thebristolbaytimes

Troopers intercept marijuana

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 13:11:00 -0800

The Alaska State Troopers’ western Alaska alcohol and narcotics team investigators work to take down bootleggers and drug dealers in Western Alaska.

Called WAANT for short, the team reports it found just what it was looking for on May 7: more than 2.5 ounces of marijuana being shipped from Girdwood to Dillingham, with an ultimate destination, troopers say, of Togiak.

“Togiak is one of the main villages my office serves because it’s a dry village and it’s a larger-population village than others in the area,” Dillingham-based investigator Nasruk Nay said. “If you look at averages, you’re going to have more cases generated with Togiak than you might in Platinum, which has an eighth of the population.”

It was a handy thing for WAANT investigators that this particular pouch of marijuana came in a clearly marked package addressed to Dillingham resident Jose Sanchez, age 46, who has been charged in the case, and listed the shipper on the airway bill as Girdwood resident Andrew Straley III, age 40, who has also been charged.

The return address was identified on the package as belonging to AMS Paint and Carpet in Girdwood, which is registered to the same address as Straley.

Nay said troopers continued to collect information in the investigation after confiscating the package. Sanchez and Straley were arrested Friday, July 11.

Nay said the WAANT team, along with the Togiak Police Department, had been conducting a months-long investigation into marijuana distribution from Anchorage to the Dillingham area, which in turn was sent to Togiak for sale. He said the investigative team had been collecting information on alleged marijuana distribution activities by Straley and Sanchez prior to confiscating the pouch of marijuana May 7.

The bag itself was originally discovered by Everts Air Cargo in Anchorage during an inspection of a package for hazardous materials, according to court documents. The report says the bag of 75.5 grams, or more than 2.5 ounces of marijuana, was tucked inside a plastic tool case.

The law makes a significant distinction between marijuana possession in the privacy of one’s home and marijuana possession with the intent to distribute.

In July 2006, an Alaska superior court judge ruled that the state cannot enforce laws against possession of less than 1 ounce of marijuana in the privacy of one’s own home.

But possession of 4 ounces or more is a felony, and possession of between 1 and 4 ounces is a misdemeanor that comes with up to a year in jail if convicted.

Possession of marijuana in any amount that is not in the privacy of one’s own home — say in a car for instance — is not protected by the court’s ruling on Alaskans’ right to privacy.

And possession with intent to distribute is whole other bag of troubles, Nay said. Get caught with more than an ounce that’s destined for other people’s pipes or papers, and it’s a felony.

Sanchez and Straley are being charged with possession of 1 ounce or more of marijuana with the intent to deliver, a class C felony offense. Court documents indicate that trooper interviews with the defendants turned up another name of a person who reportedly sells marijuana in Togiak. Nay said that person is not being charged at this time with any crime.

Nay said he hopes arrests of alleged marijuana dealers will make others think twice about getting in on the black market weed business.

“I would hope that this investigation would act as deterrent on others who may consider using illegal drugs or alcohol to supplement their incomes,” Nay said. “And also, as a reminder to the community that, with community input and help, our office can be more effective in helping to stop sales of illegal drugs and alcohol.”

Mary Lochner can be reached at (907) 348-2438, or (800) 770-9830, ext. 438.

Vote pits economics of mining, salmon

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 13:06:00 -0800

On Tuesday, Aug. 26, Alaska voters will decide weather to pass Ballot Measure 4, also called the Alaska Clean Water Initiative.

Organizations both for and against the measure claim a vote for their side will protect one industry without harming the other, making a vote either way sound like a win-win situation.

But framing the debate as salmon vs. mining, each camp also claims a vote falling on the opposition’s side of the ballot will hurt the Alaska economy.

And while Alaska mining in general has been sucked into the whirlwind of public relations one-liners and campaign zingers surrounding Ballot Measure 4, the center of the vortex, both sides say, is undoubtedly the controversial proposed Pebble mine project near Lake Iliamna.

Proposed mine or prospect?
Both sides agree the intended effect of Ballot Measure 4 is to prevent the Pebble Partnership from building a mine.

A potential mine at the site has been controversial because of its location at the headwaters of the Upper Talarik Creek and Koktuli River, which is a portion of the watershed where Bristol Bay salmon go to spawn.

Spokespersons for the Pebble Partnership, owned half each by Canada-based Northern Dynasty and United Kingdom-based Anglo American, caution there is no proposed Pebble mine project as of yet.

Rather, the company is exploring a mining prospect.

The Pebble Partnership is drilling exploration wells and collecting environmental data but points out it has not yet proposed any particular mine. The company is in the pre-permitting phase for the site, and until it applies for permits — expected sometime in 2009 — it has not proposed any mine for the area.

John Shively, CEO of the Pebble Partnership, said that’s because they don’t know yet whether a mine will be economically feasible.

“What we are asking is for an opportunity to look to see if we have a project, and then make that public,” he said. “That’s assuming we come to the conclusion that we have a project that meets the high environmental standards we set for ourselves and that others expect for us, and the project is economically feasible.”

Bruce Spitzer, senior technical adviser for Alaskans for Clean Water, which campaigns for Ballot Measure 4, said he thinks Pebble Partnership knows more about what its plans are for the site than it’s telling.

The researcher-turned-environmental-consultant has worked with a handful of mining companies over the years and worked as an environmental consultant for Cominco, the original owners of the Pebble mining rights.

“They keep saying they don’t have a mine plan yet,” Switzer said. “That is a total crock. I’ve done so many mines, of course they have preliminary plans. It’s like somebody who has a property wants to build a house on it, and they say they don’t have plans for a house. Well, they might not know where the plumbing for the master bedroom will be, but they know what kind of house they’re going to build.”

Sean Magee, public affairs director for the Pebble Partnership, said the west side of the Pebble site, where the mineral resource is near the surface, “would be amenable to open-pit mining,” and that the east side of the Pebble site, where minerals are deeper, would require underground extraction.

He said the company is looking at a type of extraction called block-caving, in which a vertical shaft runs adjacent to the mineral reserve, and a horizontal shaft runs extends it.

But, he said, at this point the Pebble Partnership doesn’t know which, if any, mine it will construct, as it is still collecting data.

Fisheries vs. mining?
Whether one calls Pebble a proposed mine or a prospect, the fight over the ballot measure crafted to stop it has widened to what sounds like a battle between miners and fishermen.

Each side, however, claims to want to protect an industry without harming the other.

In support of Ballot Measure 4 is Alaskans for Clean Water.

Switzer, senior technical adviser with the organization, said the measure would simply return Alaska’s mining regulations to their former state of prohibiting mining companies from dumping pollutants where salmon spawn.

“Prior to Frank Murkowski becoming governor, the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation had a regulation prohibiting discharge of mine waste into salmon spawning streams,” Switzer said. “Murkowski rolled that regulation back and replaced it with a mixing zone, which is a portion of a stream or river where they can dump mine waste into.”

He said the measure “restores protection to salmon spawning streams and prohibits discharge of mine waste into them.”

Against the measure is Alaskans Against the Mining Shutdown. Its campaign director, Lyford Willis, said the measure will burden mining operations with unnecessary limits and regulations.

“Alaska already has strong rules for water quality and regulating pollutants,” Willis said. “We have other industries, other industrial facilities in Alaska that do have water quality issues — fish rendering plants, sewage treatment — there are folks violating water quality standards there. But in the measure they put forth, they singled out mining.”

And, he said, the wording of the measure is so vague that it would open up the mining industry to litigation.

“It’s poorly written. We can’t know the impact long term,” Willis said. “There’s a vast amount of uncertainty about what this will do.”

He said that at the Alaska Supreme Court hearing on whether the Alaska Clean Water Act could go before voters, one of the justices questioned the act’s clarity to Alaska voters after an hearing an hour of debate on the meaning of the act.

Switzer said the claim that Ballot Measure 4 is on legally fuzzy ground is false and a ruse to confuse voters into thinking they can’t understand the measure and that they should oppose it.

He said an act sends direction to legislators and regulators, and that the ballot measure would make it illegal for mining companies to dump toxic pollutants that will “adversely affect human health or the life cycle of salmon.”

The battle continues
Alaskans for Clean Water says that if Alaska votes “no” on Ballot Measure 4, Alaska’s fisheries will be vulnerable to destruction.

Alaskans Against the Mining Shutdown says that if it votes “yes,” mine development will be impeded throughout Alaska.

Both sides are deploying advertising campaigns via television, radio and print in the last month of the battle for Alaskans’ votes. When the dust settles Aug. 26, the side on Ballot Measure 4 with the most votes will win.

But what the winner will claim is also an issue of contention.

Switzer said the legislature could “sit on the bill for two years and it’ll go away,” if it wants, and that passing the measure would in large part send a message to the state legislature that the public supports Ballot Measure 4 and it’s now safe to publicly oppose Pebble Mine.

