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- [00:00]
Alyeska Pipeline Service Company Representative
Support for Alaska Public Media on demand comes from alyeska Pipeline Service Company maintaining and operating the 800 mile Trans Alaska Pipeline since 1977. More at AlyeskaPipeline.com.
- [00:20]
Energy Expert or Alaska Official
Many of our Asian allies and others are looking where are we going to get energy on a long term secure basis? Well, Alaska's secure, there's no doubt about it.
- [00:28]
Kacey Grove
Governor Dunleavy pushes lawmakers to act fast on his proposal to cut taxes for the Alaska LNG project. From Alaska Public Media, this is statewide news on Alaska News nightly for Tuesday, May 5th. Good evening. I'm Kacey Grove. Also tonight, leaders from villages devastated by ex typhoon halong meet with federal officials about the path forward.
- [00:47]
Tribal Leader or Community Representative
There is no current program for relocation and no agency that handles relocation.
- [01:00]
Kacey Grove
Governor Mike Dunleavy is pressing lawmakers to act quickly on his proposal to cut taxes for the Alaska LNG project. Dunleavy says with LNG prices high and supplies uncertain because of the war with Iran, now is the moment for the $46 billion megaproject.
- [01:16]
Energy Expert or Alaska Official
There's a lot of movement now in the energy world. Across the world. Many of our Asian allies and others are looking where are we going to get energy on a long term secure basis? Well, Alaska's secure, there's no doubt about it. But Alaska always also costs more.
- [01:33]
Kacey Grove
The governor proposed a 6 cent tax on each unit of gas flowing through the pipeline from the North Slope to south central Alaska. That would cut state revenue by about 90% when compared to the existing property tax. The current drafts of the House and Senate's gas pipeline tax bills have a much higher rate, 20 cents in the House and 55 cents in the Senate, plus additional expenses. Dunleavy says neither one is good enough to coax investors to buy in or lend to a high cost risky project. House lawmakers are working with the governor's office and pipeline developer Glenn Farn in refining their version of the bill. The bipartisan Senate Majority Caucus, on the other hand, is taking a more adversarial approach. Senator Kathy Giesel, an Anchorage Republican who chairs the Senate Resources Committee, says lawmakers are not working with all the information they need, like the full cost of the project.
- [02:24]
Senator Kathy Giesel
Really, if they want any kind of tax reduction, they need to help us with this bill, giving us actual numbers.
- [02:31]
Kacey Grove
Giesel says the project could go forward even if lawmakers do nothing and leave the existing property tax in place. It has all the permits it needs and an advisor to the governor told Giesel's committee this morning that a higher tax rate would simply be passed through to consumers. But Glenn Farne's Alaska head Adam Prestage, says a high tax rate risks the project not going forward at all. Here he is talking about the Senate's tax rate.
- [02:56]
Adam Prestage
I would describe that as very burdensome for the project and potentially prohibitively so in terms of having a phase one project go forward on any of the timelines that we've discussed.
- [03:08]
Kacey Grove
Prestage says Glenn Farn is open to some concessions not included in the governor's bill. He says the company has agreed to create so called community impact funds to compensate for the costs of building the pipeline to include a spur line to Fairbanks and offer municipalities the opportunity to buy equity in the project. Dunleavy says if lawmakers don't pass something by the end of the session in two weeks, he's willing to call a special session to get it done. More than six months after the remnants of Typhoon Ha long devastated western Alaska, impacted residents are still working to rebuild their homes and their lives. US Senator Lisa Murkowski held a roundtable in Anchorage today with Interior Department officials to hear from Kipnock and Quigglingoc leaders about challenges the communities still face and ideas for how to move forward. As Alaska Public Media's Wesley early reports, thoughts of relocating the villages came up
- [04:11]
Reporter Wesley Early
again and again when ex typhoon halong blew through Quigillingoc last October. Lucy Martin sheltered in her home with her boys and her father.
- [04:20]
Lucy Martin
Just after 2:15am I looked out the window and I saw graves rolling. Graves and caskets rolling. Looked it was a real life horror movie for me.
