← Alaska News Nightly - Alaska Public Media
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- [00:00]
Patrick Gilchrist
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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Chris Clinton
Funding to the very projects that could save us solar, wind, hydro and storage have been delayed or taken away.
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Casey Grove
Disagreement in Washington over whether unleashing Alaska's energy potential includes renewables. From Alaska Public Media, this is Statewide News on Alaska News nightly for Tuesday, September 16th. Good evening. I'm Casey Grove. Also tonight, a small plane makes a brief stop on the Seward highway, but.
- [00:47]
Ashley List
Just thankful that when the aircraft came down, the cars all sawed on a straight stretch and they were able to pull over.
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Casey Grove
Those stories and more tonight on Alaska News Nightly.
- [01:01]
Liz Ruskin
Consider a gift of stock to Alaska Public Media. You may avoid paying capital gains tax and receive a deduction. Learn more@alaskapublic.org stock or contact your financial advisor.
- [01:14]
Casey Grove
The State of Alaska wants the United States Supreme Court to decide whether rural Alaskans, including many Alaska Native people, should maintain subsistence fishing preference in the waterways of federal lands. Last month, a panel of federal appeals court judges sided with the federal government in its lawsuit against the state over salmon management on the Kuskokwim River. The feds sued the state after clashes over fish management on the Lower River. In 2021 and 2022, Indigenous groups throughout the state, including the Kuskokwin River Inter Tribal Fish Commission and the Alaska Federation of Natives, signed onto the case in support of the federal government, which is advocating for a rural Alaska preference. But on Monday, the state asked the US Supreme Court to take up the case, arguing that federal law shows that the state has the authority over its own waterways, even on federal land. The case highlights the tension between federal and state law in a decades long battle over a rural subsistence priority. Under federal law, rural residents are given preference when the federal government is managing hunting and fishing in the state. But Alaska's constitution prohibits that kind of preference and opens subsistence hunting and fishing to all Alaskans. Fisheries management on the Kuskokwim river is shared between the state of Alaska upriver and federal managers downriver where it passes through a federal wildlife refuge. Legal battles over conflicting state and federal management go back decades, since Congress passed the Alaska National Interest Lands conservation Act, or ANILCA, in 1980 to protect the hunting and fishing rights of rural Alaskans. The Supreme Court has not given a timeline for when it might consider the state's request to take up the case, and the court will deliberate the state's petition behind closed doors. A U.S. house hearing today entitled Unleashing Alaska's Extraordinary Resource Potential was largely a tale of two Alaskas. Republicans agreed with a witness from the North Slope who spoke of the need for more oil development. Democrats spotlighted a witness from western Alaska who said such projects don't help his town. It took yet another Alaskan at the hearing to knit the dueling narratives together. Alaska Public Media Washington correspondent Liz Ruskin reports.
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Liz Ruskin
Nagruk Harcharyk made the case for petroleum development president of an advocacy group called Voice of the Arctic Inupiat. Harcharyk says local taxes on industry allowed the North Slope borough to create modern healthy communities and the needs continue need to be built.
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Casey Grove
Water and sewer facilities need to be built. 80 million dollar water and sewer system in the community of Point Lake needs to be built. The North Slope Borough is going to fund a majority if not all of that and that requires economic development.
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Liz Ruskin
Wisconsin Republican Congressman Tom Tiffany seized on a point. Harcharik mentioned that life expectancy in the borough has gone up by more than a decade since 1980.
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Chris Clinton
So about the time oil was discovered and being made commercially viable, that's when life expectancy went up 13 years over the course of 34 years.
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Casey Grove
Yeah. Once we started making those investments, Mr.
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Chris Clinton
Chairman, that may be unprecedented in America to see that rapid of an increase of life expectancy in the history of this country and largely because of oil.
- [04:37]
Liz Ruskin
Democrats on the House Natural Resources Committee related more to the energy crisis facing Port Hayden in the Bristol Bay region, made worse by policies of the Trump admin. Port Haydn Tribal President John Christiansen said the community is dependent on diesel generation and the cost is so high the local fish plant can't operate.
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Chris Clinton
Studies show renewables could meet 75% of our needs. Yet funding to the very projects that could save us solar, wind, hydro and storage have been delayed or taken away.
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Liz Ruskin
Christiansen says the tribe got a grant and turned to a Canadian supplier to buy solar panels and wind turbines to help power the village.
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Chris Clinton
But before we could ship it, new tariffs on Canada increased Delivery costs by 1.5 million.