Shively said that if the act is passed new laws or regulations will be written that the Pebble Partnership and mines in general will have to abide by and that, moreover, it could “make people with capital think twice about investing in Alaska.”

Mary Lochner can be reached at (907) 348-2438, or (800) 770-9830, ext. 438.

Growing energy demands a cold reality for Manokotak

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 13:03:00 -0800

Manokotak faces periodic, long-term fuel shortages if it doesn’t take action soon.

That’s according to Manokotak Natives Ltd. administrator Nancy George, who said the village’s projected fuel needs exceed storage capabilities.

And, as fuel costs go up, the amount the village can afford to purchase per order goes down.

The village’s population has been growing, George said. Manokotak’s residents numbered 385 in 1990, according to the U.S. census, and now stand at a little more than 400.

New facilities, such as a health clinic and apartment complex, have upped the village’s energy needs. With the upgrade of the local airport, now under construction, George said she expects the upward trend in both Manokotak’s population and energy consumption to continue.

The village can store, at most, 35,000 gallons of gasoline.

Manokotak Natives Ltd., which purchases the village’s fuel, tries to keep that topped off after the last fuel barge shipment in autumn.

But sometimes its supply dwindles before the ice breaks and warmer weather brings the following spring’s first fuel barge.

This year, Manokotak’s gas supply ran out in mid-May. The village ordered batches in by air until its fuel barge, which was due June 6, arrived late to the village on June 25.

But it still suffered periods when there was no gas to be had.

And for the batches that did come in, the barge’s tardiness was costly: Manokotak residents paid $9.85 per gallon for the last batch of gas shipped in by air before the barge finally arrived.

One proposed solution is to get more storage tanks.

George said the village corporation is looking for funds to get extra gas tanks, to double the amount of gasoline storage to 70,000 gallons.

“Even if we find grants or have capability to add gas tanks for storage, it wouldn’t happen right away,” George said, “It will require environmental assessment. There’s a lot of regulations we have to go through in order to get something like that into our community.”

Out-of-reach prices
Storage capacity isn’t much of a worry for Manokotak when it comes to heating oil, which the village uses for heating and electricity.

But Manokotak Natives Ltd.’s ability to purchase enough heating oil to reach maximum capacity is a growing concern.

Manokotak can store up to 150,000 gallons of heating oil. But it could only afford to buy 100,000 gallons of heating oil so far this year, which will likely fall short of the village’s heating oil needs, George said. The village power plant will likely use 90,000 gallons of that from now through April, she said.

The village corporation hopes to purchase 50,000 gallons of heating oil with the last fall barge to top it off. But George said it might not be able to afford that purchase, if continually increasing fuel prices rise to levels that are out of MNL’s reach.

If that happens, Manokotak residents could have more worries next spring than they did in spring of this year, when villagers had to walk to work and go to Dillingham by skiff or air taxi to buy gas.

Without heating oil, the lights will go out in Manokotak. Food stored in freezers will spoil. And without heating oil to heat homes, lingering winter days will reach their icy fingers indoors.

Last year, when the village corporation bought 140,000 gallons of heating oil, it just barely managed to stretch its supply out until the spring fuel barge came, and even then only by rationing heating oil during spring and early summer.

For the long term, Manokotak is looking to wind energy, in the hopes it could reduce the village’s dependence and money spent on fossil fuels. A test tower has been monitoring local wind speeds since it was erected in September.

Doug Vaught is a consultant with V3 Energy, the company contracted to collect and analyze Manokotak’s wind data.

Data on wind energy resources are categorized into classes of wind power.

Vaught said it would be premature to identify a wind class for Manokotak before a year’s worth of data has been collected. But he said the Bristol Bay area tends to have a wind class of around three.

A wind class rating of four or higher is “preferred for large-scale wind plants,” according to the American Wind Energy Association Web site.

But Vaught said that a wind energy resource of a lower class could still offer economic benefits if harnessed for rural Alaska villages. He added that V3 Energy offers basic economic modeling to explore the feasibility of a wind project, as well as collecting and analyzing wind data.

“It all depends on the price of fuel,” Vaught said. “What’s the cost to do a project, vs. fuel you’re displacing. The higher the fuel prices, the lower the wind class that’s potentially viable.”

Individual responsibility
Fuel price increases could affect residents’ pattern of energy use as well.

If that happens, Manokotak resident Anecia Lomack will already be well ahead of the curve. The retired school teacher and full-time homemaker boasts the village’s lowest monthly heating oil use, George said.

Lomack said she and her husband use an oil stove and a wood stove to heat their home, but that they try to use the wood stove as much as possible. She said they’re considering making a full switch to heating from wood.

“We have a nice-looking oil stove here,” Lomack said. “But my husband was saying he wants to change it to a wood stove, because fuel is getting too expensive.”

At their lodge, where the Lomacks board visitors, they use a Monitor-brand oil stove, which Lomack said is more efficient than the oil stove they keep at home.

During the gas shortage in Manokotak, Lomack said she mostly stayed at home. But that isn’t really a viable long-term solution for her or for many residents. The main village is several miles away from Lomack’s house, and other residents share her predicament.

Life without fuel
It wasn’t just that Lomack had to cease taking car trips during Manokotak’s gas shortages. There were other changes, too — even the fish tasted different.

Typically, Lomack said, villagers would have headed between 25 and 30 miles out from the village in June, toward the mouth of the Igushik River.

That’s where they’d catch salmon that has the oily texture Lomack is used to.

Instead, Lomack said, people started putting nets down just below the village.

But the salmon there is more slender fare. As salmon swim upriver, past the village and toward spawning grounds, they grow thinner and lose their fat-stored energy.

Staying put in the village was one thing. Staying put in her house wore on her more.

Without gasoline to fill her car, Lomack said she felt cooped up in her home.

“I like to do a lot of computer work here at my house and housework. Usually I like to take a break, go down to the Weary River. It’s just free down there — more breezy.

It’s by yourself and you can enjoy the fresh air. The hardest part is not having enough fuel to do that.”

Mary Lochner can be reached at (907) 348-2480 or toll free at (800) 770-9830, ext. 480.

Village grandmother’s visit a trip through time

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 13:02:00 -0800

These pictures document the first and only trip made by my wife’s grandmother, Anna Anuska Yako, to Anchorage during the Fur Rendezvous in the winter of 1971. She spent her whole life in Aleknagik and Wood River in Bristol Bay, and never ventured to any other areas with all the 20th century conveniences.

My wife and I invited her to visit with us for a few days to see her great-grandchildren.

It was the most amazing thing to witness a person of this age — Anna was in her late 80s — see and do things we take for granted.

Her first time watching TV, she walked to the side of the cabinet to see where the people went. While crossing the J.C. Penney skywalk, she placed one hand over the other on the rail, because the cars passing underneath made her nervous.

Going up the escalator in the J.C. Penney store took some time, because she didn’t understand the procedure of putting one hand on the rail, while taking a step at the same time. But she finally managed it and enjoyed the ride.

When she looked into a full length, three-way mirror and saw three of her, it put the biggest grin on her face, and ours too.

After an afternoon of taking in the sights of downtown Anchorage, we took the elevator to the Crows Nest at the Captain Cook Hotel. Again, smiles showed on her face as her stomach did flip-flops on the ride up.

We sat at the bar looking out through the windows, with a view of Cook Inlet. Anna started talking in her Native language about the replica Captain Cook ship in the glass case. She was saying how she had seen big ships with all the sails like that in the Dillingham area, when she was a child.

I called the newspaper to see if they would do a story on Anna, but because she did not wear her Alaska Native attire, they were not interested.

Anna was embarrassed to wear any of the clothing she had made from the furs she had trapped and tanned over the years, because she thought they would make her stand out in Anchorage.

She wore a black winter coat, plain black boots, and a babushka, because she wanted to fit in.

This is just one of many stories I will always remember in the land that I have come to call my home, Alaska.

Ron Berger lives in Anchorage with his wife, Anna Yako, whose family is originally from the Bristol Bay area. Berger can be contacted at berger@gci.net.

Examining the propsects for exploration at Pebble

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 12:56:00 -0800

On Monday, July 14, and Monday, July 21, the Pebble Partnership flew members of the media to Iliamna for helicopter tours of its mining exploration operations at the Pebble Prospect. The Pebble Partnership, a joint corporation between Northern Dynasty and Anglo American, is in the exploration and pre-permitting phase for the site.

Sean Magee, director of public affairs for the Pebble Partnership, said if the company finds it has a feasible project, it could apply for permits in late 2009 or early 2010.

The Bristol BayTimes participated in the first of the two media tours in July, which included a visit to an exploration drilling rig at Pebble, a view of the Pebble site from a hill that site managers called “Observation Hill,” and a tour of the “core shack,” where Pebble geologists catalog and test samples taken from exploration drilling.

Universities launch effort to debunk Native stereotypes

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 12:44:00 -0800

A university program that aims to get students talking about touchy subjects will spend the coming school year dispelling myths about Alaska Natives.

