Alaska State News

Kodiak teen indicted on felony charges related to White Sands explosion

Sat, 14 Dec 2024 02:22:01 +0000

One of several ash piles near the entrance to White Sands Beach near Kodiak. The beach is a popular spot for bonfires, fishing, bear watching, walks, or letting dogs run around off-leash. (Brian Venua/KMXT)

A Kodiak grand jury has indicted a 16-year-old in connection with an explosion last month at a popular beach that injured 11 teenagers.

The state Department of Law said in a press release that Kavik Skonberg, a high school junior, was indicted Thursday on felony charges. He’s being charged as an adult for multiple counts of first- and third-degree assault for allegedly causing the explosion at a party at White Sands Beach in Kodiak.

The indictment comes after about a month-long investigation from Alaska State Troopers. The incident occurred at a popular recreation area after a 55-gallon fuel drum was thrown into a fire in the early morning hours on Nov. 10, causing five teens to be medevaced to Anchorage for severe burns. Some have already returned to the island, however others are still being treated in Anchorage.

Several fundraisers have been held locally to support the victims. It is unknown if Skonberg will also be held responsible for any of the treatment or counseling costs on top of the criminal charges.

Skonberg is set to be arraigned on Dec. 16.

Alaska News Nightly: Friday, December 13, 2024

Sat, 14 Dec 2024 02:04:59 +0000

Midtown Anchorage, blanketed in snow, on December 3, 2019. (Photo by Joey Mendolia/Alaska Public Media)

Stories are posted on the statewide news page. Send news tips, questions, and comments to news@alaskapublic.org. Follow Alaska Public Media on Facebook and on Twitter @AKPublicNews. And subscribe to the Alaska News Nightly podcast.

Friday on Alaska News Nightly:

Anchorage officials brainstorm solutions to the looming natural gas shortage. Plus, Ketchikan residents speak out against school funding cuts at a contentious meeting. And Petersburg’s youngest dancers put a new spin on an old classic.

Reports tonight from:

Wesley Early and Tim Rockey in Anchorage
Michael Fanelli in Ketchikan
Brian Venua in Kodiak
Tim Ellis in Delta Junction
Ben Townsend in Nome
Clarise Larson in Juneau
Olivia Rose in Petersburg

This episode of Alaska News Nightly is hosted by Casey Grove, with audio engineering from Chris Hyde and producing from Tim Rockey.

Anchorage officials say advocacy and energy consumption are ways city can address looming natural gas shortage

Sat, 14 Dec 2024 01:03:24 +0000

Anchorage City Hall on Dec. 8, 2020 (Jeff Chen/Alaska Public Media)

Anchorage deputy municipal manager Mark Spafford describes Southcentral’s looming natural gas shortage as a train that has been barreling toward the region for decades and now — it’s almost here.

“This isn’t just, like, political posturing or somebody, you know, Chicken Little-ing it,” Spafford said. “It’s a real thing, and we need to do something about it. And we’re 20 years behind the curve in my opinion.”

Earlier this month, Anchorage Assembly members held a retreat to hear from a variety of stakeholders involved in addressing the impending shortfall. The shortage, if not addressed, will put at risk the ability for residents to heat and power their homes and businesses.

While officials have pointed to a need for addressing the region’s natural gas supply for a long time, the problem has become more apparent in recent years, with experts predicting a major shortfall as early as 2027. However, city officials say most of the solutions to the issue won’t be solved by the government.

“The utilities are by far the biggest players in the space, and I think that solutions really do start and end with them,” said Nolan Klouda, a policy advisor for Mayor Suzanne LaFrance’s administration.

During the retreat, city officials heard about a host of proposals to address the shortage, ranging from investing in existing natural gas production to propping up more renewable energy projects. None have firm commitments signed.

Officials say utilities like Enstar Natural Gas and Chugach Electric will be the main drivers of which projects go through. Enstar recently announced it had signed a contract with a small natural gas producer that could help.

Still, Klouda said the city does have a role to play.

“We have a powerful voice that we can advocate for solutions at the state level when it comes to things like transmission line upgrades that are really necessary to bring new sources of power online, including a lot of renewable sources,” Klouda said.

In addition to advocacy, Klouda said the city can take a look at its own energy usage, and find ways to conserve power. When it comes to total energy usage in Anchorage, the municipality uses about five percent, according to the city’s climate action plan.

Spafford said the city has already taken steps over the past several administrations to find efficiencies in how it uses power.

“Do energy audits on buildings, you know, and change light bulbs and try to get people to turn down thermostats at the end of the day, and turn off their lights and turn off monitors,” Spafford said.

Spafford also said the city has a few opportunities to generate its own power to offset the need for natural gas. One example is the hydropower generated by the Eklutna River. The other involves the capturing of methane from a waste-to-energy project at the Anchorage landfill.

“We’re selling 7.2 megawatts on a somewhat regular basis, to JBER already, to the Fort Richardson side of that,” Spafford said. “There’s the capacity and the ability there to literally, like, double the capacity of that plant.”

Assembly leaders like vice-chair Meg Zaletel say the presentation they heard at the retreat highlighted the severity of the impending energy crunch. She said one major takeaway she got was that many solutions are years away. Another is how the crisis intersects with existing Assembly priorities, like increasing housing and reversing years of outmigration.

“A huge part of housing affordability is keeping it heated and running, and so we really need to make sure we’re taking and factoring that in when we look at our housing strategy,” Zaletel said.

Zaletel said she was also encouraged by the work the city has already done to address energy consumption, including changing tires on city vehicles to all-weather ones in order to conserve fuel usage.

“I think we’re doing some quiet, innovative things already within the municipality,” Zaletel said. “We just don’t often take the time to publicize them, and I think that by doing so, we can lead by example with what other people might be doing, or other businesses might be doing.”

Zaletel added that as an Assembly member, a major priority is making sure that the public’s tax dollars are being spent wisely, and she’s hopeful that addressing energy issues in the short term will prevent the city from having to spend even more in the future.

‘Greyhound Cowboy: And Other Stories’ explores flawed characters in wild spaces | State of Art

Fri, 13 Dec 2024 23:33:32 +0000

After a decades-long career with the Forest Service, Juneau author, Ken Post, released “Greyhound Cowboy: And Other Stories.” The collection follows realistic characters exploring relationships and conflicts against the backdrop of nature’s grandeur–from a fly-fishing guide and a cowboy stuck at a Montana bus station to a wildland firefighter trying to escape her demons.

He tells us about drawing inspiration from his long career working in remote Alaska, developing “loveable losers” and the role nature plays in his short stories.

LINKS:
Ken Post website
Facebook
Instagram

Defensiveness in relationships | Line One

Fri, 13 Dec 2024 23:07:10 +0000

Disagreements are bound to come up in relationships, but if it feels like every conversation with your partner turns into a battle where someone comes out hurt, odds are defensiveness may be playing a role. On this Line One, host Prentiss Pemberton and relationship expert Lisa Merlo-Booth explore why we get defensive, how to recognize it in yourself, and how to build healthier connections.

HOST: Prentiss Pemberton

GUEST:

Lisa Merlo-Booth – Therapist and relationship expert.

RESOURCES:

Lisa Merlo-Booth’s website

LINE ONE’S FAVORITE HEALTH AND SCIENCE LINKS:

Mayo Clinic and Cleveland Clinic offer extensive health information libraries
MedlinePlus has a guide to finding reliable health information on the internet
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
American College of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology (ACAAI)
Carl Sagan’s Baloney Detection Kit and common logical fallacies

SUBSCRIBE:
Get updates on Line One: Your Health Connection and other Alaska Public Media podcasts here.

Talk of Alaska: Greetings from Across the State | Dec 24

Fri, 13 Dec 2024 22:53:04 +0000

Stay warm this Christmas Eve with Alaska Public Media’s warmest holiday tradition, Talk of Alaska: Holiday Greetings Across The State, co-hosted this year by Steve Heimel and Wesley Early.

Connecting Alaskans, from Utqiagvik to Juneau, hear festive greetings, well wishes, and sentiments from those who call Alaska home. With listeners all over the state, and even in the lower 48 and Hawaii, this show is the perfect opportunity to send love to friends and family, no matter where they may be.

Join in on the cheer Tuesday, December 24 at 10 a.m. on Alaska Public Media Radio KSKA FM (91.1 FM Anchorage, 91.9 FM Girdwood), public radio stations statewide, KTOO 360 TV, or by streaming on Alaska Public Media’s Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube pages.

To participate:

Call 907-550-8422 (Anchorage) or 1-800-478-8255 (statewide) during the live broadcast.
Send an email to talk@alaskapublic.org prior to or during the live broadcast (comments may be read on air).

Cozy reading recommendations for the fall and winter | Talk of Alaska Rewind

Fri, 13 Dec 2024 22:48:51 +0000

Kuskokwim Consortium Library. (Photo by Anna Rose MacArthur / KYUK.)

As the temperatures outside drop, the temptation to curl up next to the fireplace with a good book only grows. A memorable novel can take us out of the dark and cold and transport us somewhere entirely new. So what do bookstore owners and librarians say are the best new reads? What role do these gathering places play in the larger community? We revisit our September 2024 show on reading recommendations for Alaska’s colder seasons on this Talk of Alaska Rewind.

HOST: Madilyn Rose

GUESTS:

Taylor Jordan – Owner, Black Birch Books
Andi Haley – Adult Services Supervisor, Anchorage Public Library
Mary Ann Cockle – Owner, Fireside Books

Related:

Books discussed during the program (plus some extras):

The Centre: A Novel by Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi
Dracula by Bram Stoker
Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan
The Spirit Bears its Teeth by Andrew Joseph White
The Murderbot Diaries series by Martha Wells
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
Black Woods Blue Sky by Eowyn Ivey (Releasing in February 2025)
Rivers and Ice: A Woman’s Journey Toward Family and Forgiveness by Susan Pope
The Martian and Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
Dersu Uzala originally by Vladimir Arsenyev. Translated into Dersu the Hunter or Dersu the Trapper depending on translation
Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros
A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Mass
Trapline Twins, Riding the Wild Side of Denali, and Dog Driver by Miki and Julie Collins
Wilmington’s Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy: by David Zucchino
Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention and How to Think Deeply Again: By Johann Hari
Lula Dean’s Little Library of Banned Books by Kirsten Miller
The Widow Clicquot: The Story of a Champagne Empire and the Woman Who Ruled It by Tilar J. Mazzeo
The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester
A Wolf Called Romeo by Nick Jans
A Trip to the Stars by Nicholas Christopher
Sacred Instructions by Sherri Mitchell
Shadows on the Koyukuk by Sidney Huntington and Jim Rearden
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
The Dream that is Childhood by Sandra Wassilie
84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff
The Shadow Speaker by Nnedi Okorafor
A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik
The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lunch
Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution by Cat Bohannon
The House in the Cerulean Sea and Somewhere beyond the Sea by TJ Klune
The Midnight Library and The Life Impossible by Matt Haig
Spawn Till You Die: The Fin Art of Ray Troll by Ray Troll
Uncommon Weather: Alaska Stories by Rich Chiappone
Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow
The Widows by Jess Montgomery
Sivulliq: Ancestor by Lily Tuzroyluke
Caught in the Rush by W. Mace Brady
Last Letters from Attu by Mary Breu
Answering Alaska’s Call by Linda Fritz
Two Old Women by Thelma Wallis
Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
The Queen of Fairbanks by Tricia Brown
Out of the Dark A Memoir by Marian Elliott

Other authors mentioned during the show:

Mary Roach
Erik Larson
David Gann
Timothy Egan
David McCullough
Colum McCann

PARTICIPATE:

Call 907-550-8422 (Anchorage) or 1-800-478-8255 (statewide) during the live broadcast

Send an email to talk@alaskapublic.org (comments may be read on air)

Post your comment before, during or after the live broadcast (comments may be read on air).

LIVE Broadcast: Tuesday, September 24, 2024 at 10:00 a.m. on APRN stations statewide.

Air Force OKs 4 more refueling tankers for Eielson Air Guard unit

Fri, 13 Dec 2024 21:45:38 +0000

A KC-135 Stratotanker assigned to Eielson’s 168th Wing, with iconic polar bear image on the tail, touches down after a refueling mission in March 2021. (From Defense Visual Information Distribution Service)

The Alaska Air National Guard announced Wednesday that the 168th Wing at Eielson Air Force Base will be getting four additional air refueling tankers in the near future.

Alaska National Guard spokesperson Alan Brown said the agency was informed on Tuesday that Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall had approved assigning the four KC-135 tankers to the 168th Wing. The unit already has eight tankers based at Eielson.

An F-22 Raptor from Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson refuels mid-air using the boom of an Alaska Air National Guard 168th Wing KC-135. JBER’s F-22s and Eielson’s F-35s are part of what a Guard spokesperson calls ‘one of the highest concentrations of 5th generation fighters anywhere in the world.” (From Natalie Stanley/168th Wing Public Affairs via DVIDS)

Brown said in an email Wednesday the additional air tankers will help support the two squadrons of advanced F-35 jet fighters at Eielson. He added “The 168th Wing at Eielson is the only Alaska-based air refueling unit supporting one of the highest concentrations of 5th generation fighters anywhere in the world.”

Fairbanks North Star Borough Mayor Grier Hopkins said up to 220 servicemembers will be coming to the Eielson area in the coming year, along with the tankers.

“It’s really exciting news for our community as a whole and our nation’s security to be able to have these families and the infrastructure and airplanes coming to Fairbanks,” he said.

Brown said the new tankers will support Alaska-based Air Force units in both the Arctic and the greater Indo-Pacific region. He added “The operational environment in Alaska and the Arctic region is only getting more complex, so these additional aircraft will play a vital role in supporting the strategic mission across the region.”

But he said the Air National Guard can’t yet say when the four air tankers will arrive at Eielson.

The Pentagon announced three years ago that it would move the tankers to Eielson in 2023, but then delayed their arrival. Now that the Air Force has affirmed its commitment, Hopkins credits the work of local officials as well as U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan and his staff for hammering out the logistics of transferring the aircraft.

An F-15 Eagle approaches a 168th Wing KC-135’s boom to take on jet fuel over the Pacific Alaska Range Complex, now known as JPARC, during a 2008 training exercise. (From U.S. Air Force via DVIDS)

“We’ve worked very closely with the Air Force and the Department of Defense and Senator Sullivan’s office to make sure our community is ready when these airplanes and their associated service members comes to Fairbanks,” he said.

The mayor said the influx of servicemembers and their families will boost the local economy and, hopefully, the borough school district’s enrollment.

“We just had 630 students leave the school district this past year,” he said, “but the vast majority of those were military-related students. So this hopefully fills that gap, and helps our schools fill the classrooms that they’re going to need as they make tough decisions this year.”

Brown, the National Guard spokesperson, anticipates that some of the new personnel and their family members will reside on base and others will live in surrounding communities.

Editor’s note: KUAC’s Patrick Gilchrist contributed to this story.

Mat-Su Borough schools abandon remote learning

Fri, 13 Dec 2024 19:18:05 +0000

The Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District office located in Palmer Alaska. May 30, 2024. (Matt Faubion/Alaska Public Media)

The icy weather that closed Mat-Su Borough schools this week might add extra school days to the school calendar, due to a recent policy change by the state’s education commissioner.

When the COVID-19 pandemic closed schools in 2020, the Mat-Su Borough School District quickly responded with remote learning. With remote learning, students could log in from their homes and be taught through online teleconferences. After students returned to school, at the end of the pandemic, remote learning remained as a learning option. It was used for those days when school was closed, due to poor weather conditions.

Until last week, remote learning was counted as a day in session for students. This meant no extra days were required to be added to the school calendar. According to Alaska state law, the school term in Alaska is 180 days long, with 10 days reserved for in-services and other events. If school closures result in less than 170 days of school, those days must be made up.

