The difficult and painful topic of sexual assault and the trauma that follows will be the discussion tomorrow evening at the Anchorage museum. The conversation be held after a staged reading of a personal essay called White Horse, about a campus rape and the aftermath, written by Elise Goldbach and featured in the current issue of The Alaska Quarterly Review. English Professor Dr Heather Adams of the University of Alaska Anchorage will moderate the panel discussion. She says the idea is to provide a space for an audience to really listen to what is a terrifying event.

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ADAMS: It is a very traumatic experience that we’ll be talking about as we then transition into a panel of experts who are coming from a variety of perspectives. There are people from UAA who will be speaking from their professional standpoint. There’s someone who’s an expertin law. There are people who have experienced this trauma themselves, so we’re having tohave a balanced perspective and show our support that way so that our panel really reflects a variety of perspectives. And of course, we’re inviting support from the UAA community and reaching out to some community partners to ensure that hopefully there will be support at the event that night because this is a really sensitive topic. And of course we know that holding an event like this means that we have to be prepared to give support. Not just to talk about the ideas but to deal with the emotional piece of it, the emotions that are raised.

TOWNSEND: Dr. Adams, you have written about the legacy of shame, secrecy, silence and part of that is dealing with the shame that surrounds rape or unwanted pregnancies. Why do you think it is shame still surrounds so much of what happens when there is a sexual assault? Why can’t we change that?

ADAMS: There’s both the silence that comes with not talking that we see in systematic under-reporting of rape. And there’s also what we do talk about, which I would call messages of shame and messages of blame. It’s really hard to understand why those messages are so persistent. When I, years ago, learned about women who had to give a child away for adoption because they had that child out of wedlock, it was news to me. I didn’t know about that and I was horrified. And it’s been really interesting as I continue my research to make this argument, develop this argument through my research that actually, what seems like it happened a long time ago… yes the practices are a little bit different, we don’t have homes for unwed mothers, but you’re exactly right. This legacy of messages of shame and messages of blame, they really persist. I would say that one of the root causes is that we don’t have models, we don’t have support for women, especially young women, to talk about their sexuality. To understand sexuality and sex as a normal part of life. We have a lot of cultural taboo around that. We know in Alaska there’s been a lot of effort to be really almost draconian about how sex education is delivered to our young people and I just feel strongly that until we can really talk about these things openly, that’s just one piece of the puzzle. Another is consent. Consent is something that we talk about that sounds like it’s a yes or a no. It’s really more complicated. And I think that this White Horse event is one small way our community can come together and I really hope our community comes together to just have a conversation around these really difficult topics. No one really likes to talk about these things, but we really have to if we want to shift that culture of silence and shame and blame.

Dr Heather Adams is the moderator for a panel discussion of the essay, White Horse at the Anchorage Museum Thursday evening, beginning at 7 pm.

A judge on Thursday reversed the outcome of the Democratic primary for the House district that includes the North Slope and Northwest Arctic boroughs.

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Superior Court Judge Andrew Guidi ordered the Division of Elections to certify that incumbent Benjamin Nageak of Barrow won the primary over Dean Westlake of Kotzebue by a two-vote margin.

The outcome of the primary could determine who organizes a House majority. While both are Democrats, Nageak caucuses with the Republican-led House majority, and Westlake said he’ll caucus with the Democrats.

The decision reverses the outcome of a recount, which had Westlake winning by eight votes.

Nageak, who is the co-chairman of the House Resources Committee, expressed relief.

“I’m pleased by the court’s result and hopeful it will be sustained during the appeal to the Supreme Court,” Nageak said. “I’m sure that’s where it’s going to go. And I hope this decision will result in improvement of training.”

The outcome hinges on the Kobuk River village of Shungnak, where local election officials wrongly allowed 50 voters to cast ballots in both the Republican primary and in the “ADL”  primary for the Alaska Independence, Democratic and Libertarian parties.

Westlake led Nageak in Shungnak, 47 votes to three, after the recount but before the decision.

Judge Guidi decided to subtract votes, based on the average number of Shungnak residents who voted in Republican primaries over the past 10 years.

Guidi subtracted 12 votes based on the idea that they would have voted Republican. He took away 11 votes from Westlake in Shungnak, as well as one from Nageak. He also decided that election officials wrongly allowed both candidates to gain one vote from Kivalina in the recount.

Westlake, who was out fishing, couldn’t be reached for comment. His lawyer Thomas Amodio said no votes should have been subtracted.

“In our view, all of them qualified,” he said. “None should be disenfranchised. There’s no evidence that any of them would have voted in anything but the ADL primary. Especially with a very contested, close race.”

Amodio argues that the competitive Democratic House race gave Republican voters more of a reason to cross over in the primary than they had in previous years, when there were more competitive Republican statewide races.

Amodio says Guidi’s decision effectively disenfranchises voters in a village that’s 95 percent Alaska Native.

“By his calculations, he’s casting those aside,” he said. “You know, he’s the judge. He gets to decide that. Now, the Alaska Supreme Court gets to decide whether he was right or wrong.”

Under Guidi’s decision, the final outcome would be 815 votes for Nageak, 813 for Westlake. The winner will take the seat, since there are no general-election opponents.

Nageak said the small margin reinforces the importance of every voter.

“Every vote counts,” he said. “We’ve been saying that for years. And it was borne out.”

Division of Elections Director Josie Bahnke has said the division will use this year’s primary experience to improve how the state trains election workers.

The Supreme Court asked lawyers for Nageak, Westlake and the state to file briefs by Saturday, Oct. 8. Oral arguments will be Wednesday, Oct. 12. And the Court is expected to rule by Oct. 14, to give elections officials enough time to distribute ballots for the Nov. 8 election.

