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Pebble Partnership has a new plan: Almost exactly what the EPA asked for

Suzanne Downing
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The Pebble Mine is smaller, won’t use cyanide, will have no waste rock piles, will have super-safe soil liners, and will impact one fewer drainages that flow toward Bristol Bay.

There will be no mine facilities in the upper Talarik drainage, which was an area of concern for the Environmental Protection Agency in years past.

The current plan for the mine itself is 5.4 square miles, with a total footprint of 12.7 miles, which includes mining facilities and all else associated with the project, which is larger than Alaska’s Fort Knox mine but smaller than the proposed Donlin Mine.

The Environmental Protection Agency had projected that the previous plan was over 13 square miles for the mine itself, although no plan had ever been allowed to be submitted by the agency, which took a dim view of any mine in the area.

To compare, the Ted Stevens International Airport is 7.2 square miles.

The Pebble Limited Partnership says the footprint of the plan is very close to the size that EPA has previously said would be acceptable.

In a presentation this morning in Anchorage, company CEO Tom Collier said the tailing dam, which is described by the company as a type of engineered land mass more than an actual dam, is designed to withstand the greatest possible seismicity predicted by science.

Without cyanide for secondary treatment of the ore, this means the company will go after the less expensive gold, and leave the rest in the ground.

The company also has a plan to expand the partnership by sharing revenue with the people who live in the region through a new corporate entity that would be created. Five percent of the profit would go to that entity, which would be owned 50-50 by local Native village corporations and local residents. The new company includes five local village corporations that would receive an estimated $500,000 per year each.

The approximately 5,000 local residents would get a windfall payment of $500 per year, the company estimates, which would supplement any distributions they might receive directly from their regional or village Native corporations.

As an apparent gesture of goodwill, the company is also saying it will help the people of the region buy back salmon driftnet permits, most of which are owned primarily by people and companies outside the state.

Pebble will also perform business mentoring with village corporations to help them compete for construction and operating contracts associated with the mine. The contracts are worth hundreds of millions of dollars, the company says.

What the company could not do this week is get Gov. Bill Walker to hold back his advance judgment of the plan before it was even presented in its conceptual state.

Walker went on record with Alaska Public Media earlier this week saying he doesn’t support the Pebble Mine, even though he hadn’t seen the plan yet.

Walker, who once had a “wait-and-see” view on mining in Western Alaska, made a deal with the Alaska Democratic Party to run as a nonpartisan candidate with ADP’s support. In exchange for the party withdrawing its own elected Democratic nominee, Walker had to make promises. One was to oppose the proposed Pebble Mine.

“I am not supportive of the Pebble Mine,” Walker told the reporter this week, prior to the Pebble Partnership plan’s official “reveal,” although PLP reportedly had briefed the governor privately.

Walker said the Pebble Partnership had not yet proven to him that the project would not harm the salmon fishery at Bristol Bay.

“I do not have information sufficient for me to be comfortable or supportive of the Pebble Mine. The burden is on them to prove that it can be done without a risk to the fish in that area. It’s a high burden – it’s the highest burden, and to me, they have not met that yet,” Walker said.

Walker ran on a pro-job platform that included ads of him operating a gravel-loader, such as this one that was released just a couple of days before he created a “Unity” ticket with the Alaska Democratic Party.

Mike Heatwole, spokesman for Pebble, said that “high burden” is what the permitting process is for: “The governor is correct that the burden is on us to demonstrate we will not impact the fish resource in the region. While we believe our plan meets this hurdle, the next step is to have our plan thoroughly and objectively evaluated via the permitting process to determine if we meet the high standards Alaskans expect for development.”

Tom Collier, the CEO, echoed Heatwole’s comments in response to a question at a Fairbanks forum later that day.

In May, the EPA reached a legal settlement with the Pebble Partnership, after the Obama Administration had scuttled the project before the company had even had a chance to present it for permitting.

[Read: Battle-tested Pebble CEO earned his chops as Clinton Interior official]

Under the Trump Administration, Pebble is being allowed to undergo the rigorous federal environmental review process. But the company must also get state permits before it can begin construction.

With Walker prejudging the project, is there space for him get behind it in the end if it does indeed meet his “high burden” of proof?