Deena Bishop, the commissioner of the state Department of Education and Early Development, said last week that the department is reconsidering whether to count “e-learning” due to unanticipated school closures toward the minimum number of instructional days required by state law.

Bishop, a former MSBSD superintendent, made the comments during a state Board of Education meeting on Dec. 5 — when schools in Anchorage and parts of the Mat-Su Borough declared a remote learning day due to freezing rain.

Bishop said that weather-related school closures were part of a broader problem of increasing school absences. She indicated that absenteeism might be a factor in students’ underperformance in school.

Bishop sent a letter on Dec. 7 to school superintendents indicating that remote learning days should not be expected to count as school days. In response, MSBSD officials swiftly announced that remote learning days are no longer an option for bad weather.

It’s likely that students celebrated this week when school was canceled due to icy roads. Rather than log in to the classroom in the morning, they were granted a day off. Students may not be celebrating in the spring however, when they find that the school term ends a few days later than expected.

Anchorage School Board grapples with $107M budget deficit

Fri, 13 Dec 2024 17:26:26 +0000

Anchorage School Board Members Kelly Lessens, Carl Jacobs and Margo Bellamy use a tool called Balancing Act during a budget work session on Dec. 7, 2024. (Tim Rockey/Alaska Public Media)

The Anchorage School District is facing a budget deficit of $107 million. The school board met for several hours to discuss ways to address the shortfall last Saturday.

Board members spent much of the meeting using a tool called Balancing Act to show how cuts to various departments could be used to balance the budget. Aggregate data from each of the board member’s budget decisions will be released next week, and the tool was released to the public on Wednesday.

Board Member Margo Bellamy summed up the district’s budget dilemma.

“I could not balance this budget without cutting programs and people. There is no other way to do it,” Bellamy said. “I don’t care how optimistic we are. I mean there’s a lot that’s unknown but this is very frustrating for me.”

Member Kelly Lessens said she did her best to maintain a low student-to-teacher ratio during the exercise, opting instead for cuts to sports and activities.

“It’s my duty to understand what the community values, and I understand the community values class sizes, which is why I acted as I did this morning,” Lessens said. “It certainly raises the question of, is this an emergency? And it truly is.”

School Board President Andy Holleman was the first to balance the budget using the tool, doing so by assuming a $1,500 increase to the state’s per-student funding formula, called the Base Student Allocation. Board Member Carl Jacobs took the opposite approach, working to erase the budget deficit without assuming any additional funding from the state.

Gov. Mike Dunleavy and lawmakers have made education funding a priority for the upcoming legislative session. But even if lawmakers pass the same $680 increase to the Base Student Allocation as they did last year, which was vetoed as a permanent increase by Dunleavy, the district would still have a $62 million deficit.

Holleman said the board will plan for a small BSA increase, and likely make revisions in April depending on what passes the Legislature.

“I think we will do a budget based on a reasonable increase, see what happens in February, and then do what we absolutely have to do in April before deadlines pass for us to notify teachers about layoffs,” Holleman said.

According to projections from a finance committee meeting Thursday, the $107 million deficit would result in the loss of 598 jobs. Board members also discussed using the district’s available savings to help cover some of the deficit. A supermajority of board members could vote to authorize $47 million in additional spending.

Office of Management and Budget Senior Director Katie Parrott said draining the district savings account to balance the budget is not typical.

“Those have not historically or traditionally been funds that were used to balance the budget because they’re very much one time funds,” Parrott said. “It is a very real deficit, and using that fund balance really only helps get us through one more year.”

The district has drawn over $30 million from the fund balance each of the last two years.

The board must forward a balanced budget to the Anchorage Assembly by mid-February.

Americans are furious over health care. Is this an Occupy Wall Street moment?

Fri, 13 Dec 2024 17:21:36 +0000

Health care advocates are shown protesting care denials at UnitedHealthcare’s offices on July 15, 2024 in Minnetonka, Minnesota. (David Berding/Getty Images for People’s Action Institute)

The fury over the state of U.S. health care isn’t going away.

It’s been a week since UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was shot and killed in Manhattan. That shocking, targeted killing has also sparked a reckoning over the business he ran, in a country that has the most expensive health care in the world.

Thompson led the largest U.S. health insurer, part of a massive, for-profit conglomerate that touches almost every part of how Americans access health care. His company has been widely criticized for making health care more expensive and more difficult to access. And those frustrations have boiled over in the response to his death, ranging from widespread jokes to outright celebrations.

UnitedHealth has not directly responded to the widespread consumer criticisms since last week; a spokesperson for UnitedHealth declined to comment to NPR for this story.

This week, after police arrested Luigi Mangione for the fatal shooting, some even rushed to support him. An online fundraiser for Mangione’s legal defense had raised more than $65,000 by Thursday evening. Meanwhile, social-media videos showed “wanted” posters for other CEOs posted in downtown Manhattan.

“We’re facing an apocalyptic moment in the human story, where hundreds of thousands of Americans are going bankrupt because of medical bills – and the executive suites of these private health insurance [companies] are laughing all the way to the bank,” says Sam Beard, an organizer of the Mangione legal-defense fundraiser.

This rhetoric echoes the last time that consumers broadly mobilized to protest against powerful corporations and their wealthy executives, in the Occupy Wall Street movement in late 2011 that swept the country after the financial crisis.

Those Occupy protests ultimately did not yield immediate consequences for the companies or CEOs they criticized; no Wall Street chief executives ever went to jail for the business decisions that led to the subprime mortgage crisis or the resulting waves of foreclosures. But those protests did articulate an overwhelming populist anger with the United States’ stark income inequality.

Now the response to Thompson’s killing “has become a kind of marker of our age of inequality, where people feel fairly powerless,” says Helaine Olen, managing editor at the American Economic Liberties Project, an anti-monopoly nonprofit.

That populism and economic fatigue remains a powerful force in U.S. politics today, as inflation-weary voters recently demonstrated by reelecting former President Donald Trump. As Olen adds, “You’ve seen this really from the time of the financial crisis onward: There’s just this sense of ‘how can I get a fair deal’?”

Consumers’ sense of powerlessness is often amplified when dealing with health insurance companies, which govern the care that patients receive. But navigating those huge and opaque companies can be maddening at best, and consumers rarely have much of a say; for about 154 million Americans, employers select and provide health insurance coverage.

UnitedHealth is the most dominant of these. It’s the fourth-largest U.S. company by revenues overall, with divisions that employ doctors, provide pharmacy benefits, and process patients’ medical claims. It — along with its largest competitors — is the subject of antitrust scrutiny, consumer lawsuits over widespread denials of claims, and bipartisan criticism. This week, Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri introduced legislation that would break up large healthcare conglomerates, including UnitedHealth.

“The insurance companies are out of control. They need to be broken up,” Hawley said on X. “No more buying up doctors’ practices. No more owning pharmacies. Start putting patients first.”

Everyone interviewed for this story emphasized the need for change, and many health care providers are hoping that some good can come out of this tragic event.

“This is not a heroic vigilante, and it’s important that he be brought to justice,” says Dr. A. Mark Fendrick of the University of Michigan. “That said, maybe there’s a tiny lesson we could learn to move forward.”

Fendrick studies ways to improve health insurance and advocates for a more wholistic approach of what is known as “value-based” insurance. He published an article in a medical journal last week urging the healthcare industry to rethink how it does business and the kinds of services it charges higher prices for.

“Now, in the wake of a tragedy that has captured the national conscience, might be the time to reframe the dialogue from how much we spend to how well we spend our medical care dollars,” Fendrick wrote.

Dr. Diana Girnita, a rheumatologist in Irvine, Calif., is already trying a different approach. After years of fighting with insurance companies, Girnita started a direct-care practice that bypasses insurance and offers her services to patients for often-lower fees. She published an article on LinkedIn last week in response to Thompson’s death. Its headline asked: “How many more lives must be lost before we change healthcare?”

Top executives at large healthcare companies have generally insisted that they are working to improve the quality of care available to all Americans.

In an email to employees on Wednesday, UnitedHealth Group CEO Andrew Witty remembered Thompson as “one of the good guys,” and shared anonymous testimonials and notes of support from UnitedHealth customers.

“I am super proud to be a part of an organization that does so much good for so many,” Witty said.

Lower prices dim expectations for Alaska oil earnings in coming years, revenue forecast says

Fri, 13 Dec 2024 16:47:21 +0000

A network of pipelines, seen on Aug. 23, 2018, snakes through a portion of the Greater Prudhoe Bay Unit on Alaska’s North Slope. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)

Alaska oil revenues are expected to decline over the next few years, helping create a budget deficit that will have to be filled in with state savings, according to a semiannual forecast released by the state Department of Revenue on Thursday.

The new forecast is more pessimistic about the state’s oil-money prospects over the next few years than was the department’s previous forecast, released in March, noted Department of Revenue Commissioner Adam Crum.

“This is due to lower oil prices, as well as higher lease expenditures,” Crum said at a news conference held by Gov. Mike Dunleavy. Oil price estimates are based on the futures market, he said.

Oil production through the end of the 2020s decade will also likely be lower than what was expected in the department’s previous forecast, released last spring, “but there is an expected increase in production and revenues after that,” Crum said.

The new forecast predicts that North Slope oil production will average 466,600 barrels per day in the current fiscal year, which started on July 1, and rise slightly to 469,500 in the fiscal year after that. Average production for fiscal 2024, which ended on June 30, was 461,000 barrels per day.

Alaska North Slope production peaked in 1988 at over 2 million barrels per day.

While Alaska North Slope oil prices averaged $85.24 in the 12 months that ended on June 30, they are expected to be only $73.86 in the current fiscal year and $70 in the year after that, then hold steady within a range between $68 and $73 a barrel through the early 2030s, according to the forecast.

That is $4.14 per barrel lower for the current fiscal year and $4 per barrel lower for the next fiscal year than the prices predicted in the department’s March revenue forecast.

Counting all sources, the state will receive $220 million less in the current fiscal year and $232 million less in the following year than was expected last spring, according to the forecast.

The forecast predicts a significant upswing in production in the latter part of the decade, eventually bringing average North Slope production to over 600,000 barrels per day in the early 2030s and 656,866 by the middle of that decade.

That is attributed in large part to two projects in development on the western side of the North Slope: Pikka, operated by the Australian company Santos, with Repsol as a partner, and Willow, the ConocoPhillips project that is on federal land and expected to produce up to 180,000 barrels per day at its peak. Willow production is expected to start in 2029.

But the revenue boost from that new development will lag the increase in production, according to the forecast.

The state’s total petroleum revenues in the 12 months that ended on June 30 were a little over $3 billion, the forecast said. That total will drop to around $2.2 billion in coming years before starting to rise in the early 2030s. A decade from now, Alaska’s total petroleum revenues will have rebounded – but only to a level about equal to the total in just-completed fiscal 2024. That would not account for inflation.

While Willow is set to be a major oil producer, it is not expected to provide significant royalty income that could be used for the state budget, unlike fields that are located on state land. Under federal law, royalties from oil production within the petroleum reserve are to be split between the federal government and a fund for North Slope communities’ use.

Oil income is less important to the state budget than it was in the past, when it contributed as much as around 90% of funds the state can spend on services without restrictions.

In the 12 months that ended on June 30, oil money made up 37% of the state’s $6.6 billion in unrestricted revenue, a category that does not include the $6.1 billion contribution from the federal government.

In contrast, earnings from investments – primarily from the Alaska Permanent Fund – accounted for 55% of the state’s unrestricted revenue in the last fiscal year, according to the newly released forecast.

Crum, at the news conference, explained the shift away from past patterns when oil was the main source of unrestricted revenue.

Starting about six years ago, he said, the state transitions from depending primarily on oil revenues to its unrestricted funds to depending on investment income for “a significant share” of the budget, he said. That investment money comes primarily from the Alaska Permanent Fund – the state spends roughly 5% of the fund’s total market value each year.

“Alaska is now, at least partially, an endowment state,” he said, adding that no new taxes accompanied the switchover. “Alaska is the first state in the United States to achieve this status,” he said.

Earnings from the Permanent Fund are expected to put $3.7 billion into the general fund for the current fiscal year and $3.8 billion in the following fiscal year, according to the forecast. That money is to be used both for state government operations and for annual dividends paid to residents, the forecast said.

Dunleavy introduces first-draft budget with $1.5 billion deficit and more than $3,800 PFD

Fri, 13 Dec 2024 02:46:42 +0000

Gov. Mike Dunleavy, R-Alaska, speaks during a press conference introducing his budget for the next fiscal year on Dec. 12, 2024. (Eric Stone/Alaska Public Media)

Gov. Mike Dunleavy released his proposal for the state budget on Thursday. It’s the first draft of a spending plan for the next fiscal year, which starts in July.

Over the next several months, there’ll be lots of back-and-forth with lawmakers as the state Legislature examines the budget in detail before they pass their own version. Alaska News Nightly host Casey Grove spoke with Capitol reporter Eric Stone for a rundown of what’s in store.

Listen:

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This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Casey Grove: Eric, give us the headlines. What’s in the governor’s budget?

Eric Stone: All in, it’s a $16.7 billion budget. The portion that gets the most focus is unrestricted all-purpose money that can be spent however policymakers like, and that’s about $7.7 billion.

Nearly 60% of the state’s revenue comes from the annual 5% transfer from the Alaska Permanent Fund. And as usual, the biggest single expense is the Permanent Fund dividend.

As in years past, Dunleavy is proposing a dividend in line with the old formula in state law. $2.5 billion would be allocated to PFDs. That translates to more than $3,800 per Alaskan.

A lot of the rest of the budget is status quo. There aren’t cuts per se, though there is some one-time funding that won’t be renewed — most notably, the temporary boost the Legislature gave to education last year. So to avoid a funding decrease, the Legislature will have to approve at least $175 million above what’s in this budget.

But the flip side of that is, there are some gaping holes in the budget. At the end of the day, it’s a deficit budget. It calls for spending more than $1.5 billion from the Constitutional Budget Reserve. That’s more than half of the current balance of the savings account.

And they need another $150 million in the current budget year from savings. All in, it’s about $1.7 billion in deficit spending this year and next. And the picture gets more grim the longer you project it out. The savings would disappear, and the projections show it being overspent by nearly $1 billion by the middle of 2028, and $12 billion underwater by 2035.

CG: OK, so a deficit budget. Why is that?

ES: It’s a combination of large PFDs, no cuts to spending and no solid sources of new revenue. And Dunleavy is insistent that the PFD should follow the old formula.

“We’re going to follow the laws and we have the savings. So that’s why you have the budget designed as it is,” Dunleavy said.

Basically, the money he’s counting on materializing isn’t in the budget. And Dunleavy says essentially that future resource development will make up the gap. He’s pointing to things like carbon sequestration and storage, timber, mining, new industries like data farms — and of course good old oil and gas.

“The resource production in the state can more than pay for our way if we consummate great policy as we move forward,” Dunleavy said.

That’s all speculative. And of course, all budgets are speculative. You make projections, and maybe they’re right, maybe they’re not. For instance — this budget is counting on a lower oil price — around $70, that’s down from $85 in the fiscal year that ended this past June.

But this is even more speculative than that. Dunleavy’s vision for the future of the state counts on a bunch of stuff happening that may or may not happen. It looks like we’ll get more oil in the pipeline as the Willow and Pikka projects move forward. But counting on money from carbon credits or carbon sequestration, that’s another story.

CG: What kind of reaction have you heard to the governor’s budget?

ES: Not everybody’s convinced that the governor’s predictions will pan out. I spoke with Democratic Rep. Andy Josephson — he’s tackling the operating budget as a co-chair of the House Finance Committee.

“What I can’t figure out is why the governor, particularly with two years remaining in his term, doesn’t act boldly to help us by offering us some leadership on the budget question,” Josephson said.

