Category: Alaska News

Endeavor Ryan Riley was sentenced to 70 years with 30 suspended for the 2023 domestic violence killing of his wife in Fairbanks following a guilty plea to second-degree murder.

Officials with the University of Alaska have tapped the commander of the U.S. Army 11th Airborne Division’s Arctic Aviation Command as the new permanent chancellor of the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

Col. Russell “Russ” Vander Lugt was selected from four finalists after an eight-month search process. He will be the top executive of Alaska’s leading research institution, which describes itself as “America’s Arctic university.” He will replace interim chancellor, and former U.S. Ambassador to the Arctic, Mike Sfraga, who succeeded former chancellor Dan White who announced his retirement in May of last year.

Vander Lugt is a senior U.S. Army officer, an Arctic scholar and UAF alumni, with over two decades of executive leadership experience, according to a university announcement on May 27. He has served as commander of the 11th Airborne Division’s Arctic Aviation Command at Fort Wainwright in Fairbanks since Aug. 2024. 

“I’m humbled to be selected to lead the University of Alaska Fairbanks during this pivotal time,” Vander Lugt said in a statement with the announcement. 

“I look forward to leading through trust, transparency, and teamwork as we see Alaska and the Arctic transformed through education, research, and public service. I’m committed to building on the strong foundation Chancellors Sfraga and White have established, and working closely with university leadership and governance to support and advance UAF’s mission,” he said. 

Vander Lugt will step into the permanent chancellor role on Sept. 8. Sfraga’s last day was Friday, and university officials have selected Larry Hinzman, director of the UA Arctic Leadership Initiative, to serve as interim chancellor through the summer. 

Vander Lugt has had a long career with the U.S. Army in various roles in Alaska, where he is stationed in Fairbanks, and across the U.S. His resume lists deployments to Europe and the Middle East. 

He served in executive leadership roles that include the Alaskan Command, a division of the U.S. Northern Command, the 601st Aviation Support Battalion, and the 1st Stryker Brigade Combat team. He also taught history and military leadership as an assistant professor at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and was a professor of military science and department chair at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Arizona.

He holds a master’s degree and doctoral degree in Arctic and Northern Studies at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, which he completed in 2022.

Vander Lugt’s hire is the latest in major leadership changes in the University of Alaska system — former UA president Pat Pitney retired last month and former university attorney Matt Cooper was named as her successor. Cooper will begin as university president in early August, and Michelle Rizk, vice president of university relations and chief strategy, planning and budget officer, is serving as interim president. Cheryl Siemers was appointed permanent chancellor of the University of Alaska Anchorage in March, after serving as interim chancellor since the retirement of former chancellor Sean Parnell last year.

Vander Lugt’s base salary will be $309,000, according to the university’s announcement.

The University of Alaska Fairbanks serves roughly 7,500 students. It employs more than 800 faculty and nearly 2,000 staff across urban and rural campuses in Fairbanks, Kotzebue, Nome, Bethel and Dillingham.

Algae is vital to a healthy marine system, and most of the hundreds of varieties in Alaska’s waters are beneficial or benign.

But the handful that are harmful are, like other algae, proliferating in warmer conditions and releasing or threatening to release toxins that can sicken people and wildlife and, in the worst cases, cause deaths.

The best-known type of algae that poses risks to people, mammals and birds in Alaska is called Alexandrium. The toxins it produces cause paralytic shellfish poisoning; they block the delivery of sodium to cells, thus interfering with or shutting down nerves essential to bodily functions.

The most potent Alexandrium toxin is saxitoxin, but there are related toxins produced by the same algae called gonyautoxins, or GTX. Some GTX varieties, including one detected in tomcod harvested in December by Nome-Beltz High School students in a yearslong science project, are nearly as toxic as saxitoxin. For simplicity’s sake, testing for paralytic toxins often lumps measurements of saxitoxin and GTX compounds together as “saxitoxin equivalent,” said Thomas Farrugia, coordinator of the Alaska Harmful Algal Bloom network.

Like other algal toxins, Alexandrium toxins cannot be cooked or frozen away. There is no antidote for people afflicted by paralytic shellfish poisoning. People who recover do so after the toxin passes through their bodies. In fatal cases, people stop breathing.

There were 132 reports of paralytic shellfish poisoning and five fatalities in Alaska between 1993 and 2021, a tally that does not include mild cases for which there was no medical treatment provided, according to state health officials.

