethan Berkowitz is moving forward on a new climate action plan, and simultaneously pursuing measures to reduce the city’s carbon emissions. The move comes at a time when cities and states are clashing with federal environmental policies, and developing their own climate initiatives.
Kenai invocation policy ruled unconstitutional
Aaron Bolton, KBBI – Homer
After a roughly two-year court battle, a superior court judge ruled today that the Kenai Peninsula Borough’s invocation policy is unconstitutional.
Anchorage School Board votes not to change school start times
Wesley Early, Alaska Public Media – Anchorage
On Monday night, the Anchorage School Board voted against changing school start times for the district.
NPFMC may impose regulations on Southeast and GOA rental boats
Aaron Bolton, KBBI – Homer
The North Pacific Fishery Management Council, or NPFMC, took a step during its meeting Monday toward regulating unguided boats that anglers pay to use for halibut fishing.
Beadnose 409 crowned as the 2018 Fat Bear Week champion
A Solid Waste Services truck at the tipping floor in Anchorage (Photo courtesy of Suzanna Caldwell, SWS)
Anchorage is going green. The administration of Mayor Ethan Berkowitz is moving forward on a new climate action plan, and simultaneously pursuing measures to reduce the city’s carbon emissions. The moves come at a time when cities and states across the country are clashing with federal environmental policies, and developing their own climate initiatives.
But how much can a city like Anchorage actually do to curb carbon emissions?
On a recent Friday morning, Rafael Contreras sat in the cab of his garbage truck, toggling a joystick with his left hand to carefully pinch and lift recycling bins with a massive hydraulic arm on the truck’s right flank.
Originally from the Dominican Republic, 65-year-old Contreras came to Alaska after a career playing professional baseball. But for the last 13 years he’s driven garbage trucks for Solid Waste Services, the municipality’s trash collection utility. The job gives him a unique perspective on a an intimate side of the city.
“Summertime they like to throw (out) a lotta fish carcasses,” Contreras said of less pleasant residential refuse. “That was very smelly.”
The city-run garbage and recycling programs use a lot of energy. Mostly in the form of fuel for the hulking 22-ton trucks that crawl up streets and alleys.
Contreras’s trucks get, on average, just two-and-a-half miles to the gallon. It’s an inefficiency that, for Shaina Kilcoyne, creates an opportunity. As the Energy and Sustainability Manager for SWS, it is Kilcoyne’s job to find ways for municipal entities to save money and energy.
“One of the things we’re doing is looking at ways we can electrify our fleet,” Kilcoyne explained.
If you’re a city like Anchorage, there are only so many resources you control that relate to energy usage. But a big one is the fleet of cars, trucks, buses, snowplows and lumbering red garbage trucks under local government control. There’s also road infrastructure more broadly — particularly since the sprawling municipality is such a car-centric city.
“This is actually a big priority because over 50 percent of our emissions are coming from transportation in the city of Anchorage,” Kilcoyne said.
Much of her work involves turning energy-related measures from policy proposals into practice. That means developing big picture ideas on topics like city planning, food systems, as well as renewable energy, and then finding practical ways to implement them.
This isn’t always flashy or forefront of residents’ attention.
A pilot program this winter is experimenting with electric trash trucks to see how they perform in the cold climate. The city is already testing eerily quiet electric buses. And so far, Anchorage has upgraded around 4,000 streetlamps, changing the old High Pressure Sodium lights to efficient new LEDs.
“This is not a feel good measure,” Kilcoyne said. “LED lights use just a fraction of the energy that our regular incandescent bulbs or even CFLs use. And so it does make a big difference on a facility. We’re seeing 40 to 50 percent savings on lighting upgrades.”
But those 4,000 replaced represents only one tenth of all the streetlights in town, managed by a patchwork of different public and private entities.
Still, Kilcoyne and the administration argue this is not just about environmental protection, it’s good long-term fiscal policy. More efficient lights mean less energy is used, and in the longer term less spending on employee labor to replace them.
But there’s only so much a local government can control. The municipality is far from the largest energy customer in Anchorage. According to a public report last year, just four percent of the city’s total energy load is attributable to the municipality. Five percent if you include all the streetlights.
And the clock is ticking. The climate is changing so rapidly that Kevin Kennedy, a senior fellow at the World Resource Institute, insists things are too dire to be selective when it comes to which policy measures are worthy of pursuit.
“Everyone needs to step up and do what they can,” Kennedy said.
Kennedy researches how states, the federal government and businesses can all address carbon emissions. Each unit, whether it’s a city, a region, or an office building, has assets it uniquely controls. Cities, for example, can enforce greener building standards, waste management, and public transit systems. Typically it is states or regions that have the ability to shift away from carbon-based energy sources.
When Kennedy worked for the State of California people would pessimistically point out that even if the whole state went to zero emissions overnight, globally that would only amount to a one or two percent reduction of what humans are pumping into the atmosphere.
“But you can say that about everything,” he noted. “If everyone says, ‘Oh I’m not going to act because I don’t know that everyone else is going to act,’ then nothing will happen.”
In Kennedy’s assessment, even if the Municipality of Anchorage can only affect four or five percent of the city’s total energy usage, a sliver of the global carbon load, the move is meaningful.
The court case dates back to 2016 when the Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly responded to an invocation led by Iris Fontana, one of three plaintiffs in the case. The assembly responded to Fontana’s prayer ending in the words “Hail Satan” by implementing a policy that restricted the invocation to individuals and religious organizations on a pre-approved list.
However, the court only considered whether the policy violated the Alaska Constitution’s Establishment Clause, which states that no law should establish an official religion in the state and that no law should “act as a step towards” an official religion.
The court found that the borough’s policy excluded “minority faiths,” and therefore is unconstitutional. KBBI reached out to the Kenai Peninsula Borough for comment, but did not hear back in time for this story. The station has not reached out to the ACLU or the plaintiffs in the case, but plans to do so.
International Pacific Halibut Commission regulatory areas. (IPHC graphic)
The North Pacific Fishery Management Council, or NPFMC, took a step during its meeting Monday toward regulating unguided boats that anglers pay to use for halibut fishing. The council may require those boats to be registered and may also impose more restrictive charter bag limits on the customers that utilize them.
In recent years, the NPFMC has heard testimony about a perceived increase of unguided rental boats in the Gulf of Alaska and in Southeast Alaska. Many have argued that fishing lodges and charters have been using those boats to skirt more restrictive charter bag limits.
“We have seen the guided sector to be very resourceful in creating business entities that are not guided in order to avoid restrictions built into the halibut catch sharing plan,” Andy Mezirow, who represents the charter sector on the council, said.
The NPFMC estimates that there are roughly 250 rental boats available in International Pacific Halibut Commission regulatory areas 2C, which embodies Southeast, and area 3A, which covers the Central Gulf.
Without a specific registration requirement for these boats, it’s hard to know just how many there are, but catch data suggests there is a problem in Southeast.