Many students and professors at the University of Alaska Anchorage are woefully misinformed about Alaska’s indigenous people, a situation that leads to stereotyping and can make Native students uncomfortable, said John Dede, special assistant to the vice provost.

It’s likely one factor in the group’s high dropout rates, he said.

“I think there’s a perception that Alaska Natives are white people under different skin,” Dede said. “And they are not. They come from different cultures with a different world view, and understanding that will be a realization for a lot of people.”

To overcome the problem, a group of academicians, with help from Native leaders and others, are publishing a 100-page handbook that debunks Native myths, Dede said.

The university and neighboring Alaska Pacific University will give the book to some 600 professors and provide 900 free copies to students.

The effort is part of a stepped-up Books of the Year program, a third-year partnership between the universities to juice up debate in lecture halls and classrooms.

Last year, the project distributed copies of “The Handmaid’s Tale” and “The Swallows of Kabul,” works that tackle themes of religious extremism. Teachers added the books to lesson plans and panels discussed them, said Dede, the program’s coordinator.

This year, in addition to the handbook, the reading list consists of two other books.

Some 900 freshmen on both campuses will get free copies of “Yuuyaraq: The Way of the Human Being” by Yup’ik author Harold Napoleon. The book explores the social devastation caused by Western-brought diseases that wracked Natives — sometimes leaving entire villages abandoned — from the late 18th to early 20th centuries.

The third book — “Growing up Native in Alaska” by historian A.J. McClanahan — features interviews with more than two dozen Alaska Natives about their search for self-identity.

This year, UAA boosted funding for the book project fivefold, from $10,000 to $50,000, as part of its effort to create more Native graduates, Dede said. The extra money will pay for the companion book’s publication and support special events such as guest lecturers and cultural events.

Only 10 percent of the university’s Native students get bachelor’s degrees in six years or less, in part because they feel out of place, according to a recent study.

The new handbook, which treats topics such as subsistence, Native corporations and tribal governments, is titled after a common question heard on campus:

“Do Alaska Native people get free medical care?”

The book’s reply is detailed, but the short answer on the cover is, “No, they paid in advance.”

The federal government foots the medical bills for Alaska Natives and American Indians as compensation for land it took. The payments are rooted in historical land treaties.

Phyllis Fast, a Koyukon Athabascan and UAA associate professor, said students often enter her introductory anthropology course confused about Natives. They sometimes ask resentful questions about benefits Natives receive.

She doesn’t know if that’s why some Native students leave her class before it’s done.

“That quiet dropout is hard to assess. What’s more important is that we reduce the number of people who feel alienated and uncomfortable in a class situation,” she said.

Fast answered this question in the handbook: “Are there reservations in Alaska?”

The answer: All but one – Metlakatla – were abolished in 1971 when the federal government passed the Alaska Native Land Claims Settlement Act. The act created regional and local Native corporations that manage land and resources to benefit Natives.

Libby Roderick, associate director of the Center for Advancing Faculty Excellence, edited the book. Contributors include Heather Kendall-Miller, an Anchorage attorney for the Native American Rights Fund, and Larry Merculief, an Aleut and former commissioner of the Alaska Department of Commerce and Economic Development.

Roderick said Natives and their perspectives are “radically underrepresented” in higher education, so it’s not surprising many, especially from rural villages, don’t feel at home at UAA.

“A lot of students feel like they’re in a foreign land,” she said.

Many Natives come from a background that places relationships above productivity and may not be accustomed to the culture of deadlines, lonely study halls and teachers with little patience.

“I’ve been in the presence of too many Alaska Native friends who have really had to struggle to survive higher education settings,” she said. “I’ve been with people weeping about how hard it is.”

The book, which will be handed out free at UAA’s bookstore, will likely be used by professors of numerous stripes — from business to science to liberal arts — because it covers a wide array of topics, Roderick said.

She hopes it will be reprinted and outlive this Book of the Year project, since it can help everyone from tourists to K-12 educators to new Alaska residents.

“It can have an impact way beyond the borders of our campus,” she said.

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

Tinkerer hopes to create compact biodiesel machine

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 12:43:00 -0800

Is it possible to create an oil-rendering machine that’s small enough to fit on cargo planes?

Patrick Simpson is trying to figure that out.

The goal is to create oil from fish waste and eventually biodiesel fuel. The fuel could be used in small villages and larger communities for everything from generating electricity to powering snow machines.

“We’re trying to solve a very serious problem, energy needs for the Bush,” said Simpson, the Cordova-born owner of an Anchorage technology company.

Among other things, Scientific Fisheries Systems Inc., or SciFish as the company is called, has built sonar systems that count smolt in the Bristol Bay region.

The company is using a Small Business Innovation Research grant to explore whether such a machine can be invented and if it’s feasible to operate it in rural Alaska.

Right now, machines that render oil from food waste are huge, he said. The smallest he’s found is 30,000 tons. It won’t fit on Bush cargo planes.

Simpson is talking with food manufacturers around the world who render oil for energy use, in hopes they can create a smaller machine.

He’s also talked with people from Cordova and Dillingham about providing the waste.

The SBIR grant is separate from an $180,000 state grant that’s encouraging people to find a portable oil-rendering machine that can be transported between communities.

The Alaska Energy Authority announced that grant last month and will award it by December, said James Jensen, an AEA assistant project manager.

Simpson said he might apply for that grant.

Simpson said he’s looking for other Alaska communities that might provide large amounts of fish waste for the project. To contact him, call 907-563-3474 or e-mail pat@scifish.com.

Rural life opens cabinet secretary’s eyes

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 12:20:00 -0800

A member of President Bush’s Cabinet walked away from a tour of a Western Alaska village with a better understanding of the problems that make Alaska Natives one of the country’s most ailing populations.

“This is just unacceptable,” said Mike Leavitt, who heads the Department of Health and Human Services, as he stared at a festering sewage lagoon on the edge of Kwethluk, a Yup’ik village of about 750.

Frothy, olive-colored “Honeybucket Lake,” as residents call it, is where the village dumps its feces because, like dozens of rural Alaska communities, it lacks flush toilets and running water.

Diapers, toilet paper and plastic trash bags sat in the muck and ringed the muddy banks. A wide trail of trash rose up a far bank.

“When it floods, it seeps out,” mixing with floodwaters that reach town and turn dirt roads into a soupy mess, said tribal administrator Herman Evan.

He and other village leaders suggested that may be one reason children often miss school with diarrhea, fevers and other illnesses. Also, the lack of tap water makes it difficult to wash hands – most villagers draw their drinking water from the Kwethluk River.

Leavitt, a lean man who peppered people with questions and folded his hands as he listened, flew to Bethel and Kwethluk in a government jet on Wednesday during a three-day swing through Alaska.

He said he requested the Southwest Alaska tour to understand the unique challenges facing Bush health care and to see solutions offered by the tribal-run hospital that provides services across the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta.

Toward the end of the day, he said the trip gave him an eye-opening view of village life that will lead to better-informed decisions as he reviews budgets totaling in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

“I have seen people living in remote, impoverished conditions all over the world, but there’s a uniqueness to what I saw here in Alaska,” he said.

He said he was impressed with the high “degree of ingenuity” and passion employed by health aides, administrators and others who are trying to fix the problems.

Throughout the day, Leavitt, HHS secretary since 2005, got an earful from health care officials and other leaders of the Y-K Delta, one of the nation’s poorest regions.

The day started with a visit to a behavioral health center in Bethel, where psychiatrists, teachers and other experts help troubled boys recover from a history of huffing gas and other inhalants.

Dan Winkelman, general counsel for the Bethel-based Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corp., which operates the region’s lone hospital and dozens of village clinics, presented grim statistics on an overhead projector.

Native women have the highest cancer mortality rates in the nation, and Native men aren’t far behind, Winkelman said.

He and others pointed out that Natives suffer the nation’s highest rates of dental disease and are plagued by diabetes, suicide, respiratory illnesses, obesity and accidental deaths often caused by alcohol.

They offered reasons for the illnesses, such as limited access to hospitals and a lack of flush toilets and easily available drinking water. Other reasons mentioned include dust clouds that fill villages during windy summers and a changing diet with more processed foods and less wild meat. Many Natives also make poor personal choices, using drugs, drinking liquor or eating too much junk food, they said.

Health care improvements have been made in recent years. YKHC has built dozens of clinics and employs health aides in 50 communities who provide basic care. It’s also capitalizing on telemedicine, even providing patients with psychiatrists through videoconferences at the Bethel hospital.

And it recently launched a program to put dental health aides in villages. The aides are a step below dentists and can extract and fill cavities.

But the officials told Leavitt the system needed more money to hire health care professionals, study illnesses and to build facilities such as a regional nursing home in Bethel so dying elders are no longer sent 400 miles to Anchorage.

Around noon, during the skiff ride along the glassy Kuskowkim River linking Bethel to Kwethluk, Leavitt traded in shiny dress shoes for a pair of rubber boots and slipped a float coat over his blue jacket.

