As a parent and researcher, I am seeing an alarming trend. Children born just five years ago are expected to face between two- and seven-fold more extreme climate events, such as heatwaves, than their parents or grandparents. Unlike past generations, today’s young people are inheriting not only the planet as we left it but also a mounting burden of climate stressors that can shape their lifelong health and future.

It’s not rocket science that children deserve clean air to breathe, safe water to drink, nourishing food to eat, and communities that protect — not threaten — their developing bodies and brains. Yet new findings from the Children’s Environmental Health Network’s Alaska Profile for Children’s Environmental Health make one thing painfully clear: In Alaska, children face environmental risks significantly above the national average, and the consequences are profound.

A snapshot of risk: The story the indicators tell

Children’s Environmental Health Indicators, or CEHIs, help us understand three things: environmental hazards, children’s exposure to those hazards and the health outcomes that follow. For Alaska, the data should spark urgent action.

• Alaskan children are more likely to face unsafe drinking water.

In 2023, 43.6% of Alaska’s public water utilities had drinking water violations far higher than the U.S. national rate of 27.6%. Clean water should never depend on geography.

• Toxic releases are massive.

In 2023, Alaska industries disposed of or released 899 million pounds of toxic chemicals a staggering number, even when compared with the U.S. total of 3.3 billion pounds. Many of these chemicals, such as mercury, arsenic and lead, are known developmental and neurological toxicants.

• Children’s bodies are showing the consequences.

Between 2017 and 2021, 2% to 4.7% of Alaska children under age 6 who were tested had blood lead levels at or above the level the CDC considers elevated, compared with 1.3% nationwide. Because many at-risk children are never tested, this is almost certainly an undercount.

There is no safe level of lead for children. Even low exposures can weaken and alter health in ways that shape a child’s entire future. What’s more, neurodevelopmental disorders are more common than the national norm. Alaska reports that 12.6% of children ages 3–17 have ADHD, compared with 10.5% nationally.

Why this matters: The cost of inaction

Infants and children are not “small adults.” Pound for pound, they breathe more air, drink more water and eat more food. Their bodies and brains are still rapidly developing, making them especially vulnerable to harmful exposures. A toxic insult in early life, not just a major one, but an everyday one, can lead to both immediate symptoms and lifelong consequences.

Add to this the accelerating realities of climate change. Alaska is warming faster than any other U.S. state, and children are more vulnerable to the cascading health effects of heatwaves, wildfire smoke, flooding and extreme weather. Environmental threats are compounding, not isolated.

There is good news, and it shows what’s possible

In the past five years, Alaska has taken meaningful steps to strengthen children’s environmental health protections. The state secured CDC funding for lead-poisoning prevention and an Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry cooperative agreement to improve surveillance and response. And in 2024, Alaska passed S.B. 67, banning firefighting foams containing PFAS “forever chemicals” linked to cancer, immune dysfunction and developmental harm.

These actions deserve recognition. They also prove that Alaska can act decisively when children’s health is at stake. When we protect children’s environments, we improve every aspect of their futures and you don’t have to be a policymaker or scientist to help protect Alaska’s kids.

What you can do

• Stay informed and speak up.

Public comment periods on environmental regulations, water quality standards and industrial permits matter. Showing up matters more.

• Support statewide investment in children’s environmental health.

Advocate for expanding lead testing, improving drinking water infrastructure and strengthening monitoring of toxic releases.

• Back policies that reduce exposures before they occur and vote with children’s health in mind.

Prevention is cheaper — and far more effective — than responding to harm after the fact.

The data in this new Children’s Environmental Health Profile is not a forecast; it’s a diagnosis. The question now is whether we act on it. Alaska’s children need clean water, clean air and a future free from preventable toxic exposures. We have the knowledge, we have examples of progress and we have a responsibility to ensure that every child grows up in an environment that helps them reach their full potential.

The health of Alaska’s children is not just a policy issue, it is a moral one. And it demands our action now.