“The non-charter harvest has been declining and then moved up to equal to the charter harvest in about 2011 to almost doubling by 2016,” Mezirow explained. “This growth combined with public testimony about the influx of new for-hire vessels coming into communities has given the council enough evidence of correlation that a problem exists.”
The sport sector’s harvest is subtracted from the total allowable catch before it’s divvied between the charter and commercial sectors. Mezirow said an increase in sport harvest could reduce the available catch for those fisheries. Halibut stocks are on the decline, and Mezirow also raised conservation concerns in relation to the issue.
The council asked its staff to analyze two potential tools that may help it better understand the potentially growing fleet of for-hire boats.
“Defining these entities as one for-hire sector, creating a registration and aligning the bag limits with the guided sector is a necessary action to understand and then manage this fleet,” Mezirow said as he read Monday’s motion.
The proposed regulations could require businesses that receive any kind of compensation for boats used for recreational halibut fishing to be registered in regulatory areas 2C and 3A. Another alternative could impose charter bag limits on anglers paying to use those vessels.
Council member and Alaska Department of Fish and Game Commissioner Sam Cotten expressed concern about the measures potentially reducing Alaskans’ access to the halibut resource, particularly those who can’t afford a boat.
“We know we can’t distinguish between residents of Alaska and residents of another state in an action like this,” Cotten said. “But sometimes these regulations, any of the regulations we impost have differential impacts on residents and non-residents.”
Council member John Jenson, who owns a boat rental business in Petersburg, echoed Cotten. However, he said he supported the measure for now.
“Hearing that there’s conservation needs in the background here, I’m going to be supporting this for now and see where it goes,” Jenson explained.
The council also asked staff to look into tracking how many halibut sport fishermen utilizing for-hire unguided boats reel in each year.
However, it’s unclear when the council will receive a final report and when it may take final action on the issue.
The Donlin runway and camp site in summer 2014. Donlin Gold expects to get most of its major state and federal permits by the end of 2018. (Photo by Dean Swope/KYUK)
One of the biggest gold mines in the world could be built along the Kuskokwim River, north of Bethel. The Donlin mine has so far escaped the intense level of public scrutiny aimed at the proposed Pebble Mine in Bristol Bay, but it’s much farther along the permitting process. Supporters say the mine would bring much needed jobs to the region while opponents worry it threatens their subsistence way of life.
There isn’t much at the Donlin mine site right now: just a long airstrip, with clusters of sturdy buildings in the middle of green mountains close to the Middle Kuskokwim River.
Donlin wrapped up most of its exploration before 2012, but workers continued environmental testing and monitoring water quality as the company worked with the Army Corps of Engineers to wrap up its lengthy environmental review. But now the camp is closed as Donlin awaits the rest of its permits.
Right now, the extensive mine site is mostly covered in dense black spruce forest. But Donlin’s proposal would turn this area into a large open-pit mine.
That means Donlin will dig two big holes that will eventually merge together to form a large pit. At its peak, the pit will be a more than a mile wide and two miles long. And once Donlin stops mining, that pit will evolve into a tailings dam that will contain the water used in its operations. The water will already be treated by large facilities for the cyanide used in its operations and the mercury that is released from the rocks surrounding the site, Donlin says.
Kurt Parkan, the spokesman for Donlin Gold, says the mine would be in the top 10 percent in the world for a gold mine because of its deposit size and production.
“Basically we’re moving one mountain to another and taking the gold out during the process,” Parkan said.
The site sits in one of the most remote regions in Alaska. So Donlin will have to build roads, a long gas pipeline, a power plant, a port and an airstrip for its operation.
All that infrastructure — and mining — will disrupt 2,800 acres of wetlands. However, Donlin will mitigate about 700 acres – both onsite or in a different location – to make up for the impacts. And to do that, Donlin needs about 100 permits from federal and state agencies.
Donlin’s supporters argue the mine would bring jobs to a region with high unemployment and poverty. Bethel resident Moses Tulim says the Donlin Mine will open up economic opportunity.
“Well, you go one to any village and you name basically the same number of employers or identify the same number of employees,” Tulim said.
Tulim was born in Chevak, but has lived in Bethel for the past decade. He’s seen people leave the villages to find work — and not return. He says jobs could help keep young people in the villages.
“As a result, many more young people will be looking at relatives working in the mining industry and they’ll have role models that they’ll be looking up to who have good paying jobs and able to afford more things, snow machines, boats… and help continue on supporting their subsistence way of life,” Tulim said.
But many in the Yukon Kuskokwim Delta have big concerns about the mine. They worry that the extra barge traffic will damage spawning grounds for smelt and chum. And some fear that a mine accident would contaminate the Kuskokwim River.
The first tribe in the Y-K Delta marched against the proposed mine this past summer in Bethel. And a local working group formed to oppose it as well. But most of the protests are local.
Unlike the Pebble mine in Bristol Bay, Donlin has a lot of political support in Alaska. The three gubernatorial candidates have endorsed it. Crooked Creek is the village closest to the mine. Its Traditional Council endorsed the mine in a resolution ten years ago.
But some people in the community have concerns. Mishka Andreanoff is a Yup’ik elder who lives in Crooked Creek. He doesn’t like the mine.
“If we get the mine open, I don’t know if we’ll get any fish up this river or not, because this our life: the fish,” Andreanoff said. “I live off the land…I do fishing and trapping and hunting when I can.”
Andreanoff says he worked for Donlin during its early exploration days. He used to hunt and trap in the mine site area before the company closed it down. He’s afraid the mine could bring in more people than the village can handle.
“We’re having problems with alcohol and all of that, and there’ll be more of that when the mine opens up,” Andreanoff said.
Donlin’s Parkan says the company understands those concerns. And he says Donlin will build the mine safely.
Parkan can’t say when the mine is likely to break ground, but says it’s years away. Now, the mine is moving through the permitting phase, getting its final Environmental Impact Statement and major permits this year.
“We just received our federal permits, so that’s probably the biggest milestone to date. We’re continuing to work towards getting our major state permits,” Parkan said.
Donlin expects to get most of those this year. But the company will need to determine if gold prices are high enough to begin building the mine.
An analyst with financial firm S&P Global says the current gold market is pretty good for development — and will likely stay that way for a while. However, constructing the mine could cost as much as $4 billion.
Parkan says the company already invested $500 million in exploration and the permitting process. He says that means Donlin is serious about developing the mine.
The Alaska State Capitol in downtown Juneau. (Photo by Tripp J Crouse/KTOO)
Some of Alaska’s most prominent lobbyists are boosting the fundraising efforts of political candidates – a practice that, according to a top enforcement official, appears to violate a state law that’s designed to limit lobbyists’ influence over the legislative process.
In the past year, lobbyists Ashley Reed and Jerry Mackie have emailed clients and friends invitations to political fundraisers for candidates including Gov. Bill Walker, House Speaker Bryce Edgmon and state Sens. Kevin Meyer and Lyman Hoffman, both of whom sit in Senate leadership.