He says it’s clear the governor isn’t interested in non-resource revenue, like taxes. And he’s skeptical that the governor’s bets on things like resource development will pay off.

“So the governor, ultimately, with his budget, is saying, ‘I can’t figure this out. You do it,’”

And he says the Legislature will figure it out. But he also says the public should be prepared for a dividend that’s a lot smaller than what Dunleavy is proposing. And even smaller than the roughly $1,700 that Alaskans got this year.

Josephson says the $1.5 billion draw from savings can’t be made up with cuts to state spending. And he says that will leave lawmakers no choice but to take it from the PFD.

Alaska News Nightly: Thursday, December 12, 2024

Fri, 13 Dec 2024 02:37:55 +0000

Gov. Mike Dunleavy, R-Alaska, speaks during a press conference introducing his budget for the next fiscal year on Dec. 12, 2024. (Eric Stone/Alaska Public Media)

Thursday on Alaska News Nightly:

Gov. Dunleavy releases his budget draft during a press conference in Juneau. Plus, researchers study how to integrate electric vehicles, including electric snowmachines, in rural Alaska. And, Juneau reexamines what trails tourism companies can operate on.

Reports tonight from:

Casey Grove in Anchorage
Evan Erickson in Bethel
Tim Ellis in Delta Junction
Clarise Larson and Eric Stone in Juneau
Ashlyn O’Hara in Kenai
Desiree Hagen in Kotzebue

This episode of Alaska News Nightly is hosted by Casey Grove, with audio engineering from Chris Hyde and producing from Tim Rockey.

Rising star wrestler overcomes tragedy in Wrangell | INDIE ALASKA

Fri, 13 Dec 2024 02:33:30 +0000

Wrestling is more than just a sport for young people living in many parts of rural Alaska. In Wrangell, the high school wrestling team is dominating the competition. Della Churchill leads the coed wrestling team as the team captain despite surviving tragedy in her family and in her small Southeast Alaskan community. Della’s resilience, gratitude, and compassion for others have shaped this athlete into a powerful force in her community.

Production support provided by
The Alaska Mental Health Trust ‪
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation ‪

INDIE ALASKA is an original video series produced by Alaska Public Media in partnership with PBS Digital Studios. The videos capture the diverse and colorful lifestyles of everyday Alaskans at work and at play. Together, these stories present a fresh and authentic look at living in Alaska.

Alaska Permanent Fund Corp. board approves 10% raise for CEO

Fri, 13 Dec 2024 02:24:17 +0000

The Michael J. Burns Building, which houses the Permanent Fund offices on 10th Street, on Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2024. (Clarise Larson/KTOO)

The head of the agency that manages the Alaska Permanent Fund is getting a raise. The Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation’s Board of Trustees approved a 10% pay increase for CEO Deven Mitchell on Tuesday, bringing his total salary to more than $420,000 a year.

Board chair Jason Brune said the raise comes after Mitchell got high marks on an annual performance evaluation conducted in a closed-door session.

“We’re very happy with Deven’s performance, and we had a very good discussion with him about what happened this past year and put some metrics in place for this next year,” Brune said during the public portion of the meeting.

It’s the second year in a row Mitchell has gotten a 10% raise for leading management of Alaska’s roughly $80 billion nest egg.

The board gave its evaluation verbally in an executive session to avoid it being accessed by public records requests. That’s allowed under a policy change approved by the board in 2023 after the controversial firing of its prior CEO.

During the two-day meeting in Juneau, Permanent Fund managers said the fund is performing well.

Its target return is 5% above inflation, as measured by the consumer price index, and it’s ahead of that mark by nearly half a percentage point in the year to date. The fund is trailing that target over the past five years, according to Chief Investment Officer Marcus Frampton, but he said the Permanent Fund is not alone in that respect.

“I don’t think any peers I’m aware of have hit CPI plus five over the last three years, so we’re not unusual in that respect,” Frampton told the board. “Over these short-term periods, probably about half the time, on a look-back basis, we’re over CPI plus five, [and] about half the time we’re not.”

Frampton said the Permanent Fund is ahead of its performance benchmark this year, and over the past three- and five-year periods. The performance benchmark measures the value added by Permanent Fund managers while accounting for the structure of the state’s portfolio and swings in the markets.

Biden says Native boarding school monument ensures history will not be erased

Thu, 12 Dec 2024 23:17:48 +0000

President Joe Biden delivers remarks at the Tribal Nations Summit, Monday, December 9, 2024, at the Department of the Interior in Washington, D.C. (From Adam Schultz/White House)

President Joe Biden chose his last White House Tribal Nations Summit to announce the creation of a national monument to honor Native American boarding school survivors.

“I don’t want people forgetting 10, 20, 30 years from now, pretending that it didn’t happen,” Biden told the gathering of tribal leaders on Monday. “We don’t erase history. We acknowledge it. We learn from it and remember from it, so we never repeat it again.”

In October, the president apologized on behalf of the federal government for the abuse of thousands of Native American and Alaska Native children who attended government-funded schools, going back to the 1800s.

Students in front of School Superintendent Richard Henry Pratt’s headquarters at the Carlisle Indian School, 1885. (Courtesy Carlisle Indian School Digital Archives)

The monument will be located on about 25 acres of the former Carlisle Indian Industrial School campus near Harrisburg, Pa. It was one of the first and largest of the federal boarding schools. Before it closed in 1918, more than 10,000 Native children had been taken away from their families and forced to attend.

U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland also announced on Monday that the Interior Department, the Smithsonian Museum of American History and the Library of Congress are working to preserve stories the department collected on its national Road to Healing Tour, which included a stop in Anchorage.

Jim LaBelle was one of those who shared his experiences of abuse at the Wrangell Institute in Southeast Alaska, a school that was similar to the one in Pennsylvania.

“Carlisle served as the model for almost all of the other boarding schools that came afterwards,” LaBelle said. “And that was the military model.”

LaBelle is a retired Alaska Native studies professor at the University of Alaska Anchorage and board member of the National Native Boarding School Healing Coalition. LaBelle’s college courses have looked at the influence of the Carlisle school on other Native boarding schools. He says it was founded by Gen. Richard Henry Pratt, an Indian fighter in the U.S. Army who coined the phrase, “Kill the Indian, save the man.”

When U.S. Army Gen. Richard Henry Pratt became the superintendent of the Carlisle Indian School, he imposed a military structure to assimilate the children into Western culture. Students wore military uniforms and slept in barracks. (Courtesy Carlisle Indian School Digital Archives)

LaBelle says many of the Alaska Native children who were sent to Carlisle had been orphaned by epidemics, and Pratt’s militaristic approach only added to their trauma.

“It was a process of getting your hair shorn, having clothing confiscated and burned, being issued government-issued clothing. It was all part and parcel of the Carlisle experience,” LaBelle said, similar to the forced assimilation he experienced at the Wrangell Institute, along with physical and sexual abuse.

Rev. Sheldon Jackson, a Presbyterian missionary, helped the Carlisle Indian School recruit students and promoted Indian boarding schools in Alaska. (From Alaska State Library)

LaBelle says new research has shown that Sheldon Jackson, the Presbyterian minister who promoted Native boarding schools in Alaska in the late 1800s, had a big influence on Pratt’s belief that imposing a military structure on the children’s education was a quick way to erase their Native identity.

Before and after photos of Tom Torlino, a Navajo student who attended the Carlisle Indian School in 1882 and left in 1885. (Courtesy Carlisle Indian School Digital Archives)

LaBelle says he’s glad the former campus of the Carlisle School will become a national historic landmark. He hopes it also will recognize the other boarding schools, which include about a hundred in Alaska.

The Biden administration will use the Antiquities Act to create the monument on what is now the U.S. Army’s Carlisle Barracks. It will include buildings that made up the school, along with gate posts that were built with the labor of children at the school.

The National Park Service and the U.S. Army will jointly oversee the Carlisle Federal Indian Boarding School National Monument. The Biden administration says they will be required to consult with Tribal Nations and the Native Hawaiian Community for its development and ongoing management, so that it tells the full story of the boarding school era — not just at the Carlisle School, but at other similar institutions.

Outdoor recreation sector contributed 4.6% to Alaska’s economy in 2023, new report says

Thu, 12 Dec 2024 23:03:33 +0000

The sun shines down on Perseverance Trail on May 16, 2023. (Clarise Larson/KTOO)

In 2023, the outdoor recreation sector accounted for 4.6% of Alaska’s economy, according to the annual Outdoor Recreation Satellite Account, released in November by the U.S. Department of Commerce.

That’s double the national average of 2.3%, but Alaska was outpaced by Hawaii (6.3%), Vermont (4.8%) and Montana (4.6%).

A chart showing that the value added of the outdoor recreation economy ranged from 1.6%-6.3%. (U.S. Department of Commerce)

The report showed that outdoor recreation added $3.1 billion to Alaska’s economy last year.

Stanislaw Rzeznik, a researcher for the report, said 68% of outdoor recreation revenue came from supporting industries, primarily lodging and transportation.

“And that’s related, among other things, to transportation to and from Alaska, because the supporting activities includes that transportation piece as well as the lodging and accommodations pieces that you have for Alaska,” he said.

The outdoor recreation industry also added jobs at an impressive pace in the state last year. The employment growth rate in Alaska, which excludes self employed workers, rose 7.5% in 2023– more than double the rate for the United States as a whole.

Outdoor recreation employment increased in 49 states and the District of Columbia in 2023, ranging from 7.5 percent in Alaska to −4.8 percent in Indiana. (U.S. Department of Commerce)

The report found 6% of Alaska’s jobs are tied to the outdoor recreation industry.

Alaska’s compensation growth rate jumped 17.6% last year, for an average salary of $72,811.

“This compensation for wage and salary workers is the highest among the states [and] in the District of Columbia. [Alaska is] more than double the US’s 9% growth rate. There was also high compensation growth in Hawaii, the southwest and Nevada, Arizona and Colorado,” Rzeznik said.

Rzeznik said snow sports were the top growing outdoor activities in the state at 18.5%, followed by hunting, trapping and shooting at 16.9%.

New study aims to fill in the data gaps on EV use in rural Alaska

Thu, 12 Dec 2024 21:16:14 +0000

A group of students in Galena learning about EV engines. (Courtesy Jen Schmidt)

Transportation within remote, Alaska communities that are inaccessible by road usually means burning gas or diesel. For the first time, however, researchers in two northern Alaska communities want to study how electric vehicles, including electric snowmachines, could be incorporated into their isolated power grids.

The Electric Vehicles in the Arctic study began this year in Kotzebue and in the Interior community of Galena. The National Science Foundation is paying more than $3 million dollars for the five-year study. Researchers hope to better understand the role and future of EVs in more remote areas of Alaska.

In August, the Alaska Energy Authority reported over 3,000 fully electric vehicles registered in Alaska. Only two are in Kotzebue, both owned by the local energy co-op, the Kotzebue Electric Association.

The study doesn’t promote EVs, but aims to better understand their usage in rural Alaska and clarify misconceptions about them.

“We hear a lot that they won’t perform,” said Michelle Wilber, a research engineer for the University of Alaska Fairbanks and a principal investigator for the study. “People are worried that they won’t perform in the super-cold.”

Jennifer Schmidt works for the University of Alaska Anchorage and focuses on the social components of the study.

“I think the other misconception is that it doesn’t make sense to have EVs in rural Alaska because the plant is powered by diesel, you’re just basically using another fossil fuel to charge these and so there really isn’t the environmental benefits.” said Schmidt.

Schmidt said the reality is more complicated, and that even if an EV is powered by a diesel-burning electric utility, it’s often still more environmentally sound than a comparable gas vehicle. Although factoring in the mining required for EV batteries further complicates the tradeoffs.

The researchers chose Kotzebue and Galena for the study because both already use renewable energy on their electrical grids with more in the works.

Galena, for example, uses solar panels and has begun looking at how hydrokinetic, or river powered turbines, could be used during warmer months. In Kotzebue, both the KEA and Kotzebue’s tribe are continuing to build more solar and wind arrays to offset diesel generators.

Schmidt said there is very little research on vehicle usage in rural Alaska. She only knew of one survey by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, which asked just subsistence users about vehicle use.

The new study commissioned by the National Science Foundation, however, has a few components. The first is gathering baseline data.

During the first two years, Schmidt, Wilber and other local partners will track and log 19 people’s vehicle usage — whether by car, four-wheeler, snowmachine or boat. Participants will stow small metal trackers in their vehicles. Biologists use the same kind of trackers to plot caribou migrations, in part because they can still function at lower temperatures.

Participants won’t be tracked in real-time; they only use the data in aggregate.

The logger (left) used to monitor vehicle usage. (Courtesy of Jennifer Schmidt)

“It’s not the Iron Dog,” Schmidt said. “I can’t see what people are doing.”

Participants could also receive over $800 if they participate in the full, year-long survey. Schmidt said the information can also be used by engineers with the project to look at how much energy the power-plant would need to integrate more EVs.

EVs aside, the vehicle use information is valuable in other ways too, for things like road-use patterns, or how to manage dust in the summer months.

“So, in Galena, they’re very interested in using the information to provide statistics for grants going after funding to repair the road,” Schmidt said.

Another component of the study is purchasing electric vehicles chosen by the communities to see how they might realistically work in rural areas.

In Kotzebue, survey participants were paid $40 to evaluate and select the EV they thought would work best. Participants selected the all-electric Taiga snowmachine and Polaris 4-wheeler as the preferred winter and summer vehicles, which the researchers said were favored mostly for their mileage range.

The final component of the study – training a local workforce to maintain the vehicles once they are in their communities – is critical.

“The prohibitive costs of shipping it back to a dealership somewhere to get it worked on came up over and over again as a barrier to adoption of electric vehicles,” Wilbur said.

The researchers are working with the school districts in Galena and Kotzebue to develop a EV repair training program at no-cost to students, in coordination with the UAA’s Automotive program. They also hired a local research manager based in each community.

Glass recycling coming to Mat-Su next year

Thu, 12 Dec 2024 18:26:02 +0000

The Valley Community for Recycling Solutions building near the Matanuska-Susitna Borough Central Landfill in Palmer on Dec. 6. 2024. (Amy Bushatz/Mat-Su Sentinel)

What you need to know:

Starting in June, Mat-Su residents will be able to recycle glass at the Valley Community for Recycling Solutions center near Palmer. All types and colors of glass will be accepted.
Donated glass will be pulverized into fine sand using a newly purchased machine. The sand will be available for residents to buy and can be used for road traction, concrete, landscaping, and composting.
Glass recycling in Mat-Su was halted in 2008 because of high transportation costs and a lack of local processing facilities.

PALMER – For the first time in nearly two decades, glass recycling is coming to Mat-Su.

The Valley Community for Recycling Solutions center near the Matanuska-Susitna Borough Central Landfill in Palmer will begin accepting glass in June, officials there said. All types and colors of glass will be accepted, and labels do not need to be removed before drop-off, borough officials said.

“The community really wants glass collection,” Borough Solid Waste Manager Jeff Smith said at a Mat-Su Assembly meeting early this month. “They talk about it all the time, so this is a pretty exciting thing for them.”

Recycled glass will be pulverized into fine sand using a $185,000 machine newly purchased by the borough from New York-based Andela Products and expected to arrive in Alaska by May, officials said. The sand will be available for purchase at the recycling center for use in road traction, in concrete, for landscaping or combined with compost, Smith said.

Other materials dropped off at the recycling center – including cardboard, paper, plastics and aluminum – are sold to buyers and shipped out of state, said Tamara Boeve, executive director for the Valley Community for Recycling Solutions, which oversees recycling collection in Mat-Su. The organization stopped accepting glass in 2008 because its weight made transporting it to Anchorage or out of state too expensive and the borough lacked a local processing option, longtime employees there said.

The Assembly unanimously approved the pulverizer purchase this month. Landfill fees funded the purchase, Smith said.

