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- [00:00]
Evan Erickson
Support for Alaska Public Media on Demand comes from Alaska Pipeline Service Company proud of its ties to Alaska communities since 1977. More at Alyeskapipeline.com.
- [00:19]
Lori Strickler
We don't know what it's going to look like, but we do know that once that last barge hits, our costs are locked in.
- [00:25]
Casey Grove
Communities in western Alaska brace for skyrocketing fuel costs From Alaska Public Media, this is statewide news on Alaska News nightly for Thursday, May 21st. Good evening. I'm Casey Grove. Also tonight, a high profile sexual assault case in the capital city prompts new legislation.
- [00:42]
Jamie Ann Haslequist
This isn't going to help them in their case, but I hope that it brings some sort of justice.
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Casey Grove
Those stories and more tonight on Alaska News Nightly. The Alaska Legislature kicked off a special session today to continue working on tax cuts for the Alaska LNG project. Governor Mike Dunleavy called the special session on Tuesday after lawmakers didn't pass the bill he introduced in late March. Most of the activity in this special session will be in the House and Senate's finance committees. The House Finance Committee got right to work today with a presentation from the Department of Revenue. Senators plan to kick off hearings next week on Wednesday. Whether lawmakers will be able to find a way forward is unclear. Dunleavy says tax relief is essential to the project, but lawmakers are hesitant to give up billions of dollars in potential property tax revenue for a project they're not confident will lower energy costs or boost the state treasury. The special session comes a day after the regular legislative session adjourned. Lawmakers approved a $1,000 permanent fund dividend and a number of measures aimed at helping Alaskans and their communities deal with high oil prices. Those include a $200 energy relief payment to each PFD eligible Alaskan, plus millions to help schools, local governments and low income families deal with the high cost of energy. Lawmakers also passed a variety of high priority bills on the last day of the session, including student loan assistance for Alaska teachers, a wide ranging crime bill in a measure placing limits on campaign contributions in state elections. Alaska has seen skyrocketing gas prices driven by the war in Iran. Communities in the western part of the state that have been burning last year's fuel are bracing for their own crisis as they anticipate what could be an even more drastic spike with the arrival of the first Barges of the SP KYUK's Evan Erickson reports as the Yukon
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Evan Erickson
Kuskokwim Delta emerges from a long winter that strained fuel stores. The arrival of the first barges of the season might typically be cause for celebration. But this year it's cause for anxiety. Suppliers have told customers to expect price increases driven by the war in Iran of at least several dollars per gallon on the millions of gallons of diesel and gasoline that flow into the region annually. In the hub of Bethel, City Manager Lori Strickler says she's budgeting for a 30% increase in fuel costs for the city over the next year. She's looking for municipal buildings that can be closed and ways to move employees into shared spaces. It's a difficult process because she still has no idea how much prices will jump and suppliers have an incentive to keep this information private.
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Lori Strickler
We don't know what it's going to look like, but we do know that once that last barge hits, our car costs are locked in, strickler says.
- [03:45]
Evan Erickson
The city will likely receive its first of multiple bulk fuel shipments in June. With the fall freeze up, Bethel and dozens of communities across the region will be locked into prices and left to deal with the impacts.
- [03:56]
Lori Strickler
Everything's just going to increase and to what extent. No one that I have talked to knows.
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Evan Erickson
The global oil market and the quotes that fuel suppliers are giving Rural Alaska customers are both changing rapidly as the Strait of Hormuz remains effectively shut down. But western Alaska diesel and gasoline prices that were locked in last year by the key suppliers Crowley, Vitis, Delta, Western and Top Fuel have held relatively steady. In Bethel and in nearby villages, that price hovers around seven or eight dollars a gallon, and in some coastal communities it tops $9 a gallon. Upriver from Bethel, fuel rates are expected to increase by at least 50% at the three school U beat school district, according to Superintendent Scott Ballard.
- [04:39]
Scott Ballard
I've been talking to Crowley for, you know, well and a half now and it's, it's ugly, ballard says.
- [04:47]
Evan Erickson
Crowley recently quoted him a price roughly $2.50 more per gallon than last year's bulk fuel order. It would cost the already cash strapped district an additional $500,000. Ballard says he's waiting to pull the trigger on the order, hoping for even a small decrease in price that could save the district thousands of dollars.
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Scott Ballard
The best thing would have been to anticipate that this war was going to start and order the fuel back in January.
