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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.
- [00:09]
Jamie Deeb
45 states and two US territories.
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Cheryl Musgrove
There's just been a lack of investment in general. And this was a chance for the federal government to finally show that they cared.
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Casey Grove
A look at the now canceled EPA grant for a storm impacted Alaska community from Alaska Public Media. This is statewide news on Alaska News nightly for Tuesday, November 4th. Good evening, I'm Casey Grove. Also tonight, University of Alaska unions asked the Board of Regents not to sign a Trump administration compact.
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Jill Dumasnel
It undermines institutional autonomy and self governance.
- [00:48]
Casey Grove
Those stories and more tonight on Alaska News Nightly. Months before a storm devastated parts of western Alaska, a federal agency canceled a grant that would have helped protect one of the communities from flooding. Alyona Nydin with the Alaska Desk has more on what that money could have done for the village of Kipnock and what lies ahead for the community.
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Alyona Nydin
Raina Paul is the environmental director for the village of Kipnock. Her house was one of many that was swept upriver during the historic storm last month which destroyed most of Kipnock.
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Cheryl Musgrove
It's my community that this happened too. We were so not ready. We were so not prepared.
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Alyona Nydin
Most residents have evacuated to Anchorage. Paul says the community now needs time to heal and rebuild.
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Cheryl Musgrove
But I'm glad they're here for the time being to try and help recover. Somehow I see that our people are. They adapt to things. They're very resilient people.
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Alyona Nydin
The remnants of Typhoon Holon devastated about a dozen villages in the Yukon Kazkokum Delta. One woman died, two people are still missing, and over a thousand are displaced. Months before the storm, the U.S. environmental Protection Agency canceled a $20 million grant that would have helped Kipnak reinforce its riverbank and protect infrastructure from flooding. The village is among nearly two dozen organizations and communities challenging that decision in court and looking at how to move forward as they grapple with climate change. Paul says Kipnock has been losing more than 10ft of riverbank each year as the region becomes more vulnerable to climate change.
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Cheryl Musgrove
These things that are happening because our climate is changing down in Kipnick, we're facing erosion. The sea level is rising, the permafrost is melting.
- [02:58]
Alyona Nydin
Paul spent months applying for funding through the EPA's Community Change Grants Program. But the Trump administration froze the grant last winter and terminated the program in May in a broader effort to roll back environmental justice funding. The decision to cut that funding is at the heart of the lawsuit that Kipnock signed onto this summer. Plaintiffs including Kipnock and other cities, tribes and environmental organizations from across the country argue that eliminating the program was unlawful. They also say it raises questions about the separation of powers. In August, the court denied a motion to block the program's termination. The plaintiffs appealed that decision and filed their opening brief at the end of October. The government is expected to file its response within a month after the shutdown is over. Cheryl Musgrove is with the Alaska Institute for Justice. The organization helped Kipnock secure the EPA funding, but it is not involved with the lawsuit.
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Cheryl Musgrove
There's just been a lack of investment in general, and this was a chance for the federal government to finally show that they cared and that they were willing to invest in this small, small community in remote Alaska. And they, they took it away.
- [04:18]
Alyona Nydin
Epa press secretary Bridget Hersh said in an email to KNBA that the funding would not have prevented destruction in the community. Hersh said that, quote, while partisans on the left would apparently prefer to have seen those precious tax dollars washed away, EPA now has the resources available to ensure the money is spent appropriately and wisely. End quote. Musgrove says the first year of the grant was meant for planning and the construction of the revetment would have not begun by the time of the storm. She says that the first phase of the grant would have also included hazardous waste removal from the bank.
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Cheryl Musgrove
But now that's in the river in the Bering Sea. It's heartbreaking.
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Alyona Nydin
Musgrove says she hopes that the devastation of the storm highlights the needs of the villages like Kipnock and helps them mobilize resources for finding long term sol. Before the grant was canceled, Musgrove says that Kipnock did get some initial funding. The community bought a bulldozer which is now sifting through what's left of the village in Anchorage. I am Alena Nydin.
- [05:37]
Casey Grove
A controversial higher education compact from the Trump administration has sparked a petition from several University of Alaska UN who say they're worried about political overreach stifling academic freedom. KTOO's Jamie Deeb reports.