John Sturgeon, hunter, likely heading back to Supreme Court

Suzanne Downing
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John Sturgeon, hunter, likely heading back to Supreme Court

Gov. Bill Walker on Wednesday said the State of Alaska will do everything in “our power to protect Alaska’s State rights.”

He was referring narrowly to State rights. Walker expressed frustration with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision in what is now a legendary hunting access case in Alaska that has gone on for more than a decade.

The court decision was so stunning in its overreach that even Alaska’s usually appeasing governor had to object to the newly expanded federal authority over the State’s navigable waters that run in and around national parks and refuges in Interior Alaska.

There’s not all that much that Walker can do, however. He could file a friend-of-the-court brief when Sturgeon once again goes back to the U.S. Supreme Court for relief from the U.S. Park Service, which Sturgeon most certainly will.

The State can’t take over the case, or pay for the case, or even join the case, even though Alaska has a dog in the fight because if Sturgeon can’t freely navigate the rivers of the Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve, then neither can the rest of us.

Walker’s Facebook pronouncement came after the Ninth Circuit ruling had been digested a bit and Alaska’s outdoor access community began to realize how much it impacts every hunter, fisherman, Native corporation, land owner, and even Alaska’s very state sovereignty.

The Ninth had not only emboldened federal overreach over an expanded swath of Alaska, and it also opened up the door on a controversial case known as “Katie John 1.” The ruling said that “Katie John 1” relied on the wrong set of laws, but since it had done so, the Sturgeon case would reflect that ruling.

It all started when hunter and outdoorsman Sturgeon attempted to used his hovercraft to access hunting grounds in Alaska in 2007.

Sturgeon assumed, as many had for decades before him, that navigable waters in Alaska are governed by the State, even though they run through federal land. That was part of the deal with the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act signed by President Jimmy Carter in 1980.

BACKGROUND ON ANILCA

Congress struck a deal when it passed ANILCA and added 104 million acres to national parks, refuges, and wilderness.

Sen. Ted Stevens and Congressman Don Young had spent four years fighting for the rights of Native corporations and the State of Alaska to have economic and cultural opportunity on the lands acquired at Statehood and under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act.

ANILCA wasn’t perfect, but with Stevens’ and Young’s help, Congress at least had excluded navigable waterways from the 1980 ANILCA provisions.

But in 1996, the National Park Service adopted a regulation that gave it the authority to regulate activities on state waterways across the nation. They started using this authority in Alaska in spite of ANILCA’s “Alaska exception.”

Fast forward to 2007, when Sturgeon was stopped by the Park Service from using the Nations River as a water highway to hunting grounds. He sued the Park Service and lost in the Ninth Circuit Court, which said that federal regulations can be applied to all lands within the “exterior” boundaries of the parks.

Sturgeon appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. They took the case.

The Supreme Court sided with Sturgeon unanimously, and said “Alaska is different.” But the high court remanded the case back to the Ninth Circuit so it could review its work, which the justices said was wanting.

The Ninth Circuit this week thumbed its nose at the Supreme Court and expanded federal authority to not only include Native corporation-owned and state-owned lands and waters within the boundaries of national parks in Alaska, but also on waterways outside of national parks and refuges.

The decision would affect abilities of Native corporations to establish commercial developments on their lands and the ability of the State to manage its lands as well as lands the State conveys to municipalities and individual Alaskans.

This is contrary to what ANILCA intended and what Congress promised 37 years ago.

KATIE JOHN CASE RAISES ITS HEAD?

The Ninth Circuit court based this expansion on a ruling the it made in what is known as “Katie John I.” In that lawsuit, the definition of “public lands” in ANILCA includes state waterways so that the subsistence laws applying to federal lands could be applied to state waterways.

That case languished without being taken further when Gov. Tony Knowles refused to defend state sovereignty back in the 1990s. Although Gov. Sean Parnell sought to clarify provisions of Katie John, Gov. Bill Walker walked away from it.

The ruling this week expanded federal authority. But in making its decision, the three-judge panel on the Ninth also implied that its own ruling on the Katie John decision was flawed because it was based on the United States Reserved Water Rights Act, rather on what it now says is more proper: The Commerce Clause.

That ruling may open the door to a future challenge or clarification of the Katie John decision, which gives the federal government control over Native subsistence hunting and fishing on navigable waters owned by the State, when those waters are adjacent to or inside of federal land holdings.