While the borough owns the machine, the recycling center will house and operate it, he said. The recycling center will also handle sales of the processed material and keep any proceeds.

The Valley Community for Recycling Solutions is a nonprofit funded by grants, donations, sales of collected goods and about $200,000 in annual borough subsidies. Drop-offs at the Mat-Su recycling center are free to users, but donations are encouraged, Boeve said.

Glass will not be accepted with other recycling at the region’s trash transfer stations — at least for now, Smith said. Transporting heavy materials like glass from the transfer stations to the recycling center is very expensive, he said, and the borough will consider adding that service once officials identify a way to cover the cost.

Recycling services offered by the Municipality of Anchorage and the Kenai Peninsula Borough also accept glass, but neither pulverizes it into fine sand, officials in those locations said.

An example of sand produced by the glass pulverizer, according to the machine’s manufacturer, Andela Products. (Courtesy of Andela Products)

In Anchorage, workers crush glass into chunky gravel and stockpile it because uses for it are limited and no buyers are currently interested, said Kelli Toth, recycling services coordinator for the municipality. In Kenai, glass is crushed into fine gravel for use as landfill cover material, said Tim Crumrine, the Kenai Borough’s interim solid waste services director.

Just how much glass will be dropped off through the new Mat-Su program is unknown, Boeve and Smith said, with little data available on which to base estimates.

Mat-Su residents currently discard between three and six glass bottles and jars a week that could be recycled under the new program, according to a recent survey of about 1,000 people conducted by Colony High School students.

Valley Community for Recycling Solutions director Tam Boeve on Dec. 6, 2024 holds an example of glass gravel created by a crusher. Mat-Su’s new machine will crush glass into a sand instead, she said. (Amy Bushatz/Mat-Su Sentinel)

Smith and Boeve said they also have no estimate for how much glass residents are currently transporting to Anchorage for drop-off there – a common practice that the municipality discourages, Toth said. Information on the total amount of glass recycled in Anchorage this year was not readily available, Toth said. Previous data shows about 1,200 tons collected in Anchorage annually, according to the Anchorage Daily News.

If the Mat-Su recycling center processes more glass than the recycling center can resell, Smith said, the excess will be used in a composting program under development at the landfill.

An example of the glass pulverizer purchased by the borough and on its way to the recycling center in Palmer. (Courtesy of Courtesy of Andela Products)

“I hope we have more glass than we know what to do with, because I have a way to use the glass if we run into that problem,” Smith said in an interview. “You mix up to about 50% sand with 50% compost, and you get this wonderful material that’s just perfect for anybody’s yard, growing things, you name it.”

— Contact Amy Bushatz at abushatz@matsusentinel.com

This story has been republished with permission from the original at the Mat-Su Sentinel.

2 Alaska seafood processors to pay $2.1M in wage lawsuit settlement

Thu, 12 Dec 2024 18:10:11 +0000

An Ocean Beauty Seafoods sign in Naknek. (File/KDLG)

Two major Alaskan seafood processors have agreed to settle a class-action lawsuit alleging wage violations during the COVID-19 pandemic.

OBI Seafoods and Ocean Beauty Seafoods were ordered to pay a total of $2.1 million as part of a settlement approved last week by Judge Marsha J. Pechman in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington.

The case, brought by former employees Marija and Dusan Paunovic on behalf of processing facility workers, accused the companies of delaying wage payments and underpaying workers during mandatory quarantine periods.

OBI has 10 facilities in the state and was formed in 2020 through a merger between Ocean Beauty and former Alaskan processor Icicle Seafoods. Ocean Beauty currently owns a stake in the company as part of the new ownership group.

In email correspondence with KDLG, OBI’s chief executive officer John Hanrahan said that all workers at the company’s processing facility in Naknek were paid a daily stipend during the quarantine period, and were provided with free housing, meals, and laundry services.

“OBI Seafoods values its employees, pays competitive wages, and complies with all federal, state, and local wage laws and regulations,” Hanrahan said.

The plaintiffs, however, contended that the stipend was insufficient for extended quarantine periods. They argued the companies failed to adequately compensate employees for time spent in isolation as required by Alaska’s Wage and Hour Act and the federal Fair Labor Standards Act.

As part of the settlement, each of the more than 2,300 class members will receive $536, with some payouts exceeding $3,100, after deductions for legal fees and administrative costs.

The agreement also includes $630,000 in attorney fees, $100,000 for litigation costs, and $20,000 in service awards for the two lead plaintiffs. Administrative costs of up to $32,000 will be deducted from the settlement fund. The remainder will be distributed pro rata based on workers’ quarantine periods and delayed wages.

According to court documents, the settlement financially covers roughly three-quarters of the damages cited by the lawsuit’s class members. A court website contains more information about the settlement for class members, as well as options to opt out of it.

Alaska Airlines drops early bird Juneau-Seattle flight for winter

Thu, 12 Dec 2024 17:48:35 +0000

An Alaska Airlines plane prepares for take off at the Juneau International Airport on Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2024. (Clarise Larson/KTOO)

Alaska Airlines plans to suspend its early morning 5 a.m. daily flight between Juneau and Seattle beginning next month. The final flight will be on Jan. 5.

The early bird option is a staple for Juneau travelers, especially those who head to Seattle for work or to catch a connecting flight. Without any delays, passengers land before the workday starts.

“There’s been a lot of chatter among Juneau travelers about the suspension of the flight. But Alaska is aware of the unpopularity of their decision, trust me,” said Scott McMurren, a travel analyst based in Anchorage.

In an email, a spokesperson for the airline said it’s only temporary. They cited low demand for the flight during the winter months as the reason for the suspension. Alaska Airlines will resume the 5 a.m. flight for the busy summertime season starting in mid-June.

McMurren said seasonal scheduling like that is not unusual.

“We have seasonal flights to Europe. We have seasonal flights to Hawaii. We have seasonal flights to a lot of Alaska’s nonstop destinations,” he said.

Patty Wahto is Juneau International Airport’s manager. She said the busyness of the airport ebbs and flows depending on the time of year.

“Definitely, our peak seasons are the summer for travel. You see a lot more flights added on. You see a lot more tourism,” she said. “The bulk of our traffic is in the summer months.”

The Alaska Airlines spokesperson said Juneau won’t lose capacity despite the flight’s suspension. The airline will still offer three other flights from Juneau to Seattle. The earliest leaves around 8 a.m.

Right now, the airline has a near-monopoly in Juneau. Its biggest competitor, Delta, doesn’t plan to offer any flights between Juneau and Seattle until mid-next year.

In an email, a Delta spokesperson said it operates the Juneau-Seattle flight seasonally. This year it ran from June through early November. Delta won’t resume the flights until next June.

McMurren said that could affect the cost of flying during the winter months.

“During the months that Delta does not operate, Alaska enjoys a monopoly, and so they price their flights accordingly,” he said. “Typically they’re a little more expensive, then when Delta comes back into the market they typically drop. In the summertime, fares are lower because there’s competition.”

McMurren said schedules could be subject to change if there’s enough demand. But for now, he suggests preparing in advance for the later flight times.

New contract between Enstar and small producer could help delay natural gas shortage in Southcentral Alaska

Thu, 12 Dec 2024 17:42:26 +0000

Pipes lead to cooling fans, at right, at the Cook Inlet Natural Gas Storage Alaska facility on Monday, July 1, 2024 in Kenai. The facility takes natural gas from producers, including Hilcorp, and stores the gas underground in a depleted gas field until it is needed by its customers, which include Enstar and Chugach Electric. (Loren Holmes/ADN)

Enstar Natural Gas has signed a supply contract with a Cook Inlet producer that could provide some breathing room as Southcentral Alaska utilities face a critical shortage of local gas.

John Sims, the president of Enstar, told the Alaska House Resources Committee on Monday that the five-year gas supply contract with Furie Operating Alaska is set to begin in 2026. As the contract enters its second year, it is expected to provide significantly more gas than Furie currently sells to Enstar.

About 150,000 customers rely on Enstar gas that heats homes and buildings across Anchorage and Southcentral Alaska. The company uses more gas than all the electric utilities in Southcentral combined.

Sims told the committee that the contract is “a positive piece of news for Cook Inlet.”

The gas from Furie will supplement Enstar’s overall gas supply. It can push off timelines for potential gas shortfalls, Sims told the committee.

But he warned there’s a risk the gas may not be available as planned. Some of the gas supply will depend on future drilling.

“What’s really important to understand is there’s massive development risk with these projects,” Sims said.

He said explorers in Cook Inlet have had only 9% success drilling exploration wells that yielded commercial discoveries of gas over the last 15 years.

Mark Slaughter, Furie’s chief commercial officer, said in an interview on Monday that some additional drilling at the Kitchen Lights Unit needs to be conducted to provide the full volumes of gas for each year of the contract.

A well drilled in October in the Cook Inlet unit would provide part of the gas, Slaughter said.

“We’re an Alaskan-owned company and it’s important that Alaskans fix this problem,” he said.

The contract would provide an estimated 3 billion cubic feet of gas in 2026, Sims said. That’s less than 10% of Enstar’s annual gas demand.

That’s the amount Furie currently sells to Enstar, Slaughter said.

But the amount would jump much higher, to 9.5 billion cubic feet of gas annually, for three years starting in 2027. At that point, it would represent about 25% of Enstar’s annual gas demand.

The contract would fall to 7 billion cubic feet in 2030, Sims told the committee.

Another important step was a preliminary determination by the Alaska Department of Natural Resources last week calling for approval of Furie’s request for reduced state royalties on the company’s gas production, Slaughter said.

If the agency approves the reduction in the coming weeks, the state’s royalty on gas produced from the unit will fall to 3%, from 12.5%, for seven leases in the unit, Slaughter said.

The lower rate will remain in place until the Kitchen Lights Unit reaches $712 million in gross revenues, after a period that would start retroactively on Sept. 1, according to the 37-page preliminary determination, signed by Natural Resources Commissioner John Boyle.

Reducing the state royalty will allow drilling that prolongs the life of the field and provides more financial benefit to the state, the report says.

The unit, created in 2007, has only three producing wells. Each is at risk of no longer producing as a result of declining reservoir pressures, it says.

The royalty reduction could extend the life of the field by at least 10.5 years, according to a scenario modeled by the state.

Furie had estimated that without relief, the unit could begin ceasing operation in June, when operating costs could exceed revenues, the preliminary determination says.

A longer-lasting unit would provide total state revenue of at least $37.6 million, more than the $2.7 million expected if nothing is changed, the report says.

“Maintaining a stable Cook Inlet gas supply is in the state of Alaska’s best interest,” the preliminary determination says. “DNR has a mandate to assure local gas can continue to be produced. By granting royalty relief … it will make (the Kitchen Lights Unit) more economic to maintain production, develop and increase local gas production.”

Enstar spokeswoman Lindsay Hobson said on Tuesday that a gas shortfall is a possibility as early as next winter. The concern has prompted Enstar and other utilities to pursue a plan to import natural gas to Alaska.

“We’re still looking for gas for next winter (to meet full demand),” Hobson said.

“While the (Furie contract) is great news for right now, we can’t pump the brakes on any future development,” Hobson said. “We have to continue to plan and be prepared.”

Alaskans got an idea of the potential problems during a severe cold snap last winter, when equipment at an underground gas storage reservoir in Cook Inlet failed to produce gas as expected. If the situation had worsened, Southcentral residents would have been asked toreduce energy use.

The new contract with Furie will begin in March 2026, as the producer’s current contract with Enstar ends.

Future drilling would also be needed to help provide all the gas for the new contract, Slaughter said. Furie hopes to drill three wells next year if it can use Hilcorp’s jackup rig, a mobile drilling platform, like it did in October.

The overall price of gas for Enstar ratepayers would rise with the new contract, but by a fractional amount, since Enstar gets most of its gas elsewhere — primarily from Cook Inlet’s dominant producer, Hilcorp.

The gas cost adjustment is the amount ratepayers pay for gas. It’s the largest portion of a bill, and is approved annually by the Regulatory Commission of Alaska.

Enstar’s current gas cost adjustment for its overall gas supply is $9.07 for every thousand cubic feet.

Furie’s price for gas would be $13.69 without royalty relief under the new contract, Sims said. Furie’s price would be blended with prices for Enstar’s full gas supply.

If Furie receives royalty relief, then its price would fall to $12.30, he said.

The contract will be filed with the Regulatory Commission of Alaska by the end of this year.

This story has been republished with permission from the original at the Anchorage Daily News.

Biden commutes the sentences for 1,500 people, the largest act of clemency in a day

Thu, 12 Dec 2024 17:12:20 +0000

President Biden, seen here on Dec. 10, 2024, said he plans to issue more pardons and commutations in the final weeks of his presidency. (Jim Watson/AFP)

President Biden on Thursday announced he is commuting the prison sentences for nearly 1,500 people and pardoning 39 others in what the White House said was the largest act of clemency in a single day in modern presidential history.

The 1,500 people — whose names were not immediately provided — had been serving long prison sentences that would have been shorter under today’s laws and practices. They had been on home confinement since the COVID pandemic and Biden said they had successfully reintegrated into their communities.

The pardons went to people — also unnamed — who had been convicted of nonviolent crimes, including drug offenses, who the White House said had “turned their lives around.”

It has become a recent traditional for presidents to exercise their pardon power with a flurry of pardons and commutations at the end of their time in office. Democratic lawmakers and advocates are lobbying Biden to commute the sentences of the 40 people on federal death row and use his clemency power to begin to address sentencing disparities and mass incarceration.

Biden said he plans to take more steps in his remaining weeks in the White House.

“My Administration will continue reviewing clemency petitions to advance equal justice under the law, promote public safety, support rehabilitation and reentry, and provide meaningful second chances,” Biden said.

Biden is still getting criticized for his decision earlier this month to issue a blanket pardon to his son Hunter Biden, who had been convicted on gun and tax charges. It was a personal decision, the White House says, made outside of the established process for determining presidential pardons and commutations.

Even before Thursday’s announcement, Biden had issued more commutations than any other recent president by this point in their first term, the White House said.

Biden has also issued categorical pardons to people convicted under federal law of simple use or possession of marijuana, and to LGBTQ+ people who had been convicted because of the sexual orientation while serving in the military.

Alaska News Nightly: Wednesday, December 11, 2024

Thu, 12 Dec 2024 02:42:47 +0000

Attendees wearing gear embroidered with the name “F/V Wind Walker” bow their heads for a moment of silence during Sitka’s community vigil on Saturday, December 7. The Wind Walker was a seiner that capsized earlier this month with five crew members aboard. (KCAW/Redick)

Wednesday on Alaska News Nightly:

The state Seafood Task Force is asked to address the outmigration of commercial fishing permits from rural Alaska. Plus, Tribal members harvest an aggressive Sea Lion in Petersburg. And, a new sign for the Selawik Wildlife Refuge reflects the region’s wildlife and culture.

Reports tonight from:

Samantha Watson in Bethel
Yvonne Krumrey in Juneau
Michael Fanelli in Ketchikan
Davis Hovey in Kodiak
Desiree Hagen in Kotzebue
Hannah Flor in Petersburg
Meredith Redick in Sitka

This episode of Alaska News Nightly is hosted by Casey Grove, with audio engineering from Chris Hyde and producing from Tim Rockey.

After a year rocked by tragedy, Sitkans gather to grieve

Thu, 12 Dec 2024 02:18:39 +0000

The loss of five lives aboard the seiner Wind Walker earlier this month was the latest in a string of tragedies that has shaken Sitka this year, from a January boating accident that killed two teens to the apparent bear mauling of a local fisheries advocate in October. In a two-hour vigil at the University of Alaska Southeast boat ramp on Saturday, more than 80 Sitkans and visitors gathered to share stories of loss.

Paul Rioux, who organized the event with Nalani James, said they wanted the community to have a space to come together in grief.