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Jamie Deeb
Several University of Alaska staff and community members testified against the Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education on Monday ahead of the UA Board of Regents meeting. Later this week, 659 people also signed onto a petition from unions representing faculty, graduate workers and university staff that opposes the compact. Jill Dumasnel is a mathematics professor for University of Alaska Southeast and the president of the faculty union. She said in an interview that the compact ties federal funding to a political agenda.
- [06:22]
Jill Dumasnel
It restricts the freedom to teach research and learn. It undermines institutional autonomy and self governance, and it ties benefits, research benefits, to factors other than scientific merit.
- [06:36]
Jamie Deeb
The compact lays out requirements for universities to receive federal funding. Part of the compact instructs universities to seek such a broad spectrum of viewpoints, not just in the university as a whole, but both in every field, department, school and teaching unit. It also includes a five year tuition freeze and limits how many international students a university can admit. The US Department of Education initially sent the compact to nine universities and most of them rejected it. In a social media post last month, Trump said any higher education institution in the country could sign onto it. Even though the UA Board of Regents has not made any move to accept the compact so far, Dumasnow says they want to make their voices heard on the issue. In February, the board suddenly approved a motion to scru of diversity, equity and inclusion in a process that didn't give the public an opportunity to comment.
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Jill Dumasnel
We didn't want that to happen again, so that's why we went ahead and told them what we thought and, you know, that's all we can do.
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Jamie Deeb
Kate Quick works for United Academics at the university, but testified on Monday as an individual. She says the February motion had a chilling effect on people in the university and community.
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Jill Dumasnel
When the compact came out, people started to say, oh, just wait, the board will be the first to sign. And so that's why this petition went around and that's why people are calling tonight to ask you not to sign.
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Jamie Deeb
But Jonathan Taylor, the director of public affairs for the university, says the motion from February is different from the compact because it was based on a direct communication from the federal Department of Education.
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Jill Dumasnel
If there's a question as to whether or not the university needs to take action on particular direction or guidance changes or policy changes that have been made, we need to see those official communications to the university because that's what the standard practice is.
- [08:27]
Jamie Deeb
Taylor says the agenda for this week's meeting doesn't include discussion or action items on the compact. The board is scheduled to meet on Thursday and Friday in Anchorage. Reporting in Juneau, I'm Jamie Deep.
- [08:42]
Casey Grove
Still to come on Alaska News Nightly, students displaced by Typhoon Ha Long are finding some comfort in Anchorage. Anchorage's Yupik Immersion Program.
- [08:49]
Lorena Warren
Hearing them be taught in Yuktun, I think eases them even just a tiny bit.
- [08:56]
Casey Grove
That's ahead. Stay with us. An Anchorage man has been charged with driving under the influence after allegedly killing a pedestrian with his vehicle last Thursday and then fleeing the scene. Police say the fatal crash happened around 9:35 Thursday night near the intersection of Fireweed Lane and D street. Officers say 61 year old John Ivory was driving an SUV when he fatally struck a woman later identified as 34 year old Lorraine Williams, who had crossed outside a crosswalk near Ide Street. Williams was later pronounced dead at the scene. In a charging document, officials say officers reviewed traffic camera footage and saw Ivery leave the accident and then drive about three miles, getting gas, driving down West Northern Lights in the wrong direction and eventually parking at Walmart in Midtown. Officers found the vehicle shortly after Ivory parked, charges say, and located him after reviewing the store's security footage. The charges say Ivory complied with a drug test and a Breathalyzer. While ivory blew a 0.0 in the breathalyzer, officers say they observed several signs suggesting substance impairment. He was arrested and sent to Anchorage Correctional center on a misdemeanor charge of driving under the influence. Ivory is set to make his next court appearance on Wednesday. Williams is the 13th pedestrian fatally struck by a vehicle in Anchorage this year. Last year, 15 pedestrians were killed. Searchers on Sunday recovered a second body from an avalanche near Girdwood in March that killed three heli skiers visiting from out of state. That's according to a statement today from Alaska State Troopers, whose helicopter flew members of the Alaska Mountain Rescue Group to the avalanche site near the West Fork of twenty Mile River. Troopers have not yet publicly identified the man found Sunday, but say his next of kin have been notified. Last