2012 AFN Convention Keynote Speaker

This year’s theme for the AFN Convention is Success Beyond Barriers. President Julie Kitka says the theme shows the resiliency of the Alaska Native people to overcome the many challenges that Alaska Natives face – especially in rural Alaska. Carol Wren, an Inupiaq woman raised for a short time in a foster home and later by her sister and various families in Dillingham, spoke of how she broke through barriers to get to where she is today.

Ebel says the tugboat remains stuck fast on the rocks. The DEC is working with the tugboat owner Lee Hendren from Portland and the Coast Guard to be sure there’s a proper plan implemented to take care of the vessel. Ebel says there is no current fuel or lubrication leakage, but they do expect the owner to remove the 600 gallons of diesel fuel and remaining operational fuel. However seas are not expected to calm until the end of the week.

When it comes down to the vessel itself and what do we do with a vessel stricken on a rock – we’ll work through that component as the situation develops. The safety of all of the people involved with any response activity is our primary concern.

Neither the DEC or the Coast Guard have men or boats headed to the location, however an Alaska State Trooper was expected to respond and assist today.

St. Michael Village Police Officer Nick Lupsin said a resident called his office on Friday afternoon and told him about a boat grounded on the rocks. Immediately after, he said a search and rescue team got together. Officer Lupsin says it was impossible for them to travel out to retrieve the two men stuck on the vessel.

When we got there there was the tugboat and there was a life raft that was tied to the tugboat and it was pretty windy. We had a north wind and it was very shallow. So we waited about two hours.

Lupsin says after two hours, the men cut the line on the life raft and drifted to shore.

When they got to the rock shoreline, they pulled them out. They were wet. One was very, very cold so what they did was lie them into sleeping bags to warm up – take all their wet clothing off. From there we sit there for a while while they warm up.

At about 4:30 in the afternoon the two men from the vessel were taken to the St. Michael health clinic for treatment – both were uninjured.

With the harbor closing in Nome later this week, owner Lee Hendren says the boat was headed toward St. Michael to dock for the winter.

I want to tell everybody in St. Michael thank you very much for helping the men out and help them get safe. And the State Trooper – I want to thank him also. I know the men were real grateful because of it.

Lee Hendren owns Hendren Towboat in Portland, Oregon. The extent of damage to the Captain Hendren is not yet known. He is not sure whether the vessel will be suitable to return to Nome for next summer’s mining season.

The unofficial results from today’s municipal race in Nome:

City Council Seat C

• Randy Pomeranz 47%
• Kenny Hughes 23%
• Randy Oles  29%

City Council Seat D

• Stan Anderson 48%
• Jim West Jr. 33%
• Nikolai Ivanoff 19%

School Board Seat C

• Betsy Brennan 57%
• Monica Rose 42%

A runoff will be required for both City Council seats. Official results will be released Thursday.

One week ago Slwooko and Kimoktoak left Koyuk in a 17-foot boat to travel from Koyuk to Unalakleet. Alaska State Troopers believe the boat capsized. It was found on Thursday – upside down on the beach 13 miles southwest of Unalakleet. Ipsen says Kimotoak’s body was found not far from where the boat and much of the debris drifted ashore.

Ipsen says in the search for Slwooko, a state trooper searched the coastline in a helicopter over the weekend:

Yesterday there were about nine boats – aluminum skiffs – that were out searching the shoreline. But as of today, troopers have suspended their efforts in the search, pending new leads if other new information comes up – if we can find David.

The couple had two dogs with them when they left Koyuk last Monday. Ipsen says the bodies of both dogs drifted ashore in the same area the boat, the body of Kimoktoak and the debris was found. The local search effort continues today for 41-year-old David Slwooko. The couple was first reported missing last Tuesday.

Trooper spokesperson Megan Peters says the boat was found on the shoreline 35 miles southwest of Unalakleet by a state trooper wildlife plane.

It was found on the coastline upside down. The motor was detached from the vessel but still connected by its cables. From what it looks like, it capsized somewhere out in the water and drifted to where we found it. We can only presume at this point that the boat capsized and they drowned.