The United States is trying to broker an agreement between a host of nations to prohibit unregulated fishing in the international waters of the Arctic Ocean.

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Such an agreement would piggyback on a non-binding agreement that the U.S. entered into with Norway, Denmark, Russia and Canada last year to avoid fishing in the area.

Adm. Robert Papp, the U.S. Special Representative for the Arctic, says a binding, multinational agreement would prevent fishing in the Arctic high seas before scientists can determine what is sustainable. He says the issue is especially important as Arctic ice melts.

The regulation of Arctic Ocean fishing is one of many Arctic issues being discussed this week at the Arctic Council’s Senior Arctic Officials meeting taking place in Portland.

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 @aprn

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Judge reverses House District 40 primary, gives Nageak a two-vote edge

Andrew Kitchenman, KTOO – Juneau

A judge on Thursday reversed the outcome of the Democratic primary for the House district that includes the North Slope and Northwest Arctic boroughs.

Senators want to forever bar offshore rigs from Arctic

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

Fourteen U.S. senators sent a letter to President Obama today, asking him to keep drill rigs out of federal waters in the Arctic forever.

US wants to strengthen agreement to ban Arctic Ocean fishing

Associated Press

The United States is trying to broker an agreement between a host of nations to prohibit unregulated fishing in the international waters of the Arctic Ocean.

Conoco aims to up North Slope production with new drilling rig

Elizabeth Harball, Alaska’s Energy Desk – Anchorage

ConocoPhillips Alaska has announced plans for a new drilling rig on the North Slope that will more than double the area it can develop from a single drill site.

ISER study analyzes economic impacts of state cuts, taxes

Josh Edge, Alaska Public Media – Anchorage

To cut? Or tax? That is the conundrum state lawmakers are facing in the midst of a multi-billion dollar budget shortfall. There are options on the table, but consensus on a fix remains elusive. A recent study looked at how different scenarios would affect Alaska’s short-term economy.

Proposed Donlin Gold mine runs afoul of the Iditarod dog mushing community

Johanna Eurich, KYUK – Bethel

The historic Iditarod Trail took center stage during a meeting held by the Army Corps of Engineers Tuesday on the proposed Donlin Gold mine. The route has been changed, but not far enough to suit some longtime mushers.

New bed bug infestation at UAF residence halls

Dan Bross, KUAC – Fairbanks

Bed bugs have been found at some University of Alaska Fairbanks residences. According to a letter to the UAF issued Wednesday by vice chancellors, bed bugs have been confirmed in several apartments in Harwood Hall, and in single units at Garden Apartments and Hess Village.

Putting Alaska’s nursing home deficiencies in context

Lakeidra Chavis, KTOO – Juneau

So far this year, 10 nursing homes in Alaska have been cited more than 100 times for health or safety shortfalls, according to state and federal inspection reports. The state has some of the highest rates of nursing home deficiencies in the nation, according to ProPublica. But Alaska inspectors say context is important.

White Horse, an essay about sexual assault trauma

Lori Townsend, Alaska Public Media – Anchorage

The difficult and painful topic of sexual assault and the trauma that follows will be the discussion tomorrow evening at the Anchorage museum. The conversation be held after a staged reading of a personal essay called White Horse, about a campus rape and the aftermath, written by Elise Goldbach and featured in the current issue of The Alaska Quarterly Review.

Bethel sits on a river, but many people here don’t know how to swim. People drown in the Kuskokwim every year, and for decades people thought the solution was to build a pool and teach people to swim. Well, two years ago the city got a pool. But how do you build a swim culture where one has never existed? That’s a question Bethel’s first swim team is trying to answer.

“We are going to start with our freestyle set and move into butterfly,” Andrews said at a practice. “Two, one, go!”

She’s also Bethel’s first swim coach. Ever.

“It was interesting the first day,” Andrews said. “I had about 15 or 16 that came, some that were pretty good at swimming, some that had never swam in their lives before.

Now, more than a month into the season, there’re a dozen swimmers in grades seven through 12. Most of the teenagers had never swum before, at least not competitively. They could move from one end of the pool to the other, but not much farther, and not with proper strokes.

Most grew up in Bethel, where there’d never been a place to swim. Anyone who had learned didn’t do it here.

Gareth Rice: Every summer we go down to Oregon, so I started taking swim lessons down there.

Jordan Wheeler: My parents are from Utah, and so when we visit my grandparents, I learned how to swim there.

Skylar Sargent: My grandma was a lifeguard when she lived in Florida, when she lived there and taught swim lessons. So when we went to visit her, she helped teach all us kids that.

But most of the kids weren’t learning laps or strokes, at least not the kind Andrews is teaching.

Andrews said a consistent kick and high elbows are two of the most important concepts about swimming that she’s trying to teach.

“Never stop moving your arms, and never stop moving your feet, and you won’t stop moving,” Andrews said.

Another challenge Andrews faces is building credibility for swimming: teaching people that, yes, swimming is a sport, not just conditioning for another sport.

Ryan Smith is a tenth-grader.

“At first I was just trying to get in shape for wrestling,” Smith said. “But then it just stuck on me. It’s a fun sport, so got to stick with it.”

Now Smith said swimming is right up there with wrestling. And he’s found some unexpected benefits along the way.

“I’ve found that I’m excelling in all my classes more normally than I would have, because I’m waking up early in the morning and exercising,” Smith said.

The team gets up early. Most practices start at 6 a.m.; school starts at 8:15 a.m.

Tenth grader and basketball player Gareth Rice said the waking up part is hard, but the actual swimming part, is even harder. He’s had no trouble being convinced that swimming is its own sport.

