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- [00:00]
Casey Grove
Support for Alaska Public Media On Demand comes from Siri, an Alaska Native corporation with operations and investments spanning five continents, 45 states and two US territories.
- [00:18]
TJ Bredo
What we're seeing is vacancies. We're seeing turnover. We're seeing poor training. We're seeing a lack of written procedures.
- [00:26]
Casey Grove
Alaska's legislative auditor issues a warning about degrading state services from Alaska Public Media. This is statewide news on Alaska News nightly for Friday, November 21st. Good evening. I'm Casey Grove. Also tonight, why it's becoming more and more difficult for fishermen to meet halibut quotas.
- [00:43]
Hal Bernton
So there's a mix of environmental conditions and then some would say also there have been some fishing pressures as well.
- [00:51]
Casey Grove
Those stories and more tonight on on Alaska News Nightly. Alaska's state government is increasingly failing to keep up with requirements in state and federal law. That's according to the state's nonpartisan auditor who delivered her findings to a group of lawmakers this week. Legislative Auditor Chris Curtis says she identified dozens of accounting and compliance issues in her agency's most recent audit. Those range from the Department of Corrections overspending its budget to the Division of Public Assistance failing to process SNAP and Medicaid applications on time. Curtis told the Legislative Budget and Audit Committee that the issue has gotten progressively worse over the past decade. All told, Curtis says her team identified 85 issues in the 2024 fiscal year audit. That's about double what her team found a decade ago, and she offers a few reasons why.
- [01:46]
TJ Bredo
What we're seeing is vacancies. We're seeing turnover. We're seeing poor training. We're seeing a lack of written procedures.
- [01:53]
Casey Grove
Employee turnover and hiring have been areas of particular interest for legislators seeking to reinstitute a pension system for state employees. Among the issues Curtis spotlighted are errors in the state's procurement process. She says her team pulled samples of state purchases across various departments and found that roughly a third failed to comply with state rules. Curtis says that means they either didn't follow state law or didn't maintain the documentation backing up those purchases.
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TJ Bredo
I think one of the biggest concerns is making sure the state is obtaining the best possible price.
- [02:30]
Casey Grove
Curtis found the state also failed to bill the federal government for nearly $280 million in pandemic era federal aid funding in a timely manner. And that means the state lost out on more than $9 million worth of interest it could have earned in the meantime. Governor Mike Dunleavy's administration disputes some of the auditor's findings, chalking them up to differences in interpreting state and federal law Curtis says the report is meant to help state agencies improve and spotlight areas that lawmakers can help them do.
- [02:58]
Jeff Andis
So.
- [03:01]
Casey Grove
Over the past decade, it's become more difficult for commercial halibut fishermen off Alaska's coast to catch enough to meet their quotas as the flat whitefish have become less abundant and smaller. That's according to a recent series of stories from fisheries reporter Hal Bernton, published in the Anchorage Daily News, Seattle Times and Northern Journal. Burnton says the potential reasons for the decline include a warmer ocean leading to less food for young halibut, as well as a flawed model used for managing.
- [03:27]
Hal Bernton
The fishery while the resource was in a cyclical decline. The models that the International Pacific Halibut Commission was using to basically estimate how many fish are out there and what's the future, they were significantly flawed. And there was one scientist who was very outspoken about flaws in the model and it wasn't well received and he ended up getting fired. And then they developed new models that really bore out some of the criticism that he made. So there's a mix of environmental conditions and then some would say also there have been some fishing pressures as well that have contributed to the decline.
- [04:15]
Casey Grove
A couple parts of the series look at impacts from and to orcas. And first, for the halibut longliners, what are they trying to do to prevent orcas from taking fish just right off their lines?
- [04:28]
Hal Bernton
There's been a lot of frustration through the years and lots of different things that people have tried, like moving quickly to another area, fishing in certain areas that the whales typically don't come to, but not other areas where they encounter them. ROCK AND ROLL MUSIC A lot of unsuccessful things. But I was really intrigued that when I went out on this assignment, the skipper had just finished in an experiment that was a collaboration with the International Pacific Halibut Commission, actually funded through federal taxpayer dollars. Something basically, it looks almost like a submarine, a silver submarine. And it's developed by a Norwegian company called Sego Solutions. It uses gravity. You basically put it on your line and it slides down the line. And as the line is brought up from the bottom, it basically grabs the fish off the line and it stores the fish within this shuttle, this capsule like creation, and brings it up to the surface where whales aren't able to grab the fish. And then, you know, in rough weather, it's hard to work. It's in a very early phase of experimentation, so there's a lot of questions, but to me it was pretty remarkable. It's come to this, trying something like this silver capsule that you haul out to sea and put on your line.