Katie John was an Athabascan elder who had sought to continue fishing along the Copper River, as her people had always done. Her case was meant to clean up a contradiction between federal law and the Alaska constitution. Federal law gives subsistence priority to rural Alaskans, while the state consitution gives equal access to resources.

As for John Sturgeon, he has a few days to decide on whether he’ll appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court once again. So far, his case has cost $750,000.

Quote of the week: ‘Call it a tax’

Suzanne Downing
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Quote of the week: ‘Call it a tax’

“I wish it was called an income tax, because that’s really what it is.”

– Sen. Dennis Egan, remarking on Gov. Bill Walker’s “payroll tax,” which the Legislature will consider during the fourth special session called by the governor this year to try to enact new taxes on Alaskans. Egan was talking on KINY radio’s Action Line on Tuesday, Oct. 3.

 

Seafood processed in China by North Korean labor a cause for concern

Suzanne Downing
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Seafood processed in China by North Korean labor a cause for concern

Is Alaska seafood propping up the nuclear ambitions of North Korea’s Kim Jong Un?

According to a new report by the Associated Press, that is likely the case, as labor from North Korea is pervasive in the Chinese factories processing salmon and crab from the Northwest. That workforce has its wages largely skimmed off by the North Korean government.  Forced labor is an important source of hard currency for the regime.

Because of the secrecy surrounding the labor force in the Chinese city bordering North Korea where seafood processing plants are located, the team of reporters were only able to partially verify that North Korean workers are, indeed, in the workforce.

Reporters observed portraits of North Korean leaders on worker dormitory walls, examined passports, identified the distinct accents of North Koreans, and interviewed numerous business persons in the Chinese city of Hunchun, on the border of North Korea.

The possibility of North Korean labor in the fisheries supply chain worries John Connelly, president of the National Fisheries Institute, enough that he is urging all of his associated companies to re-examine their supply chains “to ensure that wages go to the workers, and are not siphoned off to support a dangerous dictator.”

Of course, there would be no way a midsized company in Alaska could ever determine that North Koreans were picking bones out of pink salmon.

Facing growing imports of farmed seafood, Northwest processors have increasingly been shipping frozen, wild-caught Alaska salmon and Dungeness crab to China for processing. It returns to the U.S., Japan, or Europe and is purchased by consumers shopping the frozen section of grocery aisles.

How much Alaska seafood is being processed in China is hard to pin down, as Craig Medred explains.

Trident, for example, ships about 30 million pounds of its 1.2 billion-pound annual harvest to China for processing, which drives labor costs down by 80 percent.

NORTH KOREANS LABOR CONDITIONS IN CHINA

According to Radio Free Asia, North Korean workers sent to China are being forced to labor in unsafe conditions and are frequently deprived of part or all of their pay.

As many as 1,000 North Koreans work at a factory in Hunchun city in the “Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture” in northeastern China’s Jilin province, the site reported two years ago.

Radio Free Asia, for which Sec. of State Rex Tillerson serves as a board member, reported that workers are not allowed to keep most of their salaries, but are given leftover seafood that they can take back to North Korea and sell, which provides them a source of income.

North Korean labor at the processing factories are giving over anywhere from half to 70 percent of their paychecks to the North Korean government, with workers making as little as $90 per month — or roughly 46 cents per hour for 12-hour days. Workers typically get one day off a week, according to Radio Free Asia.

“At some factories, laborers work hunched over tables as North Korean political slogans are blasted from waist-high loudspeakers,” the Associated Press reports.

AP named three seafood processors that employ North Koreans and export to the U.S.: Joint venture Hunchun Dongyang Seafood Industry & Trade Co. Ltd. & Hunchun Pagoda Industry Co. Ltd. distributed globally by Ocean One Enterprise; Yantai Dachen Hunchun Seafood Products, and Yanbian Shenghai Industry & Trade Co. Ltd.

The website for Ocean One says it mainly processes frozen and smoked salmon from Alaska and Hokkaido, Japan; squid from China and Argentina; cod and yellowfin sole from Alaska; and red fish from the North Atlantic.

In 2002 and 2001, Hunchun Export Processing Zone and Huichun Sino-Russia Trade Zone was established in Hunchun, which is strategically located between China, Russia and North Korea. The city’s focus is on seafood processing, electronic product manufacture, bio-pharmacy, and textiles.

China is Alaska’s largest seafood export market, accounting for 35 percent of tonnage and 27 percent of export value in 2015, according to a McDowell Group report.

