Alaska
Alaska Natives want the US military to clean up its toxic waste
In June 1942, Japan’s invasion of the Aleutian islands in Alaska prompted the U.S. military to activate the Alaska territorial guard, an Army reserve made up of volunteers who wanted to help protect the U.S. So many of the volunteers were from Alaska’s Indigenous peoples — Aleut, Inupiak, Yupik, Tlingit, and many others — that the guard was nicknamed the “Eskimo Scouts.”
When World War II ended and the reserve force ceased operations in 1947, the U.S. approached the Indigenous Yupik people of Alaska with another ask: Could the Air Force set up “listening posts” on the island of Sivuqaq, also known as St. Lawrence Island, to help with the intelligence gathering needed to win the Cold War?
Viola Waghiyi, who is Yupik from Sivuqaq, said the answer was a resounding yes.
“Our grandfathers and fathers volunteered for the Alaska territorial guard,” she said. “We were very patriotic.”
But that trust was abused, Waghiyi said. The U.S. military eventually abandoned its Air Force and Army bases, leaving the land polluted with toxic chemicals such as fuel, mercury, and polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, that are known as “forever chemicals” because they persist so long in the environment. The contamination was largely due to spilled and leaking fuel from storage tanks and pipes, both above ground and below ground. More chemical waste came from electrical transformers, abandoned metals and 55-gallon drums.
Now, Waghiyi is the environmental health and justice program director at the Alaska Community Action on Toxics, an organization dedicated to limiting the effects of toxic substances on Alaska’s residents and environment. Last week, the organization filed a complaint to the United Nations special rapporteur on toxics and human rights, in partnership with the U.C. Berkeley Environmental Law Clinic.
Their complaint calls for the United Nations to investigate how military waste on Sivuqaq continues to violate the rights of the people who live there, such as the right to a clean and healthy environment and Indigenous peoples’ right to free, prior, and informed consent to what happens on their land.
“By exposing the Yupik people of Sivuqaq to polluted drinking water sources, air, and soil, and by contaminating local native foods; by causing pervasive human exposure to hazardous chemicals through multiple routes; by toxifying the broader ecosystem; and by not cleaning up contamination sufficiently to protect human health and the environment, the U.S. Air Force and Army Corps of Engineers violated human rights long recognized in international law,” the complaint says.
This submission from Alaska is part of a larger, global effort to raise awareness of military toxic waste by the United Nations. The U.N. special rapporteur on toxics and human rights is collecting public input on military activities and toxic waste until April 1. The information collected will be used in a report presented to the U.N. General Assembly in October.
The two shuttered bases in Sivuqaq, Alaska, are now classified as “formerly used defense,” or FUD, sites, overseen by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and more than $130 million has been spent to remove the contamination. John Budnick, a spokesman for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Alaska, said the cleanup is considered complete but that the agency is reviewing the site every five years “to ensure the selected remedies continue to be protective of human health and the environment.”
“We have completed the work at Northeast Cape, but additional follow-up actions may result from the monitoring phase of the Formerly Used Defense Sites Program,” he said. The last site visit occurred last July and an updated review report is expected to be released this summer.
The federal Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, similarly concluded in 2013 that an additional EPA cleanup wouldn’t significantly differ from what the Army Corps of Engineers is doing and declined to place the sites on the EPA’s list of hazardous waste cleanup priorities.
A 2022 study found that so far, federal cleanup efforts have been inadequate. “High levels of persistent organic pollutants and toxic metals continue to leach from the Northeast Cape FUD site despite large-scale remediation that occurred in the early 2000s,” the authors concluded.
The persisting pollution has garnered the attention of Alaska’s state Dept. of Environmental Conservation which oversees the cleanup of contaminated sites. Stephanie Buss, contaminated sites program manager at the agency, said her office has asked the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to do additional cleanup at Northeast Cape.
“These active contaminated sites have not met closure requirements,” she said. The second former base, Gambell, was classified as completed but still lacks land use controls, she noted.
“DEC takes community health concerns seriously and will continue to provide oversight of the conditions at its active sites in accordance with the state’s regulatory framework to ensure an appropriate response that protects human health and welfare,” Buss said.
That same 2022 study found that 89 percent of the fish around the Northeast Cape base contained mercury exceeding the levels the EPA deemed appropriate for people who rely on subsistence fishing. “All fish sampled near the FUD site exceeded the EPA’s PCB guidelines for cancer risk for unrestricted human consumption,” the researchers further found. Waghiyi said the contamination displaced 130 people, and has left her friends and family with a lasting legacy of illness.