“There have been limits that I wasn’t able to reach through any other sports or activities that I found in swimming, that I was able to push beyond that I never knew I could ever do before,” Rice said. “Swimming, it just works a lot more. It’s working everything simultaneously, and you have to be in sync, which you do in basketball, but I’d say in swimming a bit more. And it’s more of a constant, a constant work.”

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Unlike many of the swimmers, tenth grader Skylar Sargent isn’t training for another sport. In fact, she said the whole sports thing is new to her.

“I am a nerd on the swim team,” Sargent said. “I am a very fit nerd. That is what I am.”

Sargent said in fourth grade she gave a speech to City Council, asking them to build a pool. Now it’s here, but she said are people still becoming aware of it. She calls the pool a phantom presence.

“Like, people know it’s here. They can sense it, but they don’t really go to it. Or it’s not a real thing,” Sargent said,” Just get more people interested.”

But has the pool made people safer on the river? Most of the swimmers, like seventh grader Jordan Wheeler, say yes.

“Even with life vest on, you still need to know how to keep yourself up,” Wheeler said. “So I feel safer for me and safer for everyone else because more people know how to swim now.”

The team is expected to compete at least once this year, probably against an Anchorage team. Coach Andrews called this year a building season, for the team and the community.

With the state’s fiscal woes looming over the next legislative session, there is a lot of talk about how to fill its multi-billion-dollar budget gap. Among the many suggestions are taxes, and communities are weighing several options. One suggestion is a tax on internet sales. The idea is to generate revenue and also level the playing field for in-state, brick-and-mortar shops.

Last month, the Wrangell Chamber of Commerce released a letter in support of a tax on internet sales in Alaska. The letter came just a day after Wrangell Assembly member Julie Decker added it to the panel’s agenda for discussion.

Decker urged the Chamber and the assembly to support an alternative to a statewide sales tax. The idea, she said, might satisfy communities with local sales taxes and those without.

“For a community like Wrangell, a state sales tax can be pretty negative since we already have a 7 percent city sales tax,” said Decker. “Cities like Anchorage that have no sales tax, a statewide sales tax is more supported. It’s less detrimental to them.”

On paper, Decker’s idea sounds like a good one. People may be more inclined to buy locally if taxes are applied to purchases on Amazon and other large internet retailers. But, online sales can’t be taxed in states and communities where retailers don’t have physical presence or in legal terms, nexus. Larry Persily, assistant to the Keni Peninsula Borough’s mayor, said Kenai looked into who the borough could tax for online sales in hopes of expanding its tax code’s reach this summer.

“In a nutshell because of federal law, if an online business does not have a physical presence, a connection in your jurisdiction, if they don’t have shop, a warehouse, agents working down there, employees down there taking orders, you can’t require them to collect and remit sales tax for you,” he said.

The goal was to start taxing some of the larger retailers such as Amazon, but under current federal law, Persily say it’s not possible without presence in the community.

“Now the question could the state impose a sales tax on online sales only and on nothing else? I believe that would be illegal. You can’t tax interstate commerce like that under federal law,” he said.

Keni isn’t the only community that’s painting a target on Amazon’s back. The Ketchikan Gateway Borough Assembly also looked into its abilities to tax big box internet retailers earlier this spring.

There are several states that collect taxes from these online retailers through so called “Amazon laws”, but the same idea of nexus applies. California requires retailers who have physical facilities and corporate affiliates who made more than $1 million in sales the previous calendar year to collect taxes. Texas only requires a physical building.

If Alaska were to implement a statewide internet sales tax, Amazon might still slip through its fingers. A quick job search for a job on Amazon’s website suggests they don’t have any locations in the state, so no nexus means no sales tax.

Walmart and Apple, two of the three largest online retailers, do have locations in the state. According to a Women’s Wear Daily report, Walmart comes in behind Amazon with $13.5 billion in sales and Apple in third with $12 billion. University of Alaska Anchorage Economist Muhcine Guettabi said if the state were to consider implement this, there are some questions to answer.

“The question that arises immediately is will the tax be high enough to potentially make consumers substitute away from the internet into brick-and-mortar shops, and are we actually buying goods and services from the internet that we actually have in Alaska,” said Guettabi.

He said there are a lot of ifs to most of the state’s potential fiscal and tax solutions such as an income tax, sales tax and PFD dividend cuts.

“They all are essentially going to have negative impact in the short run, not to say they aren’t necessary,” he said. “But, if we’re just looking at what they do to the economy in the short run, they take money away from it which means less jobs, less income.”

He said a state sales tax could equate to 500 to 750 jobs lost per $100 million of revenue,

and an income tax might result in 550 to 800 jobs lost. If the state decides to go the route of job cuts, it might cost about 1,500.  Guettabi said each tax may be good for one area of the state while having a negative economic impactsomewhere else. His answers reaffirm why many, like assembly member Decker, are thinking of new solutions to the problem.

Decker said with an internet sales tax being an unlikely solution for communities with sales taxes such as Wrangell, those communities will have to state their case against a statewide sales tax and make legislators understand the impacts.

The lack of reliable childcare options in the Bristol Bay Borough impacts parents, children, employers, and the community at large. A group of residents is working on a solution. They now have $80,000 from the Borough to develop a certified childcare center.

Esther Pepin and her 7-month-old son, Leo, sat on the floor of an empty room in the Bristol Bay Borough School. She explained her vision for the room.

“It is probably about 1600 square feet and has very old carpet and old linoleum, and we are looking at renovating and turning it into a safe and beautiful place for children to learn and for teachers to reflect on their learning,” Pepin said.

Pepin taught Kindergarten and Pre-Kindergarten in this class room last year, but after Leo was born, she could not find available, reliable childcare.