- [06:10]
Casey Grove
So to do some of these reporting projects, you of course go out on the sea, you're in these boats. Can you describe kind of your experience going out on these boats and doing this reporting?
- [06:24]
Hal Bernton
Well, to me, it's been a real privilege. It's always a little bit of an adventure. I'm very aware that I'm kind of an imposition, you know, a journalist and then Lauren Holmes, who's probably less of an imposition than me because he's not always asking questions. But he's a wonderfully talented photographer I've been really fortunate to collaborate with from the Anchorage Daily News. So it's been a real learning experience each time I go out to sea and each time to really get past whatever sort of stereotypes people have to what is actually happening. And I hope I'm able to show a little more closely and accurately what does happen on some of these fishing vessels.
- [07:14]
Casey Grove
That was fisheries reporter Hal Bernton, author of a series of stories about challenges to the commercial halibut fleet, bottom trawlers and orcas published recently in the Anchorage Daily News, Seattle Times and Northern Journal. Drone technology helped speed the process for approving the state's federal disaster declaration after ex Typhoon Ha Long that was the message from Stan Caldwell, the director of a federal Department of Transportation program that gives grants to agencies for projects that improve safety and transportation. He was in Anchorage earlier this week to meet with officials working on drone technology. He says a federal grant allowed the state to use drones to provide real time data and photos when Typhoon Ha Long wrecked havoc in western Alaska last month. Caldwell says that immediate information expedited the disaster declaration approved by President Trump in October and making federal funds available to assist with the response and recovery. These recovery efforts are now happening in days, not months, because they're able to make these assessments. The federal Department of Transportation also awarded over a million dollars to the state in January for avalanche mitigation technology along the Seward highway, which runs between Anchorage and Seward. Caldwell says Alaska is in the forefront of drone technology. The state's Department of Transportation tested drones last year to deploy and detonate explosives to trigger controlled avalanches. Caldwell says drones could be used in rural areas around the country for a variety of purposes.
- [08:42]
Hal Bernton
We're putting it out into this cold.
- [08:44]
Casey Grove
Environmental conditions and making sure that it's still robust enough to work, and then you throw a typhoon on top of.
- [08:51]
Hal Bernton
It and show that it works.
- [08:53]
Casey Grove
Ryan Marlowe is the state Department of Transportation and Public Facilities Emerging Technologies coordinator, and he says recent storms have shown opportunity for drone innovation and that this technology is much faster than traditional aircraft. He says the drones can be flown remotely, which avoids putting people in potentially dangerous situations. We're really bridging that gap of equity with a lot of these technologies that are now equipped with thermal cameras, now equipped with live streaming. Several other states have also received money through the same federal program for various projects, including expanding infrastructure for charging electric vehicles. In Colorado, the program is called smart, which stands for strengthening mobility and revolutionizing transportation. Still to come on Alaska News Nightly, a new club on Prince of Wales island is focused on an unusual sport.
- [09:46]
John Arntz
The best way to understand arm wrestling is that it's a combat sport. You're just limiting the combat to your hand that's ahead.
- [09:53]
Casey Grove
Stay with us. It's the time of year when winter weather traps pollution in many interior Alaska communities. The Alaska Division of Environmental Conservation has begun issuing air quality alerts for Fairbanks and the nearby community of North Pole. National Weather Service meteorologist Bobby Bianco says cold air inversions around Thanksgiving are likely to bring even more alerts.
- [10:18]
TJ Bredo
We're most likely going to be keeping an inversion that's going to be pretty strong around the area and we'll notice that the air quality is going to.
- [10:25]
Casey Grove
Be getting a little bit worse, bianco says. Northern interior communities located in valleys like Fairbanks, North Pole, Healy, Fort, Yukon and Circle can expect the worst of it. He says the pollution hanging over those areas generally comes from wood stoves, coal fired power plants and car exhaust. And when denser, colder air moves into.
- [10:43]
TJ Bredo
The valleys, it literally just cannot leave the atmosphere above a few hundred feet. And unless we get something like clouds overhead, which can warm up our temperatures and allow the atmosphere to mix higher up.
