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Alaska Life Hack: What’s a hundred dollars worth in Alaska?

Suzanne Downing
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Alaska Life Hack: What’s a hundred dollars worth in Alaska?

There was a time when Alaska had the highest cost of living in the nation. No more.

The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis released a report comparing the purchasing power of metro and non metro areas around the country in 2017 to answer this question: How much will $100 buy in different areas of the country?

Regions where $100 buys the least are the usual suspects — cities like New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. In the South, $100 will go a lot further in purchasing power; same in the middle of the country.

In Anchorage, $100 only has $92.68 worth of buying power, while in Fairbanks, it has $93.55.

Anchorage and Fairbanks’ purchasing power compares with East Los Angeles communities of Riverside and San Bernadino, and San Louis Obispo County.

As for personal income growth, Alaska was not the worst, but didn’t perform well, with only 1 percent income growth between 2016 and 2017. The U.S. growth rate was 2.6 that year.

 

Swan Lake Fire challenged by wind, Deshka, McKinley fires 95 percent contained

Suzanne Downing
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2
Swan Lake Fire challenged by wind, Deshka, McKinley fires 95 percent contained

KENAI LAKE WATER SCOOPING PLANES DRAWING CROWDS

Rain helped firefighters on the Kenai Peninsula by slowing down the Swan Lake Fire, but winds that came with the fire made it more difficult for crews to get to where they needed to be to contain it. Field reports say rain hit the ground in most locations, but wasn’t substantial.

Crews are fully engaged around the perimeter of the fire, but are not able to get as deep toward the fire area, according to Rocky Gilbert, an operations chief of the Great Basin team.

At Jim’s Landing, they were getting rid of those tree-and-limb hazards as the winds were doing their damage. All containment lines held during the wind event.

Canadair CL-215 Super Scooper air tankers are operating on Kenai Lake near Cooper Landing and are attracting the attention of large groups of onlookers.

Fire officials are concerned that those stopping along the road to watch may be hit by passing vehicles, or even could be injured in the event the aircraft has a mechanical malfunction.

Officials ask that onlookers do not watch from directly under the flightpath of the aircraft, and instead use the Cooper Bay Boat Launch for spectating, if they must.

DESHKA LANDING FIRE

The containment of the Deshka Landing Fire remains at 95 percent and total acres burned at 1,318. Cooler temperatures and light rain aided firefighters as they systematically moved through the fire area within 300 feet of the perimeter, looking for ash pits and hot spots.

MCKINLEY FIRE

McKinley fire is 95 percent contained at 3,288 acres. While the perimeter is holding, the interior areas of the fire have hot high-hazard ash and ember pits, and the fire continues to smolder in the forest floor.  Crews are working cautiously to mop up deep ash pits and avoid falling trees. Officials report several injuries from burns and falling trees among firefighters and residents. A structure group is assessing areas around homes for hazards. The focus is also on removing tree hazards along roads, especially as winds become gusty. Scattered rain and mild temperatures are expected this week.

A night shift is monitoring for flare ups and the mop up continues.

THE TOTALS SO FAR

Some 696 wildfires have burned 2,588,992 acres in Alaska this year, with nearly half of that in the Upper Yukon Zone. Some 163,000 acres have burned on the Kenai Peninsula and 5,231 have burned in the Upper Mat-Su area. In Southwestern Alaska, 587,543 acres are charred.

Fires were caused by both humans and lightning:

Humans caused 312 fires, for 40,316 acres burned

Lightning cause 366 fires, with 2,529,958 acres burned

Undetermined: 18 fires, with 18,717 acres burned.

 

Alaska Life Hack: 15 day countdown to Anchorage plastic bag ban

Suzanne Downing
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Alaska Life Hack: 15 day countdown to Anchorage plastic bag ban

Ready. Set. …

On Sept. 15, the Anchorage will be the latest community in Alaska to ban single-use bags that merchants have used for decades to help shoppers move their purchases from the checkout stand to their homes.

The Anchorage bag ban was passed by the Anchorage Assembly last year, but implementation was delayed over the concern for for businesses with a large inventory of bags.

Sellers may provide non-plastic bags, such as paper, but must charge a minimum of $0.10 per bag. This is intended to change behavior and encourage more people to bring their canvas, woven and other multi-use bags to the grocery store with them.