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In addition to posing risks to people who eat shellfish, saxitoxin and saxitoxin-like products of Alexandrium can poison wildlife. The toxin might have been a factor in bird die-offs in recent years, including the 2015-2017 event known as the “wreck” that wiped out an estimated 4 million common murres during the intense marine heatwave known as the “Blob.” It is now classified as the world’s largest wildlife die-off on record. Saxitoxin was determined to be the cause of death for northern fur seals found stranded on beaches in the Pribilof Islands in 2024 and 2025.

Traces of domoic acid, but no Alaska problems yet

There’s another algal threat on the horizon. Pseudo-nitzschia is another category of harmful algae of concern in Alaska.

Some varieties produce domoic acid, a toxin that is present in very small quantities in Alaska waters and Alaska animals. Its presence is so minute that it has not caused any trouble this far north. But domoic has wreaked havoc among marine mammal populations in California.

In contrast to saxitoxin and related toxins, which cause paralysis by blocking nerve transmissions, domoic acid overstimulates the nervous system. The resulting illness, called amnesic shellfish poisoning, causes victims to go into seizures and can result in permanent memory loss, brain damage and death.

Deaths to people have been extremely rare. The only recorded fatal human cases, according to scientific records, were four people who ate mussels in Canada’s Prince Edward Island in 1987.

But starting in 1998, domoic acid has been taking a heavy toll on marine mammals in California.

That year, a mass die-off of sea lions at Monterey Bay touched off alarms. Lefebvre, then a first-year graduate student who happened to be studying domoic acid, joined the investigation suggesting it could be the cause.

Other potential causes, such as mercury poisoning, were initially suggested before domoic acid was identified as the culprit. The toxin accumulates to high concentrations in small fish like sardines and anchovies, which California sea lions eat.

Hundreds of California sea lions died that year in the first documented marine mammal poisoning event caused by domoic acid. Since 1998, domoic acid-caused poisoning events in marine mammals occur annually in California, Lefebvre said.

“We have dozens to hundreds of sea lions every year dying from domoic acid poisoning,” she said. Other marine mammals can be poisoned as well, including seals, otters, dolphins, porpoises and whales. Symptoms are visible and include seizures, in which animals sway their heads and move their flippers, disorientation and erratic behavior. Large numbers of seabirds have also been killed by the toxin.

“It’s become a regular event in California that continues to increase in severity. I’m kind of uniquely poised to see these trends after being involved in the first documented marine mammal domoic acid poisoning investigation and having studied this phenomenon for nearly 30 years,” Lefevre said. She leads a surveillance program at NOAA’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center called the Wildlife Algal-toxin Research and Response Network (WARRN-West), which covers the North American West Coast from the Beaufort Sea to Southern California.

Domoic acid detections, sometimes in combination with detections of saxitoxin, have also prompted shellfish harvesting closures and restrictions along the West Coast. Earlier this year, the commercial harvest of Dungeness crab was delayed in one Northern California area because of domoic acid.

Domoic acid poisoning events have not been documented in Alaska, but low levels of the toxin have been detected. 

Residents in the Kenai Peninsula’s Kachemak Bay area worried that last summer that they might have witnessed the first poisoning event. At the same time that elevated Pseudo-nitzschia levels were detected in the bay, there was a die-off of birds and sea otters.

Investigations by the Alaska Harmful Algal Bloom Network, the Homer-based Kachemak Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve, Seldovia Village Tribe and other partners turned up no evidence of domoic acid poisoning, despite the Pseudo-nitzschia bloom there. The deaths remain unexplained, despite the testing of 30 marine mammals and 14 birds, said Rose Masui of the Kachemak Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve. 

Lefebvre, whose studies turned up trace levels of domoic acid in mammals ranging from sea lions in Southeast to bowhead whales in the Arctic, believes it will be a long time before Pseudo-nitzschia blooms becomes a serious danger in Alaska. Still, Kachemak Bay residents were smart to investigate it, she said.

“It’s something to be watching,” she said.

‘Terrible nature’ and fluroescent-colored waters

A third type of harmful algae of concern in Alaska is a collection in the genus Dinophysis. Those algae produce toxins that are not life-threatening, but cause a condition called “Diarrhetic Shellfish Poisoning.” The genus name itself hints at the unpleasant symptoms caused by the toxins; it derives from Greek words for “terrible” and “nature,” according to the U.S. National Office for Harmful Algal Blooms.

Dinophysis species are widely present in Alaska, as a series of 2022 surveys showed. So far, there have not yet been any cases of Diarrhetic Shellfish Poisoning recorded in Alaska, according to the state Department of Health. However, blooms have prompted shellfish closures along the West Coast south of Alaska, including in Washington State.