“When someone is hurting, we can’t usually see the mess, and even if we could see it, we can’t reach into their hearts and put things back into the right places,” he said. “What we can do is acknowledge one another – give one another permission to hurt. Today, you all have permission to hurt. We can offer that love to one another.”

Malisa Crisman held up a photo collage of her son, who was one of five crew members aboard the F/V Wind Walker. She said she had come up from Las Vegas with her daughter-in-law.

“My son was E.J. Celaya. He was a commercial fisherman out here for seven months,” she said. “He loved the people that he met here. He said Sitka is a beautiful place. He eventually wanted his family to come. He said everyone welcomed him, and he wanted to make this his home. He’s going to be forever missed.”

Mementos and photos of the Wind Walker crew sit on a table at Saturday’s vigil. (Meredith Redick/KCAW)

Sitkan Jackie DeBell held up a photo of her grandson, David Jackson, who died at age 16 in a car accident this September.

“It’s been a real struggle with our family,” she said. “We have to learn how to live. It’s just learning to live without him, learning new things. And I just want to acknowledge everyone here. I know everyone has somebody they lost, and their lives are forever changed. Whether your grief started five, 10 years ago or last month, I want to offer you my condolences.”

Representatives from community organizations, including the Alaska Marine Safety Education Association and Brave Heart Volunteers, spoke briefly.

Brave Heart program manager Kathryn Winslow encouraged Sitkans to rely on each other.

“The holes in our hearts do not go away, and neither does the love,” she said. “So keep supporting each other, listening and sharing. We are a community woven together with threads of compassion and strength.”

Local musicians Elias Erickson and the Jen Reid Trio led the group through a hymn and a rendition of The Beatles’ “Let it Be.” Afterward, attendees stood at the edge of the boat ramp and tossed flowers into the channel.

Attendees toss flowers into the water following the vigil. (Meredith Redick/KCAW)

Sleep apnea and Inspire | Line One

Thu, 12 Dec 2024 01:35:45 +0000

(Sage Smiley / KSTK)

A good night’s rest is vital to our overall health, but there’s a lot that can interrupt the 7 hours of sleep recommended for adults, including obstructive sleep apnea. Obstructive Sleep Apnea affects 1 in 15 Americans, likely more, and treatment has often involved inconvenient treatments like CPAP machines. A new device called Inspire offers new alternatives for people with sleep apnea. Host Dr. Justin Clark and his guests discuss sleep apnea and treatment options on this Line One.

HOST: Dr. Justin Clark

GUEST:

Dr Ross Dodge, MD – Sleep specialist
Dr Kevin Jensen , DO – Ear, nose, and throat surgeon

RESOURCES:

LINE ONE’S FAVORITE HEALTH AND SCIENCE LINKS:

Mayo Clinic and Cleveland Clinic offer extensive health information libraries
MedlinePlus has a guide to finding reliable health information on the internet
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
American College of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology (ACAAI)
Carl Sagan’s Baloney Detection Kit and common logical fallacies

SUBSCRIBE:
Get updates on Line One: Your Health Connection and other Alaska Public Media podcasts here.

Alaska’s foster care shortage | Talk of Alaska

Thu, 12 Dec 2024 01:17:18 +0000

A safe, stable and supportive home is important for helping young people start life off on solid emotional ground, but sudden tragedies, accidents, illness and dysfunction can lead to children needing foster care. It can be hard to find nurturing adults to provide care, especially for kids who need intensive, therapeutic care. A new campaign seeks to raise awareness and recruit new foster care families. We learn more on this Talk of Alaska.

LISTEN:

HOST: Lori Townsend

GUESTS:

Dan Bigley – CEO, Denali Family Services
Nathan Deeter – Licensing supervisor, AK Child & Family
Kim Swisher – Deputy Director, Alaska Office of Children’s Services

RESOURCES:

PARTICIPATE:

Call 907-550-8422 (Anchorage) or 1-800-478-8255 (statewide) during the live broadcast.

Send an email to talk@alaskapublic.org (Comments may be read on air).

Post your comment during or after the live broadcast on social media (Comments may be read on air).

LIVE Broadcast: Tuesday, December 10, at 10 a.m. on Alaska public radio stations statewide.

15 years in, the success of community-based archaeology in Quinhagak is bittersweet

Wed, 11 Dec 2024 23:53:38 +0000

The Nunalleq dig site near Quinhagak, now in its 15th year since excavation began, is seen on Aug. 3, 2024. (Gabby Salgado/KYUK)

A short distance from a crumbling shoreline littered with sandbags in August, a group of volunteer archaeologists scraped and sifted soil from an 8-meter-long rectangle cut into the tundra on the Bering Sea coast.

Lead archaeologist Rick Knecht guided them as they used their trowels to trace the layers of a partially excavated room. It was once part of a massive subterranean sod house complex near modern-day Quinhagak, occupied beginning sometime in the late 16th century.

“That’s really good floor over here,” Knecht said, standing above the shallow pit. “It’d be nice to know where it goes. Maybe it just gets big, maybe just some huge room here.”

Rick Knecht, lead archaeologist for the Nunalleq excavation, stands behind a sifting screen at the site on the outskirts of Quinhagak on Aug. 3, 2024. (Gabby Salgado/KYUK)

Today, at the site referred to as Nunalleq, or “old village” in the Yup’ik language, most of the sod house complex has been excavated. But the finds are still constant – what Knecht described as “one jaw-dropping museum piece per person, per day.”

Volunteer Michael Broderick held up a plastic tote containing kayak ribs, a caribou antler, and an uncarved seal tooth.

“This was all from 9:15 (a.m.) to noon. It’s unprecedented,” Broderick said. “And … these are called common finds, meaning that they’re so common that you would just put them in this box and no special care is taken for them.”

In another part of the pit, first-time Nunalleq volunteer Stephanie Harold opened her sketchbook to a drawing of a tiny, double hatch kayak she found a few days earlier. The artifact contradicts conventional wisdom that the vessel design was brought to Alaska by Russian sea otter hunters.

As a people of oral storytelling tradition, little was written about precontact Yup’ik history. Discoveries like the double hatch kayak serve to fill in that historical puzzle.

“The digging has been so compelling that I’m not stopping and sketching as much as I thought I would. I didn’t realize it’d be so interesting all the time,” Harold said.

But excavating these treasures is a battle against time. The last 15 years at Nunalleq have been a race against erosion, and Knecht said that the pace has only quickened in recent years.

Volunteer archaeologists excavate an 8-meter-long pit at the Nunalleq dig site on Aug. 1, 2024. (Gabby Salgado/KYUK)

“With the groundwater running out from melting permafrost and kind of running down the beach, and then collapsing the sod root mass on top of it, it’s breaking off in these big piano-sized chunks onto the beach,” Knecht said.

The side room that volunteers have been working to excavate is out of reach of the crumbling shoreline, for now. Knecht said that this affords the project a rare chance to spend next summer’s season indoors with the artifacts.

“Right now we’ve got to catch up on the collections and analyzing all the stuff that we’re digging up,” Knecht said.

The stuff, more than 100,000 artifacts in total, make Nunalleq by far the largest preserved precontact Yup’ik site ever excavated.

“Sites are always bigger than you think, and in this case, way bigger than we thought,” Knecht said.

A voice in their own history

The Nunalleq Cultural and Archaeology Center in Quinhagak in 2023. (Gabby Salgado/KYUK)

The entire collection of artifacts now lives at a tiny museum in the center of town called the Nunalleq Culture and Archaeology Center. It has given community members the chance to interact directly with their precontact heritage, and to be a part of writing the story.

Knecht said that without the willingness of Elders to share oral histories confirmed by the artifacts, the project would be years behind.

“This is a chance to have the story originate in the village,” Knecht said. “It’s hard for outsiders to conceive of not having a voice in your own history, but that’s what’s happened. So many artifacts get taken away. The story gets spun far away by strangers and inevitably, with lots of mistakes. But because they’re the authorities, they get listened to. It’s like chiseled in stone.”

The unprecedented discoveries at Nunalleq are in large part due to the tragic circumstances of its demise sometime between 1645 and 1675, during a period of widespread fighting across the region known as the Bow and Arrow Wars.

Archaeologist Rick Knecht holds up a wooden doll recently excavated at the Nunalleq dig site near Quinhagak on July 31, 2024. (Gabby Salgado/KYUK)

According to Yup’ik oral histories, the sod house complex at Nunalleq was torched and its inhabitants murdered in retribution for a failed raid on another village. After the attack, the site was quickly abandoned. For this reason, archaeologists have found all of the implements of daily life, as well as the remains of the site’s last occupants intact, preserved in permafrost over the centuries.

Knecht said that the success of Nunalleq has been bittersweet because it highlights the scale of precontact history at risk across the state as tens of thousands of miles of coastline and riverbanks shift, change, and erode.

“I’m not so worried about this project as I am all the other sites in Alaska that aren’t getting this kind of attention,” Knecht said. “There are hundreds, maybe thousands of sites calving off into the water right now.”

Knecht said that the level of support from the local village corporation, Qanirtuuq Inc., and the large pool of volunteers from around the globe make Nunalleq uniquely situated. But he also said that these types of projects can be done affordably, and encouraged people to come see the collection in Quinhagak with their own eyes.

“If somebody wants to do a project like this, we can support them from here. We can help them through the conservation process and show them how a museum works,” Knecht said. “We could even hold collections while they get started and help train people. We’re very willing to do that, eager to do that.”

Pieces of centuries-old grass rope are seen at the Nunalleq Culture and Archaeology Center in Quinhagak on July 31, 2024. (Gabby Salgado/KYUK)

For Knecht, the story of precontact Yup’ik people itself, and their place in collective global heritage, is at stake.

“By working together, I think we can save this stuff, and someday, if we don’t, people are going to ask why we didn’t,” Knecht said.

In 2025, the Nunalleq team plans to briefly hang up their trowels and catch up on cataloging. But elsewhere in Alaska, the clock is ticking for the digging to commence.

Soon enough, more people than ever may have the chance to see first-hand what community-based archaeology can accomplish. This is because Knecht said that the Nunalleq project is currently applying for a grant in partnership with the Anchorage Museum to take a portion of the artifacts on tour across Alaska, and potentially the world.

You can explore and learn about the artifacts virtually by visiting the Nunalleq Digital Museum.

Dunleavy says he plans to introduce education bill pairing funding increase with reforms

Wed, 11 Dec 2024 22:22:32 +0000

Gov. Mike Dunleavy speaks to reporters ahead of his annual holiday open house on Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2024 in Juneau. (Eric Stone/Alaska Public Media)

Gov. Mike Dunleavy says he plans to roll out an education bill ahead of the legislative session that starts in January. He provided few details during a news conference ahead of his annual holiday open house, saying the legislation is still being drafted, but he sketched an outline.

“We’re going to introduce a bill on education and education funding that we believe will be comprehensive,” Dunleavy said. “It’ll be a combination of increased funding and, again, outcomes, like we discussed last year with our charter schools, correspondence schools, neighborhood schools, et cetera.”

Public school advocates have complained for years about underfunding. The largest portion of the state’s funding formula, the base student allocation, has been essentially flat since 2017, with the exception of a 0.5% increase in 2022. Instead, lawmakers have provided one-year funding boosts. But school districts say those often come too late, after they’ve already temporarily laid off staff. Some teachers and staff take other jobs while waiting for school funding to materialize.

Last session, Dunleavy vetoed a bill that would have increased public school funding by 11%. He said the bill didn’t do enough to boost charter schools, retain teachers or hold schools accountable for poor performance.

To address those concerns, he called on the Legislature to pass two policy proposals. One would have created a new approval pathway for charter schools, allowing them to apply directly to the state rather than a local school district. The other would have created yearly retention bonuses for teachers of up to $15,000 per year. Both of the proposals faced skepticism in the House and Senate and failed to advance.

Dunleavy says he expects the forthcoming bill would be similar, with some additions. He said a poll his office commissioned this past spring shows that Alaskans do want education funding to increase — but they also want reforms.

“The people said in the poll that it should be funded. Well, yes, but they also said that they expect different outcomes and approaches to education,” Dunleavy said. “What we’re trying to do is bring those two sides together in this bill.”

Dunleavy says expanding energy production and transmission is another key priority for the upcoming session, including both fossil fuels and renewables.

“No matter who you talk to anywhere on the planet, everyone agrees we’re going to need probably two to three times as much energy as we’re producing right now,” he said. He said he expected to see more work on renewables and electrical transmission lines during the session.

Dunleavy says he also plans to ask lawmakers to “back us up” on an updated engineering study of a long-planned natural gas pipeline from the North Slope. The state entity working towards a gas pipeline recently obtained a $50 million letter of credit from the state’s industrial development agency to backstop front-end engineering design.

The Alaska Gasline Development Corporation says that’s the last step before the private companies who would construct the pipeline can make a final decision on whether to invest in the project.

The gasline project has long faced skepticism over its projected cost, but Dunleavy says Donald Trump’s return to the White House provides reason for optimism.

“I was one of the skeptics, but I do feel pretty good as to where it’s going,” Dunleavy said.

During the news conference, Dunleavy also addressed a hastily scheduled, then canceled, late-night announcement alongside Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom the week after the election. Commenters speculated at the time that the livestream would announce that Dunleavy was leaving the governorship for a post in the Trump administration.

Dunleavy said Tuesday that he had planned to congratulate Nick Begich III on his victory in the U.S. House race, but canceled the livestream when it became clear that the race was still too close to call.

“We thought we were going to have numbers on the election, on the Begich and Peltola race, that evening that would have basically said that it’s going to be called,” he said. “That didn’t happen.”

Dunleavy ultimately did not issue a public video message congratulating Begich on his win, even after the race was called shortly before Thanksgiving. He told a conservative radio host last month that he planned to serve out the remaining two years of his term as governor.

FBI Director Wray to resign at end of Biden administration

Wed, 11 Dec 2024 20:14:35 +0000

FBI Director Christopher Wray speaks during an Election Threats Task Force meeting at the Justice Department in September 2024. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

FBI Director Christopher Wray on Wednesday announced he would resign from the bureau at the end of the Biden administration next month, with more than two years remaining on his term in office.

“My goal is to keep the focus on our mission — the indispensable work you’re doing on behalf of the American people every day,” he told employees at an FBI town hall, according to an excerpt the FBI shared with reporters. “In my view, this is the best way to avoid dragging the Bureau deeper into the fray, while reinforcing the values and principles that are so important to how we do our work.”

President-elect Donald Trump has frequently expressed his displeasure with federal law enforcement, and with Wray in particular, and had already said he would nominate Kash Patel, a close ally and former national security aide, to replace Wray.

Trump made the FBI a frequent target during his first term in the White House. He nominated Wray to head the FBI, which Wray has led since 2017. But Trump’s relationship with Wray grew tense as FBI agents helped investigate Russian interference in the 2016 election, and then worked with a special counsel to prosecute Trump for hoarding classified documents and attempting to cling to power in 2020.

It’s the second time an FBI leader has left in connection to the Trump administration before the director’s 10-year-term had expired. In 2017, Trump’s Justice Department leaders dismissed James Comey and Trump replaced him with Wray, a longtime conservative and member of the Federalist Society.

After Trump’s election to a second term in the White House, Wray had initially signaled he intended to remain on the job. “The director is continuing to oversee the day to day operations of the FBI and is actively planning with his team to lead the FBI into next year and beyond,” an FBI official said in November after the election.

The FBI employs more than 35,000 people who work to investigate federal crimes, prevent terrorist attacks and analyze intelligence materials. Its leader is the only political appointee at the FBI. Congress tried to insulate the agency from political winds by giving the FBI director 10 years in office, to extend beyond the tenure of any one president.

But some of Trump’s conservative advisers have suggested trying to overhaul the FBI to make its director accountable to more junior officials inside the Justice Department with more political control.

