KNBA Newscast for September 21, 2015
Walrus Deaths
By Matthew Smith, KNOM
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says they received an email about the walrus deaths. They were found just off of Cape Lisburne , not far from a small manned Air Force radar site now serving as the basis for the federal wilflife agency’s investigation. Many of the animals were found headless—their tusks apparently harvested—and locals say some carcasses were found riddled with bullet holes.
“We have sent a couple of officers out there to Cape Lisburne to investigate,” Medeioros said.
Andrea Medeioros with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says federal laws limit walrus hunting to Alaska Native subsistence users. But the fact that some of the animals’ tusks were harvested—along with their oosiks, the prized walrus penis bone—doesn’t necessarily mean they were killed illegally.
“We can’t say with any certainty what for one the cause of death here was. You know, these animals, from the photos, do appear to have their heads taken off, but we can’t make any assumptions that that’s why they were killed, if they were in fact killed. You know, people can take the heads if they find a dead walrus on the beach,” Meddeioros said.
Hunting walrus purely for ivory—and not harvesting the animal’s meat—is illegal under the 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Act.
Steve Oomittuk is a subsistence whale and walrus hunter in Point Hope. He says bad ice conditions led to a poor spring walrus harvest this past year—which makes him and others in the community angry to see good walrus go to waste.
“This kind of stuff we don’t tolerate, and you know the animals have always been a food source for us. And we were never taught to waste or anything like that. So we just want to get to the bottom of this and we find out what exactly happened. And if they have gunshot wounds and everything and the heads were gone then someone’s doing something that should not ever be done,” Oomittuk said.
The Eskimo Walrus Commission—based out of Nome but with a commission member in Point Hope—is working jointly with the Fish and Wildlife on the investigation. Investigators were on scene Friday, using the remote Air Force station as a base of operations.
Tommy Baker with Alaskan Command says the Air Force site is providing a home base for the operations.
Newtok Relocation
By Charles Enoch, KYUK
Residents in the small coastal village of Newtok in Southwest Alaska have been preparing to move as erosion eats away at their village. A dispute over who has tribal authority slowed the process, but now that dispute has been decided by federal courts, a new set of tribal officials are getting the relocation effort underway again. But with climate change accelerating the erosion many are getting anxious that the move can’t happen soon enough. Charles Enoch went to Newtok and has this story.
Newtok resident Nathan Tom is living in the house closest to the eroding shoreline. This isn’t the first interview for the 31-year old. In a piece by The Guardian, he explained he wasn’t too concerned, but that was 2 years ago.
“Last time I’ve been on YouTube before and that time I said I wasn’t worried but now I am,” Tom said.
That’s because now the home he grew up in is about a hundred feet away from the water. Increased storm surges and warming permafrost are washing away between 50 and 75 feet of land each year. Tom predicts he has a couple years before his house is literally on the brink, and like most residents he says the move can’t come sooner.
“I don’t know how they’re going to do it. We don’t exactly don’t know how they’re going to do it. I don’t wanna lose this house cause it was this my moms house, grandma, who raised me since I was a baby,” Tom said.
Tom says his house was one of over 20 that were inspected and deemed stable enough to be relocated 9 miles South to the new site called Mertarvik or “a place to pack water” in Yup’ik, located across the Baird Inlet. But getting there won’t be easy as there are no connecting roads in this region of Alaska.
This time of year people get around on foot or with ATV’s , navigating a system of sinking boardwalks barely able to keep them out of the mud.
Many from the village are out hunting moose during the stormy fall season. Some are picking berries on the tundra. You wouldn’t notice the sense of urgency. But the village has been waiting for a decision on a legal dispute between the old tribal council called the Newtok Tradtional Council and the new one, called the Newtok Village Council
The old Traditional Council had been in charge of the move since it’s inception in the 1980s.
But as state and federal funding become available many in Newtok began to wonder if their leaders were properly managing the relocation.
49 year Newtok resident Teddy Tom says residents were eventually fed up with the way the old council was running things.
"We started to ask questions. 'When's this road project going to happen?' and they say it's going to happen next year and it doesn't. And they say we're going to move next year too and [it] never happened. We got tired of being lied to,” Tom said.
Teddy, and many others, say villagers petitioned the Traditional Council to hold an official election but the council never followed up. Then Newtok residents, with the help of state agencies, held their own vote in October 2012 to elect a new council. The results would have swept the old leadership away, but the Traditional Council said that election wasn’t valid. Leaving funding agencies with no clear tribal entity to work with.
That conflict was resolved in August this year when the Interior Board of Indian Appeals upheld a 2013 BIA ruling, siding with the new Village Council and providing the new leadership with tribal legitimacy.
Now the Newtok Village Council is spearheading the effort and they say the groundbreaking project is coming together. Romy Cadiente is the Village Council’s tribal coordinator. He says there is little room for error this time around.
"You look at the eroding shoreline and the imminent flood. We don't have very much time, we need to get this thing right. We need to get it right this time,” Cadiente said.
Cadiente says they are currently re-establishing connections with state and federal agencies to provide funding for the move. The U.S.Army Corps of Engineers estimates the move could cost an upwards of $80 - $130 million dollars. Cadence says there are plans to use a barges to transport the buildings though nothing’s concrete as of yet. The new tribal administrator, Thom John, says it will be a relief when it happens.
"This new site has a beautiful scenery, espesially in a clear sunny day, the view is very beautiful. And it's higher ground, wouldn't have to worry about high floods,” Cadiente said.
The new site already has six houses. The plans for the new site include two intersecting airport runways, plots for houses, a wind farm, a water plant, a small boat harbor, and a community garden. facilities that Newtok residents don’t currently have.
There is also a foundation for what was supposed to be an evacuation and community center; a critical piece that would have served as a multipurpose building during the move, if it were completed. Thom John says without access to the old council’s documentation it’s hard to know exactly what happened.
"The council dissolved the MOA with DOT and public facilities. and from there it seemed like everything stopped,” John said.
According to an audit done by the State of Alaska Division of community and Regional Affairs, legislature awarded $4 million to the project in 2010, and $2.5 million again in 2011. The audit brought to light "questionable spending" and poor accounting practices. According to the Alaska Dispatch the FBI has made inquiries into the matter.
John says only about 1.9 million is left and no one knows for sure how the other part was spent.
KYUK contacted several former officials with the Newtok Traditional Council but they declined to interview.
Back at Thom John’s home in Newtok, his wife Bernice John says it will be hard to move for some since it has been their home for a long time, but she adds it could have some benefits.
"Oh it'll be a good time for sorting my house out anyway,” John said.
According to locals the the Yup'ik name of the village "Nugtaq" means "the village that moved."
A reference to the a relocation effort in the in the 50's and 60's to move the community closer to a barge landing. And Bernice says moving has always been a part of her ancestor's lives.
"They've always been adapting cause they're always moving back and fourth. Spring time they disperse to their fishing and hunting grounds, and by wintertime they would head back to a whole village site thats where they winter,” John said.
But this move, she hopes, is permanent. And it won’t be decided by the seasons, but rather the Newtok Village Council’s ability to win ,and manage government funding. They hope to begin moving homes as early as 2018 but given the setbacks it could be later.