The organization estimates that 80 to 90 percent of the exports to China are to processing factories that re-export the product to global markets.

“Most of Alaska’s exports to China consists of frozen H&G (headed/gutted) fish, which are then filleted in China where labor costs are considerably lower,” the report stated.

Alaska exported $1.2 billion in seafood, minerals, oil and other products to China in 2016, a quarter of the state’s exports.

GOVERNOR WALKER COURTS CHINA

Earlier this year, Gov. Bill Walker courted the Chinese government both in Alaska, and through a week-long junket that First Lady Donna Walker and her daughter and daughter-in-law took to China, fully funded by the Chinese government.

Gov. Bill Walker bows to China President Xo Jinping as the China Air jet stopped in Anchorage for refueling. 
First Lady Donna Walker and her daughter Lindsey Walker Hopson, in China in June on a trip paid for by the Chinese government.

In September, Walker and an entourage of several from his administration traveled to China to market Alaska natural gas that Walker hopes will soon flow down a gas line he hopes to build, estimated to cost between $40-60 billion. Walker has made the gas line the cornerstone of his agenda as governor.

Gov. Bill Walker and entourage in China in September, 2017.

 

Researcher lights up Internet: ‘I used to think gun control was the answer’

Suzanne Downing
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Researcher lights up Internet: ‘I used to think gun control was the answer’

LEAH LIBRESCO
for THE WASHINGTON POST

Leah Libresco is a statistician and former newswriter at FiveThirtyEight, a Big Data journalism site. She is the author of “Arriving at Amen.” She wrote this for The Washington Post and it has been shared widely.

Before I started researching gun deaths, gun-control policy used to frustrate me. I wished the National Rifle Association would stop blocking common-sense gun-control reforms such as banning assault weapons, restricting silencers, shrinking magazine sizes and all the other measures that could make guns less deadly.

Then, my colleagues and I at FiveThirtyEight spent three months analyzing all 33,000 lives ended by guns each year in the United States, and I wound up frustrated in a whole new way. We looked at what interventions might have saved those people, and the case for the policies I’d lobbied for crumbled when I examined the evidence. The best ideas left standing were narrowly tailored interventions to protect subtypes of potential victims, not broad attempts to limit the lethality of guns.

I researched the strictly tightened gun laws in Britain and Australia and concluded that they didn’t prove much about what America’s policy should be. Neither nation experienced drops in mass shootings or other gun related-crime that could be attributed to their buybacks and bans. Mass shootings were too rare in Australia for their absence after the buyback program to be clear evidence of progress. And in both Australia and Britain, the gun restrictions had an ambiguous effect on other gun-related crimes or deaths.

[Read more at The Washington Post]

Leave a comment on this story below.

MICHAEL MOORE BEGS TO DIFFER, WANTS CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT

Michael Moore, the firebrand of the Left, posted this on his Facebook page — a proposal he has drafted to repeal the Second Amendment:

PROPOSED 28th AMENDMENT TO THE US CONSTITUTION

“A well regulated State National Guard, being helpful to the safety and security of a State in times of need, along with the strictly regulated right of the people to keep and bear a limited number of non-automatic Arms for sport and hunting, with respect to the primary right of all people to be free from gun violence, this shall not be infringed.”

I, Michael Moore, along with all who support an end to this epidemic of gun violence, propose a new Amendment to our Constitution that repeals the ancient and outdated 2nd Amendment (which was written before bullets and revolvers were even invented), and replaces it with a new 28th Amendment that guarantees States can have State militias (a.k.a. State National Guards which are made up of citizen-soldiers who are called upon in times of natural disasters or other State emergencies), allows individuals to use guns for sport and gathering food, and guarantees everyone the right to be free of, and protected from, gun violence (i.e., the public’s safety comes ahead of an individual’s right to own and fire a gun).

This amendment would allow states and the federal government to pass laws that would regulate gun ownership in the following manner:

• As over 90% of gun violence is committed by men, in order for a man to purchase a gun, he must first get a waiver from his current wife, plus his most recent ex-wife, or any woman with whom he is currently in a relationship (if he’s gay, he must get the waiver from his male spouse/partner). This law has greatly reduced most spousal/domestic gun murders in Canada.

• All automatic and semi-automatic guns are banned.

• No gun or clip can hold more than 6 bullets.