In the village, the scent of burning plastic wafted past visitors, perhaps the result of smoke coiling from trash mounds at the dump. Children pedaled bikes and the occasional four-wheeler sped down muddy roads that residents said become impassable when winter snow melts into spring.

A stout woman in a fleece jacket stood on a porch outside the bingo hall, saying village leaders had waited more than an hour for Leavitt and his entourage.

“My butt is sore from sitting,” she said, shaking hands with the secretary.

“There’s not much I can do about that,” he said. “There’s not much you’d like me to do about that.”

Inside the dusty hall, where mosquitoes whirred above plywood floors and colorful bingo posters adorned walls, village leaders described their village’s wide-ranging problems.

George Guy, the village corporation’s business manager, described the poverty that stems from few jobs and said the village deserves the same amenities as the rest of the country, including flush toilets and tap water.

“Maybe you can relay the message to President Bush that we live in a Third World country,” Guy said.

During the Kwethluk visit, which included a tour of the new clinic, Leavitt seemed especially taken by Evan, the tribal administrator who trouped Leavitt and his entourage through the village.

Leavitt asked Evan why he chose to live in Kwethluk.

Evan, a graying man with black hiking boots, said he was educated at a tribal college in Kansas and lived in the Lower 48 for two decades but returned to his village because he wanted to help improve life for his relatives.

The tribal government can’t afford to pay Evan full-time, so he volunteers after noon each day, trying to speed up a project that should bring running water to the village, battling river erosion and looking for money to improve roads.
Leavitt, who doesn’t expect to continue as secretary once Bush leaves office in January, cautioned that he couldn’t simply write a check to fix rural Alaska’s health care problems, though he wished he could.

But on the return skiff ride to Bethel, he said he’ll have a better idea how the department should spend its money in rural Alaska in the next two years.

“For example, I’ll ask how much can be allocated to sanitation, and I’ll think of Herman instead of just looking at numbers and I’ll say to myself, ‘This is unacceptable.’”

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

Brown Jug stores sold to Canadian company

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 13:47:00 -0800

The largest independent chain of liquor stores in Anchorage has been purchased by a Canadian company.

Liquor Stores Income Fund of Edmonton, Alberta, signed an agreement to acquire all19 liquor stores owned by Brown Jug, according the Web site Quote.com. The acquisition is subject to completion of due diligence, customary closing conditions, and regulatory approvals. Closing is anticipated to take place by December 2008.

Brown Jug and its predecessors have been in the liquor retailing business in greater Anchorage for more than 50 years. In Alaska, there are reportedly 378 retail liquor outlets and approximately 88 stores in the greater Anchorage area. The fund’s managers say Brown Jug's sales represent about a 20 percent market share. The state of Alaska is said to have a favorable regulatory environment, limiting the number of stores in the state to 1 per 3,000 people in urban areas.

"We are very pleased with the planned acquisition of the Brown Jug stores as our initial entry into the U.S. market, as well as the addition of our new Canadian stores,” said Irving Kipnes, CEO of the fund. “Management estimates that the 19 Brown Jug stores will add in excess of 12 percent to current revenue levels in their first full year of operation.”

Liquor Stores Income Fund is a publicly traded Canadian income trust that participates in the retail liquor industry in Alberta, British Columbia, and Nova Scotia.

Russian hams bound for Aleutian ‘DX-pedition’

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 11:45:00 -0800

When a person is passionate about their hobby, they’ll do things for it that may look strange to the outside world. Perhaps it’s personal trainer for a purebred pooch, or a dangerous ascent up an uncharted mountain peak.

For Yuri Sushkin, it’s packing 925 pounds of equipment and supplies to a remote, volcanic island in the Aleutians and camping out for a week, all so he can say:
“CQ, CQ, CQ, this is KL7DX.”

That’s because Sushkin’s passion is amateur radio, often called ham radio. “Hams” such as Sushkin use radio to “CQ” (a call-out that combines “hello” and “is anyone there?”) and make contact with other amateur radio operators all over the world.

They do it as a hobby and also as a public service. In times of emergency or natural disaster, amateur radio is often the only means of communication available when phone lines or cellular networks fail.

The International Amateur Radio Union estimates that there are approximately 2.5 million amateur radio operators active in more than 100 countries. Heather Hasper, chair of the American Radio Relay League 2008 Alaska Hamfest Convention, said that there are 3,564 registered operators in Alaska.

Most of these operators are in rural communities such as Barrow, Bethel, Nome and Kotzebue. The major restriction on operators is that they can’t use amateur radio for commercial purposes, but it has many other uses.

Hasper said that in Nome and many other communities, operators link their stations together in a series of “repeaters,” stations that are all set up to catch and broadcast the same signal. It’s an efficient if not private way of relaying information that is similar to the party lines of early telephone.

“In the Bush, when you don’t have the phone, you use radio,” Hasper said. “Definitely when you go out to the Bush you meet people where you go out to their cabin and there’s this big (radio) tower.”

Hasper noted that knowing how to operate on amateur radio is a kind of self-sufficiency, making it particularly suited to remote places such as rural Alaska. To become a ham operator you need the right equipment, back-up power and technical know-how, which is all that you’d need to send out a mayday or connect to communities if the phone lines went down.

Sushkin said he got his start in amateur radio while living in Novosibirsk, Russia. He has since moved to Sudden Valley, Wash. While Novosibirsk is a metropolis — the third-largest city in Russia after Moscow and St. Petersburg — during the Soviet era it wasn’t easy to talk with people in other countries, and amateur radio allowed Sushkin to do just that.

“When I started it was the ’80s, and we didn’t have much as far as international phone calls in Russia,” said Sushkin. “So I thought that was interesting and you can do it from home.”

In most cases, all a person needs to be a ham and reach out to the world is the right radio equipment, which can cost as little as $150 and a license. But today, Sushkin is not an operator who is content to merely travel the airwaves.

This week, Sushkin and three others — Yuri Zaruba, Sergey Morozov and Victor Vasilenko (all of Russia) – will attempt to construct a temporary station on Chuginadak Island, a 14-mile-long speck on the Bering Sea that’s dominated by Mount Cleveland, the most active volcano in the Aleutians.

It’s not a sense of adventure that drives him to this remote, eruptive place. Left to his own devices, Sushkin said that he prefers “normal traveling, normal camping” with his family.

“It’s too far, too difficult and too unpredictable,” Sushkin said. “Without the radio there’s not much purpose in going.”

Sushkin and his teammates, all members of an international amateur radio organization called the Russian Robinson Club, are bound for this particular island because it has never been the site of an amateur broadcast before.

“It’s like the discovery of a new island, it’s like opening it up,” said Sushkin. “There are not many of these unopened islands left.”

In amateur radio terms, what Sushkin and his teammates are doing is called a “DX-pedition.” The goal of a DX-pedition is for one or more operators to set up a station in a remote or unusual place then make contact with as many hams around the world as possible.

Once a ham makes contact, the Chuginadak crew will request their “QRZ,” amateur radiospeak for asking what someone’s name is (in this case, their call sign or operator’s identification), as well as some other information about their location and transmission.

After contact has been made and recorded, Sushkin and his team will issue the ham a certificate, called a QSL card, that can count towards an amateur radio-operating award.

Like the prospect of a Mickey Mantle rookie card or a signed, first-edition Hemingway, the opportunity to contact a really remote place can draw thousands of avid collectors who are gathering QSL cards for their next award.

If all goes according to plan, the team will give everyone a chance to QRZ the Chuginadak station, which will be called KL7DX.

The Russian Robinson team will arrive in Dutch Harbor on July 17 and depart on the Miss Alyssa, heading southwest to Chuginadak Island on July 21, with a small detour to Nikolski. Sushkin said that he hopes to have KL7DX up and running by July 22.

From then until July 27, the four operators will make as many contacts as possible, with two operators fielding calls at a time while the other two sleep and take care of camp.

That is the plan, but Sushkin is the first to point out that there are a lot of uncertainties. If electromagnetic conditions are poor, the radio waves may not be strong enough for them to pull the signal. If the weather is really bad, they might not even make it to the island — or they might get stuck once they get there.

Sushkin said that in addition to radios, antenna, batteries, a computer and other equipment, the group is bringing a satellite phone, the Coast Guard’s phone number and enough supplies to last a month.

It appears that even in the community of DX-pedition enthusiasts, it’s considered to be an extreme mission.

The Russian Robinson Web site has this description of the trip to Chuginadak: “Key words to describe how extreme and tough this DX-pedition will be are: uninhabited island, active volcano, very remote, autonomous expedition ... no 10 stores to shop at ... no TV, no TVI, no cellular phones, no girls, no civilization, no nothing.”

Sushkin said that the trip costs, currently at about $30,000, were privately funded by donations from team members, communications equipment manufacturers and other amateur radio operators. That’s an expensive jaunt for “no nothing.”