“It’s not a matter of if we’ll get cancer, but when,” Waghiyi said. Her father died of cancer. Her mother had a stillborn child. Waghiyi herself is a cancer survivor and has had three miscarriages.
“We feel that they have turned their back on us,” Waghiyi said of the U.S. military. “We wanted our lands to be turned back in the same condition when they turned over.”
The U.S. military has a long history of contaminating lands and waters through military training and battles sites, including on Indigenous lands. Citizens of the Navajo Nation in Arizona and Yakama Nation in Washington continue to raise concerns about the ongoing effects of military nuclear testing on their lands and health. In the Marshall Islands, fishing around certain atolls is discouraged due to high rates of toxicity due to nuclear testing and other military training. On Guam, chemicals from an active Air Force base have contaminated parts of the islandʻs sole-source aquifer that serves 70% of the population. Last year, a federal report found that climate change threatens to unearth even more U.S. military nuclear waste in both the Marshall Islands and Greenland.
In 2021, the Navy in Hawaiʻi poisoned 90,000 people when jet fuel leached from aging, massive underground storage tanks into the drinking water supply after the Navy ignored years of warning to upgrade the tanks or remove the fuel. The federal government spent hundreds of millions of dollars to remove unexploded ordnance from the island of Kahoʻolawe, a former bombing range in Hawaiʻi, but the island is still considered dangerous to walk on because of the risk of more ordnance unearthing due to extensive erosion.
The complaint filed last week by the Alaska Community Action on Toxics calls for the United Nations to write to U.S. federal and state agencies and call upon them to honor a 1951 agreement between the U.S. government and the Sivuqaq Yupik people that prohibited polluting the land.
The agreement said that the Sivuqaq Tribes would allow the Air Force to construct surveillance sites to spy on the Soviet Union, but they had four conditions, including allowing Indigenous peoples to continue to hunt, fish and trap where desired and preventing outsiders from killing their game. Finally, the agreement said that “any refuse or garbage will not be dumped in streams or near the beach within the proposed area.”
“The import of the agreement was clear: The military must not despoil the island; must protect the resources critical to Indigenous Yupik inhabitants’ sustenance; and must leave the island in the condition they found it, which ensured their health and well-being,” the Alaska Community Action on Toxics wrote in their complaint.
“This is a burden we didn’t create,” Waghiyi said.
In the days since scientists warned that Mount Spurr, Anchorage’s closest volcano, is likely to erupt within “the next few weeks to months,” Southcentral Alaska residents have snapped into preparation mode.
Here’s what residents should know to protect their children, pets, homes and vehicles from about one-eighth of an inch to a quarter-inch of ash that scientists say is likely to coat Southcentral Alaska in the near future.
The basics
Mount Spurr sits 78 miles northwest of Anchorage at the southernmost end of the Tordrillo Mountains, and is visible from the city on clear days. Its Crater Peak, the southern vent of Spurr volcano, has erupted four times in the last 100 years: in 1953, and three times in 1992. In two of those eruptions, about a quarter-inch of ashfall rained down across Southcentral communities for several hours, temporarily shutting down airports, offices and schools, according to the Alaska Volcano Observatory. The cost of cleanup in 1992 was about $2 million.
The most widespread hazard for Alaskans if Mount Spurr erupts will be from volcanic ashfall, according to an FAQ published by the state’s Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management.
The ash — which is made up of pulverized jagged rock, mineral and glass — can impair visibility, labor breathing and damage lungs, and fail engines in cars and planes, the FAQ says.
Official ashfall warnings will be issued by the National Weather Service’s Anchorage Forecast Office, and will include where ash is expected to fall, when and how much.
According to an ASH ALERT! advisory published by the state on March 10, residents are advised to prepare disaster supply kits with standard items including two weeks’ worth of nonperishable food, water, flashlights and external cellphone chargers.
Additional, volcano eruption-specific supplies include N95 masks for adults and children, spare air and oil filters, washer fluids for vehicles, and plastic sheeting to protect outdoor equipment.
[Previously: A Mount Spurr eruption is ‘likely’ within weeks or months, scientists say]
Transportation
Ashfall poses the most lethal threat to aviation, experts say.
Airborne ash can damage visibility, impair flight control systems, and cause jet engine failure, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
During the 1992 Spurr eruption, Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport shut down for 20 hours, according to the Alaska Volcano Observatory.
