Alaska
Relocation of eroding Alaska Native village seen as a test case for other threatened communities • Alaska Beacon
The Yup’ik village of Newtok, perched precariously on thawing permafrost at the edge of the rapidly eroding Ninglick River, is the first Alaska community to begin a full-scale relocation made necessary by climate change.
Still, the progress of moving to a new village site that is significantly outpacing relocation efforts at other vulnerable Alaska communities, remains agonizingly slow, say those who are in the throes of the transformation.
“There is no blueprint on how to do this relocation,” said Carolyn George, one of those still living in Newtok. “We’re relocating the whole community to a whole different place, and we did not know how to do it. And it’s been taking too long — over 20 years, I think.”
George, who works at the Newtok school, was one of the self-described “Newtok mothers” who made comments at a panel discussion at the recent Arctic Encounter Symposium in Anchorage. The river waters, once at least a mile away, have edged closer and closer, and the village, once sitting high on the landscape, continues to sink as that permafrost thaws, she said.
Plans to move Newtok started to solidify in 2006 with the formation of the local-state-federal Newtok Planning Group, but that followed many years of debate and study that led to the decision to relocate. according to the Alaska Division of Community and Regional Affairs. The new site, about 9 miles away on the south side of the Ninglick River, is called Mertarvik, meaning “getting water from the spring.”
In 2019, the first Mertarvik residents settled into their new homes. As of now, more than half of the residents have moved to Mertarvik.
The latest count is 220 in Mertarvik and 129 still at Newtok, said Christina Waska, the relocation coordinator for the Newtok Village Tribal government.
The goal is to have everyone in Mertarvik by the fall, even if that means some people will be living in temporary housing, like construction work camps.
“Our ultimate goal is to not leave anyone behind,” she said.
With a single local government, a single Tribal government and unified services like mail delivery, Newtok and Mertarvik technically make up a single community. But often it does not feel that way.
George is among those coping with a sense of limbo.
Her five daughters and their father have moved to a new house in Mertarvik, but she remains in Newtok because of her job. That is a hardship, she said. “Being alone, I get anxiety, and I miss my girls, you know. Especially at night,” she said.
And the school where she works, and which is set to be demolished this summer, is in dire shape.
The four classrooms are heated by a small generator. There is no food cooked on-site for the kids. There is no plumbing – a situation that, for now, is being addressed with a “bathroom bus” that shuttles kids to their homes as needed.
Conditions are notably better at Mertarvik, said speakers at the conference.
Lisa Charles, another panel member, described the difficult conditions her family left behind in Newtok. The family was packed into a too-small, two-bedroom house with thawing permafrost below and mold growing inside. It took a toll on their physical well-being, she said.
But once the family settled in at Mertarvik, things improved, she said.
“After moving over to the new village site, we noticed all of our health improved, especially for my daughter that grew up with asthma,” Charles said. “After we moved over to our new home, she grew out of her asthma problem.”
There have been complications, like power outages affecting the school, attributed to demand that outstripped capacity.
Among the challenges is a timing mismatch. Waska and new Tribal administrator Calvin Tom started their jobs only recently, too late for them to place summer barge orders, and as a consequence, no building materials are expected to be barged in 2024 and no new houses will be built this summer in Mertarvik, Waska said.
There is still plenty of work to be done aside from construction, she said. And construction is seen as a process that will continue long after all residents are settled at Mertarvik, she added.
“It’ll never be done. If you look at every village, even Anchorage, Fairbanks, it’s always under construction,” she said.
While Newtok is the first Alaska village to relocate, others will follow.
Even two decades ago, 31 communities were identified as facing imminent threats that would make their locations potentially unlivable in the near future. Of those, nearly half were planning or considering some form of relocation.
Next after Newtok to relocate entirely may be Kivalina, an Inupiat village on the Chukchi Sea coast that is facing numerous climate stressors along with rapid erosion. The community now has a new evacuation road, completed in 2021, that can better enable movement to a new site.
But plans hit a snag after a study by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers revealed that the originally chosen relocation site, called Kiniktuuraq, is also vulnerable to the same climate change stressors that are expected to make Kivalina uninhabitable in the relatively near future.
Napakiak, a Yup’ik village perched on a section of eroding land along the Kuskokwim River that is being quickly eaten away in large chunks, has also made progress. The community is now engaged in a partial relocation, a strategy known as “managed retreat.” Some families have already moved from vulnerable sites to safer ground upland, and there is state money available for a new school to replace the erosion-threatened building.
There is no single source of money to pay for relocation work, even for the Newtok-Mertarvik transformation, the most advanced of the projects.