“I had to quit my job,” Pepin said, “So that I could take care of my 7-month-old. I was a teacher, and I love being a stay at home mom, but when I became one, I realized that my story was reflected in people on a weekly basis. I would see public postings for, ‘I need a baby sitter. I have to go to work. I have a job. I have to meet my rent, and I need somebody to take care of my kid.’”

There are no certified childcare centers in the Naknek, South Naknek, and King Salmon communities that make up the Bristol Bay Borough where Pepin lives. In March, she and a group of Bristol Bay residents began meeting to discuss the problem, which they say frequently leads parents to quit their jobs or move away. Their solution: Little Angels Childcare Academy. The non-profit has acquired a facility use contract to rent the room where Pepin used to teach.

Sharon Thompson has been a part of the planning committee from the beginning. She recently turned down a job offer because she could not find reliable childcare. Thompson explained their passion for the program.

“The brain develops so rapidly during those first couple years of life,” Thompson said. “It’s just—the potential for learning and the need for nurturing and safe and consistent care of children is just critical, and that’s what we want to address.” Thompson says, “It’s not just childcare. It’s early childhood education.”

In order to be licensed with the state of Alaska, the facility for Little Angels needs to be ready for inspection. So, on Monday, they took it to the Bristol Bay Borough Assembly meeting to ask for $100,000 in development funds. About a dozen business owners, parents, and childcare workers spoke in support of the program. The room was full, and some who came sat on the floor. Local resident Dave Lax explained how he sees the lack of childcare effect the community.

“As an employer, we have three young people working for us now that all suffer from the childcare issue,” Lax said. “And it’s—for a small community like us—I think it’s a tough challenge to try to develop a childcare center that can support that need that the companies in town need have to be able to hire people and provide quality jobs.”

The Borough approved a donation of $80,000. Carl Anderson, mayor of the Bristol Bay Borough said after the vote that childcare is something the community needs.

“Being a young parent myself, I know we had times where it was hard to find a babysitter or hard to drive all the way across town to drop off a babysitter, so I’m excited for people to have the opportunity to get what they need,” Anderson said.

That money, Thompson said, will go toward furniture, equipment, materials, and renovation required to set up the center. Little Angels Childcare Academy hopes to open January 1, 2017 and will initially have spots for 10 students.

In Alaska, passion for hunting runs deep. For many, the thrill of hunting big game is second to none. But there’s another group of hunters in Alaska tracking a different kind of prey: mushrooms.

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Neil McArthur has one rule when he’s mushroom hunting.

“When in doubt, move on,” McArthur said.

McArthur would know. He’s been hunting mushrooms in Homer for 25 years. This year, he published Alaska’s Mushrooms: A Wide-Ranging Guide, along with University of Fairbanks Professor Gary Laursen.

Mushroom hunting can be a dangerous business, McArthur said. Some mushrooms, like the infamous Amanitas, are lethal to humans.

“Some of the amanitas are extremely toxic,” McArthur said. “They’re reputed to taste wonderful. The only thing is that three days later you need a liver transplant.”

One of the challenges with identifying mushrooms is that their appearance changes dramatically as they age. When it first pops out of the ground, an immature mushroom often looks like something you might find in a grocery store: a little button.

At this stage, it’s easy to confuse an edible species with a poisonous one.

“The gill structure isn’t really visible, the gill color isn’t really visible. They tend to be white and small and rolled up in a button,” McArthur said.

The sheer number of mushroom species can also make identification difficult. There are about 70,000 species of fungi worldwide. In Alaska alone, there are thousands of mushroom species.

A mushroom hunter’s first question is usually “Can I eat it?” Unfortunately, many of the species in Alaska are inedible. And with names like dung dome and belted slimy cort, it’s not hard to imagine why.

On a crisp fall day in September, McArthur leads a small group of amateur mushroom hunters on a collecting trip near the Homer Airport.

The group fans out across the forest, eyes glued to the ground. A thick layer of cushy sphagnum moss carpets the forest floor.

One hunter spots a mushroom peeking out from behind a log. McArthur tells her not to bother picking it.

“Is this fungus poisonous? No, but it has the texture of a hardwood plank, I don’t think you want to eat it!” McArthur laughed.

But mushroom collector Pat Esperanto isn’t deterred. He’s holding out hope that he might find his favorite mushroom, the King Bolete, also known as the porcini.

“They’re wonderful. They taste delicious, they taste like steaks. They’re just phenomenal,” Esperanto said.

McArthur spots a patch of mushrooms that looks promising. He sloshes through a puddle and crawls under the low hanging branches of a spruce tree to take a closer look.

“This is a relation of the grocery store mushroom. It’s usually edible,” McArthur said.

“Okay, you go first,” quipped one mushroom collector.

“Well, I made an omelet out of a couple of ‘em that I found in my driveway last week,” McArthur laughed.

It’s a patch of horse mushrooms, Agaricus arvensis. None of them are poisonous, but only one of the mushrooms in the patch is edible. McArthur cuts open the other two to show why you probably wouldn’t want to eat them.

“See the little tiny holes? They’ve probably gone clear up through and into the cap. I’m sure the maggots are edible, but they’re not really appealing,” McArthur said.

The hunters find dozens of mushrooms in the forest, but not many of them are edible. Most leave empty-handed.

But McArthur isn’t disappointed. For him, mushroom hunting is really just an excuse to spend time enjoying the great outdoors.

“Even when you’re finding no mushrooms you get a nice walk in the woods,” McArthur said .

The mushroom hunting season is nearly over for the year, but McArthur said there’s still a chance to find edible mushrooms before the first hard frost.

The White House today honored Sitkan Linda Behnken as a “Champion of Change” for her work to improve fishing sustainability.