That’s in spite of a state law that bars lobbyists from helping with legislative and gubernatorial candidates’ fundraising efforts. Penalties for violations include a fine capped at $1,000 and up to a year in prison.
Both lobbyists said they received permission to send the invitations from the state’s lobbying enforcement agency, the Alaska Public Offices Commission. But the commission’s director, Heather Hebdon, said one of her employees had only issued non-binding, informal advice that won’t protect lobbyists against a complaint.
Lawmakers approved the fundraising ban in 1992 as an anti-corruption measure, according to one of the advocates for the ban, former state Rep. David Finkelstein. When lobbyists help raise money for politicians’ campaigns, it can give them more leverage when they ask those politicians to vote in a particular way, Finkelstein said.
“If someone raises you thousands and thousands of dollars, it’s hard not to feel beholden to them,” Finkelstein said. “I can say that out of personal experience.”
Before the Legislature approved the ban, lobbyists were allowed to participate in political campaigns. And lawmakers often pressured them to help with fundraising, Finkelstein said, since many lobbyists’ clients are business and industry leaders who can write big checks.
The law that Finkelstein helped pass says lobbyists can’t “directly or indirectly collect contributions” for candidates, and they can’t “otherwise engage in the fundraising activity of a legislative campaign or campaign for governor or lieutenant governor.” State regulations implementing the law say that lobbyists can’t solicit, collect, accept or deliver campaign funds or goods.
Reed and Mackie represent some of the state and country’s largest corporations, plus a slew of nonprofits and tribal organizations. Each makes more than $700,000 a year to push the interests of their clients in the state Legislature and with executive branch agencies.
In July, Reed – whose 15 clients include CVS Health, Wells Fargo Bank and Enstar Natural Gas – forwarded an emailed invitation to a fundraising lunch for Hoffman and Meyer.
The event was held at Enstar’s Anchorage offices. The original invitation was written by one of the co-hosts of the lunch, Alaska State Chamber of Commerce President Curtis Thayer. Reed added his own message.
“From my vantage point and perspective, these individuals have served the state well over the years. They are deserving of your support,” Reed wrote. “Please read the invitation below.”
Reed’s email also included a disclaimer that acknowledged the legal prohibition on fundraising. It said: “This correspondence is NOT a solicitation; rather, it is intended to be advisory in nature.”
Reed has also sent invitations on behalf of two Anchorage Republicans – Josh Revak, who’s running for a state House seat on the lower Hillside, and incumbent Sen. Mia Costello, according to copies obtained by Alaska Public Media.
Mackie, meanwhile, last month sent an email that attached an invitation to a fundraiser for Hoffman and House Speaker Bryce Edgmon. Mackie, whose 20 clients include AT&T, Arctic Slope Regional Corp. and cruise line Holland America., did not write a message of his own.
He also texted invitations last year to a fundraiser for Walker and to another event jointly benefiting Hoffman and Edgmon, according to a copy of the texts obtained by Alaska Public Media.
In phone interviews, Reed and Mackie both said they thought their activity was authorized by the public offices commission.
Mackie cited a legal interpretation he asked for last year from an employee at the commission, also known as APOC.
The interpretation came from the commission’s lobbyist coordinator, Heather Dalberg, who’s a paralegal, not an attorney. She wrote that Mackie could inform people about fundraisers for candidates that Mackie personally supports, “as long as you are just informing and are in no way connected to the fundraiser.”
The law contains a caveat that allows lobbyists to “personally advocate” for candidates in spite of the fundraising ban, Dalberg wrote.
“Informing others of upcoming fundraisers for a candidate that a lobbyist personally supports is not prohibited,” she said.
Mackie, a former state senator, said in a phone interview: “I did exactly what I was told by APOC that I could do, and nothing more.”
Reed said he did not have any written guidance like Mackie’s. But he said he’s received similar advice in phone calls with commission employees.
Any guidance that the lobbyists received from commission employees won’t insulate them from complaints, though, according to Hebdon, the commission’s executive director.
Hebdon said information from phone calls like Reed’s, and even from a letter like Mackie’s, is non-binding, “informal advice” from staff that hasn’t been approved by her agency’s politically-appointed commissioners.
The lobbyists could have asked the commissioners to issue a formal advisory opinion, Hebdon added. And she said she interprets the law differently from Dalberg, her employee who wrote the letter to Mackie.
“A plain reading of the statute clearly prohibits anything to do with fundraisers,” Hebdon said. It’s pretty clear, she added, that lobbyists are barred from sending invitations.
Lobbyists could cite informal advice to argue for reduced penalties if they’re found to have violated the law, Hebdon said. But, she added, “it certainly doesn’t protect them from a publicly-initiated complaint.”
Reed and Mackie both said they would stop sending emails if Hebdon’s agency asks.
“If the commission says we’re not supposed to do that, I won’t do it and I doubt any of the other lobbyists will do it,” Reed said.
After the lobbying law was approved in the 1990s, the public offices commission addressed several formal requests for advisory opinions from lobbyists who wanted to understand the limits of the fundraising ban. But even after those opinions, the differences between allowed and illegal activity are still subtle.
Lobbyists can’t work with a candidate or campaign staffer to determine the details of a fundraiser. But they can do limited “clerical” work to help clients, like businesses, that are organizing fundraisers, the commissioners said in a 1994 ruling.
When asked, the commissioners couldn’t agree on whether it’s legal for a lobbyist to prepare a list of guests that their clients would use when sending fundraiser invitations — though the commission’s staff recommended that such activity be considered illegal.
The commissioners have never issued an opinion directly addressing whether it’s legal for lobbyists, under their own names, to send invitations to fundraisers in email or text messages, like Mackie and Reed did.
Reed described that practice as commonplace among lobbyists. He also said that legislators running for re-election often ask him to distribute invitations to their fundraisers.
“When they ask for a favor, you try to help them,” Reed said.
Four of the candidates whose fundraiser invitations were emailed by the lobbyists — Edgmon, Hoffman, Walker and Meyer — didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Revak and Costello, whose fundraiser information was emailed by Reed, both said they didn’t asked him to do that.
“I didn’t ask for his help,” Revak said. “I’m not trying to game the system here.”
IDM Mining CEO Rob McLeod said the 363-acre Red Mountain mine will be a relatively modest operation.
“It’s a fairly short mine life at about five and half years,” McLeod said. “But in 2017, we added another 20 percent of resources and the deposit is wide open for expansion.”
The environmental assessment approved by B.C. authorities envisions downstream monitoring for about 10 years after the mine closes down.
NOAA hydrologist Sean Eagan said historic mines nearby have proven it can take decades for sulfides in mine waste to oxidize in a way that generates acid rock drainage.
“They had piles of rock sitting around and it took 20 years for the acid to really develop, the acid leaching to really come out of those piles,” Eagan told CoastAlaska. “So the amount of time they are proposing to monitor does not seem sufficient.”