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Evan Erickson
February at the much larger Lower Kuskokwim school district, Superintendent Andrew Hannibal Anderson says the district is budgeting for an 80% increase in fuel costs for its nearly two dozen village schools. Like the U Beat School district, Anderson says LKSD still hasn't confirmed the price it will pay or how it might adjust its budget to account for the massive cost. Power utilities are also bracing for a hit. Alaska Village Electric Cooperative President Bill Stam says the power provider that serves 58 rural communities is anticipating at least a 50% fuel cost increase. Stam says if families can't afford fuel, it'll strain both household budgets and regional utility capacity.
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Brendan Smith
What does rural Alaska look like in the spring when people haven't been able to afford heating fuel so they've been running up their electric bill, keeping their house warm and they get to the springtime and realize, well, now I've got a $10,000 bill for my electric.
- [06:13]
Evan Erickson
Fuel shipped in by barge also has a direct impact on the small air carriers that serve western Alaska. Ryan Air director of Stations Justin Poleas says the carrier recently instituted its first ever fuel surcharge on passenger flights out of Anchorage to offset a doubling in the price of jet fuel. He says a similar fuel price jump is likely around the corner for the smaller planes that deliver essential mail and freight to dozens of remote communities.
- [06:39]
Scott Ballard
We're preparing ourselves for fuel price across western Alaska, all our bush locations to double in price. There's a real chance we might operate at a loss or break even, depending on what the fuel is going to look like. And it might be like that for a considerable amount of time.
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Evan Erickson
Poleis says what's mostly on his mind are the roughly 80 employees he oversees.
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Scott Ballard
I'm worrying about they're being able to heat their homes, fuel their cars. All my village agents in 73 villages fueling up their four wheeler to meet the plane gonna affect every aspect of life in western Alaska.
- [07:11]
Evan Erickson
The costs for rural families that are already struggling to shore up their communities against severe environmental impacts or actively pursuing relocation could be staggering. According to the Alaska center for Energy and Power at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, even a $2 a gallon increase in fuel costs would add an average annual financial burden of 2,400 do for every Western Alaska resident. But high oil prices have also created a short term windfall for the state's finances, and the state is looking at ways it can help. On Wednesday, the Legislature passed an operating budget with more than $50 million in funding for measures aimed at energy relief and fuel affordability. But in western Alaska, it may be less about the day the governor signs the budget and more about the day the first barge hits In Bethel, I'm Evan Erickson.
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Casey Grove
Air travelers trying to fly out of Anchorage have found themselves stuck in unusually long lines heading into the Memorial Day weekend. The Transportation Security Administration says the delays are due to intermittent outages with its X ray screening equipment at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport. Airport spokesperson Lex Yelverton says air travelers should arrive two to three hours before their departure time.
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Lori Strickler
TSA is actively working to address the current situation.
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Casey Grove
However, extended wait times are expected to
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Lori Strickler
continue throughout the day and may persist into Friday.
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Casey Grove
Technicians are looking into the X ray machine issues and airport staff are working to minimize the long wait times, according to the tsa. Yelverton says the airport will share updates on its social media channels. Still the common Alaska News Nightly A new Anchorage exhibit brings visitors onboard an Arctic research vessel.
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Brendan Smith
I said to myself, what if we bring the Sokuliak into the museum?