The Coast Guard has withdrawn in the search for Slwooko and Kimoktoak. The troopers are no longer flying in the search – however Peters says the troopers are supporting local search efforts to find the bodies. Peters does say she does not know how long the troopers will support the body recovery effort.

Dawn Nassuk in Nome is currently taking donations in the search and recovery efforts. Deposits or transfers can be made directly to, Credit Union 1 account #: 531394 or Wellsfargo Bank account #: 6455206711.

The summit of Nome’s Anvil Mountain, whose towers are now slated for removal. Photo by Chris Lott (http://www.flickr.com/photos/fncll/38159054/) [CC-BY-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons.

Sitnasuak President Chuck Fagerstrom says that on August 14^th, the Sitnasuak Board of Directors voted to direct the Air Force to remove the towers from the site. Sitnasuak is to take ownership of the 11 acres through the Alaska Land Transfer Acceleration Act. President Fagerstrom says the board believes the land will be a valuable site for telecommunications and wants a clean site.

The board of directors did not wish to obligate future board of directors to any risk of person injury, lawsuits or financial liabilities.

A letter received in July spurred what Fagerstrom described as a lengthy board discussion and the eventual decision on the towers. The Air Force gave notice to Sitnasuak, saying the work on the Anvil Mountain Towers was not a demolition project. The Air Force had been working this summer to remove the asbestos-laden panels to keep the towers erect – based on public interest that goes back decades.

Fagerstrom said looking at the land as a potential telecommunications site  is in the best interest of Sitnasuak shareholders and says the Sitnasuak Native Corporation has been in communication with the Air Force.

Shortly after the vote was taken, we communicated with their representative. He was in town and we informed him of that vote.

The Anvil Mountain Towers were erected during the Cold War. Seventy-one such White Alice sites were established at that time and by the 1970s, most of the system was deactivated – the technology replaced by satellite communication.

The Air Force demolished and is in the process of cleaning up now contaminated sites throughout Alaska as part of a large remediation project. When the Air Force announced in the late 90s that the towers north of Nome were to be demolished, it was met with large public outcry. The City of Nome had been in communication with Sitnasuak the past few years and into this summer to sign a long-term lease with Sitnasuak to keep the towers intact.

John Handeland is chair of the Nome Museum and Library Commission.

You know there are many of these White Alice sites that were in place around Alaska, but the four towers are all that remain. And they’re an important era in our history, not just of our community, but of our world.

Handeland says he remains optimistic Sitnasuak will allow the City to enter discussions regarding their decision and hopes the vote can be reversed.

Together, in continuing spirit of cooperation, I’m confident that a creative solution can be developed to ensure that Sitnasuak’s concerns and interests are addressed and yet the towers can remain for the people of Nome – as well as the visitors to our community.

Steve Hunt is the Remedial Project Manager for the Anvil Mountain Site and other sites throughout Alaska. Phone calls and emails had not been returned regarding the Air Force’s plan for the towers. The Air Force had planned on completing clean up of the site in September and the land transfer was expected then.

And as for the runway closure, Meadow Bailey is the Public Information Officer for the Department of Transportation’s Northern Region. She says the navigational aids for the East-West Runway were turned off on Monday and the runway was closed. The DOT is required to coordinate with the FAA 60 days in advance of turning off those navigational aids. And 60 days ago, Monday August 13 was the agreed upon date that the runway would be closed for construction.

Usually flights can come in with this kind of weather when they use the navigational aids. But once they’re turned off we have to wait to turn them back on until we’re done with the construction.

Twin Peaks Doug Larson says they will begin work on the runway this afternoon. Their plan is to rehabilitate the sunken part of the runway and then repave and stripe. That project is expected to be complete on October 1^st and the East West runway will open then.

Some wonder why the DOT waited until August – Nome’s rainiest month – to work on the runway. The DOT’s Public Information Office Meadow Bailey:

This time of year is not ideal for construction, but this is as quickly as we could get the funding, the project designed and get it started. So we recognize it’s not the ideal time of year but we felt like it was such a concern that it needed to be addressed as soon as possible.

She says they needed to fix the problem now before winter hits.

