thedutchharborfisherman

Fish council selections approved

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 12:27:00 -0800

Two of Gov. Sarah Palin’s nominees to the North Pacific Fishery Management Council have been approved by U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, according to a news release from the governor’s office.Robert “Ed” Dersham and Dan Hull will begin their terms in August.

Dersham currently serves on the council and has been reappointed. Hull has been an active public participant at council meetings and has served on council committees.

The North Pacific Fishery Management Council has jurisdiction from three to 200 miles off Alaska’s shores, and has primary responsibility for managing pollock, cod, halibut, sole and other groundfish.

Dersham, of Anchor Point, is a 23-year charter boat operator in Lower Cook Inlet who served on the Alaska Board of Fisheries for more than eight years, including three years as chair and two years as vice-chair. He was involved in developing and chairing the joint protocol committee for coordination between the fisheries board and the North Pacific council. He earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Oregon and is retired from a career as a special agent with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency. He has served on the council since 2008.

Hull, of Anchorage, has been an active fisherman and vessel owner for more than 25 years, fishing for salmon and halibut out of Cordova. He holds a master’s degree in marine affairs from the University of Washington and a bachelor’s degree from Dartmouth College. Hull is currently a board member of Cordova District Fishermen United and is a member of the Alaska Sea Grant Advisory Committee.

$300 million for shareholders is Native corporation’s contribution

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 12:27:00 -0800

The Congressional Subcommittee on Contracting Oversight, chaired by Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo.,

is investigating the participation of Alaska Native corporations in the Small Business Administration’s 8(a) program.

Companies that are registered in the 8(a) program can win federal contracts without competing for them, but for many of the companies, the contracts can be no larger than $5.5 million for goods or $3.5 million for services.

However, under a special provision created by former U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, Indian-owned firms and Native-owned firms from Alaska and Hawaii can win no-bid federal contracts of any size. Alaska Native companies especially have benefited from the program, winning billions in federal contracts.

In the following interview, Helvi Sandvik, NANA president, provides context on why the unique benefits exist. NANA is the Alaska Native corporation representing Inupiat people from much of Northwest Alaska.

What are your thoughts on the investigation of Native corporations?
I think for us it’s really important for us to have these public forums to give us an opportunity to explain who we are as Alaska Native corporations, who our owners are, what the intent of ANCSA was.

The fact of the matter is the 8(a) program was designed to help economically disadvantaged people become involved in government contracting and as Alaska Native corporations over time we have invested in businesses, trying to position ourselves to take advantage of these opportunities. So we’ve done that for several years now.

In NANA’s case we got started in 1995. Certainly over time we have been able to grow our business in the federal government. Had we not been able to deliver the service they required we would not have achieved the success we’ve had to date.

But over the years we have become very efficient, very effective. Frankly, the sole source is not an opportunity limited to the 8(a) program. A great deal of federal contracting in general is done by sole source. And frankly, it’s a business decision and when the decision is made by the government to turn to a sole source opportunity it’s typically for business reasons. They need to get a project out in a hurry, a crisis has happened. It’s a vehicle available to government contracting. The specific sole source opportunities under the 8(a) program are a part of that program.

You mentioned this provides an opportunity for a public forum. But I don’t believe the Native corporations have been invited to speak at the subcommittee’s hearing (scheduled for July 16). Have you been invited?
No. As we understand it, the inquiry came asking us to pull together data demonstrating our involvement, which in this particular hearing seems to be focused on the Alaska Native corporations. My understanding is at this particular hearing, the senator intends to only invite agency representatives, government officials.

But at hearings held just two years ago, several Alaska Native corporations participated, including myself. That particular hearing was held by (Democratic) Congressman (Henry) Waxman out of California. At that time we had an opportunity to discuss the issue.

My expectation is if in fact the desire is to truly understand this program, then there will be an opportunity for follow up. I would assume that this will not be the only hearing on the subject because frankly in order to formulate appropriate public policy, you need to ensure that all perspectives are available for consideration.

So thus far, to my knowledge, no Alaska Native corporations or Indian tribes or Native Hawaiian organizations, all of whom are eligible for the same program under the SBA 8(a) program, none of us have been invited to testify, though several have offered ourselves up and would be willing to communicate.

But my impression is that’s not the senator’s intended focus at this hearing, but rather to ask the government officials about the data that was submitted. I’m not sure where she’s going with her line of inquiry.

What was your reaction to her press release that was issued yesterday? (The press release focused on the rapid growth of Alaska Native corporations under the program and the large amounts of federal contracting jobs they are doing outside Alaska.)
Well, that was disturbing because I don’t think it told the whole story.

There is no doubt that Alaska Native corporations over the years have, as a group, begun to achieve more success in securing contracts and work with the federal government, but we’re not alone. Again, the particular program we’re involved in is not limited to Alaska Native corporations. Lower 48 Indian tribes and Native Hawaiian organizations are eligible for the same programs.

There seems to be a question as to why we have unlimited sole source opportunities compared to other participants in the 8(a) program.

Well, the fact of the matter is the basis for that is we serve large numbers of owners and so the benefits we deliver are really for a broader community, we being Alaska Native corporations, Lower 48 tribes and Native Hawaiian organizations.

Other participants in the 8(a) program or other economically disadvantaged businesses — they could be a company that might be owned by a single individual or a couple of family members.

So the benefits of their participation is limited to the number of owners, and I believe the program we participate in was designed with acknowledgement that our beneficiary numbers are significant.

In NANA’s case, it’s in excess of 12,000 NANA shareholders who are the beneficiaries of all of our income we generate from all of our businesses.

And we are not exclusively a company that just focuses on government contracting. We do other things. We have a diverse business mix.

I understand NANA distributed a $23 million dividend last year?
Right. Since NANA was formed, we’ve had a very aggressive dividend program.

We come from a very remote part of the world. We have limited economic opportunity and we live in a high cost-of-living environment.

So our board, our company, has recognized that we need to do our best to generate income and transfer some of that cash flow back in the form of dividends.

But our benefits to shareholders aren’t limited to our dividends. We also have medical assistance benefits, burial benefits.

We contribute annually to a scholarship program. We formed a scholarship program a few years ago, under a separate kind of trust, and we’re trying to make funds available for our students seeking higher education, vocational training.

We set aside $32.5 million in an elder settlement trust, aimed at recognizing that our elders, as they enter into the latter years of their life, most of them haven’t worked in a corporate environment where they might have retirement income.

So the corporation is trying to provide a little additional financial assistance to them. And our shareholders voted to establish the elder settlement trust, so each year, anybody 65 years and older will receive an additional special dividend.

When was that started?
The shareholders approved the establishment of the trust in March of 2008, so this is the second year the trust has been in existence.

So all the income we make from our government contracting businesses, or our engineering companies, or our oil field services companies, or the royalties we receive from Red Dog (zinc and lead mine), the board takes a look at all that income and determines how we might be able to distribute benefits to our shareholders, consolidated benefits.

What’s interesting is this data call by the senator was helpful in a way, because here we go about our business every day working hard, trying to generate income, but sometimes we don’t step back and look at and try to quantify the value of what’s been accomplished.

Between the years 2000 and 2008, between all of NANA’s income sources and various activities aimed at improving the quality of life for our shareholders NANA has distributed over $300 million in benefits to our shareholders between the dividends and all these other programs.

And yet our work isn’t done.

Unlike other companies, when they start off, I imagine they expect to be in existence for a long time. Well, really we have a higher obligation, because everything we do in our corporation is intended to benefit not just those who live today, but also future generations of NANA shareholders and so we’re working in our business mix to try to establish sustainable long-term businesses that will try to provide benefits for shareholders of today and shareholders of tomorrow.

How many 8(a)s does NANA have?
We probably have about 20 total companies. Some of them got their start in the 8(a) program and have already graduated.

You said in 1995, NANA started in the 8(a) program?
Yes, we started our first investment in ‘95.

That’s the other fallacy. The success we’ve achieved today didn’t come to us without investment.

We started our first company in 1995. We invested three years before that company broke even.

So not all of our companies that are currently participating in the 8(a) program have crossed the threshold of profitability.

Collectively those companies are contributing a significant portion of our income the last few years.

And if we continue to run our businesses right and deliver value to the government, we fully expect we’ll be able to continue down the path of being a major provider of services to the federal government.

You mentioned some positive outcomes of McCaskill’s inquiries (Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., is chair of the subcommittee). Are you concerned she has an agenda that might hurt the Native corporations?
I am concerned that the truth gets out. And I think it’s a tremendous success story.