Alaska regulators have also weighed in. They work with their B.C. counterparts and track transboundary mines because of potential downstream impacts in Alaska.
Kyle Moselle is in charge of large mine projects for the Alaska Department of Natural Resources. His agency didn’t find any red flags with the project.
“You know, I’m not going to second guess the regulatory decision by the B.C. regulatory agencies on setting that 10-year post-closure monitoring period,” Moselle said. “But it’s not unusual for a short-lived mine that you would have a proportionally short monitoring period.”
But Alaska-based mine watchdogs have concerns about the proposed tailing facility. That’s where mine waste is stored in reservoirs.
“Tailings dams are the problem,” said Brian Lynch, a retired Alaska Department of Fish and Game biologist who now works for a group called Rivers Without Borders. “You know, not just in the gold mines of B.C. but tailings dams for coal mines in the U.S. — it’s just having those in the system that can be problematic.”
Rivers Without Borders and other green groups urged IDM to use “dry-stacking” for its mine waste. That’s when water is filtered from the waste allowing it be stacked in dry heaps for long-term storage. It’s used at the Hecla Greens Creek Mine on Admiralty Island.
But McLeod said in order to liberate the gold from the ore it’ll have to grind the material down to about 25 microns.
“And with so with such a fine particle size that is not generally amenable to the dry-stack method,” McLeod said.
IDM Mining estimates there is 524,000 oz. of measured gold available in the underground mine. (Photo courtesy IDM Mining)
McLeod said his company understands the sensitivity around tailing ponds; IDM is still finalizing its storage plan.
“We may mix the tailings in with concrete,” McLeod said. “But upon closure it would be sealed with another geomembrane and covered up and will be continued to be monitored at the headwaters.”
Sen. Lisa Murkowski at the U.S. Capitol. (Photo by Al Drago/Getty Images)
Last weekend, Sen. Lisa Murkowski made headlines for breaking with her party over the Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh. Wednesday, she fell in line with her Republican caucus on a controversial health care vote.
Murkowski, along with Sen. Dan Sullivan, voted to greenlight the extension of short-term, bare-bones health insurance plans. Democrats say the change is part of a Trump administration plan to sabotage the Affordable Care Act. But Murkowski doesn’t see it that way.
Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., led an effort to get rid of the Trump administration rule, and she made an obvious play for the two remaining swing votes on health care.
“Just over a year ago in this chamber, three brave Republican colleagues, Sen. John McCain, Sen. Susan Collins and Sen. Lisa Murkowski, joined all Democrats in voting against health care repeal legislation,” she said. “They listened to the families of their states.”
Baldwin needed to win over two Republicans to nullify the new rule that extends short-term plans. She got just one: Collins. Baldwin’s resolution failed on a vote of 50-50.
That leaves the Trump administration’s rule in place. It allows people to be on the short-term plans for up to three years. During the Obama administration, the limit was one year, then it was reduced to three months.
The short-term plans can exclude coverage for things like pre-existing conditions and pregnancy.
“These plans are junk insurance,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said. “This administration wants to let these junk insurance plans run rampant and let people be duped into thinking they’re having insurance when it covers almost nothing.”
The plans might appeal to young, healthy people, which Democrats say would leave only older, sicker people in the individual market, driving up the cost of their insurance.
Murkowski said she voted to keep the three-year term because she wants Alaskans to have the option of a cheaper plan, even if it has less coverage.
“To eliminate any options is just a hard thing for folks, given the high costs that we have,” she said.
But Murkowski doesn’t see the spartan plans as a good permanent solution.
“I don’t think that we’re at that sweet spot yet,” Murkowski said. “I think three years is too long. But I also think three months is too short.”
Alaska Insurance Division Director Lori Wing-Heier expects only about 500 Alaskans will buy short-term plans under the new rule. She does not think the extension will really undermine the state’s individual market.
Alaska Insurance Division Director Lori Wing-Heier. (2016 photo by Skip Gray/360 North)
Most Alaskans have insurance sponsored by their employers or the government. Only about 18,000 Alaskans buy their own plans on the individual market. Wing-Heier says 90 percent of them get a subsidy. Switching to a short-term plan with skimpier coverage isn’t going to be that attractive to them, Wing-Heier says, because they would have to give up their subsidy and pay full price.
“We think that for people that just have not bought anything because they were not eligible for a subsidy and consequently they’re bare, those will be the people that look at these short-term plans,” she said.
The Senate’s vote keeping the three-year limit for short-term plans fell along party lines, with the exception of Collins who voted with the Democrats.
Iditarod Elementary School (Courtesy of Mat-Su School District)
The Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District is reaching out to more than 300 families of children who had classes with a popular teacher now accused of inappropriately touching children.
Wasilla police arrested 36-year-old Lukis Nighswonger on September 26th. He faces four felony counts of sexual abuse of a minor for alleged incidents as far back as 2008. Nighswonger – a BP Teacher of Excellence in 2015 – taught at Iditarod Elementary.
School district spokesperson Jillian Morrissey says the district sent a letter to the families of roughly 330 students Nighswonger taught.
“The number one priority is to help get support to students who may have been harmed by this individual,” Morrisey said.
There appear to have been at least two reports against Nighswonger in the years leading up to his arrest.
Morrisey says a complaint against Nighswonger to Wasilla Police in 2012 did not lead to charges at the time, and she says the police did not notify the school district of the report, per department protocol. In an interview with the Anchorage Daily News, an Anchorage Police Department spokesperson said that APD would notify the school district in such an instance.
Morrisey says the school district itself got a complaint in January of this year that it investigated internally.
“But at the time, through the investigation protocol and following that, there were no criminal allegations made, and so the protocol was followed and action was taken according to what was discovered,” Morrisey said.
Morrisey says the district took action but is barred from discussing it because of personnel rules. But she says Nighswonger was not terminated until the day he was arrested several months later.
For now, Morrisey says the district is still in the initial phase of contacting and hearing back from parents.
Nighswonger remains jailed on $100,000 bail, at least half of which would have to be cash.
Alaska law says lobbyists can’t fundraise for candidates. But the invitations keep coming
Nathaniel Herz, Alaska’s Energy Desk – Anchorage
Some of Alaska’s most prominent lobbyists are boosting the fundraising efforts of political candidates, prompting questions about whether they’re breaking a state law that’s designed to limit lobbyists’ influence over the legislative process.
Murkowski back in GOP fold on health care
Liz Ruskin, Alaska Public Media – Washington D.C.
Last weekend, Sen. Murkowski made headlines for breaking with her party over the Brett Kavanaugh nomination. But she fell in line with her Republican caucus Wednesday on a controversial health care vote.
Murkowski on Trump: I know Alaska ‘better than he does’
Associated Press
Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska is brushing back against President Donald Trump, saying she knows her state’s political terrain “better than he does.”
Mat-Su teacher accused of sexual misconduct with children, district reaching out to families
Casey Grove, Alaska Public Media – Anchorage
The Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District is reaching out to more than 300 families of children who had classes with a popular teacher now accused of inappropriately touching children.