But I know that its impacting the public and people who are flying and I wish it wasn’t like that. Unfortunately, like I said, it’s an emergency repair job that we just felt like it needed to be done as soon as possible. There was concern that we were going to have to close the runway indefinitely if we couldn’t make these repairs so that’s why it’s happening right now.

With seven Alaska Airlines flight cancellations and passengers facing waiting four days to travel, some have opted to go to smaller airlines. Bering Air’s Director of Operations David Olson says on Tuesday some people got together and chartered a 1900 to and from Anchorage. Because Era has daily service from Unalakleet to Anchorage, Era Station Manager Myrtle Fagerstrom says they’ve seen passengers walk across the parking lot to make it to Anchorage via Unalakleet.

Raphaela Stimmelmayr is a research biologist for the North Slope Department of Wildlife Management and also the onsite coordinator for the Unusual Mortality Event on Ice Seals and Pacific Walrus in Alaska. She says the bird flu that killed the New England harbor seals is not what is killing seals in Alaska.

The UME seals on the Alaska side were actually tested for that early on to rule out that there was no relationship between the East Coast Unusual Mortality Event and the Alaska Unusual Mortality Event.

Stimmelmayr says she has worked closely with the investigative teams working on the New England harbor seal cases. She says while there are similarities between the illnesses – like skin lesions on the flippers – there are differences.

They did not show any of the facial lesions that we would be seeing or the lesions on the snout. These seals over there actually had fulminate pneumonia and that’s actually what we have not seen in our seals.

Stimmelmayr explains that diseased seals in Alaska did have bloody fluid in the lungs, but there was no indication of pneumonia.

So there was a clear difference between the pathological presentations, so how the organ changes are. And the only similarity that was there was that these animals also had flipper lesions on the East Coast, but did not have the type of hair loss and the other sores that we have been seeing in the ice seals.

Researchers are still trying to figure out the cause of illness in ice seals in Alaska. Stimmelmayr says they’re currently working on ruling out viruses and causes for the illness.

We don’t have a smoking gun right now. I think based on hunter observation, it is a new disease syndrome we are observing because based on traditional knowledge as well as communication from the hunters, they had never seen anything like this before.

            And the researchers have NOT ruled out the radionuclide dispersed from the Fukushima nuclear accident as the cause. While a qualitative screening was done early on that told researchers that the diseased seals in Alaska were not carrying large loads of radio nuclides – it’s not enough to rule radiation out. Stimmelmayr says they are now looking at whether the diseased seals carried Cesium 134 and 137. Cesium 137 is and has been present in the environment throughout the world from nuclear testing done in the 1960s and 70s. Cesium 134 is the signature radionuclide that was released during the Fukushima accident.

We do not think at this point that it is related to that, but I think one truly has to wait until we have the quantitative numbers to be able to say ‘No, there is no trace in these animals.’ And then we can confidently can say there is no relationship.

Regarding the Unusual Mortality Event declared on Alaskan ice seals and Pacific Walrus, Stimmelmayr says they have not observed or seen new cases in Alaskan seals. As the UME onsite coordinator, she says they should be coming out with a regional update in mid August. Diseased seals in Alaska were first reported last summer.

The research for the New England UME on harbor seals was published in the journal mBio.

The culmination of decades of work by former Nanuuq Commissioner Charlie Johnson, who passed away in April, the quota agreement brings together subsistence hunters in Alaska and Chukotka, with the backing of both the Russian and US governments.

After a phased implementation next year, the quota is expected to officially begin in 2014, and allow 58 bears to be taken each year, 29 per country. Rhonda Sparks is the regional coordinator for the Alaska Nanuuq Commission.

The reason why there’s a quota system is there was a native-driven initiative to ensure future generation use for both sides. We did hear other hunters comment and say that it is important for them to hunt, and subsist, and go back to one of their traditional used resources, and that’s polar bear.

Nearly 200 people turned out for the meeting in Shishmaref last Friday. Polar bear hunters in attendance generally seemed to accept the quota. But their questions focused more on the food shared by both subsistence users and polar bears: seals. Since last year, diseased seals suffering from an unknown illness have been found in the North Slope and the Bering Sea. Hunters at the meeting in Shismaref expressed concern about what diseased seals might mean for polar bears. Stanley Tocktoo, the local Shismaref representative for the Nanuuq Commission, says the polar bear quota doesn’t seem as important as the health of the seals.