The FBI’s headquarters building continues to bear the name of J. Edgar Hoover, its longest-serving leader, whose tenure is now remembered for overreach and personal vendettas.

Kenai gets nearly $80K in fishery disaster funds from feds

Wed, 11 Dec 2024 19:33:53 +0000

Brian and Lisa Gabriel transfer clean sockeye salmon between totes at a fish site on Thursday, July 18, 2024 near Kenai, Alaska. (Ashlyn O’Hara/KDLL)

The City of Kenai accepted nearly $80,000 in fishery disaster money last week.

Most of that – $67,185.84 – is coming from the east side setnet fishery’s 2018 season and the 2020 Upper Cook Inlet salmon fishery season. The city is also getting more than $10,000 through the 2018 and 2020 Copper River and Prince William Sound salmon disasters.

The total amount accepted by the Kenai City Council is $77,819.34. The money will go into the city’s catchall general fund to be spent at a later date.

A city is eligible to receive fishery disaster money if it’s impacted by a disaster. Those impacts may include lost revenue from poor or no salmon landings and a decline in economic activities during the fishing season.

The money comes after distribution delays caused by federal software glitches. Alaska’s federal lawmakers announced in September the 2018 and 2020 Cook Inlet fisheries would finally get more than $9.4 million.

Cook Inlet’s east side setnet fishery also received disaster declarations for the 2021, 2022 and 2023 seasons, totaling nearly $11.5 million for the first two years.

Some popular Juneau trails could soon be open to guided tours — while others would off limits

Wed, 11 Dec 2024 19:27:56 +0000

The sun shines down on Perseverance Trail on May 16, 2023. (Clarise Larson/KTOO)

It’s no secret Juneau is a special place — after all, there’s a reason people visit here: the nature. Anyone with a map or a phone can walk from the heart of downtown Juneau and within ten minutes be completely engulfed by the rainforest.

Or, they can pay someone to take them there. Soon, visitors may be able to take guided tours of a few places that, up to now, have been off-limits to tourism companies. That’s because the way tourism companies in Juneau can take advantage of city-owned trails and parks is getting an update.

New guidelines for how Juneau’s Parks and Recreation Department manages the commercial use of trails and parks could open up more areas for guided tours. That has some residents concerned, but the city has been tracking that feedback. Earlier this summer the department held public meetings across town to collect local input.

Parks and Rec Director George Schaaf said at a meeting last week that the city used input from hundreds of residents to help shape the recommendations.

“We hope that the analysis that we’ve been able to pull together… reflects those comments that we received, and is something that the community can support,” he said.

He said the new guidance is overdue – the last time guidelines were updated was two decades ago. The proposed revisions come as city officials and residents grapple with what role cruise ship tourism should play in Juneau’s future.

If approved by the Juneau Assembly, the update would take into account the impacts tours could have on the natural environment and local users. It gauges whether an area is high or low usage and then regulates things like the group size allowed, restricted days and hours of operation.

Linda Pringle is with Corvus Design, which helped develop the analysis. At the meeting, she explained that most trails won’t be affected by the revision.

“Approximately out of the 50 or so miles of trails that the CBJ manages through the Parks and Recreation Department only about 15% of those are actually going to be open to commercial use,” she said.

The recommendations would revise tourism rules at 13 locations across town. Three of those would be locations where tourism companies haven’t been allowed before, including the Under Thunder Trail and Telephone Hill Park.

Some residents expressed frustration with the commercial tourism already on trails and parks and worried more of it would lead to overuse.

Kathy Coghill, a North Douglas resident and active trail runner testified at the meeting last week. She said she was nervous about more people using the trails.

“I’m just concerned about the physical vulnerability of the trails and making sure that we assess their current status and make sure they’re healthy and okay before we start thinking about adding volume of visitors,” she said.

But some trails would be saved just for Juneauites. The new plan designates 38 trails and 24 parks that would be off-limits to commercial tourism. That includes historical hotspots like Perseverance Trail and Sunshine Cove.

But, individual tourists can still go to them on their own accord. And, there are still trails that the city doesn’t manage that could be open to commercial use.

The recommendations still need to be vetted by the Assembly, which has the authority to make changes. Residents will have another chance to comment, which has not yet been scheduled. If the new plan is approved, companies would need to apply for permits to operate on certain trails and parks.

State monitoring Matanuska River overflow along Old Glenn Highway

Wed, 11 Dec 2024 16:59:06 +0000

Flooding from the Matanuska River sits over the bike path Dec. 10, 2024 along the Old Glenn Highway near Butte. (Amy Bushatz/Mat-Su Sentinel)

What you need to know:

Ice dams on the Matanuska River triggered flooding near the Old Glenn Highway in Butte, creeping within feet of the roadway over the weekend before starting to reced on Monday.
The Alaska Department of Transportation is actively monitoring the situation, officials said. While some summer flooding along the area is common, winter flooding is rare, borough officials said.
A stretch of highway near Sutton that was eroded by the river earlier this year was fully repaired in November, state officials said.

BUTTE — State officials are monitoring the Matanuska River water level in Butte after flooding triggered by ice dams on the river crept within feet of the roadway over the weekend.

Water from the river flooded a low-lying area along the Old Glenn Highway at Mile 14.4, near Maud Road, encroaching a roadside bike path over the weekend before starting to recede on Monday, officials said.

The water remained over the bike path Tuesday morning.

State crews first began monitoring the area Friday, according to Justin Shelby, a spokesperson for the Alaska Department of Transportation.

“They’re keeping a close eye on it,” Shelby said.

The state oversees maintenance of the Old Glenn and Glenn highways, including repairs of any erosion caused by the Matanuska River.

While river water often creeps into low spots along that stretch of road when the river volume is high during the summer, winter flooding in the area is rare, said Mike Campfield, a project engineer for the Matanuska-Susitna Borough.

Campfield said the borough had not been alerted to any recent issues.

If the flooding causes erosion on the roadway, state officials will likely close one lane to make repairs, Shelby said. The extent and timing of that work will depend on the type and severity of the damage, he said.

The Matanuska River has long threatened roadways and properties along the highways.

Last month, state crews completed repairs to a section of the Glenn Highway at Mile 63 near Sutton after the river undercut the roadway in June, sending asphalt crumbling into the water. In Butte, six riverfront homes were demolished in 2021 as part of a federal buyout program to prevent structures from falling into the river.

— Contact Amy Bushatz at abushatz@matsusentinel.com

This story has been republished with permission from the original at the Mat-Su Sentinel.

Albertsons sues Kroger and ends failed grocery megamerger

Wed, 11 Dec 2024 16:45:03 +0000

Unionized grocery store workers rally to oppose the proposed merger between Kroger and Albertsons outside a Ralph’s supermarket in Los Angeles in 2023. On Wednesday, Albertsons said it was giving up on the deal after it was blocked by two courts. (FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images/AFP)

Albertsons has sued Kroger, launching a new chapter in the supermarket wars after the two largest U.S. grocery chains failed to convince multiple courts that they should be allowed to merge to take on bigger rivals such as Walmart.

On Tuesday, both a federal district court in Oregon and a state court in Washington blocked the $24.6 billion deal, saying it would reduce competition, which would harm shoppers.

By Wednesday morning, Albertsons abandoned the merger and filed a lawsuit against Kroger, alleging a willful breach of contract for not doing enough to win regulatory approval for the merger. Kroger, in a statement in response, said Albertsons is deflecting its own responsibility.

The two are likely headed for a new bitter legal fight with money at stake. Albertsons is seeking “billions of dollars” in damages for lost shareholder value, legal costs and time in limbo. It also wants the $600 million merger break-up fee, to which Kroger says Albertsons is “not entitled.”

Kroger runs many familiar grocery stories, including Ralphs, Harris Teeter, Fred Meyer and King Soopers. Albertsons owns Safeway and Vons — and is likely to begin a search for a new buyer for itself.

Litigation left the Kroger-Albertsons merger pending for over two years. A third case, by the Colorado attorney general, remained undecided before the merger fell apart.

The companies argued that their top competitors were not conventional supermarkets but food behemoths like Walmart, Costco, Amazon and even dollar stores. The duo argued that only together could they survive against these giants and that, combined, they would have more power to negotiate lower prices for shoppers.

The Federal Trade Commission, which brought the federal case, argued that Kroger’s purchase of Albertsons would lead to fewer choices and higher prices for shoppers.

The lawsuits described the two companies as each other’s biggest head-to-head rivals in many markets — keeping tabs on each other’s prices, store hours and quality of products.

The FTC’s case prevailed in U.S. District Court, delivering a big win to the outgoing Biden administration and the FTC Chief Lina Khan, who made tougher scrutiny of mergers a central plank of her legacy.

Alaska News Nightly: Tuesday, December 10, 2024

Wed, 11 Dec 2024 02:42:55 +0000

Gov. Mike Dunleavy speaks to reporters ahead of his annual holiday open house on Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2024 in Juneau. (Eric Stone/Alaska Public Media)

Tuesday on Alaska News Nightly:

Gov. Dunleavy says he plans to file an education funding bill at the start of the legislative session. Plus, consumer rights advocates applaud rulings that block, for now, a merger between two of the country’s largest grocery chains. And, a former professional basketball player talks to Petersburg students about the dangers of addiction.

Reports tonight from:

Wesley Early, Casey Grove, Chris Klint and Rhonda McBride in Anchorage
Margaret Sutherland in Dillingham
Jamie Diep in Homer
Eric Stone in Juneau
Hannah Flor in Petersburg
Rob Woolsey in Sitka

This episode of Alaska News Nightly is hosted by Casey Grove, with audio engineering from Chris Hyde and producing from Tim Rockey.

Alaska advocates celebrate halted Kroger-Albertsons merger

Wed, 11 Dec 2024 00:46:14 +0000

Shoppers come and go from Fred Meyer and Carrs stores that face each other across the Seward Highway in Midtown Anchorage on Thursday, Aug. 8, 2024. The parent companies of the competing businesses, Kroger and Albertsons, want to merge. (Matt Faubion/Alaska Public Media)

A federal judge in Oregon and a Washington state court judge both issued rulings Tuesday temporarily blocking the proposed merger between grocery giants Kroger and Albertsons, halting fears of numerous Alaska store closures.

In Alaska, Kroger owns 11 Fred Meyer stores, while Albertsons owns 24 Carrs or Safeway stores as well as the Crow Creek Mercantile in Girdwood. As part of the merger, the companies were prepared to sell off 18 of the state’s grocery stores.

Bridget Shaughnessy Smith is a spokeswoman for the Alaska Public Interest Research Group, a nonprofit that has lobbied against what would be the largest grocery store merger in U.S. history. She called the judges’ decisions a big win for the state.

“The grocery store competition we have is crucial to keeping prices fair, preserving consumer choice and supporting the community wellbeing,” she said. “This decision is a win for all Alaskans who rely on accessible and affordable food options, and we hope that it will effectively put an end to this monopoly threat.”

Alaska’s congressional delegation as well as a couple dozen state lawmakers also opposed the merger.

Officials with Albertsons and Kroger argued that the merger was necessary for the businesses to compete with major retailers that also sell food like Wal-Mart, Costco and Amazon.

Shaughnessy Smith said she hopes the wide opposition to the merger will discourage the grocery chains from appealing the courts’ decisions.

“We’re hoping that with the large amount of bipartisan opposition from all levels of government, as well as this decision from a federal court, that the companies will not pursue further legal action,” she said.

Congresswoman Mary Peltola applauded the judges’ decision in a statement Tuesday.

“A blocked merger means protecting produce on our shelves, good-paying jobs in our communities, and preservation of our way of life,” she wrote.

Cutting down a Christmas tree in Alaska? Keep these tips in mind.

Tue, 10 Dec 2024 22:30:32 +0000

Bart Rudolph cuts a tree in the Matanuska Valley’s Moose Range on Dec. 4, 2022. (Tegan Hanlon/Alaska Public Media)

With Christmas rapidly approaching, state and federal authorities are allowing Alaskans to harvest their own trees for free – if you follow a few simple guidelines.

The state Department of Natural Resources allows each household to harvest one tree on unrestricted state lands, outside of Alaska state parks. Trees must be harvested beyond Department of Transportation and Public Facilities rights-of-way, typically a few hundred feet from most local roads.

Stephen Nickel, a forester with the Alaska Division of Forestry and Fire Prevention, said Tuesday that the Anchorage Bowl doesn’t have state land suitable for cutting trees.

There are a few options outside of town, depending on whether you head north or south.

To the north, Nickel said the best option for cutting trees is in the Matanuska Valley.

“We have established cutting areas out there, the Mat Valley Moose Range, easily accessible from the east side via Murphy Road, which is off of the Buffalo Mine Road,” Nickel said. “Or you can access the Moose Range on the left-hand side, on the west side.”

A map of state land in the Matanuska Valley’s Moose Range where free Christmas trees may be harvested. (From Alaska Division of Forestry)

On state lands, the following rules apply:

• One tree per household

• Personal use only – trees may not be sold

• Trees must be under than 15 feet tall

• Cut whole trees, instead of cutting off the tops of larger trees

• Cut stumps as low as possible

• Protect seedlings so we can have future Christmas trees

• Respect private property

Nickel said there’s a wide network of trails in the area.

“We ask that folks get off the trails a little bit to cut their trees and then not leave any branches – try and clean up after yourself, so you’re not leaving a mess on the trail for folks,” he said.

To the south, the Chugach National Forest allows harvest of a household Christmas tree at least 200 feet from roads, in much of the forest ranging from the Girdwood area south to Cooper Landing and Seward. U.S. Forest Service regulations bar cutting trees in the Portage Valley and Turnagain Pass areas, as well as easement areas along Prince William Sound established after the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill.

A map of Chugach National Forest areas in which Christmas trees may be harvested. (From Chugach National Forest)

The state also has several Kenai Peninsula cutting areas, mainly off parts of the Sterling Highway.

Near other Alaska urban areas, Fairbanks residents can also cut Christmas trees in state forests along several area roads.

In Juneau, trees can also be harvested from both City and Borough of Juneau land and the Tongass National Forest. The city has posted maps of local areas where trees may be cut, and the Forest Service has a list of restrictions regarding trees cut on federal land.

Nickel offered a few practical tips for tree cutters, like measuring the space where a tree will go in your home before heading out. Well-rounded trees tend to grow alone, away from other trees, while closely grown groups often contain lopsided trees that may fit well into room corners. Low temperatures can make trees brittle, possibly causing branches to snap off while they are being secured.

“Just be careful tying that thing to the top of your truck or your vehicle when you’re bringing it home – want to make sure it doesn’t block any of your turn signals or stop lights or things like that,” he said. “And just be respectful of the trail users out there, and the other users in the area.”

The state has posted care instructions for black or white spruce trees. Putting warm water in tree stands can also help reduce trees’ needle loss, Nickel said.

Questions about tree cutting on state land can be addressed to local Division of Forestry and Fire Prevention offices. Two DNR public information offices can also answer questions by phone, in Anchorage at 907-269-8400 or in Fairbanks at 907-451-2705.

2 bodies believed to be Wind Walker crew located near Hoonah

Tue, 10 Dec 2024 22:12:46 +0000

Spasski Bay is four miles east of Hoonah, on Chichagof Island.

The bodies of two people believed to be crew members from the sunken seiner Wind Walker were found on a beach near Hoonah on Monday.

According to an online report from Alaska State Troopers, Alaska Wildlife Troopers from Juneau and Hoonah responded to a call that human remains were located in Spasski Bay, about four miles east of Hoonah. Two bodies were recovered and flown to Juneau aboard an Alaska National Guard helicopter. Both were subsequently transported to the state medical examiner’s office in Anchorage for positive identification.

The bodies were found among debris from the Wind Walker, a 52-foot seiner which capsized early Dec. 1 just off Point Couverden with five crew aboard.