Here was a program designed by Congress intended to help economically disadvantaged people become engaged in the broader U.S. economy and we’ve worked hard for many, many years positioning ourselves, investing our money to establish companies.

I read the (news) story this morning (about McCaskill’s press release) and I was a bit flabbergasted by the suggestion that there must be something wrong with Alaska Native corporations participating in business opportunities outside of Alaska.

I’m not aware of any other U.S. company that is told they can only do business in the state they’re from, or in the city they’re from, and frankly there are a lot of communities all across this country who welcome business investment in their community.

So that aspect, what I saw in the paper this morning, was really quite surprising to me, that someone would suggest it’s inappropriate for a U.S. company to do business in another community in the United States.

There was also some reference that, I think it was, that the benefits of ANCSA that were provided to Alaska Native corporations were intended to stimulate the economy in Alaska.

No, that was not the intent of ANCSA. The corporations were set up by ANCSA, by Congress. They were told to go forth and prosper, to create economic opportunities for their owners.

The act didn’t say create economic opportunities only for where you’re from, and frankly that would be a pretty significant challenge for very remote parts of the state that many of the villages are located in.

In our part of the world, we have no roads in and out of our part of Alaska, we don’t have roads connecting our villages.

Sixty percent of the lands within our region are locked up in other federal management jurisdictions, national parks and preserves.

We do happen to have the Red Dog mine. We’re very blessed with that natural resource. But there are other parts of Alaska that are not so blessed with natural resources, so barriers to developing sustainable economies in rural Alaska are really quite, quite significant.

And ANCSA did not limit the corporations to only doing business in the communities where our shareholders currently reside.

Is there anything you want to add? I’m done with my questions.
The reason I see some of this inquiry from a positive perspective is again I think we have a tremendous story to tell, of the corporations created by Congress intended to improve the quality of life for Native shareholders.

Through our efforts over the years, we are starting to be able to do that, and it hasn’t happened overnight. ANCSA was passed in 1971 and over the years, all Alaska Native corporations have worked hard to try and deliver on the intent of Congress.

Some have been able to achieve success very early on, and others have taken a lot longer and the SBA 8(a) program has been very important in helping us really deliver on the intent of Congress when they did pass the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act.

It’s important to me to note the reason we’re successful is not because of breaking the rules, but rather living within the rules, figuring out how to navigate in that very complex world of business and government contracting, and it’s a good story.

It’s what the 8(a) program was set up to do.

Top of the food chain

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 12:25:00 -0800

No, he doesn’t watch “The Deadliest Catch.” No, he’s not a former Bering Sea crab fisherman. No, he doesn’t live in Alaska, he lives in Las Vegas. But he does move about 600,000 pounds of Alaska red crab a year.

And he does it with gusto.

So much so that in June in Soldotna he was given an award from Global Food Alaska, an independent, private initiative of individuals, companies and organizations that collaborate to enhance the food and related businesses in the state. The award, Alaska Champion, recognizes an individual who has brought an Alaska product into the world’s spotlight.

That, Rob George has done. In fact, you could say he has single-handedly put Alaska crab into restaurants and onto plates nationwide long before captains Sig Hansen or Keith Colburn became reality TV stars.

“I don’t think there’s anyone in the industry that would disagree when I say I’m the one with the most passion in this business,” George said. “It’s my whole thing, my big baby.”

It’s a marketing miracle that has brought him riches he never imagined, but success came with an unwavering vision of product quality and personal relationships with his customers.

“We monitor the total chain of custody,” he said. “We have traceability — we know which boat caught it and where it’s going.”

Unlike other crab brokers, George only does crab clusters, not cut-up, single-leg claw packs.

“The crab goes to the butchering station and it’s butchered in half, the hard carapace shell comes off, then there’s gilling and cleaning, it’s packed raw and goes through cooking, then pre-chilling then pre-chilling again, but it’s never frozen,” he said, referring to the fresh-cooked crab he ships during the season.

During the various crab seasons he also has frozen cooked crab produced in order to keep his customers supplied when the season closes.

“I have 400,000 pounds of frozen cooked crab from Dutch on a container ship to sell over the course of the next six to seven months,” he said. “Hopefully, it’ll run out by the next season.”

During the various Alaska crab seasons he ships gift packs of fresh crab to individuals throughout the U.S.

“I love turning people onto such great crab,” he said.

Red king crab season starts Oct.15, as does opilio snow crab, bairdi snow crab, Bristol Bay red king crab, Pribilof blue king crab, St. Matthew blue king crab and Pribilof red king crab.

October tours
October is when the crab season goes into full press and Dutch Harbor teems with crabbers.

For that month, he’s developed the Crab Connoisseur Tour, where his customers come up to Dutch Harbor, and while they pay for their air fare and hotel, he takes them through the processing plants, out on a crab boat, they get to talk to Alaska Fish and Game staff and the Coast Guard, and have a crab dinner at the Grand Aleutian Hotel. There is complimentary Crab Broker gear.

“We go out beyond the blue buoy and dump some gear — not out in rough seas, but just to meet the captain and crew,” he said. “It’s great marketing, and people really love it.”

They bring home bragging rights and the ability to say to friends and family, “Oh yeah, I went out on one of those ‘Deadliest Catch’ crab boats.”

Then number of clients attending has jumped from three to five to 30, he said.

The tour has even been used as a fundraiser for a hospital in Florida, with the package tour selling for $20,000 for a ticket for two people — everything included.

He hasn’t gone all the way out to sea on a crab boat, but says he wants to in the next couple of years — it’s one part of the supply chain that he hasn’t experienced. The desire to experience everything that affects his business is another factor that has broadened his vision and approach to his business.

And much of the success he owes to his own drive and the warm partnership with the late Richard Osterman of Dutch Harbor.

“Richard called and he said ‘king and snow crab.’ I listened, and for some reason we just clicked,” he said. “We talked over the next few days and crazy me gets on a plane and flies up to Dutch Harbor and met Richard, who at that time was with Royal Aleutians Fisheries. It opened my eyes to fresh-cooked crab.”

Then Osterman went his own way, but Royal Aleutians wanted George to work with them.

“I wouldn’t go around Richard, but he called and said he had no problem with it,” George said. “I’m very ethical.”

It’s still a family owned business and hasn’t gone to public trading.

He said that sometimes he just sits back and thinks of all the poundage and all the money and just murmurs “Wow, I’m selling a lot of crab.”

But the $8 million in annual revenue isn’t what drives him, he said, and greed is a word he hopes is never applied to him.

“Greed never plays a part in what I do,” he said. “If you let greed pay a part in this, you’ll make bad decisions.”

Dimitra Lavrakas can be reached at 907-348-2419 or 800-770-9830, ext. 419.

State looking for rural education director

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 12:24:00 -0800

As news spread of some rural Alaska schools facing possible closure because of low enrollment, the state’s Department of Education and Early Development announced it is accepting applications for the new position of director of rural education.

According to the department, the intent is for the director to help bring about education reform through a variety of approaches, including bridging the cultural differences between rural communities and the public education system.

“The position reflects the state’s philosophy of valuing public schools and formal education and, at the same time, valuing Alaska’s diverse cultures and the rural ways of life and knowledge,” Alaska Education Commissioner Larry LeDoux said. “When we blend these, we have strong schools that belong to their communities.”

Meanwhile, the superintendents of two interior Alaska school districts say six rural schools are in danger of closing next year because of low enrollment.

The schools under scrutiny are in Central, Stevens Village, Takotna, Beaver, Anvik and Shageluk.

Districts see major state funding cuts when enrollment falls below 10 students at a school.

“The rules for funding schools are set by the Legislature,” Department of Education and Early Development officials said in a statement. “Any long-term answer will have to come from the democratic process of deciding what laws to have and how to spend public funds.

“Last year the Legislature passed House Bill 273, which eases the financial pain to districts with declining enrollments. Basically, their loss of funding is no longer sudden. Instead, they gradually lose funding over a four-year period.

“This gives districts the opportunity to look for solutions, perhaps less than ideal, such as spreading out their funding to continue to cover the small schools’ costs, or transitioning the students into correspondence programs. Sometimes a district is able to continue with a small school for a while and then the enrollment rises and the state funding is restored to a higher level.”

Joe Banghart of the Iditarod School District says Shageluk, Takotna and Anvik project 12 to 14 students but could drop below that.