Dr. Mariah Seater is a resident of Anchorage, a parent and an engaged public health practitioner focused on environmental justice and human health.

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It was the last day of the hunting season. Tanks of fuel stashed at a remote Alaskan airstrip had to be retrieved. Time was short since a storm was approaching. A Cessna 206 landed on a gravel bar in the Porcupine River, and the pilot began loading 15-gallon fuel containers into the plane. To save time, she asked two hunters, who were waiting there for a different airplane, to empty two of the containers into her wing tanks. The whole operation lasted 12 minutes.  

Seconds after the 206 became airborne, its engine sputtered. It banked steeply, and its right wingtip struck the surface of the river. The airplane cartwheeled before coming to rest, partially submerged. The powerful current and icy water of the river prevented the two hunters from getting to it. By the time a raft had been brought from the nearest base, 60 miles away, an hour and a half had passed. The pilot, 28, was dead.

Accident investigators minutely examined the 206’s engine and found nothing wrong with it. What was wrong was that there was water—in some places more water than avgas—in the fuel system, including parts that river water had not been able to enter.

A pilot who later inspected one of the smaller fuel containers found about a cupful of water in 8 gallons of fuel. Since the plane had arrived without any trouble, it was pretty clear that the water in the fuel system had been added along with the fuel during the hasty stopover on the sandbar and caused the engine to lose power soon after it went to full throttle.

What looked like one cause, however, was really several.

The fuel cache, which had been set up two months earlier, consisted of 55-gallon metal drums from which fuel was pumped into 15-gallon plastic containers that were easier for the pilot to handle. Fuel would be transferred from those containers into the airplane’s wing tanks by a battery-operated pump. 

When the cache was originally established, the pump had a filter to trap debris. In addition, a Mr. Funnel was provided. It contained both a screening filter and hydrophobic membrane that allowed fuel to pass through but not water. 

During the course of the hunting season, the pump’s filter became clogged and was removed. It was not replaced, even though the fact that it had gotten clogged seems to suggest that a filter was needed. The water-excluding funnel also was “lost”—whatever that means on an unfrequented sandbar—and it too was not replaced. Thus, nothing remained to ensure that fuel pumped into planes would be clean and free of water. 

In principle, a final line of defense existed in the form of the airplane’s fuel drains. In this 1975 206 those were four in number (later Cessnas, whose integral fuel tanks can hide water behind ribs, have as many as 13). Two were, as you would expect, on the undersides of the wings at the inboard ends of the tanks. One was on the fuel strainer, or “gascolator,” at the firewall. The fourth drained a small collector tank located in the bottom of the fuselage. 

The accident pilot, and other pilots who worked for the same flying service, were aware of the lack of filtration at the remote site and had “numerous conversations” about the danger of water contamination in fuel and the need to check the sumps after refueling. The 206 was equipped, however, with a belly pod that covered the fuselage sump drain, so that it might be necessary to shift or remove cargo in order to get at the drain. The accident pilot had repeatedly complained about the difficulty of draining the fuselage sump, and she was said to habitually skip that step despite “talks at great length” urging her not to.

Since the fuel pickup in each wing tank is located slightly above the bottom of the tank, small amounts of water could be taken from the quick-drains without any of that water having found its way to the fuselage tank. But if sufficient water got into a wing tank, some of it could run down into the fuselage tank, water being heavier than fuel. The fact that the engine ran for some time before stumbling suggests, however, that the fatal water came from the wings, not the fuselage tank.

According to the pilot’s colleagues, it was “company policy” that only the pilots themselves do the refueling at remote sites and not delegate it to anyone else. The hunters who pumped fuel into the 206 for the pilot recalled that she did not check the sumps before taking off and that there was no mention of the possibility of water in the fuel.