- [04:34]
Reporter Wesley Early
In Kipnock village, Chief Paul J. Paul says debris, sewage and fuel contaminated the landscape as 16 family members, including 10 grandkids, holed up in his home.
- [04:46]
Paul J. Paul
Strong wind, heavy seas, waves starting to hit my house, peeled out my outer
- [04:55]
Kacey Grove
layer of plywood from my house.
- [04:58]
Reporter Wesley Early
Paul teared up, his voice cracking as he spoke of his daughter, asking them to sing Silent Night, hoping for some relief as the family prayed together. As roundtable attendees like Paul and Martin spoke, Billy Kirkland listened. Kirkland is assistant secretary for Indian affairs with the Department of Interior.
- [05:15]
Billy Kirkland
We're, I don't want to say excited to be here because obviously I'd much rather be here for a different situation. But we're happy to be a part of the process of healing that we have the ability to do.
- [05:31]
Reporter Wesley Early
Dustin Evan is tribal resilience coordinator for Quiggalingok. He says before the storm hit, the village was already weighing the impacts of a warming climate like thawing permafrost and increased river erosion.
- [05:43]
Dustin Evan
Preliminary projections showed that quick would be in great risk within 10 to 20 years. However, Typhoon Halong took care of that in one night. This will not be the only storm.
- [05:58]
Reporter Wesley Early
Martin works with Evan and on a visit months after the storm, says she noticed patches of tundra had disappeared.
- [06:04]
Lucy Martin
When I walk on raw ground, it's like walking on a waterbed, just on a jello, on a jello pad. The land sunk even lower. Our land is no longer safe for year round living.
- [06:21]
Reporter Wesley Early
Raina Paul, the tribal administrator for Kipnuk, says an additional issue is that the state is not communicating with tribes before sending contractors in for debris cleanup and other recovery efforts.
- [06:32]
Tribal Leader or Community Representative
The state has been charging forward with hiring contractors to do work in our in our village without consultation. This violates our tribal sovereignty.
- [06:45]
Reporter Wesley Early
Problems for community members extend beyond their villages. Hundreds of western Alaskans were relocated to larger cities like Anchorage after the storm. While tribal leaders expressed gratitude to the cities for taking them in, Martin says her community members are facing new challenges.
- [07:00]
Lucy Martin
Our people are already struggling with housing. Our children are being bullied at schools. Many of our tribal members are struggling with mental health because of the trauma we went through. And we already lost two youth to suicide.
- [07:17]
Reporter Wesley Early
Others express concerns over a lack of access to traditional foods and subsistence hunting opportunities. Tribal members in both Quigilingock and Kipnok have voted overwhelmingly to relocate to higher ground. But there are barriers, including costs as well as varying jurisdiction over state, federal and tribal land. Raina Paul says there's currently no clear pathway for relocation of this kind.
- [07:40]
Tribal Leader or Community Representative
There is no current program for relocation and no agency that handles relocation and no source of funding for relocation. This forces relocating communities to try to navigate very complicated processes on their own.
- [08:02]
Reporter Wesley Early
She proposed a pilot project to set up an interim village in rural Alaska. She says the project should be funded and coordinated by multiple agencies in collaboration with tribes where both communities can rebuild.
- [08:13]
Tribal Leader or Community Representative
Both Kipnik and Gwigilnuk can come together. We can support each other, heal together, be a community again. This will help give us a sense of grounding that we desperately need.
- [08:30]
Reporter Wesley Early
Raina says she hopes such a pilot project would set a blueprint for wider federal relocation policy. Murkowski says a similar roundtable is scheduled for Wednesday in Bethel. Reporting in Anchorage, I'm Wesley Early.
- [08:47]
Kacey Grove
Still to come in Alaska News Nightly, advocates for Anchorage's waterways have a simple message. Clean up your dog's poop.
- [08:53]
Caitlin McAllen
Once it's in our waterways, it spreads and it causes lots and lots of issues. So it's really about preventing it before it ever gets in there.