The Newtok-Mertarvik move has been funded through various allocations over time. Among the recent infusions were $25 million through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and another $6.7 million from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Napakiak received a similar $25 million grant through the infrastructure law and a $2.4 million infusion earlier this year from FEMA.
The combined costs of full and partial relocations for all the villages that need them are expected to be staggering.
Of 144 Alaska Native villages with damages from flooding, erosion, permafrost thaw or some combination of those impacts, costs for protecting infrastructure are expected to mount to $3.45 billion over the next 50 years, according to a 2020 report by the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs. An additional $833 million is needed to protect the hub communities of Utqiagvik, Nome, Bethel, Kotzebue, Dillingham and Unalaska, said the 2020 BIA report, which was produced in cooperation with the Denali Commission and other agencies.
The sources for the needed funding remain unclear, and bureaucratic hurdles are delaying progress toward necessary relocations, a recent report from the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium said.
There are fundamental obstacles in rural Alaska that make it extremely difficult for Alaska communities to work through the federal system, said Jackie 
She cited an example during the Arctic Encounter Symposium forum. “Every federal agency requires you to have some type of reporting and in most of the cases you have to apply for the federal funding online. If you don’t have stable internet, how do you do that?” she said.
The ANTHC report recommends an overhaul to streamline a process that is a poor fit for remote Alaska villages.
In some ways, the Newtok-Mertarvik residents said, their split community has successfully overcome difficult challenges, making their relocation a possible example for other threatened communities in Alaska and elsewhere in the United States.
But those successes can also be bittersweet.
Relocation is absolutely necessary because the old village site is now an unhealthy place to live, Waska said. Nonetheless, she feels conflicted about abandoning the hometown she loves.
“Newtok is my home. It’s kind of sad. It kind of breaks my heart that Newtok is no longer going to be there,” she said.
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Alaska may soon face major decisions about the future of the Alaska LNG project and, if so, the Legislature will need to ensure that every step serves the best interests of Alaskans.
It is essential to remember that Senate Bill 138, the blueprint for state involvement in Alaska LNG, was passed in 2014 for a very different project: one led by ExxonMobil, BP and ConocoPhillips, with a key role fulfilled by TransCanada. Today’s project is led by a private-equity developer, Glenfarne, pursuing a structure that diverges dramatically from what lawmakers contemplated more than a decade ago. When a project changes this much, the underlying statutes need to be revisited.
In June, the Alaska Gasline Development Corp.’s president told his board that AGDC would be coordinating with the developer, the administration and the Legislature regarding legislation needed to support project development. He also noted that AGDC would work with the administration and Legislature on policies required to exercise the corporation’s option to invest 5% to 25% equity at Final Investment Decision, or FID. When AGDC itself signals that legislation is necessary, we should look forward to their outreach.
SB 138 also assigned important responsibilities to the departments of revenue and natural resources that may require legislative action. One key responsibility is the Legislature’s authority to approve major gas project contracts negotiated by the DNR commissioner. The law clearly states that balancing, marketing and gas sale agreements for North Slope gas cannot take effect without explicit legislative authorization. That statutory requirement was intentional and recognizes a project of this scale demands legislative oversight.
We also know that the pressure for speed on complex megaprojects often backfires, sometimes creating more problems than it solves. The Legislature must balance the legitimate need for progress with the responsibility to ensure Alaskans are not asked to assume unreasonable financial risk. As Speaker Bryce Edgmon recently observed, legislation of this magnitude “could dominate the session” and “take significant time.” Senate Finance Co-Chair Bert Stedman was even more direct: if we get this wrong, it could be “detrimental for generations.”
Last week, 4,000 miles away in Washington, D.C., Glenfarne and POSCO International announced a major strategic partnership. It is a meaningful milestone. But Alaska has seen similar announcements before, and it does not diminish the need for hard questions. If anything, it raises them.
Final Investment Decision is when investors and lenders commit billions based on the project’s economics and the state’s fiscal terms. Any legislation affecting property taxes, payments-in-lieu-of-taxes, aka PILTs, state equity, fiscal stability, or upstream royalties and production taxes must be decided before this takes place.
The Legislative Budget and Audit Committee has focused on providing lawmakers and the public with the information needed to understand the choices ahead. I revisited the Legislature’s 2014 “Alaska LNG: Key Issues” report, which helped lawmakers evaluate the original SB 138 framework. Building on that model, I directed our consultants, GaffneyCline, to prepare an updated “key issues” report; not to endorse or oppose the current project, but to provide a high-level overview of potential policy choices, which should be available to the public within the next few days.
