Category: Alaska News

President Donald Trump’s administration listed fewer vulnerable species for protection than any other presidential administration since Congress passed the Endangered Species Act.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Trump’s first term added 22 species to the 1,700-species list. So far in his second term, zero new species have made the list. That’s according to a database maintained by the nonprofit conservation group Center for Biological Diversity and an online database maintained by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Officials at the Fish and Wildlife Service, largely responsible for Endangered Species List considerations and enforcement, were unable to answer Capital Chronicle questions by Thursday evening.

Noah Greenwald, endangered species director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said the numbers are not surprising. The group has been involved in a growing number of lawsuits against the administration for attempts to circumvent the act and for missing statutory deadlines for considering and listing species.

A backlog of roughly 400 species await a federal listing decision, Greenwald said.

“It’s consistent with what other Republican administrations have done, but this administration has just gone so much further in dismantling protections for endangered species,” he said.

On Tuesday, a group of six Trump appointees overseeing federal wildlife, agriculture and environment agencies voted unanimously to remove protections from species threatened by oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. That includes the Rice’s whale, of which there are only 51 left in the world, according to the most recent federal estimate. Conservation groups are suing.

It was only the fourth time since the Endangered Species Act Committee was created in 1978 that the so-called “God Squad” was convened to override federal species’ protections and determine the fate of imperiled species.

Trump last year threatened to invoke the committee’s review of species he said stand in the way of increased logging in federal forests in Oregon.

Greenwald said that the growing backlog of species being considered for listing is also due to a lack of funding for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and massive losses in staff.

The agency lost nearly 20% of its staff in the last year to buyouts, early retirements and other Trump administration policies meant to cut the federal workforce, according to records requested from Biological Diversity.

He said there’s not just an administrative backlog at the federal agencies, but a biological backlog of threatened species in the U.S. likely far greater than 1,700.

“Scientists recognize there are thousands of species that are imperiled in the U.S., and most of those, honestly, there’s just not very much information about. We need to do more study and survey,” he said. “When we get out of this administration, there’s going to be an even bigger backlog.”

Anyone can petition the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service to list a species that might be threatened or on the brink of extinction. By law, the agencies have 90 days to respond to the petition, one year to undertake research and gather findings about whether a listing is warranted or not and one more year to issue a final ruling.

Greenwald said in practice, step one typically takes a year, and steps two and three typically take four to five years each, meaning most species don’t actually get listed until 10 or more years after the request to protect them.

Groups including the Center for Biological Diversity have taken to suing the federal government over its missed deadlines for decades, and Greenwald said federal lawyers almost always settle by agreeing to meet deadlines both parties agree on. The group has been trying for more than a decade to get migratory monarch butterflies listed, which have had an 80% population decline since the late 1990s and sued the Trump administration in February when officials delayed a decision on listing the species that was supposed to be made in December.

Daniel Rohlf, a law professor and director of the Earthwise Law Center at Lewis & Clark University, said long delays in getting species listed isn’t uncommon, but the Trump administration in particular is doing “end-runs around the law.”

Besides declaring an emergency and convening the God Squad, Rohlf said administration officials have slowed down listings by leveraging part of the law that allows officials to categorize species as “warranted but precluded” for protections.

“That is the Fish and Wildlife Service saying: ‘Well, we should list the species as threatened or endangered, but we’re too busy with other higher priority species, so we can’t deal with this species right now,’” he said, describing it as a “purgatory” for species on the brink.

Rohlf and Oregon State University professor Christian Langpap, who studies natural resource economics and the economics of endangered species conservation, said research shows the Endangered Species Act works.

“Despite the controversy that the Endangered Species Act has always been surrounded in, and the conflicting arguments about the effectiveness, the science, empirical research and empirical evidence does seem to suggest that listing species and investing resources and effort in their recovery ultimately is effective,” Langpap said. “If you cut that process off the first step — the listing — then there is a huge opportunity cost.”

Langpap and Rohlf said staff and budget cuts at federal science agencies will make it harder to understand the impacts of species loss.

“It’s going to be hard for us to say what the impacts of not listing many of these species are, because the federal government is deliberately eliminating the science that tells us what’s going on in the world,” Rohlf said.

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The Alaska Senate last week advanced a bill that would allow for the anonymous surrendering of infants in so-called infant safety devices.

The boxes are located on the exteriors of buildings. They are climate controlled and monitored by video. When the device is opened, a 911 request is automatically made. 

Alaskans have been able to surrender infants since 2008. Newborns must be given directly to police officers, firefighters, doctors or other medical personnel. They are then turned over to the Alaska Office of Children Services for adoption. 

In Alaska, an infant must be aged 21 days or younger to be surrendered legally. 

North Pole Republican Sen. Robb Myers is the lead sponsor of Senate Bill 9. It would allow newborns to be surrendered in climate-controlled boxes, located outside police stations, fire departments, hospitals and other locations. 