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Behnken directs the Alaska Longline Fishermen’s Association. She has been a commercial fisherman for more than 30 years. At a White House forum today, she said fishermen are great problem-solvers.

“They have to be,” she said. “When you’re out on the water, 90 miles off shore and something breaks, you have to know how to fix it. And you have to know how to get yourself back to shore and keep your crew safe.”

She says her organization and the national fishing coalitions she works with aim to harness that ingenuity. She’s worked to involve fishermen in research projects to ensure healthy fish populations and improve ocean science. Behnken says they also use their networks to help new fishermen get off to a good start.

“So having people who are established, that know how to avoid sensitive habitat (and) know how to avoid bycatch hotspots, mentor young fishermen, share data with young fishermen and help them be successful, with running their businesses in ways that also sustain the fisheries for the future,” she said.

Behnken was one of 12 people the White House honored as “Champions of Change” in seafood sustainability. The Obama White House created the “Champions of Change” awards as part of the president’s “Win the Future” initiative, a key theme in his 2011 State of the Union address.

Alaska and British Columbia officials signed a statement of cooperation Thursday aimed at protecting rivers that flow through the province and the state.

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Transboundary mine critics say it’s not strong enough.

The document is the result of about a year of talks following citizen warnings about B.C. mines and mining projects near the border.

Local and tribal governments, as well as fishing and environmental groups, said such mines could release pollution that would damage Alaska fisheries and traditional food-gathering.

British Columbia Mines Minster Bill Bennett said the agreement will give the state more input into the province’s environmental-assessment and permitting process.

He said the agreement will establish a technical committee — of experts, not politicians — to set up new water-monitoring systems.

“We need baseline information so that we know whether there’s going to be or will be impact in the future from mining operations,” he said. “We need these folks to figure out how we’re going to pay for it and who’s going to do it.”

Alaska Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott, who has led the state’s effort on the issue, called the terms “another step in Alaska’s commitment to open and transparent collaboration.”

“It creates a technical working group to allow us to essentially put our hands on the power levers of the British Columbia government in its entire regulatory process of permitting mines,” he said.

The agreement was drawn up with feedback from mining, government, fisheries, community and environmental groups, as well as state and provincial officials.

Bennett said his ministry also reached out to First Nations members living in affected areas. He said similar outreach happened in Alaska.

“So I think on both sides of the border, we’re quite proud of the fact that this is not something that the two governments are imposing. This is something that, I think, has developed from the grass roots,” he said.

Some people disagree.

Ketchikan’s Rob Sanderson Jr., who works with theUnited Tribal Transboundary Mining Work Group, said tribal governments on both sides of the border should be co-signers of the agreement.

Sanderson also said it doesn’t address their most fundamental concerns.

“It’s not our business to issue permits to mining companies,” he said. “Our business, in my opinion, is to maintain our culture for all future generations. This agreement does not do that.”

Sanderson and other mine critics said the statement of cooperation, part of a larger memorandum of understanding, has little power to make significant mine-safety improvements.

They want the state to continue pursuing involvement of the International Joint Commission. That’s a U.S.-Canada panel handling cross-border water disputes.

“This memorandum of agreement throws a wrench into that. It’s because when you’re looking at it from the outside, they’re saying, ‘Well, probably, maybe we don’t need it. The state has a memorandum with the British Columbian government, so why go there?’ ” he asked.

Lt. Gov. Mallott said the statement of cooperation will not interfere with the state’s pursuit of joint commission action.

“We view this as a multi-track process, of which the SOC is but one,” he said.

The Southeast Alaska Conservation Council’s Guy Archibald said the document is much improved from earlier versions.

But in an email, he said some of its wording, such as the definition of “significant degradation,” is not strong enough.

Chris Zimmer of Rivers Without Borders was also critical. He said the agreement’s terms seem to answer British Columbia’s concerns more than those from Southeast Alaskans.

B.C. mining companies and regulators said the existing process already safeguards transboundary rivers.

That’s a position taken by Alaska officials in past years, before citizen concerns led to talks that resulted in this agreement.

Only one mine – Red Chris – is up and running in the transboundary area. A second – Brucejack – is under construction. A third – Tulsequah Chief – is closed and needs cleanup.

But Bennett said another handful of exploration projects are far from development, due to technical and economic challenges.

“So, I don’t think you’re ever going to see a sudden emergence of a half-a-dozen new mines or something in northwestern British Columbia. But you will see other projects come along in the next two, three, four or five years,” he said.

Critics said even if it’s just one mine, it still threatens the environment and livelihoods in Southeast Alaska.

This week we’re hearing from Jacqui Lambert from Kotzebue. Lambert is a volunteer here at Alaska Public Media and a student at UAA.

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LAMBERT: I guess the biggest I want to do is become a reporter and I really want to be a bilingual reporter for KOTZ in Kotzebue. They don’t have any reporters in Kotzebue right now.

Well we have reporters based out of either Anchorage or somewhere… I’m not sure where she’s based out of, for the Arctic Sounder. But there’s nothing for the radio station. So I really want to bring that back.

It’s really important to me because the radio station reaches out to the villages and there’s a lot of elders who listen to the radio a lot. And it’d be nice for them to hear it in their own Native language and it could inspire younger people to start to learn it more too to understand what I’m saying.

I went to college at the University of Idaho in Moscow, ID. And I spent a semester living in Los Angeles, CA. There was just no way for me to put my heart and everything into it when I was out of state because I was disconnected sort of. I was so determined. I was like, “I’m never gonna go back. I’m not interested.” But then, the longer that I was away, the more that I grew an appreciation for Alaska and I just loved Alaska a lot after I left.