Wasilla has had a plastic bag ban in place for over a year, but allows bags to be given out by stores if they are 2.25 mil or thicker, such as would be used if a shopper purchased clothing from an apparel shop. Stores may provide customers with any size recyclable paper or reusable carryout bags.

Other communities with bans include Bethel, Fairbanks, Homer, Hooper Bay, Kodiak, Palmer, and Unalaska.

Legislation to create a statewide tax on plastic bags was been offered in the House in 2018 by Anchorage Democrats Rep. Andy Josephson and Harriet Drummond, but didn’t advance. This year it was offered in HB 81 by Josephson, who is concerned about plastics, and micro-plastics  in the environment.
Are these bans effective or just virtue signaling?
“As important as banning single-use plastic bags is in terms of reducing it as a source, it’s not going to change the world,” Mark Murray, executive director of Californians Against Waste told National Geographic. “The main point, frankly, is to communicate to policy makers, the public, and to the industry that we’ve got to do something serious to reduce plastic packaging and if you all can’t figure out how to do it, we’re going to start banning your products one at a time.”
So, yes, it’s a bit of virtue signaling.

Tom Cashen, of a better generation in Labor

Art Chance
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5
Tom Cashen, of a better generation in Labor

By ART CHANCE
SENIOR CONTRIBUTOR

I can manage a bit of sentimentality about the labor movement around Labor Day, and it is more poignant as I learned this week of the passing of International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers leader and former Commissioner of Labor Tom Cashen, one of the last of the “old hands” and a good guy.

I knew him well enough to say hello and we’d address each other by name when he was commissioner, and I knew of him when I was involved in organized labor in the 1970s.

Tom was of the era of the George Meany AFL-CIO, after the communists had been run out or run to ground, and labor leaders were trade unionists first and political players second, and then only when the politics were in their direct interests.

Tom was probably best known in his time as commissioner of Labor for a sign on his office wall that said, “The State of Alaska Should Not be a Chicken-shit Employer.”  I didn’t agree that it was generally true, but it certainly could be at times, and I agreed with the sentiment.

Those who haven’t (and that would be most of today’s Alaskans) should read John McPhee’s “Coming Into the Country.”  McPhee gives a pretty good view of organized labor and Democrat politics in Pipeline Era Alaska.

Tom was a member of the leadership cohort of those days. I was a briefcase-toter, not a leader back then, but close enough to know most of the leaders and know the views of those labor leaders. Some of them could be venal, even corrupt, and all of them could be avaricious if an employer was foolish enough to let them, but their first interest was the welfare of their members and they all had a care for the well-being of the State of Alaska and its res publica.

The AFL-CIO of that day was adamantly opposed to Gov. Jay Hammond’s anti-development stances; they wanted the money on the street, and they wanted it now.  Almost everyone in labor in those days blithely assumed that as soon as the oil line was finished, the gas line would begin. As the out-of-work lists at the union halls filled up and there was no gas line in sight, a fine edge of panic began to show in labor.

Even so, Labor generally supported the Permanent Fund and the post-Pipeline Permanent Fund dividend, even though every dime that went to the Fund wasn’t available for Capital projects to put their members to work.

It is noteworthy that almost none of the Pipeline Era labor leaders survived the mid-Eighties oil price crash. Tom survived and he did it the old-fashioned way — he kept his members happy.

Almost all the “old hands” have moved on or passed on and with them has gone any notion of the “harmonious and cooperative relations” that the perambulatory language of the 1972-enacted Alaska Public Employment Relations Act extols.   Tom Cashen was of the days when a union rep and an employer rep could pound their chests at each other all day and meet for a friendly drink and conversation at the nearest bar at the end of the day.

Those days are all but gone. Today, I can count on less than the fingers of one hand the union reps that I’d be in the same room with unless I was being paid to be there. My younger successors in State labor relations have never really known anything like a collegial relationship with most of their union counterparts.

Tom Cashen was from a time of collegial, if adversarial, relations. As people like him and his peers pass on, we move closer and closer to being only warring tribes.

Art Chance is a retired Director of Labor Relations for the State of Alaska, formerly of Juneau and now living in Anchorage. He is the author of the book, “Red on Blue, Establishing a Republican Governance,” available at Amazon. 