Yukon Flats district superintendent Woody Woodford says schools at Stevens Village, Beaver and Central have been on the borderline. Their student count will not be known until the last week in September.

Both superintendents say long-range planning is difficult when districts are worried about enrollment.

As for the director of rural education position, National Education Association-Alaska president Barb Angaiak applauded the move to create the position.

“It’s absolutely needed,” Angaiak said. “It’s a good idea on the part of (LeDoux).”

The rural director will build the capacity of the department, school districts and rural communities to meet the academic needs of rural students. The fundamental task is to engage communities in their schools and to assist educators in working with the communities. It is a hands-on, community-level position.

The director will work with local school boards and schools; parents, elders and other community members; Native and rural government and service agencies; the University of Alaska and other universities and research entities; and other resources for schools in rural communities.

“The director will be an integral part of the department’s team that works for comprehensive improvement in low-performing schools,” LeDoux said. “The director will be a leader in implementing the Alaska Education Plan to ensure academic success for rural Alaskans, and will supervise the implementation of the state’s cultural standards for schools.”

The position will be based in Juneau and involve extensive travel.

“The way we envision it, this won’t be a person sitting in an office in Juneau,” said Eric Fry, the education department’s information officer. “This person will go out in the field constantly.”

The position would pay approximately $6,740 to $7,215 a month, depending on experience, and receives the usual state benefits. It is an exempt position and is not represented by any collective bargaining unit.

Applicants should see www.eed.state.ak.us for more information. The deadline to apply is 5 p.m. July 31. Fry said the department hopes to make the hire in August and have the rural director working by September.

Matt Nevala can be reached at 907-348-2480 or 800-770-9830, ext. 480. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Borough favors offshore leases

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 12:21:00 -0800

Letters between the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Minerals Management Service and the Aleutians East Bay Borough were interpreted as the borough taking an antagonistic stance

toward Lease Sale 214 in the North Aleutian Basin scheduled for 2011 and 2014.

The June 17 edition of the Petroleum News published a story with the headline “Borough hesitates backing Bristol Bay petroleum lease.”

Not so, said AEB administrator Sharon Boyette.

“I thought the headline was a little inappropriate,” she said in an interview at the borough’s offices in Anchorage. “The borough is not withdrawing its support, because the comment period is now.”

The back-and-forth of the letters served the purpose of helping the borough organize its thoughts and MMS had to respond to specifically address some points that Boyette said the borough thought MMS was “stalling out on.”

She’s not sure how the letters saw light.

“Everyone here involved signed a confidentiality agreement,” Boyette said. “And it doesn’t matter how they got out because the issues they raised for the most part have come to some conclusion.”

The correspondence was a test drive between the two entities to see what either would give up or give over, she said. Boyette said it was difficult for such a large federal body as MMS because what the borough asked for required the service to think outside the box. It challenged them, she said.

“With MMS it’s been a bumpy road, because it’s not easy,” she said. “I’m optimistic we can work it out and get the protections we do need for us. The rubber will meet the road next summer when the draft EIS (environmental impact statement) comes out.”

“MMS is working directly with the AEB on the design of how an oil and gas sale might look for the North Aleutian Basin,” according to Nicholas Pardi, press secretary for the MMS in Washington, D.C., in an e-mail. “The AEB brings great expertise to the table, and we are very pleased to work with them.”

The borough wants to make sure that the oil and gas exploration serves the needs of the region, she said.

In October 2005, the borough Assembly unanimously supported the lease sale in a resolution. On May 28, the Assembly again passed a similar resolution, but with the following statements:

• The governor and Alaska congressional delegation support the two proposed lease sales,

• The borough continues its standing as a cooperating agency in development of the EIS,

• Maximum protection and priority be given to fishery resources,

• Exploration and development be conducted in an environmentally safe manner, including installation of best available pollution control technologies and prevention measures on all aspects of the project design and operation,

• Federal funding be provided for studies to effectively protect local fisheries and the environment, to create economic opportunities for residents, and for AEB and residents to participate in the EIS and lease sale process, including travel and consultants,

• Adequate stipulation be added to mitigate any adverse social or environmental effects, and to provide employment training and business opportunities for residents, and

• Revenue sharing be provided for the entire area to compensate for the risk and to share the benefits of the lease program.

The borough states it does reserve the right to “withdraw support for oil and gas leasing in the North Aleutian Basin” if the requirements of the resolution are not met.

The fisheries are the economic lifeline for the 3,000 residents in the villages of Sand Point, King Cove, Akutan, Cold Bay, False Pass and Nelson Lagoon, so naturally the borough intends to protect that resource, Boyette said.

“We’ll continue that support, at least until the draft EIS comes out and the will reevaluate our position,” she said. “We’ve told MMS that without it being a threat. But if our consultants start saying ‘Wait a minute, the protections aren’t there,’ then our fish are too important to risk it.”

Dimitra Lavrakas can be reached at 907-348-2419 or 800-770-9830, ext. 419.

Wildlife trooper heads to Marshall to investigate fishermen

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 11:32:00 -0800

A state wildlife trooper is headed to the village of Marshall to investigate subsistence fishermen who said they fished during a closed period in an act of civil disobedience.

The Yukon River fishermen told reporters they caught 100 king salmon on Friday to feed their elders and others in need.

Wildlife Trooper Dan Dahl, based in the nearby village of St. Mary’s, said he will fly to Marshall today, July 1, to investigate.

If the facts show the law was broken, he’ll forward charges to the district attorney’s office.

The men could be forced to pay a “speeding-ticket”-like violation that costs each fisherman $200, Dahl said.

“The point I want to make is we see the whole picture involved here and respect the cultural and traditional values, but we want to make sure we do what’s right and fair to the rest of the lower Yukon,” Dahl said.

State and federal fish managers have strictly reduced subsistence fishing on the Yukon River this year, saying the king salmon run is in jeopardy and more fish need to get spawning grounds.

King salmon that swarm up the Yukon by the tens of thousands are the staple of the lower Yukon subsistence diet, having fed entire villages for generations.

Marshall resident Nick Andrew Jr. and others have told newspaper reporters that they fished in six boats. They have said subsistence fishermen aren’t responsible for the poor runs – they largely blame the Bering Sea pollock fleet, which inadvertently catches and tosses away thousands of king salmon – but said they’re bearing the brunt of the restrictions.

Alex DeMarban can be reached at 907-348-2444 or 800-770-9830, ext. 444.

Civil disobedience on the Yukon; Marshall fishermen ignore closure

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 12:33:00 -0800

In an act of civil disobedience, fishermen in six boats left the village of Marshall on Friday to go subsistence fishing on the Yukon River, though fishing was closed, said one of the protestors.

The group caught 100 king salmon in their gillnets.

State and federal authorities have severely restricted king salmon on the Yukon this summer in an effort to help the struggling run recover.

Villagers along the lower Yukon say they’re suffering.

Commercial fishing for kings hasn’t been allowed, and subsistence fishing has been limited to two 18-hour openings each week.

King salmon has long been a staple food along the Yukon. Residents dry or freeze the fish to eat year round. Also, commercial fishing for kings usually provides one of the few opportunities for villagers to make money.

This summer’s restrictions are worrying residents who don’t have enough king salmon to last the year, said Nick Andrew Jr., a member of the Ohagamuit tribal government, based in Marshall.

Andrew said he and five others went fishing late Friday night, when subsistence fishing was closed. They caught three totes of kings about 10 miles upriver from Marshall, a village of about 400.

“It’s now June 29,” Andrew said. “Usually by this date everyone’s subsistence king salmon needs are met and on the drying racks and in the freezers and salted.

“But as we speak only 20 percent of the village’s king salmon needs have been met. It’s a bad situation."

The fishermen saw no wildlife troopers and weren’t cited, he said.

They returned to Marshall and quickly cut the fish for drying and freezing. Then they delivered it to widows, elders and disabled residents, he said.

One elderly woman cried when her portion was delivered, he said.

Andrew said the protest fishing was sanctioned by the Ohagamuit and Marshall tribal governments. Ohagamuit created the resolution and the Marshall council approved it.

Earlier this summer, Andrew, in a letter published by The Tundra Drums, said he and others would get their kings, even if it meant going to jail or getting a ticket.

“Our original intent was to protest,” he said. “We went out there all gung ho, ready to bear a grin and go out for a cause. The Lord provided us our fish and no law enforcement.”