Sometimes I get asked the weirdest questions about what it’s like living in Alaska and they think that we’re not part of America, but we really are. I actually met someone who didn’t believe in Eskimos before. That was really weird. He thought that we were like mermaids, you know like, “Do they exist or do they not exist?” And I’ve had people ask me if we use American money or if we need a passport to come to Alaska or to go to Kotzebue and things like that.

I laugh about it, but I also like let them know, “You’re very under-educated about this, and I’m gonna teach you about what Alaska really is like.”

Representatives of the Arctic Council member nations wrapped up a meeting in Portland, Maine this week. American Ambassador David Balton, chairman of the senior Arctic officials, says they heard updates on top Council priorities, including black carbon reduction and resilience for Arctic communities.

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The Arctic Council turned 20 last month. For the first decade of the Arctic Council’s existence, interest in it did not extend much beyond the Arctic nations. But Balton says now the world is paying attention to the region.

“And the Arctic Council has emerged as the premier international forum for dealing with the key issues of the Arctic region,” he said. “It has a broad mandate. It’s expanding its scope and reach in a number of ways. So  I think there’s a growing awareness out there.”

Balton says the Arctic Council’s work on environmental monitoring and assessment is informing global efforts to contend with climate change, and he cited the example of the Polar Code that takes effect in January, to improve maritime safety.

“A lot of the information that went into building this new code to better regulate polar shipping, including Arctic shipping, came from information supplied by the Arctic Council,” he said.

As Balton spoke to reporters this morning, the power spot of international Arctic discussion had already shifted from Maine to Iceland, where the annual Arctic Circle Assembly is underway. It’s a gathering of some 2,000 people. In one of the first speeches there, U.S. Arctic Representative Robert Papp called for an international icebreaking force. Papp, according to High North News, said the icebreakers could be jointly operated for the common good, like the Enterprise, on Star Trek.

Better educational outcomes for kids statewide, is the aim of a new program being offered by Thread, a childcare resource and referral network.

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Thread is a non profit funded by the department of Health and Social Services and community donations. Their program Learn & Grow, Alaska’s Quality Recognition and Improvement System, is designed to evaluate and increase the quality of childcare centers.

Of the estimated 456 licensed childcare centers statewide, 53 have signed up for the Learn & Grow Process in communities like Anchorage, Fairbanks, Juneau and Ketchikan. While there are state requirements that all childcare centers must meet to be licensed, Learn & Grow director Meghan Johnson views her program as a next step for centers to increase their standards in education and care.

“So the idea is to funnel resources into the programs as they achieve certain levels of quality, so that they have that funding to continue it,” Johnson said. “Cause it costs money to pay their teachers a higher wage. It costs money to send them to school for professional development. It costs money for materials and resources in the classroom.”

Learn & Grow measures the quality and growth of each participating childcare center in levels. Level 1 requires that all workers in a childcare center be enrolled in the Learn & Grow program, and administrators must take a training course. Johnson says about 22% of the centers have already met that benchmark. Level 2 requires more administrative training in business operations such as budgeting and human resources as well as child development training.

Having already met their goal of signing up 10% of eligible childcare centers in Learn & Grow, the next step is to ensure that certain numbers of those centers reach Level 1 and Level 2 benchmarks within Learn & Grow.

“We said that we wanted of those participating programs, that about 80% of them would achieve a Level 1 – that first level of quality,” Johnson said. “And then we said about 20% would achieve Level 2. So 20% requires the administrators to acquire credentials. It’s really where we require most of the training.”

Johnson says through partnerships with government and communities, Learn & Grow is on track to meet and surpass their yearly fiscal goals for quality childcare in the state.

So far this year, 10 nursing homes in Alaska have been cited more than 100 times for health or safety shortfalls, according to state and federal inspection reports.

The state has some of the highest rates of nursing home deficiencies in the nation, according to ProPublica, an investigative reporting outlet. But Alaska inspectors say context is important.

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Alaska nursing homes are inspected on the state and federal level annually to make sure they’re meeting regulations.

Brenda Vincent runs the state’s program that oversees health facilities’ licensing compliance, which includes nursing homes.

She says the inspections are unannounced, and that over a few days, a small team of surveyors analyze everything from the fire safety code to treating residents respectfully.

“We use tools of observation, interviews, record reviews,” Vincent says,”all just to ensure that they’re being compliant and following state and federal regulations, and ensuring that the best care is delivered to residents in those facilities.”

Angela Rick has been inspecting nursing homes for eight years.  She says that over time, there are some things that nursing homes are repeatedly cited for.

“Our most common ones would be dignity of the resident, so making sure that it’s a homelike environment and the resident is treated in the manner that you would want to be treated or your family member treated,” Rick said. “Infection control would be a common deficiency (as well).”

Rick says high turnover among nursing home staffers can contribute to some of the inconsistencies.

“We used to say that you’re only as good as your worst performer,” she said. “So it’s very difficult sometimes to monitor what the staff is doing, and so one person could make a mistake or could have a practice and that would cause you do a get a deficiency in that area.”

According to data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, inspectors logged 147 deficiencies at the 10 Alaska nursing homes visited so far this year. Alaska has a total of 18.

Source: Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. (Graph by Lakeidra Chavis/KTOO)

Most of the deficiencies are categorized as causing minimum to no harm. Some incidents are isolated, some are repeated. There are serious deficiencies, too.

At the nursing home in Petersburg, for example, deficiencies included administering the wrong medication dose and not returning a resident’s money after the person died.

In Wrangell, a resident with a condition requiring a “nectar consistency” diet to reduce choking risk, reportedly used a spoon to drink over thickened coffee because a staffer added thickener without measuring. Other residents reported similar problems.