month, troopers said searchers found the body of 39 year old Florida resident David Linder caught in a logjam in the river where it flowed beneath avalanche debris. Linder had been joined by 39 year old Montana resident Charles Epperd and 38 year old Minnesota resident Jeremy Leaf on a guided heli skiing trip with Chugach powder guides when the avalanche caught and buried the three friends on March 4th. A former Jehovah's Witness church leader pleaded not guilty Tuesday to 20 felony criminal counts of sexual abuse and sexual assault of minors. That's after a Kenai grand jury indicted 45 year old Aaron Scott Merritt last week in a case the Kenai Police Department began investigating more than two decades ago. The alleged abuse occurred between 1998 and 2002 while Merritt was a ministerial servant at the former Jehovah's Witness Kingdom hall in Kenai, according to the Alaska Department of Law. He's accused of sexually abusing and in some instances sexually assaulting four girls who were 5 to 14 years old and members of the church congregation. Prosecutors say Kenai police first investigated Merritt in 2002 after an allegation that he sexually abused a minor but didn't have enough evidence at the time. Almost 20 years later, more people alleged abuse. Investigators discovered new information and the department reopened the case. A Superior Court judge set Merritt's bail at $250,000 cash, with a requirement that Merritt have a court appointed third party custodian if he makes bail. Merritt is also prohibited from contacting victims and having any contact with minors, including four of his five children. A small group attended Tuesday's hearing in person and some joined remotely, including at least one woman Merritt is alleged to have abused. The woman who called into the hearing asked for stricter bail requirements. Her mother made a similar request.
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Jill Dumasnel
He refused any assistance or any counseling or help at that time. Since then there has been more victims and again, like my daughter, I believe that this man cannot be trusted with the public. He cannot be trusted. It went on for too long.
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Casey Grove
Kenai police say their investigation of merit is ongoing. They've asked anyone with additional information or who might have been a victim to contact them at 907-283-7879. The Yukon Kuskokwin Delta's regional tribal organization has stepped up to help communities face the aftermath of the remnants of Typhoon ha long. As KYUK's Samantha Watson reports, the association of Village Council Presidents is approaching future emergency response and the road ahead to repair.
- [13:32]
Samantha Watson
In the hours after the remnant of Typhoon Ha Long hit the YK Delta, the Association of Village Council Presidents, or abcp, organized a call between community leaders across the region to take stock of the emergency and help coordinate aid. Now, three weeks later, we the organization looks ahead to the continued relief and repair to the tribal communities it serves.
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Jill Dumasnel
The question is how many more are in our future? And we don't know that, but we want to become prepared.
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Samantha Watson
That's Vivian Korthias, CEO of abcp, in a media briefing last week.
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Jill Dumasnel
We want to be as prepared as possible for future storms of this magnitude, and that's why we are proposing to create the infrastructure, korthius says there's been.
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Samantha Watson
A proposal in the works for many years to develop what would be called the Western Alaska Emergency Response System. It would involve a hub center in Bethel to mobilize and deploy first responders and organize aid and shelter. The plan would also include five emergency centers spread across the region to provide localized responses. Working with the resources coming out of Bethel. Corlette Waite is the general counsel for avcp.
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Jamie Deeb
It will create a centralized position and.
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Cheryl Musgrove
It will create a more easy collaboration.
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Jamie Deeb
When it comes to responding to emergencies.
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Samantha Watson
Courthias says the need for the project was magnified by the remnant of Typhoon Murbach three years ago. That's only more true considering the impact of ex typhoon Ha Long. Courtheas also says ABCP sees a stronger village Public Safety Officer program as central to the regional emergency response to in.
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Jill Dumasnel
That scenario, we believe that search and rescue efforts, we believe that emergency response efforts, we believe that those safety concerns that exist in every one of our communities would be better addressed.
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Samantha Watson
When asked what it would take to rebuild, Korthias highlighted that what's been lost goes beyond property and belongings. It's also those subsistence food stores, community burial grounds, and the fabric of a community itself washed away with the place where generations of personal histories have unfolded.