- [10:53]
Casey Grove
According to the National Institute of Health, these types of events can have long term health consequences. TJ Bredo is a state environmental program manager. He says residents should be mindful of the air quality before going outside to enjoy the dwindling winter sunshine.
- [11:08]
TJ Bredo
Yeah, we always have our near real time data that's posted on our website and we encourage people to go there and watch the Air Quality Index to see when air quality is safe and when are the best times to be outside and enjoying the good, clear, fresh air, bredo says.
- [11:27]
Casey Grove
Anyone in vulnerable categories, such as the elderly or people with cardiovascular or respiratory illnesses, should check with their physicians for further guidance. You can sign up for mobile air quality alerts by visiting the state's Air Quality Division website and@dec.alaska.gov air the US Department of Education is cutting A grant that funds about half of the faculty and staff at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Bristol Bay campus. KDLG's Margaret Sutherland reports.
- [11:56]
Margaret Sutherland
Brian O' Hare is UAF's interim vice chancellor for Rural Community and Native Education. He says the grant is set to expire at the end of the federal fiscal year.
- [12:07]
TJ Bredo
Were able to keep those faculty and staff on through September 2026 through the no cost extension, but there are seven individuals at the Bristol Bay campus that were funded under the grant.
- [12:21]
Margaret Sutherland
That's seven of the 14 faculty and staff members currently working at the Bristol Bay campus. According to O', Hare, the grant comes from Title 3 of Congress's Higher Education act, specifically a section that supports universities where at least 20% of students are indigenous. The U.S. department of Education canceled several such grants to minority serving universities which they deemed discriminatory for linking federal money to racial quotas. But Uher says the funding is used to support all students within the institution, regardless of race and ethnicity through faculty and staff positions.
- [12:59]
TJ Bredo
This is unique funding in that it doesn't fund like student aid or anything like that. It funds positions. So this particular grant for Bristol Bay was funding like student support, advising, coaching, financial aid support and some faculty to teach pre college courses like English and math.
- [13:24]
Margaret Sutherland
Bristol Bay Campus received the grant in 2023 and was set to receive $3.9 million over the course of five years. O' Hare says the loss amounts to $1.5 million over the next three years. The Bristol Bay campus serves 30 Bristol Bay communities and 12 communities in the Aleutian Pribilof Islands. It served 642 enrolled students in 2023. On November 3rd, Bristol Bay's Alaska Sea Grant Marine Advisory Agent Tav Amu testified before the UA Board of Regents. OMU doesn't work directly for the campus, but says he relies on campus infrastructure in his position and for training. He puts on and full disclosure. He's a personal friend of mine and a member of KDLG's advisory committee. In his testimony to the board, he says two employees have already left the campus this year and the remaining staff are facing an increased workload and decreased support system.
- [14:22]
TJ Bredo
I'm concerned about how many other employees are we anticipating that will leave the campus? How many students will we stop serving because of loss of employees and best and uncertain future?
- [14:33]
Margaret Sutherland
O' Hare says there is still uncertainty around the funding cuts. He says they formally requested a funding extension right before the government shutdown. As of Friday, they had not heard back. On September 18, Alaska's U.S. senators Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, along with 10 other senators, signed a letter to U.S. secretary of Education Linda McMahon calling for the funding to continue. The senators said the cut jeopardizes the existence of colleges serving American Indians, Alaska Natives and Native Hawaiians and undermines the federal government's trust and treaty obligations to native students. It also notes that Congress set the money aside to fulfill programs that are in the law. Uhere says the federal delegation continues to work on behalf of reinstating this funding.
- [15:21]
TJ Bredo
And so we're just, we're wanting to give them the respect and time to do their advocacy efforts in D.C. so we're hoping that now that the government is open back up again, we can hear something by the end of this year.
- [15:34]
Margaret Sutherland
O' Hare says the university is also looking for other potential funding sources for the positions.
- [15:40]
TJ Bredo
So we're absolutely trying to keep our options and we're trying to find other sources of funding, but we just don't have anything definitive at this point. State and time, he says they still.
- [15:49]
Margaret Sutherland
Need to go through the state legislative process to see how much funding is provided to the university. Reporting from KDLG in Dillingham, I'm Margaret Sutherland.
- [16:00]
Casey Grove
NOME had a community veterinary pop up last week. The effort brought together different organizations to care for dogs from the Bering Strait, North Slope and Northwest Arctic Borough regions. KOM's Wally Rana has more.