Myers said that around one baby a year has been surrendered in Alaska since 2008. Despite that, three infants have been found abandoned in Alaska since 2013: Two were found dead; one newborn was discovered alive in Fairbanks in a box in winter.

Myers said safe surrender devices would help save lives. Parents can feel shame or the fear of potential recognition when giving a child to another person, he said. The climate-controlled boxes are intended to remove that barrier.

The Anchorage Fire Department, City of Fairbanks, the Alaska Children’s Trust and other groups support the legislative change.

The Alaska Senate advanced the bill on an 18-2 vote. Sens. Bert Stedman, a Sitka Republican, and Löki Tobin, an Anchorage Democrat, voted no.

Tobin said the anonymity of surrendering a child into a baby box could lead to abuse of women. She said the boxes introduce the potential that traffickers could surrender babies without a mother’s consent.

“The potential misuses for these devices far outweigh the benefits,” Tobin said.  

All 50 states allow for the surrendering of infants. Almost half of states allow for newborns to be surrendered in baby boxes, which has accelerated since Roe vs. Wade was overturned, particularly in Republican-led states. 

If the bill passes, the Alaska Department of Public Safety would be tasked with drafting regulations for the placement of infant safety devices. Each infant safety device is estimated to cost $16,000. That excludes surveillance and security costs, which state officials say could be “significant.”

SB 9 now advances to the House for its consideration. Similar legislation has been advancing through that legislative chamber.

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One might expect the 51st Alaska Folk Festival to be a bit tamer than the landmark 50-year bash, but organizers say last year’s golden anniversary get-together set the stage for an even bigger week of music, dance and other activities this year.

“The 50th brought so many new members into the fold,” said Josh Fortenbery, president of the festival’s board, while he and others were setting up Centennial Hall on Sunday for shows starting Monday evening. “And so a lot of people that were excited about the thing last year — or maybe hadn’t been in a while, or never been before — all signed up as members last year. So we have the largest membership we’ve ever had. And so I think that allows us to keep building every year and make it keep getting bigger and better, without ever compromising the idea that it’s always going to be free.”

The festival opens at 6:30 p.m. Monday in the main Centennial Hall ballroom with a 15-minute set by the Juneau Community Chorus and is scheduled to close sometime after the 9 p.m. Sunday concert by featured guest performer Willi Carlisle with a traditional crowd singalong of “Goodnight Irene.” Other workshops and dance band events are scheduled during the week in Centennial Hall’s other rooms and the adjacent Juneau Arts and Culture Center, plus a variety of non-official and “after-hours” events at venues throughout downtown.

Among the new — or least not previously remembered — features at this year’s festival is a neon backdrop of a guitar and stars, a “50 Years of Folk Fest” that will be screened twice on Saturday at KTOO’s studios, and life-size puppets Carlisle is bringing with him as part of his act.

“We need two people to operate these backpack puppets,” said Annie Bartholomew, another festival board member and longtime Juneau musician. “I think it’s a raccoon and a king, and they fight each other.”

Carlisle, 36, who performed a 15-minute set during the 2019 festival, may also be the first person in such a slot who has returned as the festival’s guest artist, Bartholomew said.

Born in Kansas and now based in Arkansas, Carlisle performs “traditional folk music for 21st century problems,” according to a Grammy.com feature following the release of the second of his four current albums. His website proclaims “singing is healing” and “by singing together, he believes we can begin to reckon with the inevitability of human suffering and grow in love.”

Fortenberry said that kind of presence is what motivated the invitation from the festival’s board.

“I think just in the current sort of political climate — the feeling of sort of dread and civil unrest and disconnection — his joy and his model of trying to just bring everyone to the fold just really fits what we think we need sort of culturally right now,” Fortenberry said. “So it’s just a really apt pick for the times we live in.”

The rest of the lineup on the main stage features a multitude of well-known local musicians in 15-minute slots that, as usual, are fully booked with a long standby list (about 85 artists on Monday morning, according to the festival’s website).

This year’s poster was designed by Savannah LeCornu, a self-taught Ketchikan artist who is Tsimshian, Haida, and Nimiipuu (Nez Perce), according to the festival’s website. The poster features silhouetted musicians in a zig-zagging line of northern lights above Juneau’s nighttime cityscape.

Dance music is scheduled Thursday through Saturday evenings at the JACC, with four or five bands performing each night. This year’s feature dance band is The Red Hots, a quartet from North Carolina, with Connor Maguire serving as the featured guest caller for that band and some of the other dance performances.

Bartholomew said her banjo teacher, Riley Baugus, is a member of The Red Hots who has toured with musicians such as Willie Nelson and Alison Krauss.