• To activate a gun for it to be used, the trigger must recognize the fingerprint of its registered owner. This will eliminate most crimes committed with a gun as 80% of these crimes are done with a stolen gun.

• One’s guns must be stored at a licensed gun club or government-regulated gun storage facility. Believing that having a gun in your home provides you with protection is an American myth. People who die from a home invasion make up a sad but minuscule .04% of all gun murders in the US. And over a third of them are killed by their own gun that the criminal has either stolen or wrestled from them.

• To own and operate a gun one must obtain a license (like one does to operate a car). To get a license you have to complete a gun training and safety course and pass a thorough background check.

• As nearly half of all gun deaths are suicides, mental health care must become a top national health priority and must be properly funded. And by making it more difficult to purchase a gun – and requiring its storage outside the home – easy access during a suicidal moment is denied.

• Current restrictions placed on the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), due to successful lobbying by the NRA, have prohibited them from studying the gun violence epidemic in the US. These rules need to be removed and the funding restored. Science will then be free to find out why we are ALONE among nations in killing each other at such a massive rate (hint: It’s not just the guns – it’s us as Americans).

These are a few of the regulations that can be enacted to both protect society yet not deny hunters and sportsmen their fun. This is the sane approach that meets everyone’s needs — everyone, that is, except those of the serial killer, the mass murderer, the violent ex-husband, the disgruntled employee or the disturbed and bullied teenager. We will never eliminate all murder; that’s been with us since Cain killed Abel. But we CAN join the community of enlightened nations where gun violence is that rare occurrence — as opposed to the daily tragedy we now suffer here in the United States of America. This can come to an end with the repeal of the 2nd Amendment and replacing it with the 28th Amendment.

For those who believe it will be impossible to do this, let me close by sharing with you two important facts that should give us hope:

1. We are not a country of gun nuts. 77% of all Americans do NOT own a gun! If three-quarters of the country has decided they have no need for a gun, three-quarters of the country may also decide they have no need for an archaic amendment that allows retired accountants to own 47 assault weapons. LET’S ORGANIZE THE 77%!

2. When President Obama tried to get Congress to pass simple, common sense gun control legislation after the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary, polls showed 90% of the country backed him! But the NRA beat him. LET’S ORGANIZE THE 90%!

We can start with the upcoming midterm election. Let every candidate know: If you take NRA money, we will
remove you from office.

Then do it.

READERS – WHAT DO YOU THINK?

Please leave a comment on whether gun violence can be tamed through a constitutional amendment. 

Events for politicos

Suzanne Downing
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Events for politicos

Send your political events items to suzanne @ mustreadalaska.com. Here’s what we’re serving up this week:

Oct. 16: University of Alaska Fairbanks Chancellor Daniel White luncheon presentation at Friday Interior GOP/ Fairbanks Republican Women, Denny’s Restaurant, 11:30 am

Oct. 16: Kevin Meyer for Lieutenant Governor fundraisers in Fairbanks, home of Mike Samson, 5:30-7:30 pm.

Oct. 16: Joint Hearing on Alaska LNG Project. Sen. Cathy Giessel (R-Anchorage), chair of the Senate Resources Committee, and Rep. Geran Tarr (D-Anchorage), co-chair of the House Resources Committee, will have a joint committee hearing at the Anchorage Legislative Information Office 2nd floor, 1500 West Benson Blvd, to update the public on the status of the Alaska LNG Project. The AK-LNG Project was initially authorized in 2014 by the passage of Senate Bill 138. Senate Bill 138 requires that updates be presented to the Alaska Legislature and the public. The Alaska Gasline Development Corporation (AGDC) will be the lead presenter. The public is invited to attend in-person or to listen via the Legislature’s website: http://akl.tv.  1 pm.

Oct. 19: Visions for Victory Series: Crime and Punishment in Anchorage, sponsored by Anchorage Republican Women’s Club. The Center, 4855 Arctic Blvd., Anchorage, 6-8 pm

Oct. 19:  Scott Hawkins for Governor evening presentation at Valley Republican Women Club, Matsu Restaurant, 7 pm.