So, one by one, the conditions for the accident had been put into place. The mere fact that there had been “numerous conversations” about the danger of fuel contamination suggests that the company’s pilots knew that a potentially serious problem existed. The clogged fuel filter had not been replaced. The fuel storage tanks, even if they were impervious to rain, were likely to accumulate water from repeated cycles of condensation, and yet the water-filtering funnel was gone too. Why a replacement was not obtained is unclear. Amazon offers Mr. Funnel filters for around $40, delivered tomorrow (or, in the bush, maybe a few days later).

The National Transportation Safety Board blamed the accident on the pilot’s “inadequate preflight inspection,” with the company’s failure to replace the fuel filters a contributing circumstance.

The NTSB’s report omitted mention of a third factor.

The accident occurred on a meander in the river. The sandbar from which the 206 took off was oriented directly toward a broad gravel bank on the opposite shore. The immediate cause of the crash seems to have been the pilot’s decision to turn back, which led to the right wingtip hitting the water. If she had continued straight ahead, she might have made the far shore or at least ditched under control in the river. She might have lost the airplane in the process but saved her life.

A retired fighter pilot, who at one point during his career in the Air Force had the job of test-flying F-100s after they emerged from maintenance, told me that he wouldn’t hesitate to punch out of an airplane that failed of its own accord but would be very reluctant to abandon one whose problems he himself had caused.

In her haste, the pilot had not checked for water in the fuel, even though it had been a topic of much discussion. When the engine stumbled, she probably guessed the reason instantly. She switched on the fuel pump in hope that the engine would come back to life. Trying to save the airplane, she banked back toward the runway. But then…

This column first appeared in the December Issue 965 of the FLYING print edition.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – A Kipnuk man was sentenced Tuesday to a composite sentence of 263 years to serve for 17 counts of sexual assault and sexual abuse of six children between 2006 and 2013. The court ordered that Paul was not eligible for discretionary parole.

According to the Alaska Department of Law, this sentence appears to be the longest sentence handed down for sexual assault and sexual abuse in the history of the State of Alaska.

The man is 37-year-old David Paul. He was convicted of 28 counts following a three-week jury trial held in Bethel in August. At sentencing, the convictions merged into 17 counts. Those included five counts of first-degree sexual abuse of a minor, six counts of second-degree sexual abuse of a minor, four counts of first-degree sexual assault and two counts of second-degree sexual assault.

In May 2021, one of the victims came forward as an adult to report Paul’s prior abuse committed against them. That victim also reported observing Paul sexually abusing a separate victim. During a several-month-long investigation, additional victims were identified and interviewed. These additional victims disclosed that Paul also sexually abused them when they were children.

Paul was arrested in October 2021.

During the trial, the jury heard emotional testimony from all six victims, who explained that they initially did not report the abuse as children because they were scared and did not think anyone would believe them.

Several of the victims gave impact statements at sentencing. They told the court about the lifelong impact of Paul’s crimes on them. Each expressed that Paul stole their childhood.

In the press statement from the Alaska Department of Law, one victim told the court that they had spent years blaming themself.

“I have spent years thinking it was my fault for not protecting my brother. I blamed myself for not knowing how to tell my mom at such a young age. I did not ask for this. Today I no longer blame myself, because what happened in the dark has come to the light,” the victim stated.

Assistant Attorney General Bailey Woolfstead emphasized the number of victims, the length and continued nature of the sexual assaults and abuse, and Paul’s manipulative and predatory behavior. She argued that his actions required the court to permanently remove Paul from the community to ensure that he never harmed another child.

Bethel Superior Court Judge William Montgomery stated that Paul constituted a “worst offender” under the law.

“The amount of damage that has been inflicted is unspeakable … I see no potential for rehabilitation for Mr. Paul. If Mr. Paul is out and about in the community he poses among the most severe threats to the community in the YK Delta, his behavior and criminal history has demonstrated such,” Montgomery said.

In handing down the sentence, Judge Montgomery stated his intent was to ensure Paul is never released from prison.

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