- [16:12]
Wally Rana
The Ambulance Bay and Nomes Police Department filled up with dogs receiving care earlier this month. Emily Stouts is the president of PAWS of nome. She says the local nonprofit has held similar clinics in the past, going back almost a decade.
- [16:25]
TJ Bredo
So we might be up to like 10 clinics, not all with Arvo, but with similar traveling teams.
- [16:32]
Wally Rana
Arvo, or Alaska Rural Veterinary Outreach, is a partner nonprofit. Stott says they have been following a hub and spoke model where dogs from the village receive care in Nome. The clinic lasted three days, and she says they were able to bring the dogs to Nome on a chartered flight. The dogs were flown in free of cost if they were already spayed or neutered or are going to be. Dogs also received vaccines, dewormers, medications and exams. They were also treated for any injuries. Stotts says there's a real need for the clinic for villages in the surrounding region. Sometimes that means people look for other options, like rehoming or surrendering animals because they can't get their pet's veterinary care.
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TJ Bredo
Well, how about instead of medically surrendering this pet that you obviously love very much, you make him participate in the clinic?
- [17:15]
Wally Rana
Stott says the clinics have been propped up in Nomes Police department before. But she says this year the group ended up setting up at Nome's Lutheran Church for some procedures because the police department was too cold. By the time the operation was moved to the church, the clinic had seen 17 dogs.
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TJ Bredo
Like the PD, space was something that we were used to using, and the coldness wasn't something we were expecting. It was definitely a curveball.
- [17:38]
Wally Rana
By the time the clinic stopped services, they had served over 50 dogs and four cats. Stott says the various nonprofits involved had staff come up from all over the country.
- [17:48]
TJ Bredo
The team from Blue Pearl Cares, two of the techs were from Washington. One of the doctors was from Dallas.
- [17:55]
Wally Rana
She says students from Nome's Ancep Acceleration Academy also helped set up before the vets arrived. Stotts anticipates there being another community clinic in March if their holiday fundraising goes well. She says. It takes a village to raise a child or a puppy, in this case. In Noam, I'm Wally Rana, A Juno.
- [18:14]
Casey Grove
Nonprofit is seeing a 20% rise in the number of people requesting Thanksgiving food baskets this year. Juneau's chapter of St. Vincent de Paul is delivering the basket Saturday to anyone who applied. With the help of 60 volunteers, executive director Jennifer Skinner says people can expect the makings for a full holiday meal.
- [18:33]
TJ Bredo
And then we give you the work, the quintessential Thanksgiving meal. You get a turkey or turkey breast, depending on the size of your family. You get yams. You get canned goods that are like the corn and the green beans and stuffing and gravy and pie.
- [18:53]
Casey Grove
At the beginning of November, people who receive food assistance through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also called SNAP or food stamps, didn't get their benefits on time. After partial payments and further delays, the state says that all SNAP beneficiaries in Alaska have received their full payments. But the chaos led to long lines at the food bank and a scramble as organizations stepped in to help. And food insecurity was rising in Juneau before the SNAP delays, too. Skinner says nearly 500 people have already applied for a Thanksgiving meal basket by Wednesday. That's a 20% increase from last year.
- [19:27]
TJ Bredo
We really we won't say no, right? Our mission is we're here to help everyone, right? So we will serve everyone the best we can.
- [19:36]
Casey Grove
Skinner says they have enough volunteers helping with Saturday's distribution, but St. Vincent's is still accepting food and monetary donations on Thanksgiving Day, Resurrection Lutheran Church and the Salvation army are both hosting holiday meals. Resurrection Lutheran's Karen Lawford says the downtown church will be serving dinner from 6 to 8:30pm and anyone who wants a.
- [19:57]
TJ Bredo
Meal is welcome, knowing that they can come and have a meal and be with friends, meet new friends and just be able to be a part of a community.
- [20:11]
Casey Grove
Laufer says that the community element is often just as important as the food itself, especially on holidays when people may be far away or disconnected from loved ones. Resurrection Lutheran is still seeking volunteers to help with the meal. The Salvation army will be serving from 11:30am to 1pm on Thanksgiving Day as well at the Juneau Yacht Club for other food assistance. The Southeast Alaska Food bank is having a limited distribution the day before Thanksgiving and Christmas, since both holidays fall on their normal distribution day. Prince of Wales island in southern southeast Alaska is home to fewer than 6,000 people, but the sparsely populated island is also home to what is thought to be one of the only arm wrestling clubs in Alaska. As KRBD's Hunter Morrison reports, the group house hopes to one day form an arm wrestling league for the entire state.