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Jill Dumasnel
When the challenge is to rebuild everything, it literally means everything.
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Samantha Watson
In the briefing, a reporter asks if there's an amount of money ABCP has come up with that it would take to face the current devastation across communities. After a pause, Korthius responds in a moment of levity, you have money. Courtheas goes on to say that ABCP is working on a total estimate of money, but is not prepared to share at this time.
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Cheryl Musgrove
I just want to say, Vivian, it was nice to hear you laughing right now.
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Samantha Watson
That's denja Chavez from ABCP's communication team.
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Cheryl Musgrove
You know, everyone has been, this is a pretty intense time for, for all of us. So it was, it was refreshing to hear you laugh and I just, it made me tear up.
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Samantha Watson
Since the storm events, AVCB has held community meetings, sometimes twice daily to coordinate emergency efforts. And looking forward, the organization will be at the heart of rebuild operations as communities chart their next steps. Flood impacted families can find resources to apply for relief funding on ABCP's website, as well as updated information surrounding food, clothing and shelter in Bethel and Anchorage. In Bethel, I'm Samantha Watson.
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Casey Grove
Communities across Alaska are doing what they can to support the more than 1,000 people displaced by Typhoon Ha Long, which hit western Alaska last month. Haines and Skagway are among them. As Avery Elfeld reports for the Alaska Desk, local organizations are asking community members to give what they can and have offered to ship donations to Anchorage.
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Avery Elfeld
Skagway residents have until the end of the day on Wednesday to drop a long list of items to the Dahl Memorial Clinic, the local healthcare facility. The donation drive is focused on clothing and gear as opposed to food. Donations will be handled by nonprofits in Anchorage. Albert Wall is the clinic's executive director.
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Jill Dumasnel
The items that they're looking for are clothes of any sort, preferably new sleeping bags and pillows, hygiene items like toothbrushes and things of that nature.
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Avery Elfeld
Wall emphasized that people should bring items that are either new or gently used and clean. Other acceptable donations include air mattresses, duffel bags, cell phone chargers and crafting supplies.
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Jill Dumasnel
And we've had a pretty good In Haines.
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Avery Elfeld
Meanwhile, the Chokoot Indian association initially asked the community to drop off traditional harvested foods, but council president James Hart says they will accept any food donations as long as they're shelf stable and not expired.
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Casey Grove
The preference would be, you know something that you harvested, but you know, I don't. There's we shouldn't be pushing anything away.
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Avery Elfeld
On Monday at the tribe's downtown office, there were several boxes with canned goods including sockeye salmon, homemade applesauce, highbush cranberry juice and hooligan oil. With the help of two other locals last month, Hart harvested and canned three cases of seal meat to add to the pile. He says he knows firsthand how important it is to help when communities are struck by disaster, referring to the 2020 Atmospheric River Event in Haines that triggered widespread destruction and a fatal landslide.
- [19:08]
Casey Grove
I know how much we pulled together as a community and how much outside help we received, so having the opportunity to give back in that way is kind of special.
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Avery Elfeld
That's especially the case, he says, given that the disaster wiped out many communities. Hard fought summer harvests in Haines I'm Avery Offelt.
- [19:41]
Casey Grove
College Gate elementary School students now have more than 70 new classmates. Their families were forced to move to Anchorage after last month's storm ravaged their homes and communities. Most of them come from Kipnock and Kwiggingock, western Alaska communities where the tundra seems as vast as the ocean compared to the mountains, trees and tall buildings that crowd the Anchorage landscape. But as KNBA's Rhonda McBride tells us, their new school feels warm and familiar.
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Rhonda McBride
Morning.
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Cheryl Musgrove
Hello.
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Rhonda McBride
The day at College Gate starts with just as it did back home, with the Pledge of Allegiance.
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Lorena Warren
Please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance.
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Rhonda McBride
Recited in the Yupik language, or Yuktun. When College Gate began its Yupik immersion program eight years ago, it had just one kindergarten class and added a new grade every year. Now it's a tight knit family that just got bigger, and you won't hear anyone here at College Gate complain black ones. Misty Floyd is an assistant administrator, and as she unpacks donations of new gym shoes for her new students, she marvels at the generosity of the community.