A fourth type of organism with blooms that proliferate in warmer conditions is cyanobacteria. Despite being commonly dubbed “blue-green algae,” cyanobacteria are photosynthesizing bacteria and not actually any type of algal species.

There are thousands of identified types of cyanobacteria. The organisms are key building blocks to life on Earth. But certain types have their downsides.

Blooms can deplete dissolved oxygen levels in water and lead to mass fish die-offs. They can also produce toxins that can poison fish and wildlife and pose direct threats to people. Some strains in freshwater have been shown to produce saxitoxin, as studies from the Great Lakes and elsewhere have shown.

Cyanobacteria toxins can also irritate people’s skin and eyes, cause vomiting and diarrhea and, in the most serious cases, lead to organ damage or failure. In the Lower 48, warnings about blooms are regularly issued to swimmers, and beaches are occasionally closed.

Now cyanobacteria is a concern in Alaska’s far north.

Until 2008, cyanobacteria blooms were no problem in the Inupiat community of Kotzebue, which lies just north of the Bering Strait, above the Arctic Circle.

That year, the waters of Kotzebue Sound turned a weird, bright-green color.

“It was like fluorescent green paint,” said Alex Whiting, director of the local tribal government’s environmental program.

At first, people suspected that it was actually a spill of green paint or some other hazardous substance, he said. Even the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation was stumped for a while, he said.

Eventually, the cyanobacteria was identified as the culprit.

Since then, the blooms have been regular occurrences in the region, Whiting said. They are affecting places like Kobuk Lake, which is an arm of Kotzebue Sound, and Selawik Lake, which lies inland from Kotzebue and the Baldwin Peninsula on which the community is located.

In partnership with Columbia University scientists, the Native Village of Kotzebue, the tribal government, has become the Alaska leader in cyanobacteria research in Alaska, Whiting said. “There’s nobody that has put as much effort in Alaska at this than the Native Village of Kotzebue,” he said.

The Kotzebue-Columbia research project is working to evaluate the risks that cyanobacteria blooms pose to subsistence foods and the environmental drivers that lead to those blooms. That means compiling evidence about its effects in the food chain. The project is also testing a system that could help monitor blooms.

The blooms cannot be prevented, but the hope is that people will be prepared should any ill effects result, Whiting said.

The most pressing concern is the potential of cascading effects on the ecosystem. Cyanobacteria blooms, in addition to killing fish directly through oxygen depletion, can displace the phytoplankton that fish need as food sources.

“If it becomes common enough and widespread enough, it can disrupt the environment and cause all kinds of issues,” he said.

No dramatic effects have been documented so far from the Kotzebue-area cyanobacteria blooms. A 2021 fish die-off was suspicious, but no evidence turned up to tie it to cyanobacteria, Whiting said.

For now, he said, it is understandable that Alexandrium, with its potentially acute effects, gets most of the attention when it comes to hazardous algal or algal-like blooms. Cyanobacteria and its chronic effects have been a bit overshadowed, he said. “Most people in Alaska don’t know that much about it.”

That could change in a big way.

“At some point, we might wake up and there might be 100,000 or 500,000 fish lying belly up in Kobuk Lake,” Whiting said.

This article was produced as a project for USC Annenberg’s Center for Health Journalism and Center for Climate Journalism and Communication 2025 Health and Climate Change Reporting Fellowship.

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Tomorrow evening, Haines’ radio station KHNS will be hosting their annual spring fundraiser in the form of a dance party. Local DJ RadioCaroline will be opening the event and Whitehorse’s DJKJ will follow as the headliner.

In the past, KHNS has held wine tasting events and concerts as fundraisers, but decided to have a more “dance oriented event” this year, said KHNS development director Dawn Drotos

This will not be DJKJ’s, whose real name is Kevin Jack’s, first time performing in Haines, Drotos said. Jack first came to perform in the Chilkat Center three years ago. 

“I was so blown away by the energy of the Haines, Alaska community,” Jack said on Friday. He said he first got connected with the Haines community after a few Haines locals went to Whitehorse for the Paradise Music Festival. Jack started DJ’ing in 2001 and said he has had to evolve as the DJ technology has shifted away from vinyls and towards online music streaming.

“I’m super pumped to bring some positivity and some light during this time. As humans we need to dance more and more connection to drown out the noise,” Jack said.