- [21:02]
John Arntz
My crew was laughing at me because.
- [21:04]
Jeff Andis
My arms hurt Miles outside of Klawack, in a garage turned gym, four men stand around a waist high table with elbow pads and hand pegs fueled by a slice of pepperoni pizza. Jeff Andis challenges his buddy John Arntz to a match.
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John Arntz
You trying to go again man, or what? Oh sure, yeah.
- [21:25]
Jeff Andis
The men step up to the table and link hands. There's a momentary struggle until There we go.
- [21:32]
John Arntz
There we go.
- [21:34]
Casey Grove
Oh yeah.
- [21:35]
Jeff Andis
Andis goes for the win. The bridge construction manager from Thorn Bay is the brainchild behind Prince of Wales Island's new arm wrestling club, Pow Armwrestling. He started a Facebook group earlier this year to recruit others, and so far up to a dozen people from across the island have shown up to the group's weekly meetups. Andis says they gather in a different town each week to mingle, talk arm wrestling techniques and of course, face off.
- [22:03]
John Arntz
The best way to understand arm wrestling is that it's a combat sport. You're just limiting the combat to your hand. And they should really call it hand wrestling because it's probably 80% hand strength and 20% arm strength.
- [22:18]
Jeff Andis
Andis says that because of the anatomy of the hand, mastering the sport is more complex than you'd think. Hand grip and elbow placement have a lot to do with it as well as your body's posture. He says that honing your technique is a never ending prospect. Even the pros are still improving, and arm wrestling isn't just a physical activity, it's a social one andis says that's important for mental health, especially during the dark winters on the isolated island. He says the weekly meetups are something for the group to look forward to.
- [22:51]
John Arntz
Kind of one of the cruxes of humanity is relationships. And there's very, very few people that can function well mentally without relationships with other people. And we find all kinds of things to build those relationships on. And I suppose arm wrestling is just another one of those things.
- [23:08]
Jeff Andis
The sport is what brought Andis and John Arentz together. They live about 40 minutes apart and didn't cross paths before their first arm wrestling meetup. Now, Arentz says they're pretty good friends.
- [23:20]
Hal Bernton
I like hanging out and having something to do that's physically active and it's.
- [23:26]
Casey Grove
Strenuous and it's, you know, non violent and it's, you know, it's just a good time.
- [23:34]
TJ Bredo
Good, good folks.
- [23:35]
Casey Grove
Meet new guys.
- [23:36]
Jeff Andis
Although Arentz isn't new to the sport, he hadn't done it for years before stumbling upon the new Facebook group. He says that some people may associate arm wrestling with bars and drinking, but the group on Prince of Wales island promotes a sober environment. Andis, the group's founder, says setting that tone is important for newcomers.
- [23:56]
John Arntz
And that's, that's a big thing to me is because I want it to be a positive environment and I want it to be something just good for one another and sobriety is a big part of that.
- [24:06]
Jeff Andis
To Andis knowledge, there isn't a single established arm wrestling group in Alaska. He says much of the state's arm wrestling activities are sporadic and in bars like the Post Iditarod competition at a watering hole in Nome. So Andis and his group hope to put together an Alaska league. He says representatives from the World Arm Wrestling League have looked for people in Alaska to form a group to compete internationally, although that hasn't come to fruition yet.
- [24:34]
John Arntz
I mean, it's, it's a long shot goal, but I mean, whoever reached a long shot goal without making it.
- [24:40]
Jeff Andis
For now, though, Andis's main goal for the group is growing it as more members join. He hopes to host a tournament on the island next summer and take part in local fundraisers later on, he'd like to host a southeast wide competition in Juneau. Reporting from Prince of Wales Island. Hi, I'm Hunter Morrison.
- [25:01]
Casey Grove
And that's all for this edition of Alaska News Nightly. If you missed any of tonight's stories, we're online@alaskapublic.org and wherever you get your podcasts. We had reports tonight from Eric Stone and Yvonne Crumbry in Juneau, Ava White in Anchorage, Shelby Herbert in Fairbanks, Margaret Sutherland in Dillingham, Wally Rana in Nome, and Hunter Morrison in Ketchikan. If you want to send us a news tip, question or comment, email us@newsalaskapublic.org Our audio engineer tonight is Tobin Shelby. Madeline Rose is our producer, and I'm Casey Grove. Have a great weekend.