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Liz Ruskin
Christiansen says Porthyden was also pursuing in river hydro generation. The Trump administration terminated an EPA grant for it. The committee's top Democrat, Jared Huffman of California, asked him about the Trans Alaska gas pipeline the Trump administration wants.
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Ashley List
Would that lower energy costs for Port Haydn?
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Chris Clinton
No, not at all.
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Ashley List
Why not?
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Chris Clinton
It doesn't reach us. We are in western Alaska and we're nowhere near the pipeline.
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Liz Ruskin
Huffman asked about other big Alaska projects that committee Democrats oppose, like Arctic drilling. While Harcharick lauded the benefits to the North Slope. Christensen says it won't make it any cheaper to keep the lights on in Port Haydn. Just when it seemed that Congress members were only inclined to listen to one Alaskan or the other, I now recognize.
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Casey Grove
Mr. Wright for five minutes.
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Liz Ruskin
Philip White is an energy historian at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. He says Alaskans care how development is done and want to see it enhance their well being. He says the state has extraordinary potential for energy exports and also extraordinary energy needs.
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Casey Grove
We deploy technologies that work in our challenging environments regardless of politics.
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Liz Ruskin
White knocked the Trump administration for its aversion to wind energy and for putting the brakes on renewable energy investments that he says could power Alaska's future. Alaska Congressman Nick Begich is an ally of President Trump, but he said in a hallway after the hearing that federal energy policy has to make room for the needs of small Alaska communities like Port Hayden.
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Chris Clinton
These communities are never going to be, most of them never going to be connected to the grid, and so wind and solar has a different use case in those parts of America, begich says.
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Liz Ruskin
He reminds the Trump administration of it regularly. Meanwhile, Fort Haydn's wind turbines are stuck in a Canadian warehouse. Reporting from Washington, I'm Liz Ruskin.
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Casey Grove
The state of Alaska is overhauling the long term plans for its three state forests to boost revenue from a new source, carbon credits. In Haines, it became clear this summer that doing so could mean eliminating long standing logging restrictions. That news is sparking concern among locals who had hoped the state's carbon offset push would lead to more protections, not fewer. The Alaska Desk's Avery Elfelt reports.
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Avery Elfelt
On a clear, warm evening back in August, about two dozen people filed into a wooden building on the banks of the Chilkat river in the village of Klukwan.
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Ashley List
I just want to thank everyone for coming out tonight on a beautiful night when I know it's fishing season.
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Avery Elfelt
That's Ashley List, a deputy director within the state's Division of Forestry and Fire Protection. She was in the area to discuss the Haines State Forest during three public meetings, including one in Klukwan. For more than two decades, a long range plan has divided the forest into parcels based on use. In some spots that means just timber. In others, wildlife habitat or recreation is primary and timber harvest is restricted. But that's about to change, liss says.
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Ashley List
What we're proposing is to allow timber harvest within those land use classifications while still meeting that primary purpose.
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Avery Elfelt
The shift is the result of a years long push by governor Mike Dunleavy to make more money off state land. That includes an effort to increase timber sales in Alaska's three state forests. But it also entails rewriting each forest management plan to allow the state to sell so called carbon credits. The state would do so by leaving certain timber stands uncut that, at least in theory, would otherwise be harvested. Those uncut trees store carbon generating credits. The state would then sell the credits to companies looking for ways to reduce their planet warming emissions. In Haines, the idea goes that if the entire forest is open to timber harvest, it's also all eligible for carbon credits. Geneva Preston is a state force planner who also spoke at the August meeting.
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Ashley List
If a section of forest is described as available for timber harvest and then it's not harvested, that's where the value for the carbon offset project becomes a possibility.
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Avery Elfelt
Dunleavy's push comes at a tumultuous time for carbon markets, which surged in the early 2000s as companies around the world set ambitious goals to eliminate or offset their entire carbon footprints by 2030. But it wasn't long before the market took a major downturn amid intensifying scrutiny of carbon projects, many of which allow companies to burnish their climate reputations without actually reducing emissions. Trevor Fulton manages Alaska's carbon offset program.
- [10:21]
Ashley List
We're definitely in a little bit of a slump right now in terms of.
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Casey Grove
The voluntary carbon markets. It's, it's been a slow recovery.
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Avery Elfelt
But he says the state anticipates higher demand as companies scramble to make good on their climate targets. That he thinks makes now a good time to get involved. The idea was met with fierce resistance during last month's meeting. Members, leaders and staff of the Chilkat Indian Village in Klukwan raised alarm about the prospect of removing protections that would open the entire forest to logging. Jones Hoch is the tribe's president.