In the event of an ashfall that’s carried by winds southeast, toward Anchorage and its surrounding area, the National Weather Service’s Anchorage office would issue an ash warning. Planes in the area would likely be grounded as a result.
Ash can also make roads slippery, reduce visibility and damage vehicles.
During an ashfall, the state recommends Alaskans stay off the road. Afterward, vehicle owners are advised to wash their vehicle thoroughly with water, and change their oil, oil filter and air filters.
Do not attempt to dry brush ash off a vehicle or it will scratch, mechanics and car parts salesmen said. The same goes for windshields: use wiper fluid anytime you use your wipers to avoid scratching your windshield.
John Hennessy, a salesperson at O’Reilly Auto Parts on Northern Lights, said there’s been a surge of customers coming in for certain vehicle products.
Air filters, cabin filters, car covers, engine covers, washer fluids “and for some weird reason, antifreeze” have been flying off the shelves in the past week, Hennessy said. “Some of them are getting ready for doomsday,” he said.
Pets
Pets and livestock, too, should be kept inside or sheltered from ashfall as much as possible, vets and state officials warn. Particularly sensitive areas are their eyes, nose and lungs, according to the state’s FAQ.
Livestock, if not covered, should be moved to an area free from vegetation and ash accumulation, according to the state. Animals should not consume food that’s been contaminated by ash.
The Alaska Veterinary Clinic recommends pet owners “immediately wash ash off pet’s fur or skin with clean water if they’re exposed and flush eyes with eye water solution,” according to a fact sheet the clinic prepared. The clinic also recommends pet jackets, or protective clothing, goggles, booties and canine-specific filtered masks to further protect animals.
AK Bark, a pet supply store in Anchorage, is selling all the bells and whistles for pet preparedness, owner Mark Robokoff said this week.
He said his store has sold roughly 800 canine masks, 100 pairs of goggles, and tons of dog booties since the Alaska Volcano Observatory’s announcement. They also carry power-washers to clean paws, ear muffs, full-body raincoats and pee pads, he said.
The key, Robokoff said, is to get dogs comfortable wearing the gear beforehand, so they’re not stressed when and if the time comes.
Homes
Chugach Electric Association isn’t anticipating a power outage in the event of an eruption, but said residents should be prepared nonetheless.
“Just because the volcano erupts doesn’t mean there will be a power outage, like it’s not an imminent reaction,” company spokesperson Julie Hasquet said. “It would depend on the amount of ash, and how long it lasted.”
In 2009, the next closest volcano to Anchorage in the chain — Redoubt — erupted, coating Homer, Anchor Point and Seldovia with an eighth of an inch of ash, according to the Alaska Volcano Observatory. But it didn’t cause a power outage for Chugach Electric’s 91,000 customers from Anchorage to the northern Kenai Peninsula.
Ash can also clog heating, ventilation and air-conditioning systems. The U.S. Geological Survey recommends residents add “temporary filtration” to external air intakes, and to monitor and vacuum excess ash from the air intakes regularly.
Joe Atafua, store manager for the O’Reilly Auto Parts location on DeBarr Road, said a lot of customers have been coming in asking for pantyhose to use as temporary filters on engines and HVAC systems. As a result, he’s looking into sourcing a bulk order, he said.
Schools
Local school districts have communicated tentative action plans to families this week in the event of an eruption.
The Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District and Anchorage School District each said they will base their actions on several variables.
“Depending on the time of day, size of the eruption, and anticipated weather pattern related to any ash fall, potential responses may include school cancellations, early dismissal, or shelter-in-place protocols,” Mat-Su Borough School District spokesperson John Notestine wrote in a memo to families on March 16.
The Anchorage School District wrote that schools will close if they’re not in session and ashfall is forecast, and release kids early if they are in session and ashfall is imminent, according to a March 21 notice.
Every ASD school also has a volcano response plan with shelter-in-place procedures and air quality measures, the notice reads.
Next steps
Mount Spurr hasn’t shown any dramatic changes in the past week, according to Matt Haney, scientist-in-charge at the volcano observatory, jointly run by the U.S. Geological Survey, the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ Geophysical Institute and the state Division of Geological and Geophysical Surveys.
His team was conducting another flight over the volcano on March 21 to measure gas levels, which contribute to eruption likelihood, he said.
Scientists are also actively monitoring seismic data from Spurr that’s remotely captured and transmitted to the group’s Anchorage office in real time.