- [09:01]
Kacey Grove
That is ahead. Stay with us. A seven year long court case involving the deaths of two Unalaska teen girls has come to a close. The state said last week that it was dismissing charges against 25 year old Dustin Ruckman. Ruckman was facing two counts of criminally negligent homicide for his involvement in the deaths of 16 year old Carly McDonald and 18 year old Kiara Renteria. Haste in May of 2019, the truck ruckman was driving rolled down a cliff on Unalaska's Mount Ballyhoo. The teen girls died in the roughly 900 foot fall. The case was delayed for many reasons, including the COVID 19 pandemic and a venue change after the court was unable to find enough unbiased jurors in Unalaska. The judge declared the first mistrial by a hung jury in Anchorage last spring. A new group of jurors deadlocked once again this March. Khiara's mother, Deanna Renteria, said she's frustrated with the legal system and the overall investigation. The families of the girls who died say they won't be pursuing civil suits at this time. Ruckman's lawyer, Julia Moudi, declined a request for comment. At least a half a dozen families in Marshall have received precautionary rabies vaccinations, as KYUK's Evan Erickson reports. That's after community members handled puppies that had been living in an outbuilding with a dog that later tested positive for rabies.
- [10:30]
Evan Erickson
The Yukon Kuskokwim Health Corporation confirmed late last month that a dog in Marshall had tested positive for rabies. The dog had been in contact with an aggressive fox in the lower Yukon river community. YKHC says medical staff were already on site to assist the community when test results came back positive for the deadly disease. As of Tuesday, YKHC staff remain in Marshall to provide vaccinations for anyone who believes they may have come into contact with the dog or the puppies. The treatment for potential exposure includes four doses of human rabies vaccine given over two weeks if left untreated. Rabies infections are fatal for humans. It spreads through bites or scratches from infected animals because the virus that causes the disease resides in saliva, YKHC says Two other dogs in Marshall that killed the fox after it entered the outbuilding were euthanized. Those dogs were not tested for rabies. The fox was unable to be tested due to deterioration, according to the state Division of Public Health. YKHC says it is treating any untested puppy as possibly infected. As of Tuesday, it had not tested all of the puppies. City leaders say it is unclear the exact number of puppies that may have had contact with a rabies infected animal. YKHC worked with the Alaska Department of Health's epidemiology Section and U.S. centers for Disease Control and Prevention to acquire the needed human rabies vaccines. The provider says it also received a donation of 100 doses of vaccine from manufacturer Bavarian Nordic. YKHC says additional staff will be traveling to Marshall in the coming days to vaccinate other animals in the community as well. The city has urged residents to avoid contact with wild animals, secure their pets and verify that pet vaccinations are current. In Bethel, I'm Evan Erickson.
- [12:16]
Kacey Grove
Today is a day of awareness for missing and murdered Indigenous people. For many families, it's a reminder of cases that are still open and might never close. That's like Tracy Day's case. Day is a Lingit woman from Juneau who went missing in 2019. Last year, Day's family requested a death declaration hearing as a way to ask police officers questions about their investigation. But the judge said their questioning was not allowed, even though it was allowed for the family of another Alaska Native woman who went missing. KTOO's Yvonne Crumry reports Tracey Day went missing in 2019.
- [12:49]
Yvonne Crumry
Ever since, her daughter, Kaelyn Schneider has been using TikTok and other avenues to draw attention to her case.
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Kaelyn Schneider
Imagine your mother disappears with absolutely no trace of what's happened to her and the police.
- [13:00]
Yvonne Crumry
Day was Hlinget, and her disappearance fits a broader pattern of indigenous women who go missing or killed at rates far higher than non indigenous women. Last year, Schneider petitioned the state to have her mother declared legally dead. For her, this was a chance to prod Juneau police officials publicly about the investigation in today's disappearance to finally get answers. Here's Schneider during the presumptive death hearing.
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Kaelyn Schneider
I was hoping to ask JPD a few questions. I didn't realize that I wasn't going to get that chance. I had some questions that I felt were important to the case, But Judge
- [13:32]
Yvonne Crumry
Peggy McCoy did not allow her to ask them.