“He’s a great teacher, and the guys he plays with are all really cool,” Bartholomew said. “It’ll be great getting him to dance and teaching people, and bringing in some authentic North Carolina, old-time dance Appalachian stuff.”

She said she’s also familiar with Maguire, having been to dances he’s called in California and Idaho.

“He looks like a lumberjack,” Bartholomew said. “I’m afraid he’ll move to Juneau because he’ll just fall in love with it. But he’s really boisterous and fun.”

Fortenbery said he was barely able to squeeze in the roughly 30 individuals or groups wanting to conduct workshops Saturday and Sunday. Offerings range from introductory sessions on music theory and square dance calling to applying for Rasmuson Foundation Individual Artist Awards, the latter being among the notable new additions.

“This is about the most workshop applications I’ve ever received,” he said.

This story was originally published by the Juneau Independent.

The post Organizers say boost from 50th Alaska Folk Festival means this year’s is even bigger appeared first on Chilkat Valley News.

Ketchikan is not getting a free, mile-long, 12-foot-diameter tunnel to link the community with its airport across the water.

The Ketchikan Gateway Borough had been one of 16 finalists for a national company’s offer to pay for building a tunnel but did not measure up in the final decision. The Boring Co. will be moving forward with projects in New Orleans, Baltimore and Dallas, selecting three winners rather than the original plan for a single winner of the Tunnel Vision Challenge.

The company, which was founded by Elon Musk, announced the contest winners in a late-night March 23 post on its X social media account.

Ketchikan’s 45-page entry, one of 487 submitted to the company, had proposed four options for tunnel access between Revillagigedo and Gravina islands, linking the town to the airport.

The company’s post on X said the next step for the three winners will be for The Boring Co. “and the project stakeholders (to) enter into a rigorous diligence process.” That will include meetings with “elected officials, regulators, community leaders and business leaders,” in addition to geotechnical borings and utility and subsurface infra investigation.

The company said it would pay 100% of the cost of the due-diligence effort, adding that it would build all three “if all three are feasible.” But, if only one of the tunnels is feasible, it would build just the one.

Ketchikan’s effort started in January, when Assembly Members Rodney Dial and Sharli Arntzen talked of addressing long-standing issues surrounding the aging ferry system between Revillagigedo and Gravina islands.

Dial discovered The Boring Co. contest that promised to finance and construct one mile of 12-foot diameter tunnel infrastructure for the winning project.

The interest in a hard link such as a bridge or tunnel across Tongass Narrows goes back decades. It increased with construction of the state-owned and borough-operated Ketchikan International Airport on Gravina Island in 1973.

Currently, borough-operated shuttle ferries serve the airport.

The post Ketchikan loses out in competition for free tunnel to airport appeared first on Chilkat Valley News.

Tickets to ride the Alaska Marine Highway System will go up a little more than 2% effective May 1, the first fare increase since 2019.

That 2019 increase instituted “dynamic pricing” of higher fares on popular routes, much like airlines and hotels price their rates to maximize revenues.

But dynamic pricing was not popular among ferry riders and the state rescinded the fare structure in 2022, leaving tickets unchanged since then.

Craig Tornga, marine director for the state ferry system, told legislators last month that it’s important for the marine highway to keep up with inflation.

The fare increase will raise the cost of a car and driver between Wrangell and Ketchikan by $6, from $213 to $219. A car and driver between Wrangell and Bellingham, Washington, will increase next month by $30, from $1,364 to $1,394.

The system’s operating budget for calendar 2026 is about $170 million, with almost half expected from the federal government and the rest from ticket sales and the general fund. The ferries have never paid their own way from the fare box, always needing state or federal dollars to cover the difference.

A new budget issue is that this year’s federal money is late, and the state may need to front tens of millions of dollars until the federal aid comes through. The Trump administration has delayed since last year opening the ferry funding program at the Federal Transit Administration to grant applications.

The ferry system has enough state money to cover its expenses into July, Dom Pannone, director of program management and administration, told the state Senate Transportation Committee on March 19.

The soonest the federal aid might come through is August or September, he told lawmakers, which would require the state to cover up to $30 million for two months until the federal check arrives.

Committee members asked Pannone how sure he was that the federal grant program would open soon enough for Alaska to receive the money by late summer or early fall, limiting the state’s risk. “We have high confidence,” he said, though he added “confidence can never be 100%.”

At the committee hearing, Tornga also briefed legislators on the ferry system’s ongoing efforts to recruit and retain more workers aboard the ships. The system has suffered from chronic crew shortages the past several years.

As of February, the ferries were short about 40 crew in licensed positions from full staffing of 336, he reported.

The state has embarked on several recruiting, training and scholarship programs to bring in more licensed crew, including investing in employees who want to attend maritime school to move up to more skilled positions.

“We want to promote our own employees to move up,” Tornga said.