The discovery of the bodies prompted a renewed search of the area around Spasski Bay. The National Guard helicopter flew in NOAA law enforcement officers and a SEADOGS K-9 team to assist troopers in the search. Teams covered five miles of shoreline on foot, with support from a trooper patrol boat. No other victims were found.

The Wind Walker was homeported in Sitka, and it was previously based in Petersburg under a different owner. About 80 Sitkans gathered over the weekend for a memorial vigil in honor of the crew – and for others lost at sea over the past year.

Kroger and Albertsons grocery megamerger halted by 2 courts

Tue, 10 Dec 2024 21:20:00 +0000

A shopper pushes a cart through a Kroger supermarket in Newport, Ky. (Al Behrman/AP | AP)

Kroger and Albertsons saw their $24.6 billion merger blocked on Tuesday by judges in two separate cases, one brought by federal regulators and the other by the Washington state attorney general.

What would be the biggest grocery merger in U.S. history is now in legal peril after over two years of delays. The companies could choose to continue their legal appeals or abandon the deal. They await another ruling in a third lawsuit in Colorado.

Kroger runs many familiar grocery stores, including Ralphs, Harris Teeter, Fred Meyer and King Soopers. Albertsons owns Safeway and Vons. In statements on Tuesday, the companies argued the courts erred in their judgment and said they were evaluating their options.

Tuesday’s first ruling is a big win for the Federal Trade Commission. It — together with several states — had asked a federal court in Oregon to stop the merger. The government argued that the resulting colossus would lead to higher food prices and fewer choices for shoppers and workers. In many markets, the two chains are each other’s biggest rival.

Kroger and Albertsons, in turn, have argued that together, they actually would have more power to lower prices, as well as to compete against other huge retailers that sell food, including Walmart, Costco and Amazon.

U.S. District Judge Adrienne Nelson on Tuesday ruled that the merger must halt while it undergoes the administrative review inside the FTC — a procedure that Kroger is separately challenging in court as unconstitutional. About an hour later, a Washington state court judge separately ruled that the merger violated that state’s consumer-protection law.

“Both defendants gestured toward a future in which they would not be able to compete against ever-growing Walmart, Amazon, or Costco,” Nelson wrote in her order. “The overarching goals of antitrust law are not met, however, by permitting an otherwise unlawful merger in order to permit firms to compete with an industry giant.”

Together, Kroger and Albertsons have nearly 5,000 stores and employ some 720,000 people across 48 states. They particularly overlap in western states.

Cases hinge on how Americans buy groceries

During the three-week federal trial in a Portland courtroom, the FTC and the companies painted differing views of the grocery market.

Kroger and Albertsons described their merger as existential to survival. They argued the FTC’s view of competition — focused on options a shopper might have in their neighborhood — was outdated in the wake of big-box behemoths and the sprawl of dollar stores.

Kroger officials testified that they typically compared their prices to Walmart, rather than Albertsons, and struggled to keep up given Walmart’s ability to negotiate better deals with suppliers thanks to its scale. Walmart is the biggest seller of groceries in the U.S., followed by Kroger and Costco.

The FTC, however, argued that someone who shops at Walmart, Costco, CVS or even Trader Joe’s likely still relies on their neighborhood supermarket. Government lawyers said enough people were concerned about the merger that the agency received an unprecedented 100,000 public comments.

Federal officials also shared complaints raised by labor unions.

Kroger and Albertsons are the rare unionized shops in retail. The companies argue that, in fact, serves as a reason why they should be allowed to unite to face up to bigger, non-unionized rivals. But the FTC says a merger would give the companies much more power over contract negotiations, leading to lower pay and worse benefits.

Questions about a plan to sell off some stores

The judge separately weighed the plan by Kroger and Albertsons to sell hundreds of their stores to a firm called C&S Wholesale Grocers as a condition of their merger, meant to appease regulators.

The idea is to create a new grocery rival in markets where Kroger and Albertsons currently overlap and, therefore, a merger would eliminate competition. C&S, a grocery supplier, had agreed to buy 579 stores in 18 states and in Washington, D.C.

But the FTC argued C&S would struggle to compete. The firm currently runs only 23 stores, mostly under the Piggly Wiggly brand, without much nationwide name recognition. Government lawyers shared internal notes, in which C&S executives raised concerns about the quality of stores they would acquire.

Kroger and C&S executives presented C&S as an experienced grocery company that could hit the ground running. Judge Nelson remained skeptical.

“There are serious concerns about C&S’ ability to run a large-scale retail grocery business that can successfully compete against the proposed merged business, as would be required to offset the competitive harm of the merger,” she wrote in Tuesday’s order.

The last time the government approved a grocery merger that hinged on divesting stores, it was 2015. Albertsons bought Safeway. It sold off 168 stores, then repurchased 33 of them on the cheap because one of the buyers filed for bankruptcy protection within months of the deal.

Earliest Americans ate a lot of mammoth, Alaska researchers say

Tue, 10 Dec 2024 20:55:27 +0000

Artwork by Julius Csotonyi showing a group of people watching mammoths from the dunes north of the Swanpoint archaeological site. (Courtesy Science Advances)

The first Americans ate a lot of mammoth about 13,000 years ago, after entering through Alaska to rapidly populate North America.

That’s according to a study co-authored by researchers at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and published in the journal Science Advances.

By analyzing the isotopic data from the remains of a child, who was part of an ancient group called the Clovis people, the researchers got the first direct evidence that ancient Americans focused on hunting large animals. That often included the now-extinct wooly mammoth.

UAF archaeology professor Ben Potter is a co-lead author of the study. And Potter says the Clovis people’s adaptation to hunting mammoths was a unique and powerful advantage.

Listen:

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This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Ben Potter: They were megafaunal specialists, these earliest Americans, Native American ancestors. They focused on megafauna, and particularly Mammoth, and that allowed these people to be so successful, to expand rapidly into Beringia, from Asia, into our part of the world, through Alaska, and then expand throughout all of the Americas, and in basically a few hundred years. So it was a very successful adaptation. And we were always wondering what facilitated that, what made that happen?

So what hunting mammoth allows you to do is, once you understand the ecology of that animal, it allows you to successfully follow them, follow these herds. And we know they were very migratory, and they travel long distances, and you don’t need to necessarily learn each valley you move through. Like in a more recent foraging perspective, you want to look at the fishing, maybe shellfish, salmon, small game birds, things like that. You can’t transfer that knowledge very well from, say, Alaska to Alberta to Mexico, for instance, whereas mammoth are found in all three of those places. And this, we think, is sort of the smoking gun that allows us to understand that adaptation.

Casey Grove: Yeah, that’s super interesting. And maybe we could just back up, our understanding of this was mostly based on finding old tools or the remains of prey animals. But like you said, we actually know now that this is exactly what they were eating. But how do we know that?

BP: Sure, there’s a couple of answers. But first, I want to sort of highlight what you just said. There’s debate. There was debate. It wasn’t just that these are indirect clues. There was actually hotly contested arguments on both sides that — at the level of how do we understand ourselves as hunter gatherers in the ancient past — there was a lot of literature on both sides saying, “No, they couldn’t possibly have done this.” And then others saying that, “Yeah, the evidence suggests that they did.” So that’s where we came into this debate was, you know, very much trying to address this with direct data that can hopefully resolve some of this.

So it’s important to think about how our bodies are made of elements. The animals are made of elements. Like carbon and nitrogen are very common elements within our body. And we build our tissue through the food that we eat. And so each element has some varieties of isotopes. These are just, they’re slightly different masses, because they have different numbers of neutrons. So carbon-13 versus the normal carbon-12. Nitrogen-15 versus the normal nitrogen-14. So we look at the ratios of those two stable isotopes with respect to different plants, with respect to the animals that eat those plants, and they’re very distinctive for each species. Different foods have those different signatures.

And so that’s what we did. We have the only known Clovis burial, actually the only known human associated with the Clovis culture. This was a child, 18 months old, in southern Montana called Anzick-1. And what we do — we didn’t do any destructive analysis — we relied on a couple of samples that had been taken previously. We used those isotope samples. We did a quick nursing correction to get back to the diet of the mother, so we’re looking at the maternal diet. And then we compared her values to the values of other species that we gathered together for the region, which is the northern Great Plains, and for the time period, which is the last bit of the Ice Age. And from there, we could then produce statistical models to identify what proportions of these different foods were in her diet. Not just mammoth, but 96% of her diet was on megafauna, so very high elk content, also bison. And small mammals are very negligible. Less than 4% of her diet was on small mammals, like rabbit, hare, marmot, things like that. And what we found was that her diet was most similar to homotherium, and that is the Scimitar Cat. So it’s a variant of Saber Tooth cats that were alive in the last Ice Age. So our individual, our Clovis female, was most closely similar to this hyper-carnivore that focused on mammoth. So again, more evidence for this heavy-mammoth diet.

CG: So the Scimitar Cat has, my understanding is, large teeth, like saber-like teeth, I guess. And we had some idea of what sort of tools people were using back then, because we have been able to find them. But why was there debate about whether or not they could successfully hunt mammoth? Is it because the tools were small? Like, obviously we don’t have giant saber teeth. But why did people think that that wasn’t possible?

BP: Yeah, it’s a long and complicated story. There’s different lines of evidence that get really, it gets a little bit complicated. One line was arguing that, “Well, maybe when we look at the animal bones in these sites, only the big-bodied animals, the big bones, survive.” They’re very dense, and maybe there’s a whole bunch of small game, like birds, small mammals, that those just simply didn’t survive. So we’re missing those in the record. That was one argument.

Other arguments sort of rely on, if they were really hunting megafauna, we should see tons of kill sites, and we only see like 15. So that’s not enough. So, you know, it goes back and forth. You can sort of pin your hat on on either side, but ultimately, this is the direct data that’s really required to answer that question

CG: Well, so I guess the 18-month-old Clovis child that is at the center of this, it was found in Montana, I think you said, and I read that an important part of this was interfacing with the Indigenous people in Montana and I guess Wyoming also. Can you tell me how that went?

BP: Yeah, and Idaho as well. So the work that I’ve done for the last 30 years up here in Alaska has always included consultation with local Indigenous peoples. It’s not only ethical, it’s actually just really good science, because there’s going to be a lot of traditional knowledge that are going to be connected to our interests. We certainly want to understand how people interfaced with modern conditions in these areas. And also it’s just the right thing to do, when we’re when we’re talking about people’s heritage.

And so when I first became involved in this project, that’s one element that I really wanted front and center, is that we reached out to tribal liaisons and identified who should we talk to, who’s interested in this material, what questions do they have? What questions can we address? And I think it’s been very productive discussions, very, very positive relationships that are developing based on this research. And I’m happy to say, you know, this was done through no new destructive analysis. So that’s really important to Indigenous peoples in that region, that, you know, we’re not destroying the remains. The remains are safely reburied. They were reburied in 2014, and we can still generate new information, significant information, about the heritage of their ancestors in a meaningful way, moving together, the scientists and the Indigenous peoples.

CG: Yeah. And it seems just kind of cool, too, to like make this connection to somebody that lived in their region, that is an ancestor of theirs, that they can look at and say, you know, “That was us,” right?

BP: Yeah, and I think, you know, understanding that this, the Clovis people, were unique. They were very good at what they did. They were, by any stretch of the imagination, very successful. So they were able to expand genetically, to understand this is, for a fact, sort of ancestral. The mother is clearly related broadly to all of these people. And I think that’s some of the pride that I’ve sensed in talking with a number of people, Indigenous folks down there, is that, yeah, they’re able to handle, easily, the most dangerous, largest animals out there in the last Ice Age, and this was an effective strategy. It was a smart thing to do, and they could easily do it.

CG: Well, you know, other than being just completely fascinating, how does this research inform modern humans? I mean, in terms of either, you know, our adaptability, what things we might expect from climate change, anything like that?

BP: Oh, there’s lots of lessons. So I think one of the fascinating things about the region that I study, and that is related to the work that we did on this project, is the transition from the last Ice Age into the modern Holocene period. It was a period of rapid climate change, lots of temperature shifts, vegetation shifts, and of course, animal populations were greatly affected. That was the last time we’ve had a great warming within the Earth’s climate. And so we certainly can directly look at modern and future global warming trends. And so it really behooves us to understand those ancient systems so we can begin to model, and better model, and more realistically model, the things that are going to be in store for us in the future. Another issue is how unique this situation is, this major expansion from one hemisphere to the other hemisphere. You know, this is the origin. This is quite early, and we need to understand it, our capacity as a species.

CG: Well, Ben, I’m going to invoke an old Sesame Street thing that they did that was called, “Would you eat it?” I suppose if you were a Clovis person, you wouldn’t have a whole lot of choice, you’d probably just be happy to have some mammoth. But I wanted to ask, do you want to guess as to what that might have tasted like?

BP: Well, first, I would absolutely eat it. I think would be tasty, especially if it’s fat-rich. You know, that’s where the taste is at. What do I think it would taste like? It probably would be similar to Asian elephant. That’s the closest modern species to mammoth. But I’ve never tried elephant, you know, of course, it’s not in regular supply. And yeah, so I wouldn’t, I’m not going to go with the chicken example. I don’t know what it would taste like, but it would probably be good. I would suspect it would be good. Yeah.

Scientists monitor series of earthquakes in western Aleutians

Tue, 10 Dec 2024 19:25:38 +0000

A line graph from the Alaska Earthquake Center shows the number of earthquakes over time in the Western Aleutians on Sunday, starting with a magnitude 6.3 event in a swarm that triggered nearly 100 aftershocks. (From Alaska Earthquake Center)

A swarm of earthquakes and aftershocks shook Alaska’s western Aleutian Islands on Sunday.

Scientists at the Alaska Earthquake Center are monitoring an unusually high number of moderate earthquakes near Adak Island. About a dozen tremors between magnitude 6.3 and 5 struck within hours on Sunday.

Residents describe the shaking as “light” and “weak” but remain alert, checking emergency supplies and tracking the ongoing activity.

Scientists say large earthquakes are common in the Aleutians, where the Pacific plate moves beneath the North American plate. While this swarm hasn’t raised alarms, its location near historic quake sites has drawn attention. They expect aftershocks in the region, particularly magnitude 5 and smaller, to continue for days or weeks. The earthquake center reports about 100 aftershocks near Adak as of Monday morning, which they say is typical following magnitude 6 earthquakes.

A magnitude 5 earthquake struck further to the east closer to King Cove and False Pass on Monday morning. Scientists say that quake likely wasn’t triggered by the earthquakes near Adak due to the distance between the locations.

The earthquake swarm follows a magnitude 7 earthquake off California’s coast last week. Scientists at the United States Geological Survey say the events aren’t connected – California and the Aleutians involve different tectonic plates and fault systems.

Biden administration includes restrictions in Arctic refuge oil lease sale

Tue, 10 Dec 2024 19:02:58 +0000

The frozen Canning River in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is seen in this undated photo. (Photo by Randy Brown/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)

The federal Bureau of Land Management finalized the restrictions on an oil and gas lease sale in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge on Monday, aimed at protecting wildlife and other environmental resources, while complying with a 2017 law that mandated the lease sale.

In its decision, the BLM limited the lease sales to 400,000 acres, which is one-quarter of the coastal plain section of the refuge. That amount is the minimum mandated by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.

Voice of the Arctic Iñupiat, a regional group that has generally advocated for oil development across the North Slope, criticized the restrictions in the documents issued Monday, known as a record of decision and notice of a lease sale.

“Though our communities welcome the potential for a successful lease sale, we are clear eyed about the administration’s intent and flawed process that got us here,” said Nagruk Harcharek, Voice of the Arctic Iñupiat president, in a news release. “This final ROD and notice of a lease sale is a deliberate attempt by the Biden administration’s Interior Department to kneecap the potential of development in ANWR.”