Oct. 20: Charlie Huggins for Governor fundraiser, 36357 Sylvan Circle, Soldotna, 6-9 pm

Oct. 20: Sen. Pete Kelly luncheon presentation at Friday Interior GOP/ Fairbanks Republican Women, Denny’s Restaurant, 11:30 am

Oct. 21: Mike Chenault for Governor at Rie Munoz Gallery in Junenau, 5-7 pm (this is updated with new time)

Oct 21: Charlie Huggins for Governor meet and greet, Challenger Learning Center, Kenai, 11 am -1 pm

Oct. 21: Mat-Su Republican Women’s Club Octoberfest at the Quake Brewing Company, 1540 N. Shoreline Drive. Turn off the Palmer Wasilla Highway at Town and Country Furniture. Tickets are $35, and it’s brats with beer and all the fixings, all is included in the price. 6-9 pm.

Oct. 27: Sen. Click Bishop luncheon presentation at Friday Interior GOP/ Fairbanks Republican Women, Denny’s Restaurant, 11:30 am

Nov. 3: Sue Hull, State Board of Education, luncheon presentation at Friday Interior GOP/ Fairbanks Republican Women, Denny’s Restaurant, 11:30 am

Nov. 3: Republican Women of Anchorage Masquerade Gala at 49th State Brewing Co. in Anchorage, 6:30 pm.

Nov. 10: Bart LeBon, candidate for House District 1, luncheon presentation at Friday Interior GOP/ Fairbanks Republican Women, Denny’s Restaurant, 11:30 am

Send political calendar items to suzanne @ mustreadalaska.com

 

Brutal: Gov. Walker gets creamed on Facebook fail

Suzanne Downing
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Gov. Bill Walker, having returned from five days in China, perhaps thought he was “on message” when he posted on Facebook that he needs more revenue to “protect Alaskans’ health and safety.”

He went on to say the Alaska Native Engineering Program at University of Alaska had seen a $960,000 budget cut.

It was a message that was doomed from the start.

Facebook readers were especially biting. Some of the more than 128 commenters argued with his logic, while others took the opportunity to criticize him for taking half of the Permanent Fund dividends. The vast majority were disapproving for all kinds of reasons:

“Try having less special sessions and save even more….now…. “

“We need to cut some personnel out of our executive branch. Starting with you.”

“Cruel joke , taking away peoples needed PFD monies for these Phony crisis.”

“Not growing a budget is not a cut.”

“Lies. You have cut NOTHING. OVERALL STATE SPENDING HAS INCREASED.”

“I almost feel like you are bragging or are proud about this! This is quite sad…to cut funding that provides better opportunities to children who are our future. Sad.”

“Wow. Of all things, you find funding an engineering education program a waste of funds? This has got to be the craziest thing I have read today and we don’t lack for crazy these days.”

The governor recently returned from a five-day trip to China to try to develop a market for his gas line. Previous trips to Japan and South Korea for the same purpose have not proven particularly fruitful for a project that appears to be running out of time and is on its last few months of funding.

Gov. Bill Walker, third from left, joined by AGDC President Kevin Meyer, left, Chief Oil and Gas Adviser John Hendrix, Shelley James, and the governor’s economist John Tichotsky, with Chinese officials last month in China.

The governor is spending more than $6 million a year on salaries for Alaska Gasline Development Corporation executives, has opened a gas line office in Houston and Japan.

Walker recently added a climate change director to the Executive Office of the Governor at a cost of more than $100,000 per year and today is hosting a climate change conference in Anchorage.

Other executives he has kept in his administration are former Chief of Staff Jim Whitaker, who is now in charge of major projects, and the governor’s campaign manager, (listed as a special assistant), John-Henry Heckendorn, who serves in the dual role of governor’s “body man,” and campaign liaison.

The governor will be hosting a fundraiser at his Anchorage home on Thursday for his re-election and that of Democrat Lieutenant Gov. Byron Mallott.

Businesses donate, innovate, improve education

Suzanne Downing
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Businesses donate, innovate, improve education

Last month, Hecla Mining, the operator of Greens Creek Mine on Admiralty Island, made a significant contribution to the University of Alaska Southeast. The $300,000 donation will provide scholarships to UAS’s Pathways to Mining Careers program – training students in the latest mining technologies.

This brings the total amount donated by Hecla for the program to $900,000.

Mining companies like Hecla understand the importance of investing in a locally-trained work force. Without it they will lose the race between technology and education as industry invests more in automation.  They realize the ability of the available work force to compete for jobs is handicapped by the poor performance of education systems across our country. This is most evident in the kind of technical disciplines necessary to fuel our economy in the future.