Superior court judge rules against Kenai Peninsula Borough in invocation case
Aaron Bolton, KBBI – Homer
After a roughly two-year court battle, a superior court judge ruled Tuesday that the Kenai Peninsula Borough’s invocation policy is unconstitutional.
Candidates for governor make case for state tourism industry
Tim Ellis, KUAC – Fairbanks
Governor Bill Walker and the two candidates who are running to unseat him pitched their ideas Tuesday in Fairbanks on how to promote the state’s tourism industry.
Canadian company to purchase Alyeska Resort
Abbey Collins, Alaska Public Media – Anchorage
Girdwood’s Alyeska Resort is set to be sold.
B.C. tribe sues U.S. barge company over 2016 spill
Jacob Resneck, CoastAlaska – Juneau
A First Nations tribe in British Columbia is suing the operator of a U.S. fuel barge that spilled thousands of gallons of diesel near the tribe’s reserve nearly two years ago.
62.3 million: Bristol Bay’s 2018 salmon season the largest ever
Avery Lill, KDLG – Dillingham
It is official; 2018 was the largest sockeye salmon run to Bristol Bay on record, and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game has records dating back to 1893.
Fortunately the tug’s accompanying fuel barge had already delivered its load in Ketchikan and was nearly empty.
Still, around 26,000 gallons of diesel and other oils from the southbound tug Nathan E. Stewart spilled that morning. An NTSB investigation later found the crew member standing watch had fallen asleep.
The First Nations tribe says its subsistence clam beds were contaminated and haven’t been harvested since.
Nearly two years later to the day, the Heiltsuk Tribal Council filed a lawsuit against the B.C. and Canadian governments.
The suit also names crew members and their employer: Kirby Offshore Marine which regularly ships fuel from Washington State to ports in Southeast Alaska.
“Our law has been violated and the legal action we are taking in the B.C. Supreme Court today is our attempt, our bid to hold industry and government accountable for this negligence,” Heiltsuk First Nations hereditary chief Frank Brown told reporters in Vancouver on Wednesday.
The Kirby Corporation released a short statement admitting no wrongdoing.
“Kirby Offshore Marine, LLC has been made aware of a claim filed by the Heiltsuk Nation with respect to the Nathan E. Stewart incident that occurred in British Columbia waters some two years ago,” the Houston, Texas-based company wrote in a statement to CoastAlaska. “Our legal counsel will be reviewing the claim and will take the appropriate actions to defend our interests in court. We will not make any further statement in the media at this time, as we do not want to take any action that could prejudice any judicial or other proceedings arising from this incident.”
B.C.’s environment ministry released a statement of its own.
“We are committed to work with the federal government and to engage with Heiltsuk as appropriate for a federally-led initiative,” the B.C. government agency wrote. “As the matter is before the courts, it would be inappropriate to comment further.”
The Oct. 13, 2016 spill ignited concerns about Canada’s spill response capabilities in the Inside Passage.
The tribe claims it took the first Canadian Coast Guard vessel 20 hours to arrive from when the tug ran aground.
The northbound Jake Shearer broke free from the fuel barge it was towing. It was fully loaded with about 3.7 million gallons of various petroleum fuels, but its crew was able to drop anchor before it hit the rocks.
Community members in Bella Bella have been pushing for more regulations on Alaska-bound fuel barges.
“Our community has definitely raised a lot of concern about the articulated barges,” Marilyn Slett, chief councilor of the tribe told CoastAlaska. “Certainly we’re living through the experience with the Nathan E. Stewart and the near-miss with the Jake Shearer.”
The Canadian government has proposed exclusionary zones for oil tankers in the Inside Passage.
But the articulated fuel barges are below the tonnage threshold and would be exempt from the rule.
The lawsuit seeks damages for the loss of clam beds the tribe says remain contaminated since the spill.
It also accuses Kirby Corporation recklessness by having only one crew member available to stand watch at night.
Nushagak fishermen set their net on July 4, 2018. (Photo by Austin Fast/KDLG)
It is official; 2018 was the largest sockeye salmon run to Bristol Bay on record, and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game has records dating back to 1893. The 2018 Bristol Bay Season Summary, which ADF&G released in September, reiterates the records this year’s run broke. To start with, the total run to Bristol Bay this summer was 62.3 million sockeye. That is 21 percent above the preseason forecast of 51.3 million fish.
The Nushagak District set a new record for the largest single district sockeye salmon harvest at 24.1 million sockeye, accounting for more than half the reds harvested in the bay this summer.
The Togiak District also set a record for sockeye return to its district. Tim Sands, ADF&G area management biologist for the Togiak and Nushagak districts noted that the length of the run rather than a concentrated peak drove up those numbers.
“It started picking up early in July. It still wasn’t anything exceptional, it just kind of went on and on and on with good catches,” Sand said, adding that he thought catch and escapement in the district could have been even higher. But mid-August storms curtailed fishing and the counting towers stopped counting, according to their seasonal schedule in early August.
The ex-vessel value also broke a record – $281 million for all salmon species. That is almost two and a half times the 20 year average. Sockeye brought an average $1.26 per pound base price.The total harvest across all five districts was 41.3 million sockeye, the second largest harvest in the fishery’s history.
As fishermen observed during the summer, the fish were smaller than average. The average weight of each red was just 5.3 pounds.
According to ADF&G, “Fish that had three years of saltwater residence were closer to long term average weights (5.5 to 6 lbs.), while fish with two years of saltwater residence were smaller than the long term average weights (3.5 to 4.5 lbs).”
Sands pointed out that the majority of the huge Nushagak run is made up sockeye that lived in the ocean for two years, which brought the bay wide average sockeye size down.
“It all kind of points to just that one age class being more numerous and maybe a little bit smaller than average,” Sands said.
Sands hypothesized that the ocean’s caring capacity is limited, and fish size could be correlated with the number of fish that returned to Bristol Bay.
“If the number of salmon out there is bigger than average, then there’s less food for each individual fish, and it kind of drives the size or survivorship down,” Sands said.
Obviously, the survivorship in Bristol Bay was high this year. But salmon returns around much of the state were shockingly low.
“The day will come when we don’t have record runs, and we’re in the same situation that some of these other places were in this year, despite our best efforts.” Sands warned. “You don’t catch 5.5 million fish in the Nushagak District on average by catching 24 million fish every year. That’s not how averages work…There’s still the variability of nature that demands that there will be ups and downs.”
In terms of other salmon species, Bristol Bay fishermen harvested 41,000 Chinook, 1.9 million chum, 220,000 pinks and 140,000 silvers.
The pink harvest was roughly half the 20-year average. The coho harvest, while significantly lower than last year’s harvest of 240,000 silvers, was still above average. Sands said that some fishermen seemed disappointed with this year’s pink and silver fisheries. He explained that several factors likely contributed to the outcomes.