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Casey Grove
That's ahead. Stay with us. The Alaska Department of Law has voided regulations aimed at restricting the Area M commercial salmon fishery. The state Board of Fisheries passed the regulations in February, and they were quickly challenged in a lawsuit filed by the Aleutians East Borough, the Native village of Unga and two commercial fishing groups. They argued the regulations could not be enforced because the Board of Fisheries violated state ethics laws while adopting them. The groups dropped a lawsuit Wednesday after the state revoked the new rules, with both sides agreeing to end the case. Area M has long been at the center of a fight over salmon conservation in western Alaska, where low chum and chinook returns have led to major restrictions on subsistence fishing. The five regulations approved by board members at their February meeting would have reduced when and where commercial salmon harvest could fish in the South Alaska Peninsula, commonly called Area M. They would have also added closures tied to chinook salmon harvests. The borough and other plaintiffs, including the Native village of Unga, argued that some of the board's votes were invalid due to undisclosed conflicts of interest and that some of the board members should not have participated in the vote. The issue has divided fishing groups across Alaska for decades. Subsistence harvesters in western Alaska, most notably native communities in the Yukon Kuskokwim region, have raised alarm over dismal salmon returns. They say the intercept fishery in Area M has contributed to poor returns in their region and led to closures that threaten their entire way of life. Area M fishermen and local officials say the restrictions would hurt fishing communities without doing much to help salmon returns. In a Wednesday statement, the Aleutian's Eastborough called the state's action a complete victory. A bill that would change the scope of an Alaska sexual assault law passed through the Legislature Wednesday as part of a 10 bill package. Specifically, it alters a law that criminalizes sexual assault by a medical provider. KTO's Yvonne Crumry has more Democratic Juno
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Yvonne Crumry
representative Sarah Hannon's bill comes after a high profile sexual assault trial in the capital city that ended with two acquittals and 14 charges declared mistrials in September. The case involves more than a dozen former patients, predominantly Alaska Native women, who accuse chiropractor Jeffrey Foltz of sexual assault under the guise of medical care while he worked at Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium in Juneau. As it stands now, a key part of the legal definition of sexual assault by a medical provider requires that the alleged victim isn't aware of sexual contact happening in the moment. That's what Hannon's bill would change, which she calls a loophole in the law. If signed into law by governor Mike Dunleavy, that stipulation would be removed. That means sexual contact by a medical provider during the course of treatment will be considered assault regardless of the patient's awareness. However, the change can't be applied to the charges in the ongoing case against Foltz. After the bill's passage on Wednesday afternoon, Hannon gave thanks to someone who's been testifying on behalf of the bill since it was introduced earlier this year. Saithin Jamie Ann Haslequest she has demonstrated
- [12:08]
Lori Strickler
great resiliency and courage to come forward and I want to thank and acknowledge her. The updates to this bill did not impact her case. Her charges have been dismissed. The law is not retroactive, but she is advocating to make sure that future victims aren't created by cases that can't be prosecuted.
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Yvonne Crumry
Haslequist is one of Fultz's former patients. She testified against Fultz during the 2025 trial, and the charges associated with her accusations were the two the jury declared not guilty. It's unclear if the loophole was a factor in the dismissals. Jurors reasons aren't made public, but shortly after the jury returned its verdict last fall, the judge in the case dismissed one of the remaining charges, and the reason he gave does involve the loophole. Judge Larry Wolford ruled that one of the alleged victim's testimony didn't match the existing legal definition of the charge for sexual assaults by a medical provider. The acquittal order said the charge was dismissed because she was aware that the contact she received was sexual and that it was not a part of legitimate medical treatment, unquote. And changing that loophole was the heart of Hannon's bill. Hasselquist, the former patient, says she's been fighting for the change since her charges were acquitted, and this bill passing out of the legislature will allow her to rest. She says she hopes it also brings a bit of peace to the women whose charges are still active and may be retried.
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Jamie Ann Haslequist
I consistently through my testimonies have sent strength out to the women who are still involved in this case. And again, I know that this isn't going to help them in their case, but I hope that it brings some sort of justice to them in knowing that this loophole is closed.
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Yvonne Crumry
And the remaining 13 charges against Foltz may still be retried, but the court has not been able to schedule a second trial yet. In Juneau, I'm Yvonne Crumry.
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Casey Grove
Firefighters have cut a line around a 15 acre wildfire south of Delta Junction to keep it from spreading, but it took a couple of days for eight smokejumpers, two fire crews and local volunteer firefighters to prevent the Sawmill Creek fire from spreading, KUIC's Tim Ellis reports.
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Tim Ellis
State Forestry and Fire Protection Division spokesperson Sam Harrell said the fire started Monday when high winds kicked up embers from an old burn near the northern portion of the Delta agricultural project, about 25 miles southeast of town.
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Scott Ballard
Winds did carry that fire into the forested state land at the north end of the agriculture project there. That same evening there were passing storm cells and that really helped to scatter embers from the fire.
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Tim Ellis
Also on Tuesday, high winds again kicked up embers on the eastern edge of the fire, but the crews from White Mountain and the Tanana Chiefs region knocked it down, a forestry news release said. They continued working Wednesday on widening the saw line and laying down more hose. Harrell said they had to move carefully through the area to avoid injuries from falling trees.
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Scott Ballard
The real concern is the fire weakened trees and the winds bringing those trees down on firefighters working in the area. They really need to be cautious about that, he said.
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Tim Ellis
The smoke jumpers were sent back to their base on Fort Wainwright on Tuesday after they and the two crews completed cutting a line around the fire and putting out hot spots across the Gerstel river ignited by embers from the main fire.