Study: World’s forests are expanding

Suzanne Downing
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5
Study: World’s forests are expanding

If Americans are to believe The New York Times and others in the mainstream media, this year’s forest fires around the world are the harbingers of an apocalypse. Surely those in Alaska might easily believe such a warning a  during a summer of smoke and fire.

“If enough [Amazon] rain forest is lost and can’t be restored, the area will become savanna, which doesn’t store as much carbon, meaning a reduction in the planet’s ‘lung capacity,’” the Times reported.

“While the Brazilian fires have grown into a full-blown international crisis, they represent only one of many significant areas where wildfires are currently burning around the world. Their increase in severity and spread to places where fires were rarely previously seen is raising fears that climate change is exacerbating the danger, the Times reported.

“In Alaska, fires have consumed more than 2.5 million acres of tundra and snow forest, leading researchers to suggest that the combination of climate change and wildfires could permanently alter the region’s forests,” according to the Times.

And yet, researchers at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and two major universities report that new tree growth is outpacing losses. They published their findings in the journal Nature.

“We show that—contrary to the prevailing view that forest area has declined globally—tree cover has increased by 2.24 million km2 (+7.1% relative to the 1982 level). This overall net gain is the result of a net loss in the tropics being outweighed by a net gain in the extratropics. Global bare ground cover has decreased by 1.16 million km2 (−3.1%), most notably in agricultural regions in Asia. Of all land changes, 60% are associated with direct human activities and 40% with indirect drivers such as climate change,” according to the study’s abstract.

[Read more about this study at Nature.]

Surprisingly, China and India are contributing to the greening of the planet, according to the journal Nature Sustainability.

That study concludes the increase in trees and other vegetation “comes mostly from ambitious tree-planting programs in China and intensive agriculture in both countries.”

[Read that study in the journal Nature.]

Earthquake near Klukwan felt in Juneau, Whitehorse

Suzanne Downing
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0
Earthquake near Klukwan felt in Juneau, Whitehorse

A magnitude 5.1 earthquake near Klukwan on Saturday night was felt by some residents in Juneau, while other living on Douglas Island and the Lena Point area didn’t feel a thing.

Residents who did feel it described it as a sharp jolt. One man in Whitehorse, where earthquakes are rare, said it made the glass door on his shower rattle.

The earthquake struck at 8:32 pm was followed by smaller aftershocks that occurred in the hours. The aftershocks registered between 1.4 and 3.1.

Earlier in the day , a 1.9 magnitude earthquake centered 35 miles northwest of Klukwan went unnoticed.

The quake, 44 miles southwest of Klukwan and about one mile deep, was picked up by monitors at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Earthquake Center, which has recorded 32,737 earthquakes in Alaska so far this year.

Ambler Road to Resources draft environmental review completed

Suzanne Downing
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0
Ambler Road to Resources draft environmental review completed

PUBLIC COMMENT PERIOD OPEN FOR ACCESS TO JOB-PRODUCING ROAD

The Ambler Mining District Industrial Access Road has been on the planning table for years, with the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority estimates an annual average of approximately 486 jobs to be created during the road construction period and up to 68 full-time jobs for road operations and maintenance over the life of the road.

The road would originate at the Dalton Highway near Prospect Creek and end at the AmblerMining District, and would have no public access.

 Project documents here. 

Sixty-eight road jobs is a lot of jobs in a part of the state that has next-to-nothing in the way of job opportunity.

Now, the Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Ambler Mining District Industrial Access Road is done and available for public comment at the Bureau of Land Management Alaska’s website.

The Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority is proposing an industrial access road connecting the Dalton Highway to the Ambler mineral belt in the Kobuk Valley, facilitating resource development and economic opportunities for Alaska.

As with AIDEA’s DeLong Mountain Transportation System, any mines using the road to haul ore to the Dalton Highway would pay a toll that would pay back the AIDEA financing used for the development and construction of the road. The DeLong Mountain Transportation System allowed the development of the Red Dog Mine.

The Ambler road would stretch 211-mile and be open all season to access mineral exploration in the area. It would cross 61 percent state land, 15 percent Alaska Native corporation land, and 24 percent federal BLM land National Park Service land.