The run timing to the Naknek-Kvichak, Egegik and Ugashik districts was the latest on record. Fishermen who might otherwise have fished for pinks and silvers, were still busy catching reds in those districts. Further, an oil spill from a capsized tender closed the Nushagak District for nearly a week at the end of July.
“By all accounts the fishing, when people were here, wasn’t that great, but we got escapement,” Sands said.
Taken as a whole, it was a banner year in Bristol Bay. Every river in the bay met or exceeded its escapement goal for reds. In all, 21 million sockeye made it to their natal streams to spawn.
A Singapore Airlines Cargo plan taxis for departure on Runway 32 at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport on April 27, 2013. The airport ranked fifth in the world for the most air cargo to go through it in 2017. (Creative Commons photo by BriYYZ)
Managers of the Anchorage airport are looking into construction of a big new warehouse to help boost the volume of air cargo shipped through the city.
Anchorage is already is the world’s fifth busiest cargo airport, just ahead of Dubai. More than 10 planes every day come and go between Anchorage and Shanghai and two-dozen more head to and from Chicago. They’re filled with things like electronics, seafood, flowers, fruit and vegetables.
Now, managers at the state-run airport have an idea to make things more efficient for shipping companies.
Say you’re flying a pallet of iPhones from Asia to the United States. You want to stop in Anchorage to transfer the shipment to another plane, but that other plane won’t arrive for four or five hours and it’s raining.
Right now, there’s no place to stash those phones that’s close to the area where cargo planes park.
“What we want to do is provide a facility where people can store stuff on a quick basis to keep things out of the elements and secure,” Jim Szczesniak, the Anchorage airport manager, said in a phone interview Thursday.
The warehouse would sit close to the cargo plane parking area, and it could even house offices for shipping companies. The airport is looking at two possible sites, one of which would be big enough for a warehouse the size of six football fields.
Szczesniak said the facility could be built with help from the state’s economic development arm, the Alaska Economic Development and Export Authority. Companies have to send letters of interest by mid-December.
Then-City Clerk Tom Moran presiding over Nome’s October 2014 election. (Photo by Matthew F. Smith, KNOM)
Nome City Manager Tom Moran resigned from his office last month after the city faced scrutiny for a perceived lack of transparency and potentially mishandled investigations in the police department. He had intended to continue work as a contract employee but has now been placed on administrative leave after allegations of harassment were brought forward to the City Council at its meeting Monday.
Moran and Mayor Richard Beneville were both absent due to travel. Moran resigned from his office in September but said he would work as City Manager until October 18th, per the conditions of his contract.
An emotional testimony was brought forth by Ahne Schield, the music director at Nome-Beltz High School, during Citizens Comments in which Schield claimed that Moran had harassed her personally and through text message last year.
Schield says Moran appeared to be pretending to be someone else, including in messages she described as lewd.
“He began to make suggestive comments using words like ‘urges’ and the like,” Schield said.
In one message, Schield says the sender claimed to have watched her arrive home that night. A few weeks later Schield called the number and says she received the voice mail of Tom Moran.
“And that same day we went to the troopers as we have … nothing illegal .. we felt helpless,” Schield said. “What do you do? File a citizen’s complaint? No way that goes straight to the city manager.”
According to Schield, this sequence of events took place last year, before Moran’s contract was renewed.
KNOM reached out to Moran through e-mail. He admitted to sending Schield messages but denied that they were harassing. Moran did admit to pretending to be someone else due to having a previous conversation with Schield about that person; he says that he thought she had his number and would know that he only meant to be joking.
Moran says he believes those messages were discussed in an executive session from which he was excluded.
The Council voted unanimously to place Moran on leave.
In the e-mail, Moran said he understands the Council had to make a difficult decision.
The city council voted to approve John Handeland as the acting city manager.
It’s called Save Our Seas, and it aims to tackle the problem of plastic trash in the world’s oceans.
The law renews the existing Marine Debris Program for another five years. And it allows governors to request a declaration of a “severe marine debris event” in order to get resources to clean it up. The law also encourages the executive branch to take up the problem of plastic waste internationally.
Academic researchers say five nations are responsible for more than half of the plastic waste in the oceans: China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.
President Trump fit that into one of his major themes: that other countries are taking advantage of the United States.
“A vast, tremendous, unthinkable amount of garbage is floating into our coast. In particular along the West Coast. And we’re charged with removing it, which is a very unfair situation,” he said in an Oval Office signing ceremony. “It comes from other countries very far away.”
Trump, touching on another theme, claimed previous administrations did nothing to take on the problem, even though the law extends a marine debris program established in the George W. Bush administration. Trump said he’s already notified most of the countries responsible.
“And we’ve notified them very strongly,” he added.
Sullivan and his wife stood beside the president, along with Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., who co-sponsored the bill. Whitehouse and Sullivan make an unusual pair: Whitehouse is one of the Senate’s most vocal champion of taking action against climate change; Sullivan isn’t convinced the problem is man-made.
Even though Whitehouse is an outspoken Trump critic, there was no disagreement on the new law. Sullivan took the opportunity to give kudos to the president.
“What the president said about the administration, the Trump administration, doing a great job on this – It’s an underreported story,” Sullivan said. “But they are really taking the lead globally. And Mr. President, we want to thank you.”
“Well, I want to thank you,” Trump responded, “and thank Sheldon. Come here Sheldon. See? We can shake hands.”
Kevin Allexon, Ocean Conservancy’s senior manager of government relations, called it a “modest but important” bill
He says the real value of the bill, besides continuing the Marine Debris Program, is that it makes the executive branch take notice and address the international problem.
“Whether that’s in the context of trade negotiations, or it’s in the context of international scientific collaboration, or it’s in the context of foreign development assistance,” Allexon said.
Allexon says the countries that contribute most to the problem of plastic waste in the ocean are rapidly developing and don’t have adequate infrastructure for managing garbage.
The bill passed the Senate unanimously, without a roll call vote. Alaska Congressman Don Young sponsored the House version of the bill.
Trump signs Sullivan bill aimed at reducing plastic waste in ocean
Liz Ruskin, Alaska Public Media – Washington D.C.
The “Save Our Seas” law encourages the executive branch to take up the problem of plastic waste internationally. It was sponsored by Sullivan and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I.
AVCP passes one resolution in annual convention, tables others
Krysti Shallenberger, Alaska’s Energy Desk – Bethel
Association of Village Council Presidents delegates passed only one resolution at this year’s annual convention, and it came from the regional non-profit itself.
State receives federal funds to help tribal courts
Johanna Eurich, KYUK – Anchorage
The state of Alaska now has some federal funds to advance a program to use tribal courts to handle misdemeanor crimes.
Alaska delegation urges Pompeo to take up transboundary mining concerns
June Leffler, KSTK – Wrangell
Pompeo will soon be in bilateral meetings in Ottawa later this month.