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Scott Ballard
We always want to free up the smoke jumpers because they're a very valuable asset and we always want to have them ready to go to the to the next emerging fire, harrell said.
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Tim Ellis
The firefighters will continue extinguishing hotspots within the perimeter. The two crews will continue putting out the hotspots while monitoring the area around the fire. Because it's burning in a high priority area with dozens of homes, farms and
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Scott Ballard
livestock herds, it's gonna take a while because this is a 100% suppression fire. They're gonna make sure that there's no heat, no smoke, no, no nothing left on this fire, harrell said.
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Tim Ellis
They'll be watching closely for any other hotspots that may be kicked up by winds that are forecast for today and Friday, he said. The Forestry Division has suspended burn permits in the Delta area and in three areas around Fairbanks. The wildfires in the Delta AG project and in two military training areas near Fort Greely and Eielson Air Force Base were the first that state and federal firefighting agencies have responded to so far in the region in the 2026 fire season. In Delta Junction, I'm Tim Ellis.
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Casey Grove
U.S. forest Service Plan to revamp the Mendenhall Glacier Visitor center to accommodate more tourists will remain in place with some additional paperwork. A federal court decided this month not to scrap the improvement project after ruling last year that the agency's planning process violated the law. KTOO's Alex Solomon has more.
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Alex Solomon
The Forest Service's plan is to expand facilities around Menenhall Glacier, Juneau's top tourist attraction. It includes building a new welcome center and five new cabins, improving the existing visitor center, paving more parking lots and expanding trails. Catherine Miller, a longtime Juneau resident who lives nearby, sued the forest service in 2024 for focusing solely on facilitating more tourism during the planning process without considering restricting the number of visitors. In its September ruling, the U.S. district Court for Alaska agreed with Miller that the agency's narrow focus violated the National Environmental Policy Act. The Forest Service's main error was that it said improvements are needed to accommodate an estimated 2% increase in visitors per year. All of the agency's options for the plan were designed to serve that purpose. Although the court agreed with Miller's assertion, it denied her request to throw out the plan to fix the error. The court ordered the Forest Service to clarify the purpose of the project and consider a range of visitor growth projections. Edits Essentially, in its order, the court agreed with the Forest Service that there's a serious possibility it would reach the same decision on the improvement plan. That's because the Menedhal Glacier Visitor center, which sees an estimated 700,000 visitors annually, is already overcrowded, so facilities would need improvements even without more tourists. The annual capacity at the visitor center is a little more than half a million people. The improvement plan, as originally written, would have raised it to nearly a million people, with more than 80% allocated to commercial use. But the court ordered the agency to hold off on increasing the visitor capacity until it has remedied the legal issue. The Forest Service has secured $25 million for the project. In court files, the agency said it's already spent about $3 million on architecture and engineering. The agency is required to file a status update with the court in November. The Forest Service, U.S. department of justice and Catherine Miller did not respond to requests for comment. In Juneau, I'm Alex Solomon.
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Casey Grove
It's National Safe Boating Week, and the US Coast Guard search and rescue teams in Juneau are asking residents to help prevent false alerts. A false alert is anytime the Coast Guard's search and rescue systems are activated, when there is no real emergency. But responders still have to treat it like it is one, says US Coast Guard Arctic District Master Chief Greg Slusher.
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Greg Slusher
If we can't get ahold of somebody in a pretty timely fashion, we've got to assume that we're dealing with distress and we'll launch appropriately.
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Casey Grove
False alerts happen often in southeast Alaska, according to the Coast Guard, and when they do happen, it takes up emergency response resources, which are already limited and can endanger Coast Guard responders. False alerts can happen a few different ways in southeast Alaska. Unmanned kayaks and paddleboards are often washed out onto the water, and someone reports it as a possible overturned vessel.
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Greg Slusher
If we get that reported to us, we have to assume somebody was on it and fell off of it at some point, and so we're going to open up a search and rescue case and look into that further.
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Casey Grove
Slusher advises people to write their name and phone number on their kayaks and paddle boards so that emergencies can be ruled out quickly if the boats slip away accidentally. The Coast Guard also responds to emergency beacons or satellite communicators that have been triggered accidentally. Slusher says. That's one reason why it's important to keep emergency position indicating radio beacons or EPIRBs, registered and up to date.