Vincent says although the number of citations is high, the goal is to keep these institutions accountable.

After each inspection, nursing home administrators are required to submit a plan of correction, which surveyors review.

“And if we find a deficiency, we need to bring that forward to the facility and let them know,” Vincent said. “You know, if you don’t, then change isn’t going to be made and that’s important. I mean, if you see something wrong, it needs to be corrected. If you don’t bring it to the light, then it just stays uncorrected.”

Nursing homes with severe deficiencies can rack up penalties. Since 2013, the agencies have fined nursing homes more than $100,000, or denied Medicare and Medicaid payments.

Source: Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. (Graph by Lakeidra Chavis/KTOO)

For the Prestige Care & Rehabilitation Center in Anchorage, the problems were so bad that thestate took control of the facility last year to address the issues.

After a national investigation into nursing home safety, ProPublica, ranked the states with the most severe deficiencies in nursing homes. Their most recent data ranks Alaska as the fourth worst.

“Number-wise, we’ve heard that and I don’t know why,” she said. “I just think that we have a really good team.”

Vincent says that compared to the Lower 48, the turnover for Alaska inspectors is low and the nursing homes are a lot smaller.

She says in about a year, the state will switch to a newer model of surveying, following a national trend. It will combine the traditional boots-on-the-ground method with a computer-based survey.

Vincent says that it’s important for people to know that there is oversight. She worked as a registered nurse in Alaska before switching to the inspection side five years ago.

“I’m on the other side ensuring the care that you are getting is quality, and safe, and complies with best practices and standards that have been set,” she said. “So I really think that what I do and what my team does, makes a difference.”

Becky Hultberg is the president of the Alaska State Hospital and Nursing Home Association, which lobbies for its members.

She says inspection reports are just one of the ways to measure nursing home care.

“As an example, there are several CMS quality measures where Alaska skilled nursing facilities have better outcomes than most facilities in other states,” Hultberg said. “Specifically, Alaska does very well in preventing falls, reducing the use of antipsychotics and successfully managing the use of physical restraints.”

She says Alaska is a small state with a small number of nursing homes, and that calls the attention of federal regulators.

“I would note that there are times where we have more surveyors in a facility than we have residents…the ProPublica data was not a huge surprise to me,” she said.

Hultberg says a lot it has to do with a federal law she calls the minimum of five.

“The federal government is required to survey five percent of facilities in a state a year, or a minimum of five facilities,” Hultberg said. “Well if you’re a state that has hundreds of facilities, obviously you’re going to be getting fewer federal surveys, than a state like Alaska where we only have 18 facilities.”

Based on inspection reports alone, of the 10 nursing homes inspected so far this year, Alaska’s most deficient are the Prestige Care and Rehabilitation Center of Anchorage, Wrangell Medical Center and the Yukon Kuskokwim Elders Home in Bethel.

Governor Bill Walker is going back to South Korea Saturday for the second time this month to pitch his gasline plan. It’s Walker’s third trip to Asia as governor.

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He was invited back to South Korea by the Future Consensus Institute, a nonprofit research group based in Seoul. The Future Consensus Institute is paying for the Governor’s portion of the trip.

Alaska Gasline Development Corporation President Keith Meyer will join the governor.

According to the Governor’s office, Meyer’s travel expenses are not covered by the Future Consensus Institute.

A press release stated that Walker and Meyer will discuss Alaska’s oil and gas potential with the Deputy Prime Minister of Japan, in addition to leaders Korea, China, Russia and the U.K.

Margaret Stock is running as an Independent for U.S. Senate. The first time candidate says she will promote a strong national defense and support military veterans. She’s also pro-choice. She is the first in a series of candidates we’ll feature on TOA over the next few weeks.

HOST: Lori Townsend

GUESTS:

• Margaret Stock – Independent candidate for U.S. Senate
• Statewide callers

Participate:

• Call 550-8422 (Anchorage) or 1-800-478-8255 (statewide) during the live broadcast
• Post your comment before, during or after the live broadcast (comments may be read on air).
• Send email to talk [at] alaskapublic [dot] org (comments may be read on air)

LIVE Broadcast: Tuesday, October 11, 2016 at 10:00 a.m. on APRN stations statewide.

SUBSCRIBE: Get Talk of Alaska updates automatically by email, RSS or podcast.

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 @aprn

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Walker administration looks to sell billions in bonds to pay for pensions

Andrew Kitchenman, KTOO – Juneau

Standard & Poor’s announced Friday it expects to lower Alaska’s credit ratings if the state government sells bonds to pay for public-worker pensions.

Walker to return to S. Korea to pitch gasline plan

Elizabeth Harball, Alaska’s Energy Desk – Anchorage

Governor Bill Walker is going back to South Korea Saturday for the second time this month to pitch his gasline plan. It’s Walker’s third trip to Asia as governor.

Amb. Balton: Focus grows on Arctic Council

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

Representatives of the Arctic Council member nations wrapped up a meeting in Portland, Maine this week.  For the first decade of the council’s existence, interest in it did not extend much beyond the Arctic nations. But Amb. David Balton says now the world is paying attention.

Walruses return to Point Lay – but this year, they’re late

Rachel Waldholz, Alaska’s Energy Desk – Anchorage

About a thousand walrus are hauled out on a barrier island near the village of Point Lay, about 180 miles southwest of Barrow. The haul out is part of an unnerving trend. This year marks the eighth time in a decade that large numbers of walrus have crowded onto land in the area. The animals have been driven to shore as sea ice recedes, limiting access to their usual feeding grounds.

White House honors Sitkan as champion of fisheries

Liz Ruskin, Alaska Public Media – Anchorage

The White House today honored Sitkan Linda Behnken as a “Champion of Change” for her work to improve fishing sustainability.