“We’re looking for a particular signal called volcanic tremor, that one often sees before volcanoes kind of make the final push towards going to an eruption,” Haney said on March 20. “We have not seen that yet.”
Based on past volcanic eruption behavior, there should be ample time to send out warnings before an eruption, Haney said. Volcanic tremors started three weeks before the June 1992 Spurr eruption, and two months before Redoubt erupted in 2009.
“It just doesn’t happen without any warning,” he said.
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – More reaction is pouring in from the latest federal governmental cuts, from the Trump Administration and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) which include federal grants and loans provided to initiatives across the nation.
On Monday, Alaska’s News Source reported on the executive order and how it will impact museums in Alaska. The Alaska Library Association and the Alaska Black Caucus are reacting, saying that the federal cuts will hurt members of the community.
Alaska Black Caucus
The Minority Business Development Agency is a federal agency that promotes the growth of minority business enterprises through expanding programs, policies, and research.
Yolandous Williams, Chair of the Board for Alaska Black Caucus, says the shuttering of the agency will negatively impact business opportunities in the state.
“Loss of opportunity, loss of jobs, loss of growth, and loss of people in our community. People will abandon the state because there’s no opportunity for me here. There’s no equity for me here,” Williams explained.
He also said the shuttering of the agency is a clear message from the administration.
“I’m going to make sure my corporate America gets taken care of, all those that are going to support me, whether I’m in my office or not, all the favors that I’ve cashed in,” he said.
The cuts have been a part of President Trump and DOGE’s core messaging promising budget cuts to the federal government.
Williams says he isn’t against having the debate over federal cuts, however, he says that by cutting access to the funding the president is setting the progress the black community has made back by 20 years.
“This is going to take two decades to rebuild, that’s how bad it’s going to hurt people,” he said.
The Alaska Black Caucus isn’t the only organization speaking out against the federal funding cuts, the Alaska Library Association is speaking out against cuts to the Institute for Museum and Library Services saying they will hurt small community libraries.
Alaska Library Association
“It’s going to have a really detrimental impact on library services all over the state,” President-elect of the Alaska Library Association Theresa Quiner said.
Quiner said because Alaska is a remote state with many small communities, the smallest ones will feel the loss of federal monies first. The Native American Library Services Basic Grant is given to around 38 tribes in Alaska.
“Through the Native American Library Services grant that we get, we pay for our Alaska Digital Library subscription. So, that’s how we provide eBooks and audiobooks to the community,” Quiner said.
One example of a native community that benefits from the grant, according to Quiner, is one with hardly 100 residents.
“Nondalton Tribal Council gets this Native American Library Services grant,” she said. “$10,000 is a lot of money in a community that small and I can’t imagine that they would be able to replace that funding easily from somewhere else.”
One program that is funded by the various grants provided by the institute is set to expire in December and without federal funding it won’t be renewed.
“The Statewide Library Electronic Doorway (SLED) is going to be eliminated completely in December if we lose these funds,” Quiner explained. “These are the databases provided by the state and these are a lot of educational resources for people of all ages, including children.”
The Alaska Library catalog is a part of SLED and allows areas without a local library to ship a book to them from the Juneau library. It will also be impacted by the cuts.
“For small libraries that have a really tiny budget to purchase books, this makes us able to actually meet the reading needs of the people in our community because we could never afford to buy the same quantity of books that the Anchorage Library could,” Quiner explained.
More programs that are facing federal funding cuts include ones that help engage children in reading like The Battle of the Books.
“Another service we will not be able to provide to the state anymore is the Talking Book Center, which makes reading materials available for people with visual impairments,” she explained.
Quiner said the benefits a library provides to a community are immeasurable.
“We do children’s programs, we provide computer access, and internet access in places where internet is prohibitively expensive,” Quiner said. “We also act in some ways, as you know, homeless shelters and as social services agencies because people just don’t have anywhere else to go for help.”
Sen. Sullivan on federal program cuts
On Thursday, Senator Sullivan addressed the Alaska State Legislature where he acknowledged the topic of cutting federal programs, saying he understands the pain that many families are facing, but that this type of overhaul has been done before, and that America will rebound.
“These are difficult decisions. Job losses are always difficult on the family, in communities, especially in tight-knit states like ours,” Sen. Sullivan said. “There has been a successful historical precedent. President Clinton launched the National Partnership for Reinventing Government during his first year in office. Its goal was to dramatically shrink the government and make it more efficient, which he did during his presidency. That initiative saved over $108 billion, and it eliminated over 426,00 federal jobs.”