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Ashley List
Trees are an environmental solution. They help meet water quality sandage by reducing soil erosion and polluted stormwater runoff. And trees are an economic solution. They reduce flooding and runoff for less money than engineered solutions.
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Avery Elfelt
Others say the tribe has not been adequately included in the planning process. David Strong Jr. Sits on the Chilkat Indian Village Tribal Council.
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Ashley List
What do we get to say about our backyard? Is that part of the plan? Because so far I read this plan and I don't see any plans to hear about what we feel about it.
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Avery Elfelt
State officials say revamping the state forest long range plan is in its early stages. The new version hasn't even been drafted yet, and once it is, the public will have a chance to weigh in. They also say that while some current logging restrictions would be removed. All future timber harvests still have to meet other existing guidelines and protections. They also have to go through public processes themselves. Plus, the intention is not to clear cut the entire forest, says Preston. Instead, it's to explore how the state could sustainably pursue both timber sales and other goals like preserving wildlife habitat in the same areas.
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Ashley List
I can only imagine how startling it would be to read a description of a change in policy that would allow timber harvest in places where it's been prohibited in the past. There's no intention to see timber harvest everywhere once.
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Avery Elfelt
The update in Haines is just one step in a long, winding process that already has taken years and could take years longer. The first step is updating each state forest management plan. The state finalized a new plan for the Tanana Valley State Forest and the interior in May. Haines plan is in progress. Next on the list, the Southeast State Forest, which spans islands including Prince of Wales and Wrangell. Reporting in Haines, I'm Avery Elphelt.
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Casey Grove
Still to come at Alaska News Nightly, next year's Yukon Quest Alaska will start and end in Fairbanks.
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Ashley List
So it's at least something that is going to make the Yukon Quest different from the other races that are currently active in the state.
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Casey Grove
That's ahead. Stay with us.
- [13:08]
Liz Ruskin
Consider a gift of stock to Alaska Public Media. You may avoid paying capital gains tax and receive a deduction. Learn more@alaskapublic.org stock or contact your financial advisor.
- [13:21]
Casey Grove
A small plane with two people on board safely made an emergency landing on the Seward highway this morning near Girdwood, according to local firefighters. Girdwood Fire Chief Michelle Weston says the plane touched down near mile 93 of the highway just north of town at.
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Ashley List
About 8:30am the aircraft had landed, had an issue and had landed on the highway without injuries to the passengers.
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Casey Grove
Luckily, Weston says, cars cleared the road as the plane landed.
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Ashley List
We're just thankful that when the aircraft came down that the car is all thought it's on a straight stretch and they were able to pull over and let the pilot land.
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Casey Grove
One driver in the area reported that after it touched down, the pilot pushed the plane off the highway and said he didn't need any help. Weston says the pilot was able to repair the plane, then take off again from the highway about two hours after it landed. The National Transportation Safety Board says the plane was a privately operated Rons S21 outbound, optimized for short landings and takeoffs. The plane had reportedly suffered a partial loss of engine power, prompting the pilot to land on the highway. Biologists have launched the first ever state study of brown bear numbers on Sitka's Baranof Island. As KCAW's Hope McKinney reports, managers say they need updated data to manage the population appropriately.
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Hope McKinney
Baranof island is really big, about 1600 square miles larger than the state of Rhode island. And the brown bear population is currently managed using really old numbers based on populations from a different island measured nearly 40 years ago. Stephanie Sell is a wildlife research biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. She says there's never been a population estimate study completed on Baranoff.
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Stephanie Sell
The management numbers that were using for brown bears on Baranoff were extrapolated from a project that happened on northern Admiralty in the late 1980s and the early 1990s.
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Hope McKinney
Based on the information they found on nearby Admiralty island, which lies between Sitka and Juneau, Sell says researchers determined there was likely more suitable habitat on Baranof, meaning more bears. The number they settled on 1045. But Sell says they really don't know how accurate that number is. And to be able to sustainably manage brown bears on the island, it's really important to have updated information.
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Stephanie Sell
So as far as what we're trying to do is figure out what those numbers are.
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Hope McKinney
Sell estimates the study will take about five to six years to complete. Biologists recently wrapped a similar six year project near Haines in Skagway. Sell says Fish and Game had been managing for a population of 400 bears in the area, but the study led them to lower that estimate to just over 300.
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Stephanie Sell
I don't know if it's going to be more or less on Baranof island, but that's what this project is going to hopefully find out.
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Hope McKinney
In early September, Sell and her assistant began capturing brown bears near Sitka and put putting GPS collars on them to learn more about their habitats and day to day movements.