British Columbia, Alaska sign transboundary mine agreement

Ed Schoenfeld, CoastAlaska – Juneau

Alaska and British Columbia officials signed a statement of cooperation Thursday aimed at protecting rivers that flow through the province and the state.

FEMA to fund landslide mapping for Sitka

Emily Kwong, KCAW – Sitka

FEMA will be stepping in to fund landslide mapping in Sitka. The Alaska Division of Geological & Geophysical Surveys, who will be leading the research project,  announced the news on Tuesday.

Learn & Grow seeks to improve childcare evaluation and quality statewide

Wesley Early, Alaska Public Media – Anchorage

Better educational outcomes for kids statewide, is the aim of a new program being offered by Thread, a childcare resource and referral network.

AK: How do you build a swim culture where one’s never existed?

Anna Rose MacArthur, KYUK – Bethel

Bethel sits on a river, but many people here don’t know how to swim. People drown in the Kuskokwim every year, and for decades people thought the solution was to build a pool and teach people to swim. Well, two years ago the city got a pool. But how do you build a swim culture where one has never existed? That’s a question Bethel’s first swim team is trying to answer.

49 Voices: Jacqui Lambert of Kotzebue

Wesley Early, Alaska Public Media – Anchorage

This week we’re hearing from Jacqui Lambert from Kotzebue. Lambert is a volunteer here at Alaska Public Media and a student at UAA.

Standard & Poor’s announced Friday it expects to lower Alaska’s credit ratings if the state government sells bonds to pay for public-worker pensions.

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Governor Bill Walker’s administration plans to sell up to $3.3 billion in these bonds. An analyst for the credit rating agency said the bond sale would sharply increase the state’s debt burden. It also would lower the state’s capacity to issue debt in the future. And the bond sale adds risk to the state’s budget if investment returns are lower than the cost of the bonds.

Traders use credit ratings to assess risk. Lower ratings generally translate into the state paying more to bond holders.

The three credit rating agencies differ in their response to the state’s plans. Fitch rated the pension obligation bonds themselves one notch below the state’s overall rating, which it didn’t change.

And Moody’s didn’t make an announcement Friday. State officials say they don’t expect Moody’s to lower the state’s rating based on the bond sale.

State Revenue Commissioner Randall Hoffbeck said the state plans to move forward with its plan to approach potential bond purchasers.

“We’re going to see how the market responds,” Hoffbeck said. “And then based on what kind of market response we get and the, you know, S&P statement that they’re going to downgrade us, we’ll make an ultimate decision. We’ll weigh the pros and cons and decide whether to go forward or not.”

S&P did point out the state benefits from having budget reserves that are two and a half times its annual budget. And it has the potential to close its budget gap by drawing on Permanent Fund earnings, according to a statement from analyst Gabriel Petek.

The state is obligated to pay public workers 6 billion dollars more in future pensions than it has in assets. Lawmakers – including Wasilla Republican Senator Mike Dunleavy – have said the bond sale is too risky.

But Hoffbeck has said the bond sale could be the best way to close the pension fund gap.

“We’re going to have two, I think, good responses from the rating agencies, one not-so-good response,” Hoffbeck said.

Hoffbeck said the state could close the sales the week of October 31st.

About a thousand walruses are hauled out on a barrier island near the village of Point Lay, about 180 miles southwest of Barrow.

Listen Now

The haulout is part of an unnerving trend. This year marks the eighth time in a decade that large numbers of walruses have crowded onto land in the area. The animals have been driven to shore as sea ice retreats, limiting access to their usual feeding grounds.

But this year’s haulout — so late in the fall — was a surprise.

Andrea Medeiros is a spokesperson for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. She said scientists were pretty sure it wasn’t going to happen this year. Then, she said, “Next thing I know, I get an email from one of our biologists saying, ‘the walruses are hauling out,’ and I’m like, ‘Ahh!’”

Residents in Point Lay contacted the Fish and Wildlife Service with the news Friday morning.

Medeiros said the haulout is forming about a month later than in the past. Usually at this time, walruses are heading south to Russian waters for the winter. And although sea ice receded to its second lowest level on record this summer, there was lingering ice over the walruses’ traditional feeding grounds.

The Fish and Wildlife Service and the Native Village of Point Lay are asking people to stay away from the area during the haulout to avoid disturbing the animals and causing a stampede.

“The risk there is when they are onshore and the animals get spooked, the larger animals will flee to the water and crush the small animals in the process,” Medeiros said. “So it leads to a lot of preventable mortality.”

Biologists are continuing to monitor the haulout as it forms. In the past, up to 40,000 animals have gathered in the area.

The Coast Guard reported a boat operator fell asleep Saturday morning and ran his vessel aground in Peril Strait.

The strait is south of Chichagof Island and north of Sitka. Officials said four people were aboard the 41-foot recreational vessel Pirate Son.

The passengers called the grounding into the Coast Guard around 10:30 a.m. None were injured in the accident.

Coast Guard Petty Officer Kelly Parker said the Alaska State Troopers reached the vessel first.

“It was actually a state trooper vessel that was actually on scene — state trooper vessel Courage,” Parker said.

Coast Guard officials said state troopers made contact with the vessel about 20 minutes after they received the distress call.

Parker said the troopers gave the Pirate Son’s operator a breathalyzer test but didn’t find any trace of alcohol.

Troopers helped the four passengers transfer from the grounded vessel into their own skiff which they took to Sitka.

The Coast Guard did not know the Pirate Son’s homeport.

Juneau Docks and Harbors said the vessel was not moored in any local harbors on Saturday.

Sitka’s Harbor Department could not be reached for comment.