Drotos said those in Haines familiar with his style and sound should be ready for a similar “let loose and dance” environment. The main event with music will be in the lobby of the Chilkat Center, with a kids section in the wings of the theater equipped with craft projects. Both alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages and food will be available for purchase with all proceeds going to KHNS. The admission is by suggested donation and all ages are welcome.

“We don’t want the cost to prohibit anybody from attending,” Drotos said.

Historically, Drotos said that these fundraisers typically raise a few thousand dollars. “They’re as much kind of a community event and kind of outreach as they are fundraisers for the radio station too,” Drotos said. 

The room will be decked out in blacklights, a disco ball, and a sound system that Jack is bringing with him from Whitehorse.

The event runs from 7:30 – 10 p.m. Saturday, May 30 in the Chilkat Center lobby.

The post KHNS to host Dance Party, Canadian DJ appeared first on Chilkat Valley News.

Alaska and three of its municipalities could be in line for an extra $60 million in oil industry tax revenue after a new ruling in a long-running feud over the value of the trans-Alaska pipeline system.

A state appeals board this week determined the property tax value of the enormous 50-year-old pipeline system, which moves crude 800 miles from the North Slope’s oil fields to the port town of Valdez, to be $13 billion.

That’s some $3 billion more than an initial 2026 assessment from Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s administration — meaning the pipeline’s owners would owe $60 million more under the state’s 2% property tax regime.

Far more money could be at stake if, as anticipated, the oil companies that own the pipeline and pay the taxes — or the municipalities that collect a share of the taxes — appeal the decision in state court.

A spokesperson for Alyeska Pipeline Service Co., which operates the pipeline system, said the decision is under review by the owners. Alyeska is owned by affiliates of three of Alaska’s major oil producers: Hilcorp, ConocoPhillips and ExxonMobil.

Robin Brena, an Alaska attorney who has long represented the municipalities in pipeline property tax matters, said he expects both parties to appeal the decision.

The dispute dates back decades. Alyeska and the municipalities spent years in court feuding over yearly assessments before reaching a settlement in 2016 that set the pipeline’s value at $8 billion — translating into an annual property tax bill of $160 million.

That money flows to both the state and municipalities; for Valdez, the taxes have represented more than half of the city’s regular recurring revenue. The North Slope and Fairbanks North Star boroughs also receive tens of millions of dollars.

After the settlement expired last year, the state Department of Revenue initially set the pipeline system’s updated value at $10.3 billion.

Both the oil companies and municipalities appealed to the State Assessment Review Board, whose five members are appointed by the governor.

The owners assert that the pipeline system’s value has been declining and is now $2.8 billion — equating to some $56 million in property tax payments.

The municipalities, meanwhile, say the system is depreciating at a much slower rate and still has decades of life left in it, buoyed by new oil development on the North Slope. They estimate that its value is closer to $20 billion, which would translate to some $400 million in property tax revenue.

Brena, the lawyer representing the municipalities, said he’s skeptical of the oil companies’ approach.

“To me, the owners are advocating a position which has consistently been about 10% percent of the true value of TAPS,” he said, using the acronym for the pipeline system. “It looks like their motives are to lower their taxes rather than to get the assessment correct.”

The Department of Revenue’s 2026 assessment was based on a court-approved method of estimating the cost of replacing the pipeline, then accounting for depreciation.

The state review board concluded that the revenue department used an improper method to calculate depreciation — focusing on past North Slope production rather than on proven oil reserves and expected future production.

The municipalities and oil companies have 30 days from May 22 to appeal the board’s decision to Alaska superior court. Similar pipeline tax cases before the 2016 settlement were appealed all the way to the Alaska Supreme Court.

Northern Journal contributor Max Graham can be reached at max@northernjournal.com. He’s interested in any and all mining related stories, as well as introductory meetings with people in and around the industry.

This article was originally published in Northern Journal, a newsletter from Nathaniel Herz. Subscribe at this link.

The Alaska Legislature approved a package of legislation aimed at improving the state’s coordination and emergency medical services response for strokes and heart attacks, including prompting school districts to offer CPR training for all Alaska students. 

Noting Alaska’s unique challenges with geography, transportation and emergency services resources, the bill’s sponsor Rep. Genevieve Mina, D-Anchorage, said the goal of the legislation is to streamline responses to intervene in what’s known as the “golden hour” — the 60 minutes following a traumatic injury or medical event — particularly for strokes and heart attacks.

“The issue is that in Alaska, we do not have a system of care for these time-sensitive emergencies for strokes and heart attacks,” Mina told senators at a May 7 hearing.