This realization hits home as the results of two surveys were made public.

First, U.S. News and World Report ranked the economies of the 50 U.S. states – measuring each state’s economic stability and potential. Hobbled by the oil downturn and high unemployment rate, Alaska came in #50 – dead last.

Equally disturbing, Alaska’s Department of Education and Early Development recently announced more than 60 percent of Alaska’s public school students failed to meet grade-level academic standards in English language arts and math in this year’s statewide standardized tests.

Students did slightly better on the statewide science exam but barely half were considered proficient.

This follows equally poor results Alaska schools experienced in 2015 – the last time students were tested.

And just two weeks ago, author Mark Lautman was in Juneau discussing his book, “When the Boomers Bail”. Lautman described a new economic paradigm in communities across the nation caused by shifting demographics, our country’s lack of a properly educated workforce and the competition among communities to attract a sufficient supply of qualified talent to fill needed jobs.

Why is it that mining companies seem to understand this but our public schools do not?

Teachers and administrators acknowledge that Alaska’s test scores have been consistently below national averages. In yet another effort to transform our school systems, the State Board of Education has launched Alaska’s Education Challenge to address issues affecting student achievement gaps and to increase Alaska’s graduation rates.

As part of the challenge, five committees comprised of Alaska educators, lawmakers, tribal representatives, parents and students will send their final reform recommendations to the board by Nov. 1. The board will deliver a report to the governor and Legislature in December.

The various committees, made up of almost 100 members, are noticeably light on business representatives. Perhaps they should consider a program promoted by Lautman that is sponsored by private industry and being pioneered in Juneau schools this year. The program was developed to address several intractable challenges many communities face today: underperforming public schools and a growing shortage of technical talent.

A brain-child of Ukrainian-born physicist, Anatoliy Glushchenko, associate professor at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, this program is simple and based on a universal, age-appropriate physics curriculum beginning in middle school. After living abroad for many years, Glushchenko observed most countries either over-produce or under-produce technical talent.

Countries that over-produced taught a full spectrum of physics topics in all middle school grades. Conversely, under-producers, like most Alaskan schools, waited until high school and sometimes made Physics an elective.

According to Glushchenko, by introducing applied physics in middle school, the student’s brain is completely “re-wired” for complex, analytical thinking.

This results in improved success metrics in almost all subject areas, especially math, but also in the language arts.

Physics is the fundamental science discipline describing how the world works. Whether a student goes on to become an engineer or a musician, studying physics at an early age develops critical thinkers who can internalize and process complex ideas as they advance in life.

The program does not require the recruitment of physics-qualified instructors and is available through a 501(c)3 organization, “See The Change”. The model is to train the trainer (the teacher) who, in turn, educates the student. All content is online and training materials are easily available through the website seethechangeusa.org.

The pilot program, implemented in two of Colorado Springs’ poorest performing middle schools, resulted in greatly improved test scores after just the first year.

Local businessman Bruce Denton is spearheading an effort to incorporate the new curriculum in the Juneau school system and has pledged to raise the $47,500 funding for it within the Juneau community.

Collaboration among legislators, educators, parents and students that also includes our engaged and generous business community may eventually prove to be the magic formula for transforming our local schools into true centers for learning.

Our Alaska economy is depending on it.

Win Gruening retired as the senior vice president in charge of business banking for Key Bank in 2012. He was born and raised in Juneau and graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy in 1970. He is active in community affairs as a 30-plus year member of Juneau Downtown Rotary Club and has been involved in various local and statewide organizations.

 

 

 

Local election results from around Alaska

Suzanne Downing
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Local election results from around Alaska

Results from Oct. 2, 2017 municipal and borough elections in Alaska:

This story will be updated as information is available. Presumed winners of races are listed below but these results are unofficial while absentee ballots and questioned ballots are counted:

BETHEL: Mitchell Forbes, Thor Williams, and Naim Shabani for City Council. Voters approved Prop 1, to raise the sales tax on alcohol from 12 percent to 15 percent, and allocate 20 percent of the revenue generated to fund Bethel’s health, public safety, and social services programs..

DILLINGHAM: Two seats on the Council, and three seats on the School Board. Emily Hulett is running against Kim Williams for Seat A; Patty Buholm faced no opposition for seat C. Seat B had no candidate.