Nome city manager placed on administrative leave after harassment claim
Emily Hofstaedter, KNOM – Nome
City Manager Tom Moran has been placed on administrative leave after a Nome citizen raised claims of harassing behavior during Monday night’s City Council meeting.
Anchorage airport looks at building a new cargo handling center
Nathaniel Herz, Alaska Public Media – Anchorage
Managers of the Anchorage airport are looking into construction of a big new warehouse to help boost the volume of air cargo shipped through the city.
‘A Normal Life’: Navigating life after tragedy
Zachariah Hughes, Alaska Public Media – Anchorage
Author Kim Rich was just 15-years-old in Anchorage when police told her that her father had been killed. Years later, while working for the Anchorage Daily News, Rich wrote about growing up with a parent immersed in Anchorage’s sordid pre-pipeline underworld, which was eventually adapted into the book ‘Johnny’s Girl.’
Alaska plans changes to how it taxes marijuana
Associated Press
The state of Alaska is changing how it taxes marijuana in response to industry concerns.
Rocket launch planned at Kodiak’s Pacific Spaceport Complex
Associated Press
California-based Astra Space Inc. has scheduled a commercial rocket launch at the Pacific Spaceport Complex on Kodiak Island.
Bristol Bay red king crab quota down 35 percent
Avery Lill, KDLG – Dillingham
Crabbing in the Bering Sea starts next week. The Bristol Bay Red king crab, Bering Sea snow crab, and Bering Sea tanner crab fisheries open on October 15th. News about population health is mixed. While, snow crab stocks are on the rise, king crab and tanner crab are declining.
Red Mountain B.C. gold mine nears approval
Jacob Resneck, CoastAlaska – Juneau
Critics worry about long-term storage of tailings upstream from Portland Canal.
At the Red Chris Mine, a dam contains a tailings pond. that collects mine waste. Northwest B.C., 2017. (Photo courtesy of Garth Lenz)
Alaska’s elected leaders are pressing the Trump administration to take up the issue of transboundary mining. The renewed push comes ahead of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s visit to Canada.
Alaska’s congressional delegation and Gov. Bill Walker signed a joint letter urging Washington to hold Canadian mining companies responsible for any downstream impacts in Alaska.
“We’re looking to find a way to have legitimate review processes for mines that may be problematic,” said Matt Schuckerow, a spokesman for U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan.
This message is in hopes that Pompeo will bring up the matter at a bilateral meeting he is attending in Ottawa later this month.
Alaska’s elected officials made this sort of request to the state department before. A similar letter was written to then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson last year.
“This federal administration has been responsive and I hope they will continue to be,” said Jill Weitz, the director of Salmon Beyond Borders, an advocacy group for protecting watersheds. She applauds Alaska’s representatives for being persistent.
Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott and Sen. Sullivan met with Canadian officials last February. They asked the Canadian government to join Alaska in water quality testing in Southeast waters. And the Alaskan officials requested the immediate reclamation of the abandoned Tulsequah Chief that’s leached waste for years into a tributary of the Taku River near Juneau.
The diplomatic offensive comes as several mines – large and small – are moving through the permitting stages in B.C. prolific Golden Triangle.
The rapid development has fisheries advocates worried over potential impacts downstream in Southeast Alaska.
Environmentalists point to the 2014 Mt. Polley mine disaster. That’s when a tailings dam failed, spilling millions of gallons of mine waste into B.C.’s Fraser River watershed.
Inversions like this one set in on cold winter days and trap PM2.5 and other pollutants near ground level, creating some of the worst air pollution in the nation that can cause severe respiratory problems and other health threats. (KUAC photo)
Three environmental groups announced Wednesday they intend to sue the federal Environmental Protection Agency for what they say is its failure to require the Fairbanks North Star Borough to reduce air pollution.
The three groups that announced their intention to sue the EPA include Fairbanks-based Citizens for Clean Air. Member Patrice Lee says the goal is simply to get the agency to do its job in requiring the state and borough to clean up the Fairbanks area’s air.
“The borough’s been working on it, along with the state, for over 10 years, and we haven’t reached the goal of clean air,” Lee said in an interview Wednesday. “The law is clear. We need to obey the law and clean up the air.”
Officials with the groups say the lawsuit would seek to require the EPA to enforce provisions of the federal Clean Air Act that require the borough and state to reduce the level of health-damaging PM2.5. The tiny particles emitted by woodstoves and other sources accumulate in the air around Fairbanks during inversions on cold winter days, creating the worst air quality in the nation.
“It’s a matter of health and safety,” Lee said. “Unfortunately it’s become politicized. But I think we view it as necessary to health and well-being.”
Some area residents have for years fought the borough and its efforts to develop and enforce air-quality regulations to reduce PM2.5, especially within the so-called nonattainment area that encompasses much of Fairbanks and North Pole. Last week, opponents of efforts to reduce PM2.5 succeeded in passing ballot measure Proposition 4, which strips the borough of its authority to enforce air quality regulations. But Lee says that’s not why the groups are threatening to sue.
“This wasn’t a knee-jerk reaction to Prop 4, by any stretch,” Lee said.
Lee says the groups had been planning for months to issue the notice of intent to sue, because they say the EPA has for a fourth time missed a deadline to improve air quality enough to attain the standards set in the Clean Air Act. The groups say EPA is at fault for the state Department of Environmental Conservation’s failure to come up with a plan to bring the Fairbanks area into compliance with conditions set when EPA declared it a serious nonattainment area.
“They had to come forward with a state implementation plan, a SIP, that would address the issue,” Lee said. “And they have not done that.”
State and borough officials say they’re still working on that plan. If the groups follow through with the lawsuit threat, it would be the third such suit they’ve filed in the past four years over the issue. Lee says today’s notice of intent starts a 60-day clock that could result in a lawsuit.
“The EPA has 60 days to appeal to the state to comply with the requirements of the Clean Air Act,” Lee said. “On day 61, if they have not submitted a SIP that can be considered complete by the EPA, we will file the suit.”
As in previous lawsuits, the groups will be represented by the Denver-based organization Earthjustice. Lee says she and other local air-quality advocates understand the difficulty that many area residents face in converting their home-heating systems from wood to cleaner-burning fuels. And she says she appreciates efforts by many wood-burners to work with the advocates.
“Citizens in the borough have tried to come together, and we do recognize each others’ frustrations,” Lee said. “There are legitimate frustrations both sides of this issue. But, the bottom line is there are many ways to heat a home, and only one way to breathe.”
The borough Assembly will convene a special meeting tonight to talk with legal staff about how to respond to the passage of Proposition 4. They’re also likely to talk about the latest potential air-quality lawsuit.
Governor candidates answer questions presented by the Alaska Travel Industry Association Tuesday during the ATIA’s annual convention at the Carlson Center in Fairbanks. From left: former state Sen. Mike Dunleavy, former U.S. Sen. Mark Begich and Gov. Bill Walker. (Jody Overstreet/Alaska Photo Treks)
Gov. Bill Walker and the two candidates who are running to unseat him pitched their ideas Tuesday on how to promote the state’s tourism industry. Walker and former Republican state Sen. Mike Dunleavy, along with former Democratic U.S. Sen. Mark Begich, talked about tourism and other issues during an Alaska Tourism Industry Association candidate forum at the Carlson Center in Fairbanks.