However, when asked why he doesn’t just enjoy his radio at home and collect his own QSL cards, Sushkin gave an answer that would resonate with anyone who has felt awkward at a party because they didn’t have someone to talk with.

“If you are just an amateur radio operator and you’re in Sudden Valley (Washington state) where there are many other operators, people on the other end may or may not be interested in talking to you,” Sushkin said. “But when you operate out of a place that is very unusual, you feel like a DX — a very rare station. In this case, you get this adrenaline rush and you have to work fast and right, because if you make a mistake, they don’t get their card.

“It’s a feeling of importance — giving people the ability to contact this place,” Sushkin added.

The Russian Robinson team (minus Sushkin, who promised his wife he’d go on a “normal vacation” with his family after his DX-pedition) will give a presentation on their expedition at the American Radio Relay League 2008 Alaska Hamfest, held at the Anchorage Sheraton, Aug. 1-4. For more information about this event, visit www.akhamfest.com.

Victoria Barber can be reached at (907) 348-2424 or toll free at (800) 770-9830, ext. 424.

Rasmuson Foundation awards $12 million to nonprofits

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 10:59:00 -0800

Twenty-nine nonprofits that provide a wide range of benefits to Alaskans were selected for a collective $12 million investment by Rasmuson Foundation.

Following are some of the nonprofits receiving grants:

• The Yuut Elitnaurviat People’s Learning Center in Bethel received $495,000 for the completion of the interior build-out of an educational center.

• The Tlingit-Haida Regional Housing Authority in Juneau received $780,000 to renovate and expand the Klawock Senior Supportive Housing facility on Prince of Wales Island. The project will increase housing units for seniors from 10 to 18, create elevator access to the second floor and renovate the existing kitchen and lunchroom into a “day facility” that can comfortably accommodate additional seniors for meals and socialization.

• The Alaska Native Heritage Center in Anchorage received $168,700 to complete Games of the North, a feature film that explores the hundreds of games that, over generations, were adapted from the unique skills needed to survive in the diverse environments of Alaska. The film’s storyline follows four athletes as they jump, kick, carry, and wrestle their way through traditional sport competitions in the circumpolar Arctic. The film is being produced by Starseed Media with co-writer Phillip Blanchett.

• The Koahnic Broadcast Corp. in Anchorage received $200,000 to support the Native Program Fund Sustainability project.

• The Metlakatla Indian Community in Metlakatla received $150,000 to renovate the Town Hall and improve its energy efficiency.

• The Kodiak Historical Society in Kodiak received $123,000 to preserve the Russian American Store, which is designated as a national historic landmark and houses the Baranov Museum. The building was constructed in 1808 by the Russian-American Co. and has three distinctions: it is the oldest building in Alaska, it is one of only four remaining Russian-era structures in the United States, and it is the earliest documented log building on the west coast.

• The Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes received $54,930 to improve the Head Start playground in Wrangell by constructing a cover over the existing play equipment. In a community that receives more than 80 inches of rain per year and significant winter snowfall, a covered playground will encourage more children and families to spend time in outdoor play.

Oil exploration one step closer in northeast NPRA

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 12:49:00 -0800

The Bureau of Land Management plans to hold a lease sale this fall in the northeast portion of National Petroleum Reserve – Alaska, officials in Washington D.C announced today.

“This action sets the stage for a major lease sale this fall. This is welcome news at a time when Americans are paying record prices at the pump,” said C. Stephen Allred, assistant secretary for Land and Minerals.

At the same lease sale, the BLM also plans to offer land in the northwest portion of the NPR-A.

This lease sale has been derailed for at least two years after much legal action including a lawsuit by several conservation organizations and the North Slope Borough that challenged the completeness of the data included in the Environmental Impact Assessment.

“The rapid increase in energy costs facing our nation is driven by a worldwide imbalance in energy supply and demand,” Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne said.

“Developing the NPR-A in an environmentally sound manner will contribute to our domestic oil and natural gas supplies. Together with new production from other offshore and onshore areas, these increased supplies will help stabilize energy costs.”

The bureau estimates that about 8.4 billion barrels of oil can be produced from lands in the Northeast and Northwest portions of NPRA, in addition to trillions of cubic feet of natural gas.

“This decision provides for the protection of high value wildlife, including waterfowl and caribou, and meets the subsistence needs of North Slope residents while making lands with oil and gas potential available for leasing," said BLM-Alaska State Director Tom Lonnie.

The plan includes protections for the polar bear, including requirements to consider impacts on areas used by polar bears for denning.

Additionally, with the listing of the polar bear the agency will continue to work closely with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on future oil and gas activities.

According to the Record of Decision signed by Allred, the BLM defers leasing for 10 years on land currently unavailable for leasing north and east of Teshekpuk Lake.

State won't put Yup'ik on ballots

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 12:56:00 -0800

The state of Alaska cannot legally be required to provide written voting materials in Yup’ik.

The ruling, made Tuesday, July 8, by U.S. District Judge Timothy Burgess, was handed down just before a three-judge panel heard arguments on whether the state of Alaska and the city of Bethel should be required, by court order, to provide Yup'ik-speaking voters with other forms of language assistance in upcoming elections.

Such assistance would include Yup’ik-speaking translators.

There is no date set on when the panel of federal judges will hand down their ruling.

Burgess' ruling was based on a section of the Voting Rights Act that declares that, if a language is “historically unwritten,” a state would only have to provide oral voting assistance for speakers of that minority language.

In the late 19th century, Russian missionaries developed a form of written Yup’ik with Cyrillic. A more widely used version of written Yup’ik with English letters was developed by missionaries of the Moravian church in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta in the early 20th century.

Modern written Yup’ik was developed in the 1960s by Native Yup’ik speakers working in collaboration with linguists at the University of Alaska. The modern form replaced the old Moravian standard. It was disseminated in Yup’ik-English bilingual curricula and is used to this day.

When delivering his ruling, Burgess said that, in interpreting the definition of “historically unwritten,” he considered that the statute does not concern whether a language is currently written but whether it was a written language in the past.

He said that “one or two generations” of Yup’ik speakers using written Yup’ik did not constitute a historically written language.

After the ruling, the three-judge panel heard arguments on what, if any, help to Yup’ik-speaking voters the state and city of Bethel could be required by court order to provide, in time for primary elections Aug. 26 and general elections Nov. 4.

Plaintiffs in the suit are four Yup’ik elders and four Yup’ik village traditional councils in the Bethel area.

During the July 8 hearing, lawyers for the Yup'ik speakers set forth a list of criteria that would, in their view, be sufficient assistance provided by state and city government for Yup’ik speakers to be able to vote this fall.

At the top of the list is the provision of federal observers to document whether the help that governments offer to Yup’ik-speaking voters is implemented and whether it is effective.

The Native American Rights Fund and the American Civil Liberties Union are representing the plaintiffs.

Natalie Landreth, counsel for NARF, said that, while the state has recently ramped up efforts to help Yup’ik speakers to vote, “What they have done is inadequate.”

She added, “We’re seeing bits and pieces of the voting experiences being offered. They’ve stepped forward. But they’re not quite there.”

Sarah Felix, counsel for the state of Alaska, argued a court order was unnecessary. She said the state of Alaska recently hired a Yup’ik translator to coordinate statewide assistance to Yup’ik speaking voters and that it now plans to provide a translator in all 38 voting precincts in the Bethel census area in time for the primary and general elections.

The translators would read aloud an approved written translation of the ballot to Yup’ik-speaking voters, Felix said.

Felix also said the state would let Yup’ik speakers know that help will be available to them so that they can vote. She said the state would do this by placing advertisements on local radio stations in Yup’ik and English and by making and distributing a poster.

When asked by U.S. Circuit Judge M. Margaret McKeown whether the poster advertising help at the polls for Yup’ik speakers would be printed in English and Yup’ik, Felix responded, “We will have that poster in English.”

She added her understanding of Burgess’ ruling was that the state could not be required to provide voting materials that were written in Yup’ik.

“How hard would it be to simply print that poster in Yup’ik?” McKeown asked.

“I don’t know how hard it would be, but I know the policy decision needs to be made by the lieutenant governor,” Felix said.

Gabriel Guest, vice president of the Kasigluk Traditional Council — which is one of the plaintiffs in the case — observed the hearing along with several others who had traveled from the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta for the court proceeding.

He said there are about 10 elders in his village of 600 who speak only Yup’ik and don’t speak or understand any English, but many more whose first language is Yup’ik and who understand and speak it much better than English. Guest estimated about 80 percent of adults in his village fall in that category.

He said there have never been any translators assigned to his voting precinct to help Yup’ik speakers, but sometimes bilingual members of the community will volunteer to help an elder who wants to vote.

He said that, if a translator were on hand to read aloud a Yup’ik version of the ballot, it would make voting much less confusing to many people in his area.

He said he is especially concerned about those elders who only speak Yup’ik.