FAIRBANKS CITY: Council – Cleworth for Seat E; Pruhs for Seat F; Prop A-No to a marijuana establishment ban; Prop B-No to higher property taxes;

FAIRBANKS BOROUGH: Assembly – Quist for Seat D; Major for Seat E; Lowjewski for Seat H; Rice for School Board Seat F; Dominique for School Board Seat G; Wilbur for IGU at large; Rice for IGU Seat D. Marijuana establishment ban fails 9488 to 4080.

HOMER: Caroline Venuti and Rachel Lord for City Council.

JUNEAU: Rob Edwardson ousted Debbie White for Assembly. Jesse Kiehl and Maria Gladziszewski retained their seats. Short, Holst for School Board. Prop 1, extending the 1-cent extra sales tax passed. Prop 2, allowing the city to consider things other than low bids when awarding contracts, passed. 27.3 percent turnout.

KENAI CITY: Henry Knackstedt and Tim Navarre for City Council.

KENAI BOROUGH: Charlie Pierce and Linda Hutchings will be in a runoff for Kenai Peninsula Borough mayor; Norm Blakeley, Brent Hibbert, Hal Smalley, Kelly Cooper and Kenn Carpenter for Assembly. School Board – Jason Tauriainen won over Board President Joe Arness, to represent the Nikiski and Tyonek area.

Penny Vadla of Soldotna, Debbie Cary of Central, Mke ILLG of Homer for Borough Board of Education.

Prop 1, to ban marijuana establishments outside city limits, failed. Prop 2, to borrow funds for repairs of the borough administration building, failed. Prop 3, raising the cap on taxable sales from $500 to $1,000, failed.

KETCHIKAN CITY: Kiffer and Flora for City Council. The proposed ban on ridesharing (Uber, Lyft) failed.

KETCHIKAN BOROUGH: Pickerell, Bailey, and Pierce for Assembly; Brown, Thompson and Gubatayo for Board of Education; Prop 1 special sales tax on marijuana passed, for outside city limits (city has one already). Ketchikan had an over 21 percent voter turnout.

MAT-SU BOROUGH: Ted Leonard and Clayton Tew for Assembly; Ole Larson, Kelsey Trimmer for School Board; Prop B, 3 percent area sales tax for Talkeetna, passed. Mat-Su had a 9.19 percent turnout.

(UPDATE – OCT. 13: Absentee votes show Tew trailing Mayfield by 18 votes.)

NOME:

NORTH POLE: Council – Aino Welch; Sharon Hedding

NORTH SLOPE BOROUGH: The Accuvote machine in Nuiqsuit was broken, results may vary. UPDATED: Harry Brower for Mayor – this looks like it will be a runoff between Harry Brower and Frederick Brower; Alzred Steve Oomittuck for Assembly Seat A-1; Doreen Ahgeak Lampe for Assembly Seat A-3B;  Mary Patkotak for Assembly Seat A-3D; Herman Ashoak, Assembly Seat 3-E,; Vernon Edwardsen, Assembly Seat A-3F; Martha Tokrook, Asssembly Seat A-F; Jerry Sikvayugak, Assembly Seat A-6.

PALMER: Sabrena Combs and Brad Hansen for City Council.

PETERSBURG: Mark Jensen for Mayor; Jeff Meucci and Brandi Marohl for Assembly. Flouride ban failed. ATVs will still be banned on city streets, as that question failed. Incrase in the sales tax cap defeated. Limiting a sales tax exemption for non residents buying goods and services for use outside of Petersburg passed. Voter turnout was 43 percent.

SEWARD: David Squires for Mayor; Sue McClure, Jeremy Horn, Suzanne Towsley for City Council

SITKA: Richard Wein, Steven Eisenbeisz, Ben Miyasato for Assembly; Dionne Brady-Howard and Elias Erickson for Board of Education.

SOLDOTNA: Nels Anderson for mayor; City Council – Tyson Cox for Seat B; Keith Baxter for Seat F.

TALKEETNA: Prop B, 3 percent area sales tax for Talkeetna, passed.

WASILLA: Bert Cottle re-elected for Mayor, [City of Wasilla sales tax result: ?]

WRANGELL: Stephen Prysunka for Assembly; Jessica Rooney for School Board; David Wilson (83 votes) or Robert Rang (82 votes) for School Board.

 

 

 

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