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On a clear March afternoon, John Smet shut off the engine of his workboat as he approached his go-to wild kelp bed. It was high tide, so less kelp was pooling on the surface of the water, making it harder to see.
As the boat drifted ahead, his business partner Nick Stern noticed a kelp strand within reach. Using a gardening rake, he pulled it on board, cut off a few feet and threw the rest back. As Stern held up the shiny seaweed for a photo op, Smet explained the basic anatomy of Macrocystis pyrifera, the species known as giant kelp.
“So you have the blade, pneumatocyst, which is the little air pocket, and then stipe,” Smet said.
Giant kelp is probably what you picture when someone says “kelp,” those flowing golden-brown towers that fish dart through and sea otters like to sleep on top of. And this species is what brought the two entrepreneurs to Ketchikan.
After working several years in New York finance, the college friends decided to quit their jobs and start a company that could be both profitable and good for the planet. Stern grew up working on a garlic farm, so Smet said they wanted to focus on agriculture.
“We looked at a lot of different businesses, things like spirulina, or on-land-aquaculture, mushrooms, greenhouses, vertical farming,” Smet said. “And we thought that kelp was by far the most environmentally beneficial. And we thought, ‘Oh, there could really be a business here.’”
They settled on giant kelp because it’s one of the world’s fastest growing organisms, at up to two feet per day. That means their new company Pacific Kelp Co., can grow more biomass in a given area, making for a more efficient business model. They just got permitted to start a giant kelp farm in the waters off of Duke Island, and they plan to begin planting this summer.
Kelp farming is still a young industry in Alaska, but one that’s created a lot of excitement. Farmers throughout the state’s coastal communities can grow high quality kelp, a type of seaweed, but they’ve been hampered by a lack of local processing and insufficient demand for their products.
The Pacific Kelp founders think they can help address both of those issues.
They’ve been refining giant kelp into a liquid extract that they think can have big implications for the terrestrial farming world. They just received a grant to work with two universities, studying the benefits their extract has on growing wine grapes and grass. If it’s proven to work as they hope, it could drive up demand for kelp throughout Alaska.
And Pacific Kelp Co. will soon have something else to help their industry neighbors: a processing facility. Back on dry land, Stern stood inside a warehouse just south of downtown Ketchikan.
“With the equipment we have today, we can do about 1,000 kilograms or 2,200 pounds of raw kelp per day,” Stern said, pointing to their shredder and other machinery.
The company is sharing the space with local dive fisherman, but say they have plenty of room to process kelp from other regional farms and their own. Alaska currently has very few kelp processors, which makes it difficult and expensive to get the cumbersome raw product to markets in the Lower 48. Stern said that’s an industry gap they’re trying to fill.
“We’ve had talks with kelp farmers up in Kodiak and Juneau, over in Prince of Wales,” Stern said. “So once we’re up and running, [we can] buy their product, process it for them, and distribute and sell it into markets that we have been spending the better part of the last two years trying to cultivate and build.”
Part of that market cultivation process is proving that their liquified kelp extract can be an effective biostimulant, a specialized type of fertilizer. Kyle Wickings is one of two researchers they’ve partnered with to conduct field trials to demonstrate the value of their product. He’s a Cornell biologist who studies grass (officially called “turfgrass”) and he thinks Pacific Kelp’s fertilizer could help make grass, or any number of other plants, more resistant to stressors like drought and pests. And as bans on certain insecticides go into effect, Wickings said this extract could help farmers replace them.
“When you’ve got the potential for a product like a seaweed extract to sort of up regulate those defenses and stress tolerance of the plant, that’s, I think, what drives a lot of the interest across the whole range of different agricultural sectors,” Wickings said.
The $500,000 research grant comes from the Southeast Conference, a regional economic development organization. The goal of the project is to strengthen Alaska’s mariculture industry while contributing to broader agricultural sustainability efforts. Stern hopes the research will stir up demand for kelp products by showing that they can save farmers money on things like irrigation and synthetic fertilizer.
“If every school in the country is spraying kelp on their turf grass, they’re using a lot less water and fertilizer, but they’re also using a lot more Alaskan kelp,” Stern said.
Pacific Kelp plans to get their extract certified as a basic fertilizer and onto shelves in the next few months. The research project over the next two years will help the company complete the much more rigorous process to register as a specialized biostimulant.
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