Unlike the long-desired 11-mile road from King Cove to the all-weather airport on the other side of the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge, surface transportation across the Gates of Arctic National Park and Preserve was specifically detailed in the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act and the Secretary of the Interior must permit access.

ANILCA requires all appropriate federal agencies outside the National Park Service to work cooperatively on a single environmental analysis and concurrently issue a decision on the proposal.

“The BLM conducted extensive public outreach for this project and visited many remote communities that would be most affected by the road,” said BLM Alaska State Director Chad Padgett. “I realize the importance of this project to the State of Alaska and for the state’s ability to develop its resources and as such, I am committed to ensuring a thorough and comprehensive analysis. This can’t be done without substantive input from stakeholders.”

Public meetings about the Draft EIS are scheduled in Alatna, Allakaket, Ambler, Anaktuvuk Pass, Anchorage, Bettles, Coldfoot, Evansville, Fairbanks, Hughes, Huslia, Kiana, Kobuk, Kotzebue, Noatak, Noorvik, Selawik, Shungnak, Stevens Village, Tanana, Wiseman and Washington, D.C. The dates, times and locations of the meetings will be announced in advance through public releases and the BLM Alaska website and social media.

The Draft EIS published in the Federal Register on Aug. 23, 2019, triggering a 45-day public comment period that ends Oct. 7.

Comments can be submitted in the following ways:

  • Online at https://www.blm.gov/AmblerRoadEIS
  • By mail to Ambler Road DEIS Comments, BLM Fairbanks District Office, 222 University Avenue, Fairbanks AK  99709
  • By hand to BLM, 222 University Avenue, Fairbanks, Alaska 99709

Documents may be examined at the Bureau of Land Management Alaska State Office, BLM Alaska Public Information Center, 222 West 7th Avenue, Anchorage or at the Bureau of Land Management Fairbanks District Office, 222 University Avenue., Fairbanks.

The National Park Service has prepared its own Draft Environmental and Economic Analysis for the portion of the proposed Ambler Road that crosses National Park Service lands. That document is available at this link for a review period concurrent with the Bureau of Land Management’s draft EIS.

Rep. Laddie Shaw, like Sen. Chris Birch, a man with no natural enemies

Suzanne Downing
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Rep. Laddie Shaw, like Sen. Chris Birch, a man with no natural enemies

Rep. Laddie Shaw said the decision to put his name in the mix for Senate Seat M wasn’t an easy one. The group he was with in the House of Representatives was a Republican minority that had been through a lot together, and were bonded as a team.

If there’s one thing about Shaw, he’s all about being loyal to his team.

Shaw is 70 years young, but came into the House of Representatives as a rookie legislator after winning 62 percent of the general election vote in House District 26. It had been a three-way primary race; Joe Riggs and Al Fogle were the other Republicans vying for the spot left vacant when Chris Birch won Senate Seat M. The district is decidedly Republican.

Then, within eight months of being sworn in as a senator, Birch died quite suddenly, and within a few more days, the process began for replacing him in the Senate. The process included interviewing with the Senate Seat M Republican Party officers. There were eight in all who applied, including a couple of those officers.

Shaw pondered it. He loves being in the House of Representatives and feels he can do a lot of good there, even in the minority.

He is also so popular among his colleagues in Juneau, one would be hard pressed to find a foe among them. In fact, when a chairmanship of a committee came open, Shaw was the only member of the minority to end up heading a committee — it was the Military and Veterans Affairs Committee that Speaker Bryce Edgmon stripped from Rep. Gabrielle LeDoux, who decided to vote for a full Permanent Fund dividend.

Shaw had also voted in favor of the full dividend, but there he was, in the minority and head of a committee nonetheless. Even House Speaker Bryce Edgmon seems to like Shaw, in spite of their expected political differences.

It’s possible that Laddie Shaw has no natural enemies in Juneau.

In this way, he’s very much like the late Sen. Chris Birch, who was liked — and beloved — by both sides of the political aisle. Birch never met a stranger, and the same can be said for Shaw, who is two years older than Birch was. Both men exhibited a life of service going back decades.

Shaw has lived in Alaska for about 38 years now, coming north after a long military career. He is a retired Navy SEAL who spent 24 years in uniform and served in war — two tours of Vietnam and a lot of other SEAL missions he simply can’t talk about. He worked for 20 years for the State of Alaska, striving to improve public safety by teaching at the Trooper Academy and as a state director for Veterans Affairs in the Department of Military and Veterans Affairs.