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Stephanie Sell
We'll use helicopters wherever we can to dart bears and then it takes us about an hour to process the bears. We'll also use foot snares in places where we won't run into people for safety reasons. And then the other method is free range darting where we'll sit next to some sort of salmon stream or some sort of attractant where the bear is drawn in by some natural food source and we'll just wait for bears to show up.
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Hope McKinney
Each of the 25 bears they aim to capture each year will wear a collar for up to two years. When they retrieve them, researchers will then be able to look at that data and focus their efforts on the next part of the study, genetics.
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Stephanie Sell
Once we get more kind of spatial data and see where bears are moving across the island, we can kind of start looking at where we're going to actually put genetic sampling detectors. So we're going to start catching bear hair to kind of increase our sample size and that way we can use that information to determine how many animals are actually on the island.
- [17:25]
Hope McKinney
Cell says Baranoff bears are generally really dark, almost resembling black bears. They're also quite fat this time of year because of the island's healthy salmon runs, something she says they didn't see everywhere else this year.
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Stephanie Sell
What we do know about Game Management Unit four bears is that they're genetically similar to polar bears. They had refugia, it seems like since the last ice age. And so they're genetically different from polar, you know, kind of the mainland bears.
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Hope McKinney
As of Friday, Sal says they've put 20 collars on bears, 14 on females and six on males. Brown bear hunting season starts on September 15th. Hunters are currently able to harvest 42 bears on Baranoff. That's 4% of the estimated population. Sell says they hope to be done tagging for the season before that begins in sitka. I'm Hope McKenney.
- [18:17]
Casey Grove
Mushers and their dogs will travel 750 miles this coming February in the 2026 Yukon Quest Alaska. And this time teams are set to start and end their trek in Fairbanks. That's after organizers announced the route for the race last week. As KUAC's Patrick Gilchrist reports, the decision marks a couple of firsts for the competition, both new mileage and a new looped trail.
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Patrick Gilchrist
A 750 mile race is unique in Alaska, says Fairbanks based musher Jeff Dieter.
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Ashley List
So it's at least something that is going to make the Yukon Quest different from the other races that are currently active in the state.
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Patrick Gilchrist
He won the 2025 Yukon Quest Alaska 550, which went from Fairbanks to Tok. The Interior Alaska race has seen a variety of distances and routes in the years after the Alaskan and Canadian governing bodies split over disagreements about mandatory rest times. That was in 2022 and ended the long standing 1000 mile international race. Dieter says he thinks the Alaska organization has struggled to find its image since then, but he says the 750 mile trail, which will be the longest yet for the Alaska Quest, seems like a positive sign.
- [19:29]
Ashley List
I hope that this route will be that new model.
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Chris Clinton
It at least is, I think a.
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Ashley List
Step in the right direction.
- [19:37]
Patrick Gilchrist
On a map Yukon Quest Alaska Posted on social media the trail Forms a shape that looks a little like a rectangle tipped up on one of its corners. From Fairbanks, it snakes northeast to Circle before angling west along the Yukon River. The trail hits its northernmost point at Fort Yukon, and after that it goes southwest until reaching Tanana, where the route bounces back east to Nenana and then Fairbanks. Board vice president Dave Dalton says fundraising considerations played a role in the decision making process, Especially when it came to.
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Ashley List
The finish line in the Fairbanks area. All businesses would like to see us start and finish in Fairbanks. So that's what we're hoping for, all the businesses in Fairbanks to get really involved in this race.
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Patrick Gilchrist
Dalton says the board also consulted mushers who he says preferred a distance longer than 500 miles. But he says mushers generally didn't want the trail to turn around at Circle and come back to Fairbanks from there. That's because doing so would mean for facing the infamous Eagle Summit a second time. So the 750 mile loop became the board's plan.
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Ashley List
We all kind of came to an agreement that that was the route to go. We had a lot of interest.
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Patrick Gilchrist
Fairbanks musher Josie Shelley, who claimed second place in the 2025 Yukon Quest Alaska 550, is bringing some of that interest. She says she's also planning to run the 750 mile race next February. Like some other mushers, Shelly uses the Alaska Quest in part to train for the 1000 mile Iditarod. She says the extra miles next February will help give her and maybe newer mushers a better idea of how their teams fare further down the trail.
- [21:18]
Ashley List
For mushers that are considering, you know, want to do the Iditarod someday, this is a great way for them to get a little bit of a taste.
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Avery Elfelt
Of that longer distance.