- [13:35]
Judge Brian Clark
Well, this is not about the investigation. It's about whether they believe she's still alive.
- [13:41]
Yvonne Crumry
After the hearing that legally declared her mother dead, Schneider told KTIO in the courthouse she'd spent weeks preparing for the chance to ask officers questions.
- [13:49]
Lucy Martin
We don't care about a death certificate. We just wanted to tell her story in a legal setting and make JPD answer our questions.
- [13:58]
Kaelyn Schneider
That's what this was about.
- [14:00]
Yvonne Crumry
Schneider was not off base to think she'd be allowed to question police officers. She had reason to think this. One year earlier, at another presumptive death declaration hearing in Anchorage for a different missing Alaska Native woman. The woman's family was able to question police officers about their investigation. The woman's name was Cassandra Boskovsky. She went missing in Anchorage in 2019, just months after Tracy Day disappeared in Juneau. Five years later, with prompting by MMIP advocates, Anchorage Police connected a photo of a woman found on the phone of serial killer Brian Stephen Smith with Boskovsky's missing persons case. Boskovsky's death declaration was a result of this information that she was likely killed by Smith. The judge at the Boskovsky hearing allowed the family to interview police officers about the investigation in front of a jury. Here's Judge Brian Clark talking to Boskovsky's cousin Marcella Boskovsky Grounds in a recording
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Billy Kirkland
of the 2024 hearing, Ms. Boscofsky grounds are there any other questions that you think this witness should talk about before we ask the jurors?
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Yvonne Crumry
Judge Clark also allowed family members to read testimony they prepared and said information the family and advocates brought to the hearing was admissible.
- [15:06]
Billy Kirkland
Like I said, this is not an adversarial proceeding. Nobody is going to object to that.
- [15:11]
Yvonne Crumry
Now, more than a year after the hearing, Boscosky grounds said the experience was empowering and intense.
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Dustin Evan
It was relieving innocent, heart wrenching. I had all kinds of mixed emotions going on at that time.
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Yvonne Crumry
She suspects that nationwide media coverage on Bryan Steven Smith was part of the reason the courts gave her family so much power during the hearing. Tracey Day's family, however, wasn't given the same opportunity. Now, nearly a year later, Kaelyn Schneider says the hearing is still a painful memory.
- [15:38]
Kaelyn Schneider
I actually stopped talking about it for a while because I was so just deeply traumatized by the situation.
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Yvonne Crumry
For Schneider, the presumptive death declaration was a Hail Mary, a chance to get JPD to reinvestigate the case.
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Kaelyn Schneider
For a while, I was feeling pretty hopeless about it. It was really hard because I felt like that was our last ditch effort. You know, we had not. We had no body, no proof that a crime occurred.
- [16:06]
Yvonne Crumry
She says it was important to her to ask JPD questions about the investigation into her mother's disappearance in front of a public audience. She saw social media posts by other MMIP advocates who said these hearings were a way to question investigators.
- [16:18]
Kaelyn Schneider
It was like, oh my God, this is genius. Because it's a legal loophole where we can force them to be in a courtroom answering these questions and they can't just like, say no.
- [16:30]
Yvonne Crumry
Ann Schneider still wants the answers to the questions she prepared to ask JPD at the hearing.
- [16:35]
Kaelyn Schneider
I really just want to know, like, who they looked into, what evidence they have and if they plan on doing anything, or if they're just going to leave it open and unattended by an investigator.
- [16:51]
Yvonne Crumry
Juno Police say they will investigate new leads as they come in and they're reevaluating their procedures for communicating with families of missing people. A spokesperson from the Alaska Department of Law said that aside from brief guidelines, it's up to the judge how witness testimony will be presented in death declaration hearings in Juneau. I'm Yvonne Crore.
- [17:09]
Kacey Grove
The Matanuska Susitna Borough has grown rapidly over the last decade, both in population and the number of homes. That's according to new data from the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development. While many areas in the state have experienced decreasing populations, Mat? Su's population has grown by nearly 20% since 2015. State economist Sam Tappan says the borough's natural increase is almost identical to the statewide average.