Villages along the lower Yukon have had a long, hard winter that followed similar restrictions to king fishing last year, he said. Many Yukon fishermen blame the Bering Sea pollock fleet for inadvertently catching too many river-bound king salmon on the high seas.

Village governments have requested fishery disaster declarations. The state has said it can’t declare such a disaster. U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke is considering a request.

Alex DeMarban can be reached at 907-348-2444 or 800-770-9830, ext. 444.

State seeks role in offshore lease lawsuit

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 14:59:00 -0800

The state has moved to intervene in a federal court case in which the Native village of Point Hope seeks to rescind dozens of leases issued by the federal government under an offshore oil and gas lease sale conducted for federal waters in the Chukchi Sea, according to a news release from the attorney general’s office.

Attorney General nominee Dan Sullivan said: “One of my highest priorities as Alaska’s attorney general is to vigilantly safeguard and defend Alaska’s interests, particularly as they relate to economic opportunities for Alaskans and the balance of state and federal rights and responsibilities. This case entails both such interests.”
Sullivan must be confirmed by the Legislature but will serve in the role until lawmakers reconvene in January

“The ultimate outcome of this case will likely have enormous economic consequences —either positive or negative — for the state of Alaska and our citizens,” Gov. Sarah Palin said.

Sullivan added that the state’s intervention is “necessary to protect the state’s interests, which are extensive and cannot be adequately represented by the other parties in this proceeding.”

The plaintiffs contend that the decision by the U.S. Mineral Management Service to conduct the lease sale for the outer continental shelf, along with the environmental impact statement underlying that action, violated federal law, including the Endangered Species Act. The lawsuit seeks to void all of the leases issued in the sale. If successful, this lawsuit conceivably could set back development of the OCS for decades.

The case was filed in January 2008. The plaintiffs have filed for summary judgment, and responses from the federal government and from intervening parties Conoco Phillips and Shell are due July 17.

In the pleadings filed by Sullivan, the state argues that its intervention is now important because of the change in the federal administration this year: “Although the state hopes its interests will continue to be aligned with those of the federal defendants, in an abundance of caution, the state must act to ensure its interests are protected until such time that the new federal administration’s policy positions are fully articulated.”

The memorandum to the court describes the state’s significant interests in the litigation, observing that the oil and gas industry is the largest part of the private employment sector in Alaska and provides 90 percent of the general fund revenue for state government. “If these activities are curtailed,” the state notes, “Alaska will be harmed by the loss of property tax revenues, employment, and income to local communities.”

Oil from the Chukchi Sea could lower the unit cost for all oil if shipped through the trans-Alaska pipeline, thus increasing state royalties and taxes from development on state lands, said Kevin Banks, acting director of the Department of Natural Resources’ Oil and Gas Division. Eliminating this potential would frustrate the state’s goal of realizing the constitutional imperative for maximizing resources for the benefit of all Alaskans, he said.

Alaska earns chapter in White House climate report

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 14:57:00 -0800

A new White House climate change report devotes a chapter to Alaska, where temperatures have risen twice at twice the rate of the rest of the country in the last half-century.

The state is the front line of climate change. Annual temperatures have risen 3.4 degrees Fahrenheit in 50 years and are projected to rise another 3.5 to 7 degrees by midcentury, the report states.

The report, a compilation of current science, translates what that change means in practical terms:

• Sea ice is melting, meaning shipping and resource extraction can expand. Arctic ice could be gone during summers by the end of the century.

• Marine species are moving, mostly northward. Fishermenwill have to go farther to get to the most productive commercial fisheries. Alaska Natives may have trouble getting the walruses and seals they subsist on.

• Coastlines are eroding tens of feet per year, and that rate is picking up. Villages like Newtok and Shishmaref are crumbling into the sea and having to decide between relocation and expensive engineering solutions.

• The coasts and the Bering Sea are getting stormier, throwing off autumn barge delivery schedules and making commercial fishing more dangerous.

• As the permafrost melts, the land sinks. This will add between $3.6 billion and $6.1 billion, or 10 to 20 percent, to future costs for publicly owned infrastructure by 2030. That’s not including the cost of the thawing to private property.

• In the last 30 years, the number of days each year that the Department of Natural Resources allows oil-and-gas-related truckers to travel on tundra ice roads has halved, from 200 to 100.

• The average area burned in North American wildfires each year — affecting subsistence resources and clean air — tripled from the 1960s to the 1990s. Alaska’s wildfire burn area is conservatively projected to double by midcentury and triple by 2100.

Alaskans weigh in
During a teleconference addressing climate change impacts on Alaska, Vernor Wilson of the World Wildlife Fund joined several other speakers from around Alaska to share their thoughts about the report.

Wilson, a Yup’ik who comes from a Dillingham fishing family, said that he’s from the younger generation of those concerned about the environment.

“It’s good to know that this report came out and it confirms what is going on here in Alaska. We have some of the largest fisheries left in the world. The greatest wild fisheries left. And this report says that those fisheries could be shifting northward and that is very concerning for me because as a fisherman and as somebody from the world’s largest fisheries of Bristol Bay and who depends on it, these stocks could move forward and that could have devastating impacts for our industry in Alaska, our fishing families, our communities.”

The impacts on the economy in Alaska would be devastating, Wilson said.
“There’s not only concern about fisheries in Bristol Bay, there’s concern from around the Bering Sea about coastal erosion and permafrost. My village of Dillingham was visited by the Army Corps of Engineers last January and they had to come up with a plan to further reduce the coastal erosion. Dillingham is just one community across the Bering Sea. What is going to happen to the hundreds of villages on the Bering Sea, along these rivers, where our people have been living for thousands of years?
He suggested that Alaska could be part of the solution by getting off the dependence on oil and by stopping “short-term toxic proposals like offshore drilling and Pebble mine.”

“In Bristol Bay we have a lot of renewable energy resources that could be tapped such as geothermal, wind, tidal and wave generation. We have the potential … We need to take action now,” Wilson said.

Sarah James from Arctic Village shared impacts she’s seen from climate change in Northeast Alaska. James is the chairwoman of the Gwich’in steering committee and she has lived in Arctic Village her entire life. She said that people there are still solely dependent on caribou, 75 percent to their food is still wild meat — caribou, moose, fish and other small animals and birds and duck.

“Climate change is very real in the Arctic. It’s placing the animals — disturbing to the animals — their way of life and in return they affect our life. In my lifetime, you know, I see a lot of growth. A lot of vegetation that comes in as it gets warmer and warmer.

“We don’t get cottonwood trees. A cottonwood tree is down the road from me, which it never was. I remember back from 1950, and that’s really strange. And we never had beaver. Now beaver is something that we have here. So as the climate change come in the animals come in with it, the growth. And many, many lakes was lost within the Gwich’in nation,” James said. “A lot of lakes dried up.

“I think this is a violating of human rights. I think we need to take it to U.N. and say you know we got to stop what we’re doing to the Earth.”

Jeffery Short, Pacific Science director for Oceana, remarked that although the report doesn’t contain new science, what’s new is that “finally the U.S. government is leveling with the American people about the dire future we all face from ignoring global warming for so long.”

The scientific community has been aware of this on a continuing basis and the report is based on scientific literature through 2008, Short said, but what’s different is the government is promoting it, which hasn’t been seen in the past.

“They provided a compelling synthesis showing how all the different intricate pieces of this big climate jigsaw puzzle fit together and it shows how fast change is coming and how serious the impacts will be,” Short said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Web site is environmental watchdog

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 14:36:00 -0800

Fish with strange spots. Sinkholes in the tundra. Crumbling river banks.
The scenes appear in a handful of photos posted at www.nunat.net, a fledgling Web site created to provide a record of changes linked to global warming, subsistence resources and village life.

The site’s database is a year old. It was designed to give rural Alaskans a way to share information and document the changes around them, especially those who spend a lot of time outdoors, said its creator, Brad Garness.

“People who live a subsistence hunting and fishing lifestyle generally have a unique view regarding climate change and why animals behave the way they do,” Garness said.

Garness is acting executive director of the Alaska Inter-Tribal Council, which owns the site.

It’s been said that Alaska is on the front lines of climate change, but there doesn’t appear to be another place where rural Alaskans can go to document the changes around them, he said.

AITC contracted with biologists and other experts to help develop reporting forms included on the site. With the forms, people can provide detailed accounts of what they’ve seen.