He’s also been married to his wife Linda for 28 years, and is an avid outdoorsman. Chris Birch was an outdoorsman, too, who loved to hike.

During his first legislative session in Juneau, Both Birch and Shaw would often end the day by hiking. Shaw would hike nearby Mount Roberts with his paraglider strapped to his back, and he’d sail down and land near the docks where cruise ships would tie up later in the spring.

“I have two artificial knees, so I can’t run anymore, but I can hike up,” he said. “Paragliding down is transportation to give my artificial knees a break from walking downhill.” He obviously enjoys the thrill as well.

Shaw, like Sen. Birch, is known for treating everyone with genuine respect, whether it’s a dishwasher at a diner or an elected official. What he brings to the Senate are what he values most: Honor, loyalty, and courage.

Will that, plus his military and public safety valor, be enough to get him approved by seven of the Republicans in the Senate?

It depends on whether there is a litmus test for Team Republican. Some may try to block his nomination if he doesn’t make a commitment to reverse his stance on the “full PFD.”

Shaw is on the record for believing that there are many Alaskans who really need that full Permanent Fund dividend this year, and although most in his district do not need it, rural Alaska and other districts are filled with lower-income Alaskans who do. He’s not likely to change that stance.

“I’m not the guy who can be bullied,” Shaw said. “I’m the guy who will have your back if I’m on your team.”

THE BIG INTERVIEW WITH THE GOVERNOR

Shaw said his relationship with the governor is casual, just as it is with everyone he meets. They are not formal together; formality is just not Shaw’s style.

“You accomplish more by getting to understand each other as human beings, as individuals,” Shaw said. “We like each other. I always tell him that while he stands tall, I stand up for Alaska.”

Shaw said didn’t feel put on the spot by any particular question posed by the governor during his interview, and wasn’t asked about his stance on the Permanent Fund dividend. It was just a conversation.

“He has respect for me. I have respect for him,” Shaw said.

BIG INTERVIEW WITH SENATE REPUBLICANS

Whether that will translate to similar respect from the Senate Republicans is a wait-and-see situation. Presiding officer Senate President Cathy Giessel gave no hints about Shaw’s chances with his fellow Republicans in the Senate. Shaw would probably vote with Republicans who favor the full PFD, and Giessel is on record for the half payment, as are Sen. Natasha Von Imhof, and Sen. Bert Stedman, co-chairs of Finance and leaders in the Senate.

Shaw will need seven votes from the Senate Republicans comprised of Sens. Giessel, Von Imhof, Stedman, Click Bishop, Gary Stevens, John Coghill, Mia Costello, Mike Shower, David Wilson, Shelley Hughes, Lora Reinbold, Peter Micciche.

Of those, only three others are military veterans who might fully appreciate the call to sacrifice for one’s country: Sen. Stevens (U.S. Army, Vietnam era vet.) and Mike Shower served in the U.S. Air Force, with combat Iraq and Serbia. Sen. John Coghill is a Vietnam-era Air Force Veteran.

Former lawmaker Gattis: Leaving Bahamas, after all

Suzanne Downing
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1
Former lawmaker Gattis: Leaving Bahamas, after all

Former Rep. Lynn Gattis and her husband are leaving their island location on Abaco, in the Bahamas, after an evacuation order was made in advance of Hurricane Dorian. They’ll leave by air on Saturday morning.

Dorian has become a Category 3 4 hurricane that is headed across the northern islands of the Bahamas. Lynn and Rick Gattis have their boat tied down in a canal and have secured all the building materials for the house they are building there.

Earlier this week, the couple planned to ride out the storm and had stocked up on provisions, including water. Those plans changed as the eye of the storm started toward them and Prime Minister Dr. Hubert Minnis issued an evacuation order for the Abacos and parts of Grand Bahama.

Dorian strengthened to a Category 4 storm Friday afternoon and has maximum sustained winds of 115 140 mph, according to the  National Hurricane Center. A major hurricane, it is expected to hit the Florida peninsula, where millions of Americans live in its path.

Former Rep. Lynn Gattis battens down the hatches in Bahamas

 

 

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