- [17:35]
Sam Tappan
And so that means that their really long run consistent population growth is entirely attributable to their ability to retain residents and attract new residents from elsewhere. Something about that secret sauce they have
- [17:52]
Kacey Grove
there, tappan says that secret sauce is likely tied to the affordability of housing and land. The average single family home in Anchorage cost more than $500,000, while one in the mat? Su is roughly $400,000. The mat? Su borough is also attracting working age Alaskans. That demographic has shrunk statewide but grown in the Mat? SU by about 8,000 people since 2013. Tappan says the majority of those workers are driving to anchorage.
- [18:18]
Sam Tappan
The number one thing that tied them all together was 94% of Matt Stew. Residents who choose to work elsewhere are working in area with higher wages, so obviously the cheap housing and lower cost of living out there is attractive.
- [18:34]
Kacey Grove
According to the report, more than half of the new homes built in Alaska between 2010 and 2024 were built in the Mat Su well. An Anchorage nonprofit recently hosted a dog park cleanup to get rid of, you guessed it, a winter's worth of left behind dog poop. But the organizers hope it's not just an occasional event. As Alaska Public Media's Mikayla Finnerty reports, they want dog owners to do a better job of keeping fecal contaminants out of local waterways every day.
- [19:05]
Mikayla Finnerty
It's a chilly spring morning at Anchorage's University Lake park, and Aubrey Shonaboom is setting up well, why don't you put
- [19:13]
Volunteer or Event Organizer
your name and address? I'll fill out what we give you.
- [19:15]
Mikayla Finnerty
Shauna Boom in Other volunteers are asking park goers for help.
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Volunteer or Event Organizer
If you'd like to.
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Mikayla Finnerty
There's no peer pressure to pick up dog poop.
- [19:24]
Volunteer or Event Organizer
Poop is not sanitary, and so when it gets into the water, it adds bacteria and organisms that grow that aren't healthy to the environment. Other living organisms, humans, other animals.
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Dog Owner or Participant
Dogs will be dogs.
- [19:40]
Mikayla Finnerty
One of the biggest contributors to pollution in Anchorage waterways is fecal coliform bacteria commonly found in dog poop. That's not great for the health of city residents, their pets, and local wildlife. Plus, says Caitlin McAllen with the Anchorage Waterways Council, it's just gross.
- [19:57]
Caitlin McAllen
This is such a popular park, so everyone likes to be able to take their dogs here and not get their shoes covered with poop.
- [20:03]
Mikayla Finnerty
On average, a dog produces three quarters of a pound of waste a day. With an estimate of 65,000 dogs living in the city. That's more than 24 tons every day, 365 days a year. Of course, not all of that dog poop ends up on the ground in public spaces. But enough of it does end up in the water that it's a major concern for people trying to keep local waterways clean. And it doesn't need to be near lakes and creeks to contaminate them. The process of waste getting washed into the waterways is worse during spring breakup, and once it's there, it's very hard to get rid of.
- [20:45]
Caitlin McAllen
It's not like an oil spill where there's all this kind of technology where you can really kind of contain it. Once it's in our waterways, it spreads and it causes lots and lots of issues. So it's really about preventing it before it ever gets in there.
- [20:57]
Mikayla Finnerty
As park goers arrive at University Lake, they're greeted with a bucket, gloves, and a shovel. Those who participate are given goody bags with dog treats. For Morgan Yockey and Cadence Cogswell, scooping poop is a Saturday date activity.
- [21:12]
Judge Brian Clark
We both walk this trail all the time. It was actually the first walk we did as a couple, so it's a special trail to us, so we just like to help keep it clean. Don't even have dogs, but we're here a lot.
- [21:25]
Mikayla Finnerty
Within an hour, the couple filled two buckets. McAllen with the Waterways council, says the event is a good reminder for dog owners to do their part.