“Most of them don’t vote,” he said. “I think if this thing passes, they would vote.”

Mary Lochner can be reached at (907) 348-2438 or (800) 770-9830, ext. 438.

Former Bethel councilman stretches his legs

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 12:20:00 -0800

Andrei Jacobs needed to take a long walk.

He’d just lost his job, his house burned down and he was homeless.

So when his brother, Julien, told him about a cross-nation march to raise awareness about the need to protect sacred Native American sites, he jumped at the chance.

“It took me 10 minutes to decide,” he said.

Growing up, he had been inspired about the walk his mother once took.

In 1963, Blanche Jacobs, the paralegal from Bethel and once-pioneer health aide in Kongiganak village, joined the flood of people that marched through Washington, D.C., in support of civil rights. She was there at the Lincoln Memorial when Martin Luther King Jr. declared his dreams.

Andrei, part black, part Yup’ik and a former Bethel councilman, grew up hearing that story and others about Mom’s selfless public service. He always wanted to follow in her footsteps, to be part of a national crusade. This year’s march from San Francisco to Washington, D.C., gave him that chance.

“This is the most meaningful thing I can do that I know of,” said Andrei Jacobs, speaking by cell phone from a gas station in a Maryland town, where a support vehicle was getting a flat fixed.

Since traveling to New Mexico and joining the Longest Walk 2 — Jacobs joined late, in April — he’s walked through nine states, worn out two pairs of sneakers and dropped 15 pounds from his already slender frame.

He’s logged 1,400 miles — including 200 by jogging — a distance roughly equaling the span from the Yukon River’s mouth to the Alaska Panhandle.

Jacobs said he’s part of a ragtag and increasingly tight-knit parade of some 100 people that snaked across the southern U.S. before hitting the eastern seaboard at Georgia and trudging north.

Collectively, the group has logged the entire 4,500 miles on foot.

The walk commemorates the 30th anniversary of the original Longest Walk of 1978, when Native Americans also walked from San Francisco to Washington, D.C., to raise awareness about tribal sovereignty. The effort helped halt legislation that would have nullified treaties protecting that sovereignty, according to the Website www.longestwalk.org.

This year’s commemorative journey began in February, with walkers dividing into two groups. The northern walkers traversed America’s midsection, following the original route through states like Kansas and Missouri. They’ll soon meet Jacobs and the southern walkers in the nation’s capital.

It’s Jacobs’ job to pen a “manifesto” for the groups that will be delivered to Congress on Friday. It will broadly spell out positions and goals, with a focus on protecting sites such as San Francisco Peaks.

The volcanic mountain range in northern Arizona has important religious significance for several tribes, who say plans at a snow resort to manufacture snow from wastewater would desecrate the mountain.

Jacobs said the manifesto will also call for continued protection of traditional practices such as subsistence. The document will address the needs of other indigenous people from around the world and be presented to the United Nations.

The walk has been emotional, fun, and he’s learned a lot about Native American issues, he said.

The group has trudged through furious rainstorms, been pummeled by hail and blinded in sandstorms. They’ve watched moody sunsets and endured smothering heat on hikes that often exceed 15 miles a day.

They’ve mostly camped, getting support from vehicles carrying luggage and cooking food. The walk is also part anti-litter movement: They’ve filled 3,500 trash bags with roadside refuse.

In Texas, they pushed through a rainstorm swirling with 60 mph winds.

“When you’re done with that 15 miles you’re hugging each other and just shouting.

‘Man, we did it! We did it!’” he said.

They sat out a tornado warning in Tulsa, Okla.

Thinking news of the coming storm was exaggerated, Jacobs and a friend pitched tents outside the Tulsa Indian community center when everyone else planned to sleep inside.

Andrei was savvy enough to weigh down his tent with his belongings. His friend wasn’t, and his tent cartwheeled away until it snagged in brush and Jacobs chased it down.

In Anchorage, his life had nearly fallen apart. He was couch surfing with little money — a fire in a poorly built fireplace spread to the walls of his rental house. The house was also the car rental agency where Jacobs worked, so the fire left him jobless.

In retrospect, it may have been a good thing.

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

Begich offers ideas on rural Alaska issues

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 12:13:00 -0800

Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich hosted a meet-the-candidate forum on Wednesday, July 9, at the Sam Fox Museum in Dillingham.

The stop was part of a bid for the Democratic nomination to run against incumbent Ted Steven.

Begich provided this interview with the Bristol BayTimes Thursday, June 26.

Q: The price of gas at the pump in Dillingham is six bucks a gallon, diesel is closer to seven. In your U.S. Senate campaign’s first teleconference for rural newspapers you spoke of the need for a long-term energy plan, but rural Alaska is feeling the pain now. What could be a palliative at the national level?

A: You’ve got to always keep the long term in mind. The reason we’re in this mess is because the last 40 years we’ve not had a long-term energy policy. Because of that, Alaska’s interests are in jeopardy.

The short-term solution is again on the national state level we’ve supported what the governor’s doing in regards to immediate cash infusion. On the national level there are some programs that help lower costs for low-income families, to make sure some of their fuel is paid for.

Those programs need to be funded, but I think there honestly is there is no short-term fix for this. Politicians that say that there is, aren’t being forthright with the community.

I wish I had a silver bullet so tomorrow everything’s OK. There’s a way to alleviate costs with state and federal cash infusions, but that will not solve the problem.

I’m frustrated because I think in if there were more research dollars going into alternative energy 10 years ago, we wouldn’t be in this situation.

Rural Alaska’s really started to test new alternative energies and is having great success. You look at Kotzebue with 18 windmills operating.

Q: The state Legislature recently approved $300 million in funds for alternative energy and fuel-saving projects. What would you propose as a long-term energy plan nationally that would relieve citizens from financial hits taken on energy costs?

A: I’ve laid out a fairly detailed one on my Website (www.begich.com), but the basic elements are, I believe by 2025 we could have 25 percent of energy in Alaska and across the country energized by renewable energy resources; also gain 25 percent in efficiency gains by 2018, just using more efficient systems in cars, lighting, weatherization, boiler systems, cooling systems.

Those are great goals and in order to get there we have to invest more dollars in renewable energy technology. In Alaska, the university system is poised to be a national and world leader in renewable energy technology. We’re already doing this in Fairbanks and other communities.

The problem and challenge they have is, the Energy Department on the federal level has flat-lined in dollars for energy research. It hasn’t grown at the rate it should.

We don’t have an Alaskan cause or a national cause about becoming leaders in the world on energy efficiency and renewable energy.

In Kotzebue they have a diesel-wind energy project that is world class. But the problem is, they’re having to struggle on designing a battery that stores it. Fairbanks is doing that, but the Energy Department will not support it until it’s proven. The style of the Energy Department is too cautions and not innovative enough.

Q: Congress is split on whether to offer more areas in the Lower 48 for lease to oil companies or to require oil companies to develop the leases they do have. Meanwhile, Shell recently announced it’s putting a hold on plans to drill in the Beaufort Sea due to an unresolved court challenge. Drilling in the North Aleutian Basin is in the public hearing phase. What in your view is the best policy for Alaska and the nation on offshore drilling in Alaska waters?

A: In Alaska we already have authorization to look at offshore. Our issue has to be that we don’t trade, long-term, established industries that are renewable, (such as) fishing.

So we have to be very careful about how we balance that, for example, in the Cook Inlet we have beluga fields that have worked many years with minimal impact. We’ve had thriving fish in this community; it’s all worked well. But it’s a careful balance. We have to carefully listen to communities that are affected.

Sometimes the way it works in the federal (public hearing process) is they ask for your comments, you send them in, they respond, say, “We received your comments,” and that’s it. Vs., “Oh, we see your concerns, can we mitigate them?”

On the national level I’d argue the same. Having a blanket, “Let’s open it up and see what happens,” I think there’s a communication aspect we have to put into question.

But this is where I default back to the real issue and question, which is, “What is our long-term national energy policy, that will include aspects of renewable energy and efficiency gains?”

This is where we need to go in the long term. It shall include oil and gas and nonrenewables, that’s part of the equation. But we need to invest in alternatives to offset long-term impacts of oil and gas. At the end of the day we do have to have oil and gas, yes, that’s a significant part of our energy resource. But we should be moving down the other two paths, and I don’t think we are at the same level.

The other thing I’ll mention in national energy policy, as you might have read, I sent a letter to Obama and McCain and had a conversation with Obama about the natural gas pipeline which is supported by environmental communities and development communities. It’s a great resource of clean energy and should be part of a national energy policy. It’s the right project at the right time with the right support. We should be doing it now.

Ron Bowers

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 11:37:00 -0800

Bowers grew up in Hollidaysburg, Pa., and the Scotland School for Veterans’ Children in Scotland, Pa. He served as an aircrew life support technician for four years in the U.S. Air Force, arriving to Anchorage in 1979 during his service.