- [21:29]
Patrick Gilchrist
Part of that taste will also involve rounding out the difficult cold days with a new Fairbanks finish. Dieter, the reigning Yukon Quest Alaska champion, says he's anticipating plenty of people will show up to greet finishing mushers.
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Ashley List
I think that Fairbanks is definitely excited about dog racing. You know, you saw the Turnout with the 2025 Iditarod starting here in Fairbanks. You know, the community is supportive of dog racing and it's going to be a great way to get people out excited about this race.
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Patrick Gilchrist
Yukon Quest Alaska says they expect to announce the rules by early November and sign ups are scheduled around the same time in Fairbanks. I'm Patrick Gilchrist.
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Casey Grove
Learning outdoors is nothing new for students at Tlingit Culture, Language and Literacy in Juneau. That's what they did on their first field trip of the year, where they learned about Tlingit language and values through foraging and processing local foods. KTO's Jamie Deeb joined them on their outdoor adventure earlier this month and has this story.
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Jamie Deeb
Students, teachers and families walk through squishy mossy muskeg near the Eagle River United Methodist Camp north of Juneau. Among the students is first grader Owen Ryle. He's crouched over small, short bushes peppered throughout the area, putting green and yellow leaves into an empty yogurt container looped around his neck.
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Hope McKinney
We're picking thick shaqtin, also known as.
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Jamie Deeb
Hudson Bay tea, owen says. Picking tea has been his favorite part of the day so far. Seventh grader Cassius Allen is one of the older students picking tea with eighth grader Leighton Hebner.
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Ashley List
Is that good? Is that good?
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Jamie Deeb
Yeah, Leighton says he learned how to identify the tea from friends and teachers.
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Ashley List
They said always make sure it's yellow at the bottom, like fully yellow or partially yellow and it will still work.
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Jamie Deeb
Cassius says he thinks the tea will taste good once they process it.
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Avery Elfelt
Probably gonna have to mix it up.
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Ashley List
With some other flavors so it tastes not plain and normal.
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Jamie Deeb
Overall. Cassius seems to be having some fun with Leighton while picking tea.
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Ashley List
I gotta up his nose a little.
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Jamie Deeb
This is part of a long standing field trip for students at Tlingit Culture, Language and Literacy, a Tlingit language immersion school. It's not just for the students. They're joined by families and volunteers, as well as students from Hiukatani Kuti, a Tlingit language preschool that's a language immersion preschool where children primarily speak in Tlingit. Things have been changing slightly after the program expanded to middle school. While it's normally a day trip, it's turned into an overnight field trip for the older students. Nakhe Klan Hans Chester is a biliteracy specialist at the school. He says getting students out of the classroom opens the door for a lot of learning.
- [24:29]
Chris Clinton
To me, in this context, it's real living and they hear us using the language with each other and communicating or just even expressions to say when you're doing something and it's in context and it makes sense.
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Jamie Deeb
In addition to tea, students also learned to filet salmon and make jam. Chester says the jam was going to be given to guests at a CU IQ or potlatch the next day.
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Chris Clinton
When we do our CU iq, it's to honor our Lost Clan members. And so, you know, it's really important for us to teach these skills to our kids so when they grow up and they lose their mom or their sister or their cousin or whoever that's in their family, they'll have these skill sets to rely on so that they can do what we do.
- [25:20]
Jamie Deeb
Chester says this field trip makes them feel like the school is in a stronger place than it was before.
- [25:25]
Chris Clinton
This field trip has really helped me see that more, just with the level of engagement from kids. Hearing them use the language, some of them stepping up and becoming leaders out here, is really awesome to see.
- [25:40]
Jamie Deeb
In the camp kitchen, Tlingit language teacher Nay Tamuluk portions out bowls of fish soup. The middle schoolers filleted coho salmon for it the night before. Tamiluk says she likes getting to know the students more, both new and old.
- [25:53]
Ashley List
Just seeing them in their element, being able to witness a lot of their growth and everything like that, it's been a lot of fun. They're also incredibly hilarious, so it's been entertaining.
- [26:06]
Jamie Deeb
Once they're back at school, Chester says they will process the tea and give it away to community members. Reporting in Juneau, I'm Jamie Deep.
- [26:26]
Casey Grove
And that's all for this edition of Alaska News Nightly. We had reports tonight from Sage, Smiley and Bethel, Liz Ruskin in Washington, D.C. avery Elfelt and Haynes, Chris Clinton, Anchorage, Hope McKinney and Sitka, Patrick Gilchrist in Fairbanks and Jamie Deep in Juneau. Our audio engineer is Chris Hyde. Madeline Rose is our producer and I'm Casey Grove. Good night, Sam.