 I don’t see it really effects Alaskans too much, but we’d like to work with the Chukotka side, the Eskimo side, but they have a different government, a different way of doing things. But the polar bear eats the seal, just like we depend on the seal. We’ve got things to worry about with the bearded seal losing their hair and their fur.

Warren Ningeulook is a polar bear hunter in Shismaref. He said that, with a healthy—if uncounted—population of polar bears in the Chukchi and Bering Sea, a quota doesn’t seem necessary.

I don’t think there should be any quotas. I don’t think that’s a good idea. Because the number of polar bears that were estimated for the population in Alaska and the other countries are pretty healthy for the population. I think it would, uh, the population would start to go down if Russia is allowed to hunt again.

Alaskan hunters take about 30 bears annually—close to the proposed quota—but hunting polar bear in Chukotka has been illegal since 1956. Fish and Wildlife biologist Jim Wilder says that leads to an unsustainable illegal take that is impossible to manage. The new agreement will allow for a legal—and manageable—harvest in Chukotka.

Polar bear harvests in western Alaska are certainly within sustainable limits. But on the other hand, the best available information that we have indicates that the level of killing of polar bears on the Russian side is likely not sustainable. And so, you know, the agreement is very important for that, because it recognizes the rights of Chukotka natives to harvest polar bears within a managed system.

The quota strives for a 2 to 1 male/female harvest ratio, and can be adjusted as studies of the polar bear population are completed. In Alaska, skull and hide tagging requirements already in effect will remain in place, and the sale of polar bear parts will still be regulated by the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Any kind of commercial or sport hunting will remain illegal.

The Alaska Nanuuq Commission serves 15 communities in western Alaska. Their meeting in Shismaref is only the begging of a consultation process in villages throughout the region. Meetings will be held in Point Lay, Point Hope, Diomede, Savoonga, and Gambell in the coming weeks. Feedback on the harvest quota can be submitted online at TheAlaskaNanuuqCommission.org

In the early morning hours, a three-building fire in Teller caused the Nome Volunteer Fire Department to respond – first with a planeload of six firefighters and later with several vehicles loaded with crew and equipment.

The first group of firefighters arrived in Teller just before 5 o’clock this morning. The fire, burning since around 2AM, had engulfed the old Teller Commercial Company building, the former store known as the Blodgett Building, as well as an old abandoned house next to it. The flames had also spread to the Mary’s Igloo office, and were threatening the Teller Catholic Church, as well as the community power plant.

The wind was also begging to bring smoke to buildings adjacent to the fire. Many of those buildings were abandoned, described as “tinderboxes” by firemen on the scene. Nome Fire Chief Matt Johnson:

We took a two-story structure with a loader and pushed it under the pile so that it would stop the fire spread to the Catholic church and the power plant.

Additional Nome firefighters arrived around 7am. Johnson says they used a City of Teller loader to tear down three buildings and move other structures away from the fire. NVFD turned its hoses onto the church and used the loader to move flaming debris away from it. But then Johnson says the loader itself caught fire.

It fell into a utilidor that’s buried in the ground and it was unable to get back out and fortunately the firefighter that was operating it was able to get out OK and unfortunately we lost a loader, but we didn’t lose anybody.

The loader eventually exploded—first the fuel tank, and then the tires—and it was completely gutted by the fire.

Johnson says the blaze was fully contained around 9am. No injuries were reported. NVFD is now using heavy equipment from the City of Teller to move charred debris and extinguish any remaining hazards.

We started out early with a real small crew and we had to work really hard and do a lot of stuff in a short period of time with a small group of people. I gotta hand it to the people of Teller too. The people that helped us out too…there were quite a few younger guys that were helping us move hoses around and equipment for us and everything else. They were trying.

Johnson says the Fire Marshall is determining how they will get investigators to Teller. Until then, Johnson and his crew are securing the perimeter of the fire and treating it as crime scene. He says it will be up to the Fire Marshall’s office to determine the fire’s cause.

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