The Nunat Web site is named after a Yup’ik word that means “lands” in central Yup’ik.
Some of the items posted so far include a polar bear lying on the beach after swimming to shore in Barrow last fall and a swarm of chum salmon with unusual spots and deformed spines caught last summer on the Yukon River.

Governor supports land exchange

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 14:30:00 -0800

On June 16, Gov. Sarah Palin sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar expressing her support for the exchange of state-owned land for federal land within the Izembek and Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuges.

In the letter, Palin urged Salazar to initiate proceedings for the environmental impact statement required under the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge Land Exchange Act.
State statutes require that the state legislature grant final approval when an exchange of state land “involves unequal or uncertain appraised land values,” she wrote.

The exchange is necessary to facilitate construction of a road from King Cove to Cold Bay using approximately 206 acres of land in the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge. The road has long been sought after by the residents of King Cove and by the Aleutians East Borough to provide a safe, secure means of transportation to the airport in Cold Bay.

Palin assures Salazar that the bill will pass when the legislature next convenes. Passage was delayed after HB 210 passed with a vote of 38-0 jus as the legislature was on the verge of adjournment. “I am fully prepared to sign the legislation into law as soon as it is passed,” she wrote.

Trolling for true fishing stories

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 14:23:00 -0800

A national oral history project based on the East Coast wants to hear from Alaska fishers — in fact, anyone who has had anything to do with commercial or subsistence fisheries; even if you were just married to a fisher.

Right now, there’s only two oral histories from Alaska fishermen, but they worked in the Atlantic Ocean fisheries. Patricia Pinto da Silva, a social scientist with the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration’s National Marine Fisheries in Woods Hole, Mass., hopes you can change that. Da Silva is one of the founders of the project Voices from the Fisheries.

“We have a real regional imbalance,” she said.

People don’t necessarily have to record their stories and send them in; if they have audio files or film, they can send those.

Right now, the project is working with the Library of Congress to set up a database to archive the material. “We’ve also worked with Story Corps and they helped us formulate our idea,” she said. StoryCorps, out of New York City, is a nonprofit nationwide project that records audio files of people’s lives.

Da Silva started Voices six years ago in Maine with Susan Abbott-Jamieson, also a social scientist. It began as a local fisheries project linking students in the community with elder fishermen, she said.

There is an educational component in this project, and the project handbook includes information for classroom teachers and other marine educators.

The Web site is being upgraded to make it more user-friendly, she said, and eventually photographs can be uploaded and added to the search engine.
The project was a product of absolute consternation of how to elevate the courageous lives of fishermen above the dusty halls of academia.

“We became frustrated because we would collect a person’s life story and then use it for a paper and then have nowhere to put it,” she said. “It’s a good educational tool for everyone — from grandchildren to those who administer fish to hear about the lives of fishermen to undergraduate programs in sociology.

“We want to create the database to make it available to the public.”
It is not highly funded.

“We needed a little bit of money, not a lot,” da Silva said. “We received a Preserve America Initiative grant.”

The initiative is a national in cooperation with the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation and in partnership with the U.S. Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Education, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, and Transportation; U.S. General Services Administration; National Endowment for the Humanities; President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities; Institute of Museum and Library Services; and the President’s Council on Environmental Quality.

They started out with a modest $15,000 a year with additional funds from NOAA’s Office of Science and Technology. “It hasn’t gotten much more since then,” she said.
Then they began the search for collections they could upload to their database and create links to others.

“We looked for dusty tapes under people’s desks, in their closets,” she said. “Then we applied for $6,000 for expenses to convert them to digital.”

She’s hoping Alaska will turn out to be a gold mine. “In Alaska and Hawaii — these are communities where oral history is a cultural tradition,” she said. “And we always encourage people to not just make oral history for this database, but produce it in as many places as possible.”

Voices is not da Silva’s day job.

“This is not we do for a living, that’s why we’d like to get the Library of Congress involved –it would be a great selection to have there,” she said.

Currently she is (are you ready?) a fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government Center for International Development Sustainability Science. That’s a lot of work in itself.

“Susan is nearing retirement, and I don’t know how long my boss will let me do this,” da Silva said.

Dimitra Lavrakas can be reached at 907-348-2419 or 800-770-9830, ext. 419.

How to lend your fishing voice

A participant may be a commercial, recreational or subsistence fishermen, or others involved in services that support these activities. Some examples are businessmen who furnish gear, bait, ice, or fuel; people who build and repair fishing boats; processors and dealers; people who have worked in fish processing factories or plants; and fisheries managers and scientists. Other examples are people who have been married to people who fished for a living or to people involved in related businesses, or who grew up in fishing families.
Interviewers and those who donate existing collections are also participants. Schools are eligible to be participants, and student participation is valued.
• Contact the Voices from the Fisheries Project
Download and fill out the Voices from the Fisheries Project information form at http://voices.nmfs.noaa.gov.
Send to mail to:Voices@noaa.gov with the completed project information form attached to the e-mail.
• Obtain a project name (ID) and password
You will receive a project name and password by e-mail when your project or collection is approved for inclusion in the VFF Database. The ID and password allow you to place fisheries oral histories on the Voices from the fisheries database.
• Print release forms: If you are starting a new project to collect fisheries oral histories to put on the Voices from the Fisheries database, use the forms downloaded here to obtain permission from the person you interview. You must also obtain a signed release form from everyone who participates in the interview.
• Prepare for the interview: The Voices from the Fisheries handbook includes information of how to develop projects and conduct oral history interviews. Several oral history Web sites are available that offer general advice on conducting and recording interviews, e.g., www.folklife.si.edu/resources/pdf/interviewingguide.pdf.
• Conduct the interview: The Voices from the Fisheries handbook includes information on how to develop projects and conduct oral history interviews.
• Upload your collection: Instructions to put your interview on VFF are available in Voices from the Fisheries Database users guide.

Polar bear appearances grow on oil fields

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 12:04:00 -0800

Polar bear encounters on the North Slope oil fields have risen to record levels the last two years, a sign that increasing numbers of the white giants may be prowling on land because the sea ice they prefer is shrinking, scientists said.

Oil field sightings along the southern Beaufort Sea coast jumped to 321 in 2007 and 313 in 2008, said Craig Perham, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist in Anchorage.

That’s more than double the 15-year average of 138.
It’s also a sharp rise from 232, the previous high in 2005.

Oil companies are legally required to report a polar bear encounter to Fish and Wildlife that involves any change in the animal’s behavior, even if the bear simply lifts its head to sniff the air, Perham said.

The measure is designed to protect polar bears and humans by providing information on the bears’ whereabouts and behavior.

Increased sightings might also be up because new exploration work has taken place on the near-coast areas where polar bears are usually found, he said.

For example, ships doing seismic exploration in the Beaufort Sea have waited out storms on barrier islands those years, giving workers the chance to spot polar bears numerous times, sometimes the same animal.

Perham hasn’t “teased out” the data to find out exactly what it means, he said.
“Truth be told, we don’t know,” he said.

But the rising encounters are in line with what scientists expect to find — as sea ice shrinks, polar bears spend more time on land, he said.

Polar bears prefer the ice because it provides access to ringed and bearded seals, he said. But the seals are harder to find when the ice recedes so far — more than 70 miles off the coast — that it no longer sits over the shallower and biologically productive continental shelf.

The sea ice has shrunk to record levels in recent summers. One day last August, there were 400 miles of open water between the Alaska coast and pack ice.

Interestingly, the majority of oil field sightings have come in August and September, Perham said. In September, the sea ice is farthest from shore.

In those two months, oil field workers have reported spotting polar bears more than 240 times in 2007 and 2008.

During the winters of 2007 and 2008, oil field workers reported seeing polar bears no more than 14 times.

In the past, most sightings took place in the winter.

Despite the increased sightings, the oil industry hasn’t reported killing a polar bear since 1993, Perham said.

If bears come too close, workers might shoo them away by shouting or slamming a car door. If that doesn’t work, they might scare it away by firing off loud cracker shells.

Scientists believe the shrinking sea ice has lead to declining numbers of polar bears. If sea-ice loss continues as forecasted, the bears could someday disappear from large areas, including Alaska’s coastal waters, said Eric Regehr, a federal wildlife biologist.
“It’s pretty grim,” he said.

He said the Fish and Wildlife Service tentatively estimates the southern Beaufort Sea polar bear population at 1,526 in 2006, a drop from the previous estimate of 1,800.
The world population of polar bears is estimated between 20,000 and 25,000, he said.