The lease sale restrictions were first included in a plan issued by the BLM in November as part of its supplemental environmental impact statement. The Biden administration drafted this environmental study in response to litigation aimed at reversing a plan issued by President-elect Donald Trump’s first administration.

Environmental groups have opposed oil development in the refuge for decades. After the BLM announcement, legal advocacy organization Earthjustice described drilling in ANWR as “all risk with no reward.”

Earthjustice lawyer Erik Grafe, who has led litigation over the refuge, said oil development would destroy the land without benefiting taxpayers or consumers.

“We’re committed to going to court as often as necessary to defend the Arctic Refuge from oil drilling and will work toward a more sustainable future that does not depend on ever-expanding oil extraction,” Grafe said.

The scheduled Jan. 9 lease sale would be the second of two mandated by the 2017 law.

The first lease sale, held in the last days of the Trump administration in January 2021, led to nine leases being sold. However, no major oil companies submitted bids, and no exploration took place on these leases.

A state development agency, the Alaska Industry Development and Export Authority, held seven of the leases, with an Anchorage real-estate company and a small oil company buying the other two.

Those companies voluntarily gave up their leases, while the Biden administration canceled the AIDEA leases, saying that better environmental analysis was needed.

Biden and Interior Secretary Deb Haaland have opposed oil drilling in the refuge, but the administration cited the 2017 legal mandates in its decision to proceed with the lease sale. Trump has said his new administration would pursue oil drilling in the refuge.

Arctic tundra now emits planet-warming pollution, federal report finds

Tue, 10 Dec 2024 18:43:16 +0000

The Arctic tundra is warming up and that’s causing long-frozen ground to melt as well as an increase in wildfires. The region is “now emitting more carbon that it stores, which will worsen climate change impacts,” explained NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad in a statement. (Gerald Frost/Courtesy of NOAA)

Arctic tundra, which has stored carbon for thousands of years, has now become a source of planet-warming pollution. As wildfires increase and hotter temperatures melt long-frozen ground, the region is releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

The finding was reported in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s annual Arctic Report Card, released Tuesday. The new research, led by scientists from the Woodwell Climate Research Center in Falmouth, Massachusetts, signals a dramatic shift in this Arctic ecosystem, which could have widespread implications for the global climate.

“The tundra, which is experiencing warming and increased wildfire, is now emitting more carbon that it stores, which will worsen climate change impacts,” NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad said in a press release. “This is yet one more sign, predicted by scientists, of the consequences of inadequately reducing fossil fuel pollution.”

The finding doesn’t surprise Róisín Commane, a climate scientist at Columbia University, who was not involved in the research. She said polar scientists knew this could happen but she said it’s concerning to see the shift take place.

“It means that that CO2 will keep going,” Commane said. “We won’t be able to do much about it.”

Wildfires are increasing in the Arctic, like this one in Alaska’s Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge in June 2024. (Brendan Rogers/Woodwell Climate Research Center)

The Arctic is warming faster than the global average for the 11th year in a row, according to the report card.

The warming directly influences global sea-level rise, weather patterns, wildlife migrations, and other effects of human-caused climate change—all driven primarily by burning fossil fuels.

This year’s report comes as President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take office in January. Trump has said he wants to increase oil exploration and drilling in the Arctic and curtail government action on climate change.

Sue Natali, a scientist at the Woodwell Climate Research Center and contributor to the Arctic Report Card, declined to comment on the incoming administration. But she said this year’s report demonstrates the importance of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and continuing climate change research.

“This is not an issue of what party you support,” said Natali. “This is something that impacts everyone.”

Here are some key takeaways from this year’s Arctic Report Card:

Arctic tundra: carbon sink to carbon source

Permafrost is full of carbon that has been locked away by plants over millennia. But last year’s permafrost temperatures were the second warmest on record, hastening melting of the frozen soil. Once the ground thaws, microbes in the soil become active and consume the newly available carbon, releasing it into the atmosphere as methane and carbon dioxide.

Twila Moon, lead editor of the Arctic Report Card and a scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center, likened permafrost to chicken in the freezer: As long as it stays frozen, microbes stay away.

“Once you have that chicken out of your freezer, it’s thawing and all those microbes are getting to work, breaking down the chicken, making it rot,” she said. “The permafrost is really doing the same thing.”

Thawing permafrost leads to a “slump” at a field site in Canada’s Northwest territories. (Scott Zolkos/Woodwell Climate Research Center)

Brendan Rogers, a scientist at the Woodwell Climate Research Center who contributed to the Arctic Report Card, said emissions from the region are likely to continue as the climate warms.

“The concern is with intensifying wildfires, with warming temperatures, that we will see more emissions in the future,” he said.

Wildfires in North American permafrost regions have increased in recent decades. Since 2003, emissions from polar wildfires have averaged 207 million tons of carbon per year. That’s more than the annual carbon dioxide emissions of some industrialized countries, including Argentina and Austria.

Wildfire smoke adds pulses of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere while also speeding permafrost melt.

An estimated 1.5 trillion tons of carbon remains stored in permafrost—more carbon than in all the trees in all the world’s forests, according to Natali. So melting permafrost could become a potentially massive source of greenhouse emissions that would contribute to climate change.

But there is still time to slow the thaw, Rogers said.

“With lower levels of climate change, you get lower levels of emissions from permafrost,” he said. “That should motivate us all to work towards more aggressive emissions reductions.”

Greenland ice sheet melting is “pretty devastating”

The Greenland ice sheet lost between 22 and 77 billion tons of ice last year. That’s the lowest level of ice loss since 2013, thanks to above-average snowfall. The downside: It’s still enough ice water to raise global sea levels by about .15 millimeters, according to Moon.

While that may not sound like much, Moon pointed out that sea level rise is contributing to coastal erosion, flooded roads, disruption of sewer systems and contamination of drinking water.

The Greenland ice sheet is massive—nearly two miles thick at its thickest point—and its melting is the second-largest contributor to global sea-level rise. (The largest contributor is water expanding as it warms.)

Greenland’s relentless contribution of water will be “pretty devastating” for global sea levels, said Moon.

Arctic seals are doing okay. Caribou, not so much

Ice seal populations remain healthy despite warming water and declining sea ice. Seals seem to be adapting to the changing climate by eating more warm-water fish, said Moon. “But we don’t know how well they can continue to adapt as warming continues,” she said.

A group of caribou in the Western Arctic Caribou Herd along a winter trail between the villages of Selawik and Ambler, within Selawik National Wildlife Refuge. The herd migrates through and sometimes winters on the refuge. (Lisa Hupp/USFWS)

Not all Arctic animals are faring as well. Inland caribou populations have declined by 65% over recent decades, according to the report card.

One main reason is that they’re often eating less. Arctic winters are getting wetter, and freezing rain can create an icy crust on the snow. It’s often not worth the energy for caribou to break through the ice for a nibble of the lichen found underneath.

Hotter summers have also led to more mosquitoes. The bugs can become so annoying that the caribou focus on avoiding them — fleeing to icy, windy areas, for instance — at the expense of eating.

Recognition grows for children’s Sugt’stun language game

Tue, 10 Dec 2024 18:10:46 +0000

Artwork from “Nunaka,” an educational game for preschool age children. (Courtesy Chugachmiut)

A Sugt’stun language game is quickly gaining recognition since its release in July 2023.

Developing educational technology skyrocketed during the COVID-19 pandemic. That’s when Native nonprofit Chugachmiut, known in part for its education and health services to tribes on the Kenai Peninsula, began developing an app that teaches Sugt’stun language and school readiness skills for preschool age children.

The app, named “Nunaka” the Sugt’stun word for “my village,” came out last year and has been recognized for its advancements in educational technology and social impact. Some notable awards include the Anthem Awards, EdTech Awards, GEE! Awards and Serious Play Award.

Chugachmiut is a nonprofit that serves Eyak and Sugpiaq communities across the Kenai Peninsula, Prince William Sound and the Copper River Delta, providing education, social services, health care and more.

Chugachmiut Deputy Director Phyllis Wimberley said she came up with this idea more than a decade ago.

“I’ve been thinking about this game since 2012 and it was a matter of getting the funding,” Wimberley said.

She said she wanted a game that taught the language and skills to prepare children for school, like counting and fine motor skills.

The funding ended up coming from the U.S. Department of Education. Chugachmiut began developing the game in 2021 with game development company FableVision.

The game takes place in a fictional Suqpiaq village. Players control a customizable character and play minigames to complete tasks for their grandparents. They create regalia, go fishing and pick berries, all while learning Sugt’stun words.

Wimberley said game developers visited Nanwalek and Port Graham, two Sugpiaq villages at the mouth of Kachemak Bay.

“They met with our children, they met with the elders. They recorded elders speaking,” Wimberley said. “It was really a wonderful experience for our game developers and for our elders and children as well.”

Children from the villages even got to test the game before its release. Wimberley said it was a hit.

“The children would just (go) ‘Ah,’ open their mouths. They were so thrilled with it, and they enjoyed playing it,” she said.

Wimberley said she hopes to keep ramping up the nonprofit’s education department, with plans for a language symposium in Feburary.

“Nunaka” is available for Apple and Android devices.

Mountain Village city building burns to ground in second blaze

Tue, 10 Dec 2024 17:45:45 +0000

The lower Yukon River community of Mountain Village is seen in 2018. (From Alaska DCRA)

A city building in the lower Yukon River community of Mountain Village that partially burned in October has burned down completely in a second fire, according to Alaska State Troopers.

Troopers said by email that they responded to the community after receiving reports that the city building had burned down at some point on Nov. 27. They determined the building to be a complete loss, and said that no injuries were reported from the incident.

The fire comes after an initial blaze on Oct. 25 that resulted in the death of 39-year-old Mountain Village resident Lawrence Chiklak. Troopers said that the fire was likely started with a lighter from within a holding cell at the jail attached to the city building.

According to a city employee, the building had been emptied of its contents following the October jail fire because the entire city building sustained severe smoke damage. The city is currently being administered out of a temporary building elsewhere in the community.

Alaska State Troopers said that the origin and cause of the fire have not been determined, and that they are continuing to investigate the incident.

The recount is over. Alaska will keep ranked choice voting.

Tue, 10 Dec 2024 06:05:42 +0000

Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom, right, and state House candidate Steve Menard look on as Division of Elections Director Carol Beecher, foreground, decides how ambiguously-marked ballots should be counted during a recount at the Division of Elections’ headquarters in Juneau on Dec. 9, 2024. (Eric Stone/Alaska Public Media)

Election officials finished recounting the results of Ballot Measure 2 on Monday, and the outcome remains unchanged.

Alaska will keep ranked choice voting and open primaries.

The repeal effort failed by 743 votes, or about a quarter of one percentage point, according to the Division of Elections. That’s almost exactly the margin reflected in official results certified late last month, which showed the measure failing by 737 out of more than 300,000 votes.

The Alaska Republican Party requested the recount and monitored vote-counting alongside the anti-repeal campaign, No On 2.

During the recount, election officials re-scanned ballots and took a closer look at ballots where the voter’s choice wasn’t clear.

They also hand-counted at least 5% of ballots from each state House district to ensure the machine totals were correct.

Election officials also completed their review of a Wasilla state House race Monday, confirming a win for real estate agent Elexie Moore.

Ahead of the recount, Moore led top opponent Steve Menard by just 12 votes in the all-Republican contest. After the recount, Moore won by nine votes.

In an interview shortly after the results were announced in Juneau, Menard said the recount provided some closure. He said he looked forward to spending time with his wife and two dogs, plus “a lot more cabin time” this winter.

“It’s been a long campaign season,” he said. “We just came up short.”

Moore will replace outgoing Republican Rep. Jesse Sumner when the Legislature convenes in January.

The state paid for both of the recounts. State law requires the state to pick up the tab in close races where the margin is less than either half a percent or 20 votes.

Alaska News Nightly: Monday, December 9, 2024

Tue, 10 Dec 2024 02:46:59 +0000

United States Coast Guard Cutter Healy docked at Kodiak’s Pier 2, August 25, 2023. (Brian Venua / KMXT)

Monday on Alaska News Nightly:

Researchers discover an underwater volcano on the seafloor north of Alaska. Plus, a long-awaited report is out on a mining route in Interior Alaska that crosses three highways. And, volunteer archeologists dig up Indigenous artifacts at an abandoned townsite in Western Alaska.

Reports tonight from:

Rhonda McBride in Anchorage
Robyne in Fairbanks
Eric Stone in Juneau
Desiree Hagen in Kotzebue
Ben Townsend in Nome
Evan Erickson in Quinhagak
Sofia Stuart-Rasi in Unalaska

This episode of Alaska News Nightly is hosted by Casey Grove, with audio engineering from Chris Hyde and producing from Tim Rockey.

Tribal group appeals Clean Water Act permit for contentious gold dredging project near Nome

Tue, 10 Dec 2024 02:22:24 +0000

A rocky stretch of coastline near Nome (Laura Kraegel/KNOM)

A western Alaska tribal consortium has appealed a key permit for a proposed gold dredging project in waters near Nome.

Kawerak, a nonprofit that serves some 20 Iñupiaq and Yup’ik tribes in the Bering Strait region, last month asked state regulators for a hearing on a wastewater discharge permit for the project.

The permit, a federal Clean Water Act authorization that’s administered by the state, would allow the Las Vegas-based company behind the project, IPOP, to discharge a limited amount of pollutants into an estuary about 30 miles from Nome, in the scenic Safety Sound area.

In its appeal, Kawerak says the Department of Environmental Conservation, the state agency that issued the permit, “failed to consider the project’s effect on the surrounding Native communities” in its analysis.

The appeal says that IPOP’s development would come “at the direct expense of the Native economy” and that “local Native subsistence and cultural practices will be directly and adversely affected — if not outright destroyed.”

IPOP’s project is opposed by several regional and local groups, including Bering Straits Native Corporation and the City of Nome.

Last spring, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers approved a different permit for the project, reversing an earlier decision to deny it.

Northern Journal contributor Max Graham can be reached at max@northernjournal.com. He’s interested in any and all mining related stories, as well as introductory meetings with people in and around the industry.

This article was originally published in Northern Journal, a newsletter from Nathaniel Herz. Subscribe at this link.

Alaska House Republicans form 19-member minority caucus led by Mia Costello

Tue, 10 Dec 2024 01:04:44 +0000

Sen. Mia Costello, R-Anchorage, speaks during a Senate Labor & Commerce Committee meeting in 2017. (Photo by Skip Gray/360 North)

Republicans in the Alaska House have formed a 19-member minority caucus and elected Rep.-elect Mia Costello, R-Anchorage, as their leader. The outgoing House speaker, Rep. Cathy Tilton, R-Wasilla, will serve as minority whip.

The caucus announced the news on Saturday.

Alaska voters elected 21 Republicans to the House, but two moderate Republicans joined independents and Democrats to form a bipartisan majority caucus in the chamber.

The organization of the 19-member minority means that, barring any changes, the Democrat-heavy bipartisan majority caucus will have no wiggle room on contentious votes — and the slim margin could prove challenging as the majority seeks to boost school funding and reform public employees’ retirement benefits.

Costello said in a news release that she was honored to lead the all-Republican minority. Costello spent four years in the state House and eight years in the state Senate ending in 2023. She will replace Republican Tom McKay, who did not seek reelection.

“I deeply appreciate the confidence my colleagues have placed in me and pledge to guide our efforts with focus, integrity, and resolve,” she said.

The caucus said it has three main priorities.

First on the list is “delivering affordable, reliable Alaska-sourced energy to secure a stable future.” Next is education: ensuring stable funding, school choice and measurable outcomes. And the last is “advocating for responsible budgets” to protect the Permanent Fund dividend and safeguard the state’s financial future.

Lawmakers convene for the first session of the 34th Alaska Legislature on Jan. 21.