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Greg Slusher
We've all probably had our, you know, our phone go off and the next thing you know you're calling 911 by accident. The best thing is to follow up and say, hey, I'm sorry, this is an accident. No, no, you know, no harm, no foul.
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Casey Grove
Slusher says anyone can call the Coast Guard to report an accidental false alert. And as always, he advises people to share their boating plans with loved ones. A new exhibit at the Anchorage Museum takes visitors inside an Arctic research vessel. Since opening last week, it's given guests a chance to glimpse what it's like to study the Arctic marine ecosystem. Alyona Nydin, with the Alaska Desk, has more.
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Alyona Nydin
Rachel Bosenberg is associate curator at the Anchorage Museum. She's walking under a tall crane with deep blue all around her.
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Lori Strickler
So you enter here through the stern of the vessel and you can see the different science instruments that folks would use on the back.
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Alyona Nydin
Bosenberg is given a tour of the new exhibition called Arctic Marine Sekuliak to shore, which brings the audience aboard a replica of the research vessel Sekuliak. After boarding the ship, visitors pass the lab and dining area and make their way onto the bridge. Here, the captain's chair faces an array of monitors showing various marine conditions and a ceiling high projector screen with a vast ocean that changes from stormy swells to chunks of pancake ice.
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Lori Strickler
We're looking off the bow of Sokuliak, which visitors at this point have walked through the whole ship.
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Alyona Nydin
Sekuliaq is operated by the University of Alaska Fairbanks and owned by the National Science Foundation. Each year, dozens of scientists from across the country and the world board the vessel to traverse the northern waters off Alaska's coast and study the Arctic. They collect samples from the seafloor, send remotely operated vehicles to the least accessible parts of the ocean, and deploy hydrophones to record sounds of marine mammals. Brendan Smith is the communications director at the North Pacific Research Board that funds many projects run from the vessel. He dreamed up the idea for the exhibition.
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Brendan Smith
I think it was around 2020 when I said to myself, what if we bring the Sekuliak into the museum? How do we do that? How do we give people an experience that makes them feel like they're out at sea?
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Alyona Nydin
Smith says the result is an immersive experience focused on how the ship is used to study the environment and the people who bring that knowledge to life. The replica includes Microscope station to look at Plankton, a gallery of Arctic themed illustrations and sketching tables for children and adults. Smith, who attended the exhibit's opening, says it blends science and art.
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Brendan Smith
It was beautiful seeing science, seeing how people can learn about the science, but also appreciating the beauty. Plankton and diatoms and creatures that are so tiny that you need a microscope to see. And when you see them, you're just like, I can't believe there are things like that in the ocean.
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Alyona Nydin
And there is a station with Arctic soundscapes,
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Lori Strickler
that's a bowhead whale.
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Alyona Nydin
Bosenberg, with the museum, says these are the sounds that scientists can gather using hydrophones they deploy from the real vessel
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Lori Strickler
and a personal favorite, the otherworldly sounding bearded seal.
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Alyona Nydin
She says that another big part of the exhibition is the community focused gallery that shows how scientists collaborate with coastal communities and Indigenous knowledge holders to look at the changing environment.
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Lori Strickler
Everything is interconnected and every part matters. Every voice matters.
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Alyona Nydin
Harmony Jade's Hugi Quayner is an Indigenous scholar from Naknek in southwest Alaska. She consulted on the exhibition and suggested curators include what Arctic research means for Alaska Native people who are a part of the ecosystem.
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Yvonne Crumry
We see a lot of big graphs about climate change and the extent of sea ice and those big global processes, but we don't see the joy of living our culture in coastal Alaska and River Alaska.
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Alyona Nydin
The Exhibition runs through April 2027 on the first floor of the Anchorage Museum. There are also science demonstrations and activities on Thursday and Saturday afternoons in Anchorage. I am Alena Knighton
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Casey Grove
and that's all for this edition of Alaska News Nightly. If you missed any of tonight's news stories were online@alaskapublic.org and wherever you get your podcasts. We had reports tonight from Eric Stone, Yvonne Crumry and Alex Solomon in Juneau, Evan Erickson in Bethel, Michaela Finnerty and Alone Inyden in Anchorage, Theo Greenlee in ATKA and Tim Ellis in Delta Junction. If you want to send us a news tip, question or comment, email us@newsalaskapublic.org Our audio engineer is Crystal Hyde, Kirsten Dobroth is our producer and I'm Casey Grove. Good night. This is statewide news on Alaska Public Media.