Bowers first arrived in Dillingham the summer of 1983, then spent nine years in Chignik as a village public safety officer before returning to Dillingham in 1992.

He works as a medic on air medical evacuations for the Bristol Bay Area Health Corp. and teaches emergency medical services classes for BBAHC and for Eastern Aleutian Tribes.

Bowers has served on the Chignik and Dillingham city councils and ran for Alaska statehouse District 37 in 2006 on the Republican ticket. After winning the primary, Bowers lost against Democrat Bryce Edgmon in a general election that also included a write-in campaign by incumbent Carl Moses, who’d lost the Democratic primary to Edgmon.

Bowers is running again on the Republican ticket for District 37. Like Edgmon, he does not face opposition within his own party in the primary election for this office.

Bowers’ positions:
• On the high cost of fuel in rural communities:
We in rural Alaska are in an economic crisis. I’d like to see certain areas of the state classified as economic disaster zones. We have got to throw out a life ring to rural residents.

The state is taking in almost a billion (dollars) a month. As Gov. SarahPalin stated, we don’t need to keep padding the state’s account. We need to get money to people.

I’d like to see a package where we could be working with every public school in the state and require them, and fund them with state funds, to do an alternative energy project that’ll be beneficial to that school with their energy needs. That package could include teaching conservation.

We need continued energy exploration and development of more American gas and oil.

In 2002, a vast majority of Alaskans voted for an all-Alaska gas line.

We need to build our own gas line. We need to export. And we need to have gas portals in that line for Alaskan use.

• On the potential development of the Pebble mine project:
If it cannot be proved it could not be done in a way that’s environmentally sound, I will not be for it.

• On the oil and gas development in the North Aleutian Basin
I am solidly supporting that. They’re looking at 5,000 good-paying jobs over 60 years and maybe more for the Aleutian East B orough. They have long-range plans to put much of the money in developing (fisheries) infrastructure.

We need to strongly push for Alaska’s share on offshore coast lease sales. They’ve given the Gulf states a share of offshore lease sale funds. We need to get that done for Alaska as well.

We need to protect our fisheries. I think it can be done, like in Cook Inlet, in a safe manner.

• On fisheries management in Bristol Bay and the Bering Sea:
It seems like our king salmon run was not that great. It’s been suggested there’s a huge bycatch of king. Those fishing with the trawler fleet, they don’t want the bycatch.

We need to work on that issue.

With salmon and halibut, we need to fund advertising brand specialists in marketing and develop those markets. It’s a changing world. China is soon going to be the leading economy in the world. As they start developing their economy, they’ll want to eat fish from Alaska.

Bowers’ top three priorities if elected:
1) It’s energy, energy, energy. We have to address our economic hardships produced by the high cost of energy. We have to find more. You can’t just say wind power will be a fix-all solution, or geothermal will be a fix-all. We need every source of energy we can get. That includes traditional energy, coal gas and oil. That has to be done No. 1.

2) And No. 2.

3) One of the more economic ways of transporting goods, vehicles and people has been the Alaska Marine Highway. It runs from Chignik to Unalaska and every town in between. Service has been scaled back.

We need to pump money into that service and the Alaska Marine Highway. There is no more economic or environmentally sound way of transporting vehicles and people, than (by) ferryboat.

Bowers, aside from politics
Q: How do you spend quality time with your family?
A: We like to do things like put up fish, pick berries, go hunting. And I love to have company. We always have lots of people at the house playing board games.

Q: How are you conserving fuel this summer?
A: The big thing is trying to drive less and bike more. We have to make up lists before we go out. If we get back from the store and we forgot something, well, it’ll have to wait.

And, my clothes are out on the line. It’s a beautiful breezy sunny day. I just stopped global warming in its tracks this morning. I hung my clothes up. It’s a simple thing. How many people do that?

Q: What is your favorite band?
A: I like Toby Mac. He’s a contemporary gospel singer.

Q: Your favorite winter reading?
A: I like to read stories about hunting.

Q: If you could have just one super power, what would it be?
A: To love my enemies, love everyone the same, treat everyone the same and walk like Jesus. You talk about super power. He fed 5,000 with two fish and five loaves of bread. To be like Jesus would be the best super power — to walk like him.

Mary Lochner can be reached at (907) 348-2348, or (800) 770-9830, ext. 438.

Bryce Edgmon

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 10:47:00 -0800

Bryce Edgmon, a lifelong Alaskan, was born and raised in Dillingham and attended the University of Alaska Anchorage. After earning a degree in business administration with a focus in finance, Edgmon worked as a fisherman in Bristol Bay and False Pass.

In 1989, Edgmon leaped from commercial fishing to politics, working as a legislative assistant to three rural legislators until 1998.

Then it was back to Dillingham, where Edgmon worked as a Community Development Quota manager and chief operating officer of the Bristol Bay Economic Development Corp.

Inspired by concern over the Pebble mine project, Edgmon ran for the House in 2006, tying with 11-term incumbent Carl Moses for the Democratic spot at 767 votes. For the first time in state victory, the nomination was decided by a coin toss, and Edgmon won on tails.

Edgmon went on to defeat Ron Bowers for the District 37 seat that November. Since then, Edgmon has served on the House Committee on Fisheries, the Resources Committee, the Finance Subcommittee on Education and Early Development and the Finance Subcommittee on Fish and Game.

Edgmon’s positions:
• On the high cost of fuel in rural communities:
I am fully in support of transferring the state surplus of wealth to individuals in rural Alaska as a bridge in the eventual transfer of our sole dependency of nonrenewable resources to renewable resources. These would vary on location but may include geothermal, wind power, solar and possible tidal energy.

• On the potential development of the Pebble mine project:
We need to make sure that our renewable resources get the highest level of protection possible. The mining laws in Alaska right now are not adequate to protect the renewable resources of the Bristol Bay area, given the size of the mine and its proximity to two of the largest salmon-bearing streams in Alaska.

• On the oil and gas development in the North Aleutian Basin:
Neutral. This is a federal issue, not a state issue. I’d support a federal revenue sharing program with the state, but a lot of things would have to happen before we’d even get to the exploratory phase.

• On fisheries management in Bristol Bay and the Bering Sea:
I sat on the (House) Fisheries committee for two years, and I’ve witnessed the bitter struggle that Fish and Game experiences having senior employees leave because of the inadequate pay scale. There’s a brain drain occurring. I’d support more funding for the Department of Fish and Game, to give them the ability to better retain their employees, including their senior-level managers. I’d also try to get more rural appointments to councils and committees and all the state functions that play a role in fisheries management.

Edgmon’s top three priorities if elected
1) Addressing the high cost of energy in rural Alaska —“the multiple costs are staggering and they’re only going to get worse.”

2) Continuing funding for education, including for the preschool program Head Start — “It’s always a priority to get the highest level we can.”

3) Securing funding for capital projects, such as building schools, roads, airports and other kinds of infrastructure — “In some instances this is the No. 1 priority.”

Edgmon, aside from politics
Q: How do you and your family spend quality time with each other?
A: My wife and son accompanied me to Juneau, and we try to live as normally as we can during the session.

Q: How are you conserving fuel this summer?
A: We use energy-efficient light bulbs, turn off the lights, take short showers, all the little things everyone else is doing. We got a good dose of this last year in Juneau. You just don’t have a choice, it’s the reality of affording to keep the lights on and the fuel drum providing comfort in the home.

Q: What is your favorite band?
A: I’m sure everyone says this, but — the Beatles.

Q: Your favorite winter reading?
A: Books on political history. Recently, “Team of Rivals: the Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln” by Doris Kearns-Goodwin, and the autobiographies of John McCain and Barack Obama.

Q: If you could have any super power, what would it be?
A: The power to provide affordable, natural gas to all of rural Alaska.

Victoria Barber can be reached at (907) 348-2424 or toll free at (800) 770-9830, ext. 424.

Six assaults include two rapes

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 12:57:00 -0800

Police in Dillingham investigated six incidents in June determined to be sexual assaults. Of these, two involved multiple assailants.

“We’re such a small community, and it’s very unusual,” said Ginger Baim, director of Safe and Fear-Free Environment, or SAFE, a shelter and advocacy group for survivors of violence.

“We’ve had six sexual assaults in three weeks, of adult women that were reported to police, and we’ve had another equal number that were not reported to police.”

Baim said that although she’s noticed spikes in sexual assault just before and after the fishing season, she can’t remember seeing one of this magnitude or involving incidents with multiple attackers.

Dillingham Police Chief Richard Thompson said that in the first recent sexual assault report to police involving multiple assailants, reported June 17, the victim received a head wound.

The victim reported three suspects were involved, with one primary assailant, he said.

In the second instance, reported June 19, the victim reported four males had raped her and had used condoms.

Police say they’ve identified four suspects and identified two as having had sex with the victim. The police dispatch documentation on that case indicates two males were taken to a hospital for an examination to collect DNA evidence.

The police document also states the victim reported the suspects took pictures of the sexual assault.