The incumbent and his two challengers found much to agree on during a candidates’ forum hosted by the organization that advocates for the state’s tourism industry. All three say the state should boost funding for infrastructure like highways, airports and marine ferry and cruise ship facilities to facilitate tourism.
But they also clashed with Walker over his contention that he had to cut funding for the industry and make other tough decisions during the state’s economic downturn.
“Y’know, we have pent-up opportunities in Alaska, but we had to balance our budget,” Walker said. “It was not fun, it was a lot of work; some quit, some didn’t, and we got it done.”
As he has throughout the campaign, Walker defended his decisions to sharply cut the state budget over the past three years after oil prices plunged and Senate Republicans refused his proposals to adopt other sources of revenues.
“You need someone who’s going to bring stability,” Walker said. “So you can look out in the years ahead and not wonder if the price of oil going to cause your revenue to go away. We brought that stability.”
Walker, who politically identifies as an independent, says he wants to help the industry promote year-round tourism, especially for visitors from Asia. Begich says Alaska needs bold leadership to boost tourism. He cited his push to get the Dena’ina Civic and Convention Center built 10 years ago, when he was mayor of Anchorage.
“Y’know when I was mayor of Anchorage, we had the same problems – budget crash, crime up – everything you can imagine,” Begich said. “We not only worked on that, but we also did something else: even through the year before it had failed at the ballot box, we said we’re going to take on building the convention center for our city.”
Dunleavy, a conservative Republican, is the front-runner in the three-way contest. He says he’d take a small-government approach for both the tourism industry and the state’s economy.
“I believe that we can get this budget under control,” Dunleavy said. “And I believe, through the right policies and working directly with you folks, we can actually grow your industry, as well as others, create more jobs.”
The three candidates all pledged to work with federal authorities to increase access to national parks. Dunleavy says he’d also task the state Fish and Game Department to increase stocking fish in lakes and to develop policies that would ensure there’s enough wildlife for tourists to see.
“What I want to make sure you know is that you’re going to have a governor who’s not going to do things to you, but help you actually grow your business as we move forward,” Dunleavy said.
All three candidates also said they’d restore funding for the travel industry association’s marketing efforts that the Legislature had re-appropriated over the past few years. The funding, which comes from a tax on rental vehicles, fell from $16 million in FY2013 to $1.5 million last fiscal year, after Walker vetoed part of the appropriation. He’s recently pledged to boost funding to $12 million.
Both challengers say they’d protect the tourism-marketing funding from future re-appropriations. Begich says the funding is essential, the recession notwithstanding, to enable the industry to grow.
“Even in bad times, you have to invest,” Begich said.
Begich says he also favors a two-year budget cycle, to give businesses in tourism and other industries more time to plan ahead.
Ronny Robert Pungowiyi’s poster for Indigenous People’s Day focuses on seal and sea otter hunting. (KRBD photo by Leila Kheiry)
Monday marked the second year for Alaskans to commemorate Indigenous Peoples Day rather than the federal Columbus Day holiday. In Ketchikan, the local UAS Campus Library hosted a celebration of Indigenous culture.
A table is filled with food made from traditional ingredients: smoked salmon, beach-asparagus dip, berry jams and scones. High school students from the Tribal Scholars program are gathered, filling their plates.
Those students, all Alaska Native or Native American, made posters that are hanging on the walls of the UAS Ketchikan Campus Library. Each poster represents Native culture, in any way the student chose.
But, teacher Barbara Morgan said, it had to follow the theme of “Sense of Place,” and she made the assignment specific to science because that’s her area of specialty.
“So I also had them use their senses to make an observation that would tie into the scientific process that starts with an observation,” Morgan said. “They did a good job.”
Ronny Robert Pungowiyi is Siberian Yupik, and his poster is about seal and sea otter hunting.
“It’s one of those things I grew up on, (that) my father taught me how to do,” Pungowiyi said. “Hunting and fishing. Seal and sea otter is my most favorite things to hunt.”
Students in the local Tribal Scholars program made posters for Indigenous People’s Day, celebrating an aspect of their Alaska Native culture. (KRBD photo by Leila Kheiry)
Pungowiyi said he learned the traditional hunting methods, and has been hunting since he was two years old. He said Indigenous Peoples Day to him means learning where he came from.
Brooke Edenshaw said the day helps Alaska Natives be proud of who they are. Her poster focuses on the Kuspuk, a traditional Yupik garment worn by women.
“They were initially to keep fur parkas clean and they were made out of animal gut and skin,” Edenshaw said. “Now they’re commonly made out of cotton and silk, and designed with rikrak.”
Edenshaw is Yupik, and said she has a couple of Kuspuks at home, but she’s outgrown them.
In addition to the posters, some tables in the library display traditional items made by Alaska Native residents. Merle Hawkins makes all kinds of products from devil’s club. She said the formidable plant hides important traditional medicine under all those thorns.
“I brought a fresh piece of devil’s club so they could see it, feel it, smell it, touch it,” Hawkins said.
But, usually you don’t want to touch devil’s club.
“Oh, I softened it up some,” Hawkins said. “I scraped the thorns off right away.”
And how does she harvest it without hurting herself?
“I use thick leather gloves. I saw it down. First thing I do is scrape the thorns off,” Hawkins said. “Then you get, there’s a thin brown layer of bark I scrape that one off next. Then the green layer, that’s the third layer, that’s the bark for the medicine.”
Merle Hawkins harvested and dried devil’s club bark, which can be used for medicinal tea and ointments. It’s a traditional medicine that Alaska Natives in Southeast have used for thousands of years. (KRBD photo by Leila Kheiry)
Hawkins said that green layer can be dried and used as a medicinal tea for arthritis or stomach problems. It also can be put in a jar with olive oil. After a while, the devil’s club bark infuses the oil with its medicinal qualities, and the oil can be used to make ointment and other products.
Hawkins is Haida, and said local Indigenous people have been using devil’s club bark for thousands of years. They learned about it from watching bears rolling on the thorny plant.
“In the summertime, the needles and everything they slough off because the sap is flowing, and then it’s real moist next to the bark,” Hawkins said. “So, good medicine even for the animals.”
Hawkins said to her, Indigenous Peoples Day highlights the challenges Alaska Native have overcome, and their resiliency in maintaining their culture.
Note: The Tribal Scholars program is a cooperative effort between Ketchikan Indian Community and the Ketchikan School District. It provides an alternative education model with a focus on Alaska Native traditions.
The event was held at Enstar’s Anchorage offices. The original invitation was written by one of the co-hosts of the lunch, Alaska State Chamber of Commerce President Curtis Thayer. Reed added his own message.