The refreshed “key issues” report will be an important starting point. I ask Alaskans to approach it with an open mind and to read it as objectively as possible, free from assumptions shaped by past disappointments or early optimism. Keep asking tough questions of the Legislature, AGDC, Glenfarne and the administration. Don’t assume the project is a done deal or a doomed one. This is not about cheerleading or obstruction, but insisting on rigorous analysis, strong oversight and a fair deal for our children and grandchildren.
Some Alaskans have raised questions about a potential conflict of interest: GaffneyCline is a subsidiary of Baker Hughes, which recently announced agreements with Glenfarne to help advance the Alaska LNG project. I share those concerns, which is why I have met with the Legislature’s director of Legal Services and with GaffneyCline’s North America director. I have been assured by GaffneyCline’s leadership that no one outside the GaffneyCline project team has influenced their analysis, and that their global reputation for independence and trust remains intact. Still, we also must fully vet this issue when we convene in Juneau next month. Transparency and independence are non-negotiable.
The recent ceremony in Washington, D.C., with Glenfarne and POSCO International underscores the project’s potential; however, the authority to determine how and when Alaska monetizes its resources rests here, not with dignitaries celebrating overseas commitments. Our future will be determined in Alaska, by Alaskans, based on the fullest and most honest understanding of the choices before us.
Sen. Elvi Gray-Jackson, D-Anchorage, represents Senate District G, which includes Midtown, Spenard and Taku Campbell in Anchorage. Sen. Gray-Jackson serves as the chair of the Legislative Budget and Audit Committee.
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The United States deployed two bombers to simulate strikes against “maritime threats” to the homeland in response to a growing Russian and Chinese presence near Alaska.
Newsweek has contacted China’s Foreign Ministry for comment by email. Russia’s defense and foreign ministries did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Why It Matters
Russia and China have closely cooperated in military matters under their “partnership without limits,” including a joint naval maneuver in the north Pacific near Alaska’s Aleutian Islands involving 11 Russian and Chinese vessels in summer 2023.
Facing a growing Moscow-Beijing military partnership, along with increased Chinese activities in the Arctic, the U.S. has been reinforcing its military presence in Alaska by deploying warships and conducting war games with its northern neighbor, Canada.
Bombers, capable of flying long distances and carrying large amounts of armaments, are a key instrument for the U.S. military to signal its strength. The American bomber force has recently conducted operations as a show of force aimed at Russia and China.
What To Know
According to a news release, the Alaskan Command executed simulated joint maritime strikes with Air Force B-52H bombers and the Coast Guard national security cutter USCGC Kimball in the Gulf of Alaska on Tuesday as part of Operation Tundra Merlin.
The bombers are assigned to the 2nd Bomb Wing out of Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana, while the Kimball is homeported in Honolulu. The 354th Fighter Wing at Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska also deployed four F-35A stealth fighters.
Other supporting units included two KC-135 aerial refueling aircraft and an HC-130 aircraft on standby to conduct personnel recovery missions, the news release said.
During the operation, the bombers received target information from the Kimball for standoff target acquisition and simulated weapons use, while the F-35A jets—tasked with escorting the bombers—enhanced mission security and operational effectiveness.
According to an Air Force fact sheet, each B-52H bomber has a maximum payload of 70,000 pounds and is capable of carrying up to 20 standoff weapons—designed to be fired from outside enemy defenses—such as the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile.
The simulated strikes “demonstrated the capability of the [U.S. Northern Command] and its mission partners to deter maritime threats to the homeland,” the news release said.
Homeland defense is the Alaskan Command’s top priority, said its commander, U.S. Air Force Lieutenant General Robert Davis, adding that the ability to integrate with other commands and partners is key to safeguarding the U.S. northern approaches.
What People Are Saying
U.S. Air Force Lieutenant General Robert Davis, the commander of the Alaskan Command, said: “Operations in the Alaskan Theater of Operations are critically important to North American Homeland Defense. Operation Tundra Merlin demonstrates the Joint Force’s ability to seamlessly integrate capabilities from multiple combatant commands and mission partners to deter and defeat potential threats in the region.”
The Alaskan Command said: “Operation Tundra Merlin is a Homeland Defense focused joint operation designed to ensure the defense of U.S. territory and waters within the Alaskan Theater of Operations (AKTO). The operation includes integration with partners in the region with the shared goal of North American defense in the Western Arctic.”
What Happens Next
It remains to be seen whether Russia and China will conduct another joint air patrol near Alaska following a similar operation over the western Pacific earlier this week.
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