- [21:34]
Caitlin McAllen
Do the right thing. Pick up after your pet. Help keep our waters clean. It's good for us. It's good for our pets. And it's really just good for our whole community.
- [21:43]
Mikayla Finnerty
In total, volunteers collected more than half a ton of waste within four hours across three parks during the day long event. The Anchorage Waterways Council will host another Scoop the Poop event later in the summer. In Anchorage, I'm Mikayla Finnerty.
- [21:59]
Kacey Grove
The Nenana Ice Classic clock stopped last night at 6:58pm When a tripod positioned on a frozen portion of the river tumbled down. If your guess was close, you might have won some money, but the game's organizers are still tabulating the winners every year. Many scientists pay close attention to when that tripod goes down, but not just for prizes. As Shelby Herbert reports for the Alaska Desk, it's also an important climate data
- [22:24]
Shelby Herbert
point in a world where you can gamble on almost anything. Some people bet on the timing of Spring river ice breakup in a tiny town in the interior. The Nenana Ice Classic gets a few hundred thousand ticket entries annually with thousands of participants across Alaska and beyond. Like 83 year old Joe Dinkins, who claims to be the oldest barber in Fairbanks. He buys over 1000 tickets every year at about 3 bucks a pop and he's even won a few times. About a week before the tripod fell, he said he thought his odds were pretty good.
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Paul J. Paul
50% chance. 50% chance. I'm a win because I'm in the area that usually it usually happens. That's from the 26th of April to the 5th of May. I just keep it the same.
- [23:11]
Shelby Herbert
His small shop is covered in Ice Classic posters and as he trimmed a customer's hair, he thought out loud about what he'll do if he wins this year.
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Paul J. Paul
I'm gonna spend it on the girl. I just laugh and talk about it, that's all. I don't do nothing extra. I just put the money in my retirement.
- [23:30]
Shelby Herbert
But the Ice Classic isn't all fun and games. Scientists use it as a consistent data set to study climate change. That's because it's gone on for over a century. Here's Martin Stoeffer, director of the Alaska Climate Research Center.
- [23:45]
Martin Stoeffer
It's very seldom that you have a homogeneous, continuous long term climate series, especially in the Arctic and in Alaska we have a range of breakup dates. We can see a tendency to earlier
- [23:59]
Shelby Herbert
breakups, but not this year. The interior just saw its coldest winter in half a century and National Weather Service hydrologist Heather Best says that probably pushed spring breakup back a bit.
- [24:12]
Heather Best
We had an interesting winter because it was extremely cold, but we also had quite a bit of snow like in the record levels of the top 10 snow years, which is a really odd combination. You usually, if you have a cold winter, you have less snow. So we didn't get as much ice formation as we would have.
- [24:28]
Shelby Herbert
Bess says the Classic is a good tool to track the river's thaw, and it provides a range of dates that are possible for breakup. It's something that helps the National Weather Service plan its river watch efforts, which are critical for communities off the road system.
- [24:43]
Heather Best
Breakup is a pivotal time of year because they have this time when they're a little bit trapped by the situation on the river, because during the winter when there's been good ice cover, they're using the river as a highway. And then as the river ice gets unsafe, they're waiting for that ice to clear out.
- [24:59]
Shelby Herbert
Best and her team track the thaw with satellites, aerial observation and a network of citizen scientists along the riverbanks. But she says even all of that can't help them predict the Ice Classic with complete certainty.
- [25:13]
Heather Best
Otherwise I would have won multiple times by now.
- [25:15]
Shelby Herbert
Still, Best says she gets Facebook messages every spring asking which tickets to buy. Her guest this year was about five days off. Stilfer, the climatologist, was also five days off, but Dinkins, the barber, he bought tickets for the right day and might still have a shot. Reporting in Fairbanks, I'm Shelby Herbert.
- [25:40]
Kacey 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 Crumry in Juneau, Wesley Early, Ava White and Michaela Finnerty in Anchorage, Maggie Nelson in Unalaska, Evan Erickson in Bethel and Shelby Herbert in Fairbanks. 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.