Thompson said police have been working diligently on the sexual assault investigations.

Meanwhile, rumors have been spreading through Dillingham about the assaults.

Thompson said this has made gathering legitimate information through police interviews of potential witnesses more difficult.

“Person ‘x’ will say to person ‘y,’ ‘Did you hear what happened to so-and-so, I was driving to go see my aunt and I heard about this,’” Thompson said. “Well person ‘y’ will tell person ‘z.’ ‘Did you hear what happened to so-and-so, person ‘x’ was driving by and saw it happen. We have to follow up those rumors. We don’t have a choice; they might have valid information.”

Baim said the incidents are known about town and have people concerned for their safety. Both Baim and Thompson advised people to exercise awareness of their own safety when in public and to use a buddy system to stay safer.

Baim said many Dillingham residents have been concerned about the reported sexual assaults involving multiple attackers because of the level of violence and force involved. She said that’s unusual for this small town. She said people are also concerned because the suspects are rumored to be males from outside the town.

Thompson confirmed one victim in these two cases is local to Dillingham, and one is local to the region; and that in both cases, the suspects were not known to the victim or not local.

He also said there’s no reason at this time in investigation to believe that the two incidents are linked or the result of a single set of attackers.

Although the reported sexual assaults involving multiple assailants has created the most stir in town, Thompson and Baim both point out that the majority of sexual assaults in Dillingham involve acquaintance rape — where the victim knows the assailant. Alcohol is almost always a factor, they said.

Even without the two incidents involving multiple attackers, June still saw a higher number of sexual assaults, Baim said. Thompson noted other spikes in sexual assaults that have occurred in Dillingham over the last seven-year period, and they’re not necessarily correlated with periods just prior to or after the fishing season.

“These things tend to come along in clusters,” Thompson said. “I don’t know why.”

Baim and Thompson said sexual assaults reflect a lack of respect for others and self on the part of the assailant.

“In rural Alaska and in Bristol Bay, we have a social norm that says when a woman gets drunk and passes out a party, it’s OK to have sex on her,” Baim said. “It’s not planned; it’s just a habit. That in no way diminishes the terrible harm it does. And it’s not a blaming thing, it’s just a habit — I don’t know how else to describe it.”

Thompson said that while most sexual assaults reported to police involve alcohol, nothing excuses the criminal act.

“Our cases move forward to prosecution without regard for who is how intoxicated,” Thompson said. “As far as I’m concerned you can get as (drunk) as you like, and no one has the right to predate on you.

“Every citizen has the right, unless restrained by the court, to be intoxicated to whatever extent they choose,” he added.

However, he strongly cautioned people to take measures that reduce their vulnerability to predation from sexual assault.

“We all have an obligation to maintain enough awareness regarding our own safety, that we can at least ask for help,” he said. “It makes sense to provide for our own safety by having a buddy plan. If you’re going to go out drinking, go with a friend.

Don’t just wander off by yourself.”

Mary Lochner can be reached at (907) 348-2438, or (800) 770-9830, ext. 438.

Poor king returns blamed on weather

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 12:56:00 -0800

King salmon proved not to be a very punctual fish this year.

A meager number showed up for Bristol Bay’s commercial fishing openings Thursday, June 5 and Monday, June 9 — so few that anticipated later openings didn’t happen.

Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s projected escapement for kings in the Westside Bristol Bay Salmon Fishery was 12,000 by June 12. They didn’t approach that number until June 23.

Tim Sands, an area management biologist with Fish and Game based in Dillingham, said he thinks cold weather has kept kings back and could also be keeping sockeye in check.

Dan Gray, regional management coordinator with Alaska Department of Fish and Game, said observational and genetic sample data taken from their test fishery at Point Moller boosted optimism about late-running sockeye, however.

“We’re very hopeful about Bristol Bay,” he said. “In my opinion, we’re still well on track to perform well there, according to forecast.”

Kings finally started to come in, and by Monday, June 23, Dillingham subsistence fisherman Bill Jackson had got almost all the king salmon he needed for the year.

Jackson’s been subsistence fishing for 20 years, and he echoed Fish and Game’s cold-water theory to explain the late salmon. He said you just never know how the fish are going to run.

“They come in late once in a while,” he said.

Another hypothesis for why salmon runs in Alaska might be drab, is that they could be poached by illegal, unregulated and unreported — or IUU — fisheries on the high seas.

Sen. Ted Stevens sponsored anti-IUU legislation that was approved Tuesday, June 24, by the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation.

Under the North Pacific Fisheries Treaty, it’s illegal to fish for salmon in the high seas, Stevens said in an interview with The BayTimes on Thursday, June 26. But the patchwork-style enforcement that exists now does little to stop it.

Stevens said his anti-IUU legislation, co-sponsored by Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, would, among other things, form an International Fisheries Enforcement Program.

Under the program, vessels that are documented to be IUU vessels would be blacklisted from using U.S. ports to unload their fish or for other uses except in emergency situations.

“We’re asking our ports be closed to them,” Stevens said. “They can’t come in and unload fish in our ports, and if they do sneak in and try, the boat will be seized.”

He said that, while there isn’t proof that salmon poachers on the high seas are affecting salmon runs in Alaska, it’s a sensible deduction to surmise they might at times be a factor.

“We do know they’re out there on the high seas in the Gulf of Alaska, and we know our salmon migrate up and down,” he said. “We’re making it a crime to come into our ports and dump fish they’ve caught without any connection with scientific concepts of the species they’re harvesting. There are enormous vessels on an international basis, and they’re growing in numbers.”

Mary Lochner can be reached at (907) 348-2438, or (800) 770-9830, ext. 438.

Begich adds Dillingham stop to campaign tour

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 12:50:00 -0800

Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich will host a meet-the-candidate forum from 5 to 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, July 9, at the Sam Fox Museum in Dillingham.

The stop is part of a bid for the Democratic nomination to run against incumbent Sen. Ted Stevens.

The forum is open to the public. During his Dillingham visit, Begich will also tour the senior center, women’s shelter and local alternative energy projects and meet with community leaders.

The state Democratic primary to select a nominee for Senate is Aug. 26. The nominee will square off vs. Stevens on Nov. 4.

Begich said the Dillingham visit is part of what he calls his ‘Energizing Alaska’ tour. He said he will travel Alaska to talk about energy issues and listen to what Alaskans have to say about the challenges they face and their ideas about what could be done on a local and national level.

Begich spoke with the Bristol BayTimes Thursday, June 26.

The price of gas at the pump in Dillingham is six bucks a gallon, diesel is closer to seven. In your U.S. Senate campaign’s first teleconference for rural newspapers you spoke of the need for a long-term energy plan, but rural Alaska is feeling the pain now. What could be a palliative at the national level?

You’ve got to always keep the long term in mind. The reason we’re in this mess is because the last 40 years we’ve not had a long-term energy policy. Because of that, Alaska’s interests are in jeopardy.

Those programs need to be funded, but I think there honestly is there is no short-term fix for this. Politicians that say that there is, aren’t being forthright with the community.

I wish I had a silver bullet so tomorrow everything’s OK. There’s a way to alleviate costs with state and federal cash infusions, but that will not solve the problem.

I’m frustrated because I think in if there were more research dollars going into alternative energy 10 years ago, we wouldn’t be in this situation.

Rural Alaska’s really started to test new alternative energies and is having great success. You look at Kotzebue with 18 windmills operating.

The state Legislature recently approved $300 million in funds for alternative energy and fuel-saving projects. What would you propose as a long-term energy plan nationally that would relieve citizens from financial hits taken on energy costs?

I’ve laid out a fairly detailed one on my Website (www.begich.com), but the basic elements are, I believe by 2025 we could have 25 percent of energy in Alaska and across the country energized by renewable energy resources; also gain 25 percent in efficiency gains by 2018, just using more efficient systems in cars, lighting, weatherization, boiler systems, cooling systems.

The problem and challenge they have is, the Energy Department on the federal level has flat-lined in dollars for energy research. It hasn’t grown at the rate it should.

We don’t have an Alaskan cause or a national cause about becoming leaders in the world on energy efficiency and renewable energy.

Congress is split on whether to offer more areas in the Lower 48 for lease to oil companies or to require oil companies to develop the leases they do have. Meanwhile, Shell recently announced it’s putting a hold on plans to drill in the Beaufort Sea due to an unresolved court challenge. Drilling in the North Aleutian Basin is in the public hearing phase. What in your view is the best policy for Alaska and the nation on offshore drilling in Alaska waters?

In Alaska we already have authorization to look at offshore. Our issue has to be that we don’t trade, long-term, established industries that are renewable, (such as) fishing.

On the national level I’d argue the same. Having a blanket, “Let’s open it up and see what happens,” I think there’s a communication aspect we have to put into question.

But this is where I default back to the real issue and question, which is, “What is our long-term national energy policy, that will include aspects of renewable energy and efficiency gains?”