Alex DeMarban can be reached at 907-348-2444 or 800-770-9830, ext. 444.

Field leaves school a champion for every season

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 12:02:00 -0800

Noorvik’s Tim Field had the kind of high school sports career most kids dream about but never come close to making a reality. Competing in cross-country running, wrestling, basketball and Native games, Field qualified for state in all four sports in all four years and won six championships.

The 18-year-old wrapped up his spectacular senior season by winning a state title in wrestling, earning player-of-the-year honors in basketball and matching a Native Youth Olympics record in the one-foot high kick.

He was so good he nearly captured the 2009 Anchorage Daily News Boys Prep Athlete of the Year award, something once thought to be nearly impossible for someone from rural Alaska. The list of past winners is littered with big-city names like Trajan Langdon (former NBA player), Jeremy Teela (former Olympic biathlete) and Zack Bowman (current NFL player).

Kodiak elite runner Trevor Dunbar added his name by beating Field by just one vote to lay claim to the award that dates back to 1989.

Field was close to becoming the first winner to hail from the Bush or a small Class 1A or 2A school. But he got outpointed in a 4-3 vote of present and past Daily News sports reporters. To his credit, Dunbar won a combined three state titles in cross-country running and track and field, and at one point had the fastest 3,200-meter high school time in the country.

Still, Field’s accomplishments deserved a second helping of recognition.
After all, he is the closest thing to a celebrity in Noorvik.

“Every kid from every village knows exactly who he is,” said Jake Stoops, activities director for the Northwest Arctic Borough School District. “He just had that ‘it’ factor. At regionals, he was giving autographs to players from other teams. It was pretty cool.”

He was also a big hit on the road.

“Everybody knows his name,” said teammate Greg Cleveland. “It’s pretty cool to be with him.”

All the right moves
No matter how gaudy Field’s resume was as a prep athlete, his best move of his senior season didn’t have anything to do with sports. It actually happened at the Noorvik K-12 school prom in April, and for a guy known for his basketball skills it seemed only fitting that his highlight came in the form of an assist.

Young Freddy Henry, 13, showed up to the prom wearing a dirty T-shirt and faded jeans. He was obviously underdressed for the special occasion and so he stood out like a sore thumb.

Field noticed right away and jumped to action like a superhero.

“I took him home and slapped on a shirt and tie, and put some cologne on him,” Field said with a laugh. “I even let him use my shades for awhile.”

Henry’s new duds and Field’s warm gesture highlighted the night.

“This young kid idolizes Tim,” said Mike Zibell, a longtime coach and teacher at Noorvik. “The kid had a blast and was as proud as could be.”

Pretty soon, other basketball players, like Greg Cleveland, were teaching the youngster cool dance moves. It wasn’t long before little Freddy Henry was the life of the party.

“He danced with a couple girls,” Field said. “The next day he was telling people he danced with so and so. I knew he was happy because he was smiling.”
Because of Field’s fast-acting intuition, that little boy experienced a night he will never forget. It’s not uncommon for Field to befriend younger kids at the school, especially the ones that looked up to him. Henry was one of those kids.
“He always says, ‘What’s up, T-Bone?’ ” Field said.

Henry and Field struck up a friendship during the basketball season after Field sank an incredible long-range shot from three-quarters court that just beat the buzzer. The crowd went nuts and fellow Noorvik students mobbed Field afterward. Some even asked him to sign their shoes and shorts like he was Kobe Bryant.

“He’s given younger, less-popular kids attention by playing with them, encouraging them and making them feel valued by someone they greatly admire,” Zibell said. “He does well in school and has tutored some who were struggling. Tim’s a great kid.”
Field said his grandparents, Ramona and Ivan Field Sr., shaped who he is today. They are responsible for creating his winning personality on and off the athletic field.
“They mean a lot to me,” Field said. “They took me in when I was little. They adopted me.”

A banner career
Since the early 1990s, Noorvik basketball has been synonymous with winning. The girls have won five state titles (1992, 1994, 1995, 2000, 2001) and the boys have captured six championships (1996, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007).

Championship banners hang in the school’s gymnasium for everyone to see. They serve as motivation for the Bears and intimidation for opposing teams.

Field’s fingerprints are on six banners — two with the basketball team and four by himself (one for wrestling, three for NYO).

“He’s the kind of guy that he was so talented so early, it feels like he’s been at Noorvik for 10 years,” Stoops said.

In cross-country running, he was the lone boy to represent Noorvik at the state championships.

In wrestling, Field won the 160-pound title in December to become Noorvik’s first state champion in that sport. He said he was basically the only student on the team — most of the others didn’t take it seriously — and so he spent most practices grappling with coach Rod Eakin.

At NYO, he capped his brilliant career with a gold medal in the event’s most celebrated event, the one-foot high kick. He didn’t just win; he crushed the competition and wound up equaling a record that had stood since 2003.

On the basketball court is where Field made his name. He was a human-highlight reel and the most recognizable Native face. He was the guy people paid to watch.

“We’ve had some really good players over the years, and he’s definitely right up there among the very best based on his ability to play above the rim,” said Stoops, who has lived in Northwest Alaska for 11 years.

Longtime Point Hope coach Rex Rock Sr. agreed.

“He’s as good as they get,” he said. “Tim was one of those special kids that come along every once in awhile. We’re happy to see him go away as opposing coaches.”
Field scored 1,703 points in his career, second most in Noorvik history. Even as a freshman he played a key role in helping the Bears win the Class 1A state championship and he played an even bigger role the next season when they won the Class 2A state title.

But then the well went dry. Noorvik wouldn’t win another state championship with Field on the court, losing the 2009 final to arch-rival Point Hope in an instant classic that was close the entire way.

Field wasn’t around the see the end of it, fouling out in the fourth quarter with a game-high 27 points. Afterward, he ripped his tucked-in jersey from his shorts and kicked a chair, allowing his emotions to get the best of him.
“I couldn’t hold it in,” Field said.

Two weeks later, Field earned Class 2A player-of-the-year honors and was named to the all-state team for the third consecutive year. It didn’t matter.
“I would trade that in for a title,” he said. “I’d rather get the team title instead of the personal title. I hate to lose.”

The next chapter in the Tim Field story is yet to be written. He expects to play college basketball in the fall, although he hasn’t decided on a school. In the meantime he’ll continue his summer job building houses in Noorvik as he saves money for college.
“Someone is going to miss if they don’t give him a chance,” Zibell said.

Van Williams can be reached at 907-348-2452 or 800-770-9830, ext. 452.

FosterWear program gaining interest in Bush

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 12:00:00 -0800

An effort to draw on retailers to offer clothing discounts to families with foster children has now gone statewide with the help of rural Alaska’s AC Stores and JC Penney in Anchorage.

“Foster youth face a lot of challenges, and it doesn’t help when they stand out among their peers in used or inadequate clothing,” said Amanda Metivier, statewide coordinator for Alaska’s foster care advocacy group, Facing Foster Care in Alaska.

“This effort started with baby steps. It’s grown enough now that we need to get the word out statewide,” said Rep. Les Gara, D-Anchorage, a foster care alumni.
“Alaska Commercial Company is excited to offer our support of the ‘Clothing Alaska’s Foster Youth Program.’ The FosterWear Program aligns perfectly with Alaska Commercial Company’s commitment of supporting the youths in the communities we serve,” said Alan McCollor of AC Stores.

Gara and Metivier came up with the idea of Foster Wear at a conference in Seattle, where local organizations have started a name-brand clothing store for foster youths. The state’s Office of Children’s Services has worked hard with Gara and Metivier to help extend the reach of this effort.

“Foster children grow up to become neighbors, co-workers and community leaders,” said Office of Children’s Services resource family program officer Tracy Spartz-Campbell. “We’re so thankful that these businesses recognize the importance of contributing to the success of our youth. And we are very thankful for the support these businesses are providing to Alaska’s foster parents.”

FosterWear participants now include: REI in Anchorage; Homer’s Jeans in Homer; The Prospector in Fairbanks and Valdez; Nugget Outfitters in Juneau; JC Penney in Anchorage; Army Navy in Anchorage; AC stores in Dillingham, Bethel, Nome, Kotzebue, Barrow, Sitka, Klawock, Craig, King Cove, Sand Point, Kodiak, Cordova, Yakutat, Hydaburg, King Salmon, Togiak, St. Paul Island, Hooper Bay, St. Mary’s, Mountain Village, Emmonak, Kotlik, St. Michael, Unalakleet, Nuiqsut, Fort Yukon, McGrath, Aniak, and Hydaburg.