In addition to dealing with crew shortages and delayed federal funding, the ferry system is managing an aging fleet.

Bids are due at the end of May for construction of a replacement ferry for the 62-year-old Tustumena, which serves Gulf of Alaska communities. The federally funded replacement had been estimated at more than $300 million, though Tornga declined to provide the Senate Transportation Committee with an updated number.

“I don’t want bidders to know,” he said. “It’s an expensive vessel.”

Until a new ship comes online, Tornga said they would try to keep the Tustumena out of rough storms that would twist the hull and risk damaging the welds that have accumulated over the years.

The Columbia, which serves Southeast Alaska, is almost as old, built in 1973. “We want to keep it going until we get a mainline replacement,” which could be eight or nine years, he told legislators.

Work will start next winter on a long list of repairs, rebuilds and maintenance aboard the Columbia, he said, starting with replacement of the “obsolete firefighting systems” and replacing leaky windows and rusted steel.

The post May 1 fare increase on state ferries, first since 2022 appeared first on Chilkat Valley News.

Metals mining has a prominent place in Alaska history. Today, it remains a prominent economic driver in the state.

Over the past decade, the metals mining sector has made up 3% to 4% of Alaska’s gross domestic product, and those mined metals rival Alaska seafood as top exports from the state, according to a state Department of Labor and Workforce Development analysis.

Metals such as zinc produced at the Red Dog mine in Northwest Alaska, silver produced by the Greens Creek Mine in Southeast Alaska and gold, lead and copper produced by various mines, now support an industry worth close to $3 billion a year, according to the analysis, published in the current issue of Alaska Economic Trends, the department’s monthly research magazine.

Alaska has six major metals mines, three of which produce more than one type of metal, and hundreds of small placer operations.

Among the mined products coming from Alaska is germanium, a byproduct of zinc that is classified as a critical mineral and used in electronics. In 2024, the Red Dog mine produced about 10 tons of germanium, according to the analysis, making it a critical source to the nation because China cut off deliveries of its germanium. That year, the Red Dog mine was the only U.S. mine producing germanium, though prior to 2023, a Tennessee mine was also producing the mineral, said Karinne Wiebold, the state economist who wrote the Alaska Economic Trends report.

The value of Alaska’s mining sector, including coal, gravel and sand as well as metals, actually peaked in 2011 at nearly $3.5 million and close to 5% of the state’s gross domestic product. That peak reflected extremely high metals prices and the startup of the Kensington gold mine in Southeast Alaska.

Still, mining has been a strong economic factor in Alaska for the last two decades, after jumping in value in 2006. Every year since then, its total value to the state has generally been above $2 billion and usually accounted for 3% to 4% of Alaska’s gross domestic product.

Metals mining has also become a big employment driver as well, according to the analysis.

There were 3,533 metal mining and support jobs in Alaska in 2024, the most recent data available, and jobs in the sector grew by 37% over the past decade, compared to an overall state job growth rate of 0.3%, Wiebold’s analysis said.

The average metal mining job paid $135,000 in 2024, well above the state average of $71,000 that year and second only to the average pay for workers in the oil and gas sector, the analysis said.

But a large percentage of mine workers are not Alaska residents. Wiebold’s analysis puts resident hire at 56%. That puts the non-resident hire percentage in the metals mining sector well above the state average.

In 2024, the most recent year for which data is available, 22.9% of workers in the state were not Alaska residents, according to an annual report published by the Department of Labor and Workforce Development. That is the highest percentage since such records began in state average, which is the highest percentage since records started in the 1990s.

Wiebold noted that the nonresident hire in the mining sector is about the same as that in the oil and gas sector, which in 2024 was 40.5%, according to the state’s report.

Mining and oil and gas work in Alaska is conducive to nonresident employees because it is generally conducted at remote locations, typically with rotating schedules of two weeks on and two weeks off, she said.

“This combo means most folks don’t live near the mine and have to commute and stay at the worksite, and that there is not a significant time/cost/commute savings for living in the state,” she said by email. “As a result, miners from out of state can work in Alaska and live somewhere less expensive or more appealing to them.”

Another reason for the high percentage of nonresidents lies in Alaska’s demographics, she said. “In the last several years, with Alaska’s working age population fairly stagnant after a decade of significant declines, more jobs are being held by out of state workers,” she said.

The sector is poised for future growth, with projects like the Donlin gold mine in Southwestern Alaska, the Graphite One graphite mine in Northwestern Alaska and, potentially, the commercialization of the copper-rich but isolated Ambler Mining District in Northwestern Alaska.

But none of those proposed mines can be expected to be developed quickly, and development itself is uncertain, Wiebold’s article said.

“Mines take years to come to fruition — exploration, feasibility studies, environmental reviews, and permitting are expensive, and all have the potential to derail a project. Public concerns and controversy can also slow or stop development,” the article said.