Lawmakers approved the package, which combined a pair of bills, in the final days of the legislative session by a total vote of 49 to 10, with Rep. Delena Johnson, R-Palmer, abstaining. The combined bill now goes to Gov. Mike Dunleavy for consideration. 

If approved, the bill would designate strokes and heart attacks to be included in the Alaska Department of Health’s Office of Emergency Services trauma system, and require the state to develop a coordinated system of care with first responders, transport agencies, hospitals and clinics. That includes developing standardized protocols and training for all first responders, establishing statewide guidelines based nationally accredited standards and procedures and communicating a patient’s condition to receiving hospitals or clinics.

“There are now best practices and improved technology for addressing severe strokes and heart attacks and designating stroke centers and severe heart attack centers, but no one is coordinating these hospitals, these provider organizations, and communities on improving this care,” Mina said.

In 2022, 744 Alaskans died from trauma, 217 died from strokes and 510 died from cardiovascular disease such as a heart attack, according to data provided by Mina’s office.

“At least 41 states have or are finalizing regional or statewide stroke and heart attack protocols to ensure that patients are transported directly to level one stroke centers,” she said. “This bill will help reduce transfer times throughout our state to meet this golden hour, which will in turn help improve outcomes and cost savings to the state.”

“We can’t change when a patient arrives at a hospital. We can help improve these workflows to diagnose the case and make this decision-making process more efficient,” she added.

The state’s expansion of the trauma system is estimated to cost roughly $250,000, according to a state fiscal note, which includes a new public health specialist position, travel and IT system enhancements.

The Alaska Stroke Coalition, Guardian Flight — which provides air and ground ambulance services — and Providence Hospital in Anchorage penned letters of support for the legislation that said improving coordinated, standardized emergency response systems will be a “win-win” for patients and providers.

“Even the smallest delays in care can have huge consequences for the person experiencing a stroke,” wrote members of the executive team with the Alaska Stroke Coalition. A stroke is defined by a damage to the brain caused by interruption of blood supply, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, and permanent brain damage can occur within four to six minutes. 

“Treatment delays of just 15 minutes can mean the difference between leaving the hospital capable of independent living or permanent reliance on others for the activities of daily life,” they wrote. 

“A third of the patients who experience stroke are under the age of 65 and most of these patients can never return to work, resulting in both a loss of income potential and a significant reliance on medical resources for support,” they noted. “In a state like Alaska where our demographics skew younger, this has a profound impact.” 

The window of response to heart attacks is equally critical. 

Another bill added by senators to the legislative package would “encourage” school districts to provide hands-on training in cardiopulmonary resuscitation education, known as CPR, in health education for kindergarten through 12th graders. 

Sen. Elvi Gray-Jackson, D-Anchorage, sponsored the bill. “When administered immediately, CPR can more than triple a person’s chance of survival,” she told lawmakers at a March 23 hearing.

“This legislation aims to strengthen health education in our schools by equipping students with the knowledge and the skills that they need to respond effectively in emergencies,” she said, and recalled that CPR has been necessary in the Capitol building more than once. 

“And those moments lives were saved simply because someone nearby had the training and the confidence to act,” she said. 

Doug Schrage, fire chief for the Municipality of Anchorage, testified in support of the bill and noted the CPR skills students learn can be applied in school settings or at home.

“We know that most cardiac arrests occur in the home and believe a student of any age that has been trained in CPR is likely to be home and can provide lifesaving care. There are many examples where a student has provided CPR in the home,” he said.

Survival rates for heart attack are quite low, Schrage noted, but with hands-on CPR chances improve. 

Jason Dolph, a safety officer with the Anchorage Fire Department, testified to lawmakers about  his first day on the job as a firefighter, when he entered a home where no one was trained in CPR.  

“There was a man laying on the couch, he was gray in color, and around him was about eight family members, and none were performing CPR or attempting any other life-saving measures. And you have to ask yourself, why? Why would a family member not be willing to, or to help, or engage? And it was simply because they didn’t know what to do, no one had ever trained them in CPR. They never had the opportunity,” he said. 

Dolph said equipping children with the skills and confidence to be responsive bystanders will help improve outcomes.

“During my career, I’ve responded to more than 10,000 emergency calls and incidents, and in that time I’ve made this observation that when responders arrive and no bystander is performing CPR, we most often have negative results, despite our best efforts, and despite advancements in medicine,” he said. 

The bill directs the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development to determine which grade levels are required to receive the training and develop the appropriate curriculum, based on evidence-based, national standards. 

If approved by the governor, the legislation would take effect in July 2027. 

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