Omni Stores, with locations in Bethel and Dillingham is also hoping to join the effort soon, and Metivier, OCS, and Gara’s office are still trying to attract new participants.
The participating stores offer different discount plans for licensed foster families.

Hospital helps Alaskans’ health for long-term

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 11:58:00 -0800

One year ago, Kathy Arnold was told she had a 30 percent chance of surviving congestive heart failure, and her family began saying their goodbyes and making preparations for her death.

Last week, Arnold was one of several patients returning to St. Elias Specialty Hospital for their first annual patient family reunion, an event reconnecting patients with each other and with those who cared for them during their stay.

“It’s an amazing thing to be able to care for people and watch their progress and watch them go back home to family and friends and get back into their community,” said Beth Rhoden, a nurse liaison. “We make miracles happen here that I’m just in awe of.”

St. Elias is an acute long-term care facility that cares for patients with complex medical conditions that require a longer-than-average stay at a hospital.
“This was a fork in the road, and you take your choice,” Arnold said. “The people you’re surrounded by are so positive, so emotional, so supportive. They make you see you can come back. Even if the doctors say you have a 30 percent chance of living — that doesn’t hold up here.”

St. Elias is the only long-term acute care facility in Alaska. Before it opened in December 2006, individuals needing long-term acute care would have to travel out of state.

The idea for St. Elias was inspired by a situation Dr. David McGuire and his family faced in the 1990s, when his son was in a car accident and sustained closed head injuries. He was unconscious for 60 days, and hospitalized in the state of Washington for six months. The McGuires were forced to commute back and forth while their son received treatment.

“It was a dark time,” said Patti McGuire, the doctor’s wife and a public relations consultant for St. Elias.

Arnold, who lives in Wasilla, attributes St. Elias to saving her life twice. In March of this year, there was an electrical fire in the home she’s lived in for 30 years. The exits were all in flames, and the phones were dead.

“I have no doubt in my mind that if I had been in the same shape I was in a year ago, I would not have gotten out,” she said.

“St. Elias is a bright light during an individual’s or family’s darkest time,” said Judy Johnson, from Anchorage, a returning patient. “Word needs to get out. This is a facility that Anchorage and the state have needed for years and years.”

Johnson, who was a patient at St. Elias for about four months, was impressed with the way the hospital was designed. On each floor, there are day rooms in the corners of the building with huge windows for patients to use for relaxing and socializing. Johnson noted that at most businesses, the corner offices are reserved for top executives.

“At St. Elias, the patients have the corner offices,” Johnson said.

In 2008, 17 percent of the patients at St. Elias were Native Alaskans.

In March, Dr. Ted Mala spent an afternoon speaking to the staff of St. Elias explaining how difficult hospitalizations can be for patients from villages.

“We try to accommodate families and respect native traditions,” said Patti McGuire.
Luke Tukaya, originally from Togiak, was at St. Elias for four months in 2007. Tukaya said the staff was very friendly and encouraging.

“They really treat you well,” Tukaya said.

Beth Skabar can be reached at 907-348-2431 or 800-770-9830, ext. 431.

Selawik solves $250,000 electricity bill burden

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 11:57:00 -0800

A decision to hand over a big chunk of state aid will help the city of Selawik pay a $250,000 light bill and avoid losing power.

The city will pay $80,000 up front and another $12,000 monthly until the bill is paid, said Meera Kohler, president and CEO of Alaska Village Electric Cooperative.
That’s a lot of money for the village of 850, almost one-third of the city budget of about $800,000, said city administrator Roger Clark.

The power company, which runs 53 rural utilities, threatened to cut off the city’s electricity last week. That would have cut the power to city buildings and community facilities.

But the city accepted the power company’s payment plan.

To pay the debt, the City Council agreed to hand over its $104,000 community-revenue-sharing check received from the state this year, Kohler said.

Starting July 1, it’s also bumping up its water and wastewater rates 15 percent, to $150 monthly. Cable rates are going up 11 percent, to $100 monthly.

In recent months, the city also saved money by cutting a police officer and reducing work hours for employees. Clark said he gets paid for about three hours of work each day.

Most of the massive debt mounted over the winter, in part because leaky, old water pipes regularly needed heating and thawing, Kohler said.

It was so cold that pipes repeatedly froze. City workers raced around the village to thaw the pipes, and that pushed up the city’s personnel costs.

Residents used electricity-hungry heat tape to keep the pipes warm, and that gets expensive too, Kohler said.

Clark also said high fuel bills this past year — more than $6 a gallon for gas and stove oil — meant residents couldn’t pay their bills. As a result, the city took in less money.

It also had its own high fuel costs to pay for.

Unpaid light bills can be common in rural Alaska, where the cost of electricity can be several times higher than in Anchorage. A few years ago, AVEC issued a notice to nearly 400 customers who owed it almost $1 million: Pay up or lights out.

Now, there’s no such statewide dilemma. But trouble spots exist.

The city government in the village of Kobuk, population 109, owed about $235,000 last spring, but they’re paying that off now, Kohler said. They recently sent in a $35,000 check.

The village, about 88 miles northeast of Selawik, hadn’t paid months’ worth of bills because the city administration was in disarray and the City Council wasn’t meeting. New employees couldn’t find paperwork and stopped collecting payments.
“The customers were happy about it,” she said.

But the city didn’t have money to pay to pay the power cooperative. This April, Kohler flew to the village and helped administrators download new paperwork and get things in order.

She also attended the first City Council meeting held in months.

“I said, ‘Guys, you have to get your act together,’” she said.

Alex DeMarban can be reached at 907-348-2444 or 800-770-9830, ext. 444.

Cable guys to speed up rural communication

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 11:44:00 -0800

Those GCI ads on TV about snail Internet aren’t so funny in Bush Alaska.

The state has the second highest rate of Internet access in the country, according to a report from the U.S. Census Bureau. More than 78 percent of Alaskans live in a household with Internet access, and the state came in first, at 76.1 percent, for the number of people who access the Internet from home, work, or a public place.
But that doesn’t mean it’s fast.

In fact, in some places a cable modem line may perform like dial-up service.
And the thing is, if you’ve never experienced fast service, you may not know what you’re missing. But get that first taste of 10 megabytes per second (heck, even a three megabytes per second) of download speed, and you are forever nerve-wracked with anything less, tapping your fingers on the desk.

Take heart, relief is coming down the line.

The Kodiak-Kenai Cable Co., owned by Kodiak’s Old Harbor and Ouzinkie Native village corporations, plans to run fiber optic lines totally 3,400 miles in Southwest, Western and Arctic Alaska.

Ik “Ike” Icard with the cable company and adviser to on the project to the Great Pacific Cable Co., which is an Outside engineering and consulting firm, said the cable lines will cover the state.

“We plan to extend the project beyond the initial phase,” Icard said.
A project completed in 2007 strung two submarine fiber optic lines from Kodiak Island to the mainland, with landing points at Anchorage, Kenai, Homer, Kodiak, Seward and the Alaska Aerospace Development Corp.’s launch complex at Narrow Cape. This summer, Kodiak Island villages are being set up with a microwave relay system for high-speed service.

The line is planned to continue underwater from Narrow Cape to King Cove, Dutch Harbor, King Salmon, Dillingham, Platinum, Bethel, Nome, Kotzebue, Barrow and Prudhoe Bay, and would hook into the existing line from Prudhoe Bay south to Anchorage. On its way through Unalaska, the line will cross Ounalashka Corp. land.
Icard says the Kodiak to Nome line is expected to be laid next summer, and Nome to Deadhorse in 2011. It will have an initial capacity of 160 billion bits per second, almost the equivalent of 3 million dial-up modems.

“The fiber loop provides the best redundancy,” Icard said “It really will link the core parts of the state.”

The company proposes to fund the northern fiber link by using a National Telecommunications and Information Administration broadband grant authorized under the federal stimulus program. Once the grant money is in hand, KKCC will offer, at no charge other than maintenance, bandwidth to the University of Alaska, the National Science Foundation, Homeland Security, health corporations and other nonprofits along the way.

“The advantages of the project are multi-faceted and manifest,” Icard said. “The signal will be reliable and not subject to weather or electromagnetic disturbances that plague Alaska. It is impervious to our seasonal outages.