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Cheryl Musgrove
Kind of a bright light and a dark time, so everybody's come together to help these folks out.
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Jamie Deeb
College Gate is ready.
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Casey Grove
I stepped up right there.
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Rhonda McBride
Darrell Bernson is principal at College Gate. He's Supiak, originally from Old harbor on Kodiak Island. He says as soon as families arrived at shelters in Anchorage, he began to visit them to find out what their needs are. He says the Anchorage school district has a long history of helping communities struck by disaster. In fact, he grew up hearing stories about how Old harbor families sheltered in Anchorage after they lost their homes in the 1964 earthquake. My mother actually stayed on Airport Heights floor when my community was evacuated after the tidal wave took out all of our buildings, bernson says. College Gate is excited to welcome the new students. He points to the school mascot in the hallway. They're all cougars now, he says.
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Lorena Warren
If the Yuppik program wasn't here, to me, they would be a little bit more overwhelmed.
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Rhonda McBride
Lorena Warren helped to found the immersion program at College Gate. From sounding out vowels to learning to read, Warren was one of the first in the nation to teach an indigenous language in an urban school. She has come out of retirement to help the school absorb its new students who come from communities where Joktun is the dominant language.
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Lorena Warren
Seeing other kids that that are also Yup', Ik, or Native, and then hearing them be taught in Yuktun, I think eases them even just a tiny bit, warren says.
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Rhonda McBride
Although Anchorage is bigger, the children feel more restricted.
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Lorena Warren
Children are now in a space where they cannot roam free anymore, and I can see that they want to, but it's hard in the city.
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Rhonda McBride
In many ways, counselors say the kids seem better able to adapt than their parents. But Tracy Frost, the school nurse, says sometimes the challenges the children face catch her by surprise. Like during a vision screening when she told a little girl she needed glasses.
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Casey Grove
And she was fluently talking in your.
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Samantha Watson
Bik, telling me that with a smile on her face, too, that her glasses are in Kipnak.
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Casey Grove
They probably were floating away because her home floated away. She was happy that we were going.
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Avery Elfeld
To help her get some glasses.
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Rhonda McBride
Frost says there have been some meltdowns, a boy overwhelmed by homesickness. She also worries about the change in diet, the lack of high protein foods like fish and seal meat, which has already affected one little boy's health. The school, she says, does help in one way. It restores routine to the day when.
- [23:52]
Casey Grove
You'Re rooted in your culture, you are.
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Samantha Watson
More grounded, and it's hard to feel.
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Rhonda McBride
Grounded when you've lost everything.
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Lorena Warren
I just felt like my house moved to the ocean.
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Rhonda McBride
Eline Aliagorea says she feels safer since she moved to Anchorage. She and her family were in inside their home when the flood carried it off.
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Lorena Warren
The house spinned really fast and we were like going down to the river and then we stopped. We hit something really hard two times and my living room window broke.
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Rhonda McBride
It's a nightmare that Aline says her new friends at the school are helping her to forget. Friends like Lily Lohan.
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Lorena Warren
After something so big happening, they're still so, like, cheerful and they're so friendly and they were just so fun to be around. And I'm really glad they are here.
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Rhonda McBride
Lily says this experience has been an opportunity to learn about something larger than yourself.
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Lorena Warren
It makes me feel like I could be doing more to help, even though I'm a kid.
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Rhonda McBride
But simply being a kid may be a bigger help than Lily realizes. To share jokes and play games like boop. No, she got you that time in Boop. You tag people on the nose and then they're it. Add some pig snorts and you get a real giggle fest going. In anchorage, I'm Rhonda McBride.
- [25:42]
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 Alyona Nydin, Wesley early and Rhonda McBride in Anchorage, Jamie Deep in Juneau, Ashlyn O' Hara and Kenai, Samantha Watson in Bethel and Avery Elfelt in Haines. If you want to send us a news tip, question or comment, email us@newslaskapublic.org Our audio engineer is Crystal Hyde. Madeline Rose is our producer. And I'm Casey Grove. Good night. This is statewide news on Alaska Public Media.