“It will provide high bandwidth for radio and telecommunications in medical environments that support telemedicine. And the bandwidth is necessary for real-time distance delivery of education through a video feed.”

Out of sun’s reach
Cable television, Internet and long-distance telephone service that rely on satellites can experience brief disruptions in the fall and spring because of seasonal solar-inspired outages, when the sun is directly behind the satellite and also lined up with the ground antennae, causing the signal to be overpowered by the sun’s noise energy. The outages can last for up to 15 minutes at a time.

The new service also will give some competition to one-provider towns to the relief of consumers.

For Kodiak, Icard said the upgrade meant that for the first time, radio station KMXT can download and stream programs from National Public Radio from the Web site and not off the satellite at only certain times.

It was a cumbersome system, agreed Jay Barrett, news director at the radio station.
“Before, we had to record programming off the NPR satellite only at certain hours when it was being fed,” he said. “Now we can download whole programs whenever it is most convenient to us.”

For Barrett, who is also a photographer, the improved service is astounding.
“One morning I was downloading and it was faster, and I thought ‘they must have switched it on,’ and sure enough, they did,” he said. “It’s insanely faster.”
Barrett said he used to have a DSL line that was 256 kilobytes per second, and now it’s three megabytes per second.

A kilobyte is 1,000 bits per second and a megabyte is 1 million bits per second of blocks of data passing between equipment during transmission.

“The line will have an initial capacity of 160 billion bits per second, almost the equivalent of 3 million dial-up modems,” Barrett said.
Alaska, prepare for warp speed.

Dimitra Lavrakas can be reached at 907-348-2419 or 800-770-9830, ext. 419.

Help arrives for Alaskans’ flood recovery

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 11:42:00 -0800

William Koontz and other officials with the Small Business Administration sensed getting the word out and the work done to help Alaskans hurt by spring flooding could be a little different because of location.

“We’ll do whatever unusual thing we have to, by Lower 48 standards, to reach the folks thinking about getting this help,” said Koontz, a communications specialist with the SBA.

Federal officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the SBA last week visited Eagle, Tanana, Red Devil and Sleetmute, with visits to other communities to occur later, Koontz said.

According to a news release from FEMA, its officials and staff of the state of Alaska Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management will be traveling to each community within the designated disaster declaration area to brief applicants and to develop repair documents. The following schedule has been set up for visits through next month: June 24- Aniak; June 26- Stevens Village and Crooked Creek; June 28- Fort Yukon; June 29- Circle and Akiak; June 30- Tanana (tentative); July 1- Kwethluk; July 6- Upper Kalskag and Lower Kalskag; July 8- Akiachak and Sleetmute; July 10- Tuluksak and Napakiak; July 13- Emmonak and Alakanuk (tentative); July 15- Marshall (tentative).

Communities not listed are asked to contact the state Homeland Security division’s public assistance section 800-478-2337. A project description form and a request for public assistance form is available at www.flood.alaska.gov under the quick links. Other important information available at the above Web site includes the state and federal disaster declarations, public assistance notification letters, and a federal grant condition summary.

Obama’s declaration
President Obama issued a disaster declaration earlier this month for parts of Alaska that were flooded during breakup. FEMA provides grants for temporary housing and home repairs, among other services.

“My personal experience with Alaska declarations is zero,” Koontz said. “I talked with the state director to one of the senators and learned a lot of background. He suggested when we get out to some of the villages to get on the UHF radio with some of the leaders. Pretty soon, I’m told, everyone will know.”

For damage to housing, the SBA provides loans of up to $200,000 to homeowners to repair or replace damaged or destroyed real estate. The SBA separately has loans available for up to $40,000 to homeowners and renters to repair or replace damaged or destroyed personal property, such as cars, furniture or clothes, Koontz said.

For businesses, the SBA provides loans of up to $2 million to repair or replace damaged or destroyed real estate, machinery and equipment, inventory and other assets. The SBA also has loan programs for businesses and nonprofits to meet working capital needs caused by a loss of business due to the flooding, he said.
Interest rates can be as low as 2.437 percent for homeowners and renters, and 4 percent for businesses, with terms up to 30 years. There is no cost to apply, and if the loan is approved there’s no obligation to accept it, Koontz said.

Deadlines for applying are Aug. 10 for loans to address physical damage and March 11 for loans to address working capital needs. The federal disaster declaration covers the Alaska Gateway, Kuspuk, Yukon Flats and Yukon-Koyukuk regional educational attendance areas. For more information, call 800-621-3362.

Matt Nevala can be reached at 907-348-2480 or 800-770-9830, ext. 480. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

New fishery panel aims to hear rural voices

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 11:40:00 -0800

Acknowledging that a “cultural and communication gap” exists with rural Alaskans, federal managers for North Pacific fisheries have created a committee to take input from Alaska Native communities.

The committee, created by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council in June, comes in the wake of criticism from villagers who say they have no voice in the council’s decisions.

The seven-member committee will meet with Native and tribal leaders, including in rural areas of the state that have traditionally had little involvement in federally managed fisheries, said Duncan Fields. The group is planning an initial meeting in Anchorage this summer, though no date had been set last week . week.

“The committee isn’t so much about advocacy for rural Alaska as it is for outreach to rural Alaska,” he said.

Fields, a rural resident from Kodiak, is one of two NPFMC members who will serve on the Rural Community Outreach Committee.

NPFMC chair Eric Olson, raised in Dillingham and a longtime Bristol Bay fisherman, will be the committee’s chair.

The NPFMC has increasingly realized it’s having “real-life impacts on the lives of those in rural Alaska,” said Fields, talking through a crackling radio phone last week from his family’s fishing site on Kodiak Island.

However, rural Alaskans aren’t well represented on the council, he said.
The council, with 11 voting members, is known for marathon-length meetings that cover a wide range of topics. Those meetings often take place in urban areas, such as Anchorage or Seattle, making for costly and time-consuming trips for villagers.

The council staff communicates by e-mail and the Internet, but rural Alaskans don’t necessarily have access to the Web or other media outlets, Fields said.

As a result, many rural Alaskans don’t participate in council discussions.
“It’s a huge cultural and communication gap between the (NPFMC’s) normal discourse and the normal distribution of information,” Fields said.

Olson, the council’s chair, named the committee members. He could not be reached for comment last week.
Besides Fields, the members of the committee are:
•   Tom Okleasik, planning director for the Northwest Arctic Borough in Kotzebue.
•    Jennifer Hooper, from the Association of Village Council Presidents in Bethel, which provides social services to Natives in the Bethel region.
•    Pete Probasco, assistant regional director for the federal Office of Subsistence Management in Anchorage.
•    Ole Olson, a member of the Gulf of Alaska Coastal Communities Coalition.
•    Paula Cullenberg, an Anchorage resident who works with the state university’s Alaska Sea Grant Marine Advisory program.

Reasons to create new committee
The need for the committee stemmed from two issues, Fields said.
Three years ago, the council began working on a plan to address new commercial fisheries that might open as climate change melts Arctic ice.

Several months later, Native and tribal groups from Northwest Alaska complained the council had left coastal communities out of the discussion. They wanted a seat at the table.

As a result, some council members and federal biologists traveled to rural Alaska to take input about the Arctic plan, Fields said.

They also spent time in predominantly Native rural Alaska to hear concerns about the battle over king salmon between rural fishermen and the pollock fishing industry.
That issue prompted an unprecedented amount of public testimony when the council voted on the issue in April, Fields said.

But many rural fishermen, who depend on king salmon for subsistence and commercial fishing, have said they felt like the giant pollock industry had the council’s ear. They argue the council’s vote will do nothing to limit the huge amount of king salmon unintentionally caught by the pollock industry.

The issue prompted a greater outcry from villagers about the need for more input.
Art Ivanoff, a resident from the Northwest village of Unalakleet, recently sent a letter to Alaska’s congressional and state representatives requesting designated council seats for Alaska Native organizations.

“Chinook commercial fishing is nearly gone, and our local economies have suffered because of its absence,” he wrote.

“We have had no voice on matters that impact our lives. This needs to change.”
The council has no designated Native seats, and that probably won’t change anytime soon.

But some rural residents believe the new committee is a move in the right direction.
Tim Andrew, natural resources director for AVCP in Bethel, said the committee could be an important link between villages and the council, especially if it travels in rural Alaska. “I have high hopes for it,” he said.

Alex DeMarban can be reached at 907-348-2444 or 800-770-9830, ext. 444.