Interior

A federal agency will conduct a study to determine the danger of drinking groundwater contaminated by the industrial solvent sulfolane in the North Pole area. The research was sought by the state of Alaska as it tries to set a clean up level for wells tainted by sufolane from spills at a local oil refinery. The new study will delay a determination on what constitutes safe water.

There’s a lot riding on the clean up standard, which determines what’s entailed in addressing sulfolane groundwater contamination stemming from historic spills at the North pole refinery most recently operated by Flint Hills Resources. Little is known about health impacts of consuming sulfolane tainted water, and Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation Spill Prevention and Response Director Kristin Ryan says a federal agency has agreed to undertake a 2 year study.

Last year Flint Hills challenged a very conservative 14 parts per billion preliminary clean up level. The state promised a response by the end of 2014, and Flint Hill spokesman Jeff Cook says the company is disappointed with DEC’s decision to delay. He cites findings of a group of toxicologists the DEC assembled last year.

There’s been no laboratory research on long term health impacts of drinking sulfolane tainted water. The DEC’s Ryan says the two-year federal study will employ animal testing.

About 1,500 people living on North Pole area properties where wells have tested positive for sulfolane contamination have been provided alternative water sources by Flint Hills. The company stopped operating the refinery last year citing costs related to the sulfolane issue as one of the reasons. Flint Hills, former refinery owner Williams and the state are embroiled in legal wrangling over responsibility for the contamination.

A case of measles in Fairbanks is the first confirmed occurrence of the highly contagious viral infection in the state in 15 years. The Alaska Department of Health and Social Services says a man who flew from Mongolia to Fairbanks on May 31 to work at the University of Alaska Fairbanks tested positive for the virus. He was at the university and numerous other locations around the city, including several stores, before he knew he had measles. The man was contagious through June 7 in Fairbanks.

State of Alaska Epidemiologist Dr. Joe McLaughlin suspects the man contracted measles in Mongolia, where there’s a large ongoing outbreak of the disease that causes a telltale rash, fever, runny nose, red eyes, and in rare cases can lead to deadly pneumonia or encephalitis.

“The big question is what should people in Fairbanks be doing.”

Dr. McLaughlin says that depends on a few things. He says people born before 1957 are likely immune to measles because they were exposed to the actual virus prior to widespread immunization. He says many born after that date were likely immunized as children, protection that lasts a lifetime, but otherwise…

“If you are un-vaccinated, under-vaccinated or you’re not sure, our recommendation is to go to your health care provider and make sure you get vaccinated.”

McLaughlin says measles spreads easily through the air, and respiratory secretions, even up to two hours after an infected person has been in a room.

“Measles is one of the most contagious pathogens known. About 90 percent of people who are exposed to measles, who have not been vaccinated, or have not had the infection in the past, will get infected.”

McLaughlin says symptoms typically take a week to 3 weeks to appear after exposure. He adds that the virus can spread from an infected person 4 days before the rash starts, and 4 days after it ends. McLaughlin urges watching for symptoms and calling a health care provider if you suspect you have measles.

“Then your health care provider will give you instructions about what to do. What he or she will likely say is I want you to come to the clinic, drive to the clinic, and we will send a nurse out to escort you into the clinic, and we’ll avoid the waiting room, because we don’t want other people to be exposed.”

The state reports that the man who traveled to Fairbanks with measles was on a flight from Seattle that stopped in Seattle, but not Anchorage. Federal officials are contacting people who may have been exposed on airlines outside of Alaska.

 

The public radio station that serves middle Yukon River area communities is making do while the station’s building is being elevated. KIYU Galena general manager Brian Landrum says the facility is being raised above the high water level as a precaution in case of floods like the one that inundated the village two years ago this month.

“We’re goin’ up about 3 feet higher,” Landrum says.

Rather than go off the air while the multi-day operation is completed, Landrum says he’s continuing to broadcast the station from his home.

“We have a backup transmitter and back up console, and we moved it into the downstairs room. I’m using my son’s room, and so we’ve got wires strung all over the place and we’ve got a box that sends the signal to our other villages and — knock on wood — we’ve been able to stay on, and be able to broadcast. We’re hoping to be able to stay on a few more days while they move the building back into place.”

Landrum says things are going fairly smoothly, but there are challenges to broadcasting out of his family’s home.

“We have five kids, and a dog, and a cat, and a parrot, and so yeah, you never know what kind of noise can get on the air, especially when the younger ones decide to fight over Legos or something like that,” Landrum says.

Landrum expects he’ll be able to return to the station facility by the middle of next week. He says the project has provided an opportunity to clear old abandoned wiring from the building, as well as do other clean-up work. All of that is expected to improve KIYU’s sound and operational efficiency. A mix of federal, state and local funds will pay to elevate the station, which serves as a primary information conduit in the region.

 

The University of Alaska Museum of the North opens a new exhibit Saturday. “Expedition Alaska: Dinosaurs” gives visitors the opportunity to experience paleontologists quest and what they’re finding in an underexplored region.

Amid the stapling, drilling and cutting of the dinosaur exhibit going up, Museum of the North earth science curator Pat Druckenmiller reflects on the aberrant natural environment Arctic Alaska dinosaurs roamed 70 million years ago.

Druckenmiller has spent the last eight years working in Alaska, looking for and finding evidence of dinosaurs in a part of the world where the creatures once walked, but few paleontologists have explored.

The museum exhibit includes casts of footprints as well as fossilized bone fragments Druckenmiller and fellow scientists are using to identify and even discover dinosaur species.

Druckenmiller is working with Alaska Native speakers to come up with names for the new Alaska dinosaurs. The exhibit takes visitors into what it’s to be paleontologist exploring for dinosaur evidence in Alaska’s backcountry.

Roger Topp heads up production at the museum and has accompanied the paleontology team to shoot photos and video. He’s also involved in fleshing out an exhibit, which includes dinosaur models, even one that moves.

Other kid friendly parts of the exhibit are a big orange tent fashioned after one paleontologists use in the field, and tubs of silt visitors can paw through to try and find fossils. Seeing it all come together and connecting scientific field work with the public is gratifying for Druckenmiller.

Druckenmiller says some of the special exhibit materials will be incorporated into the museum’s permanent dinosaur display, which hasn’t been updated in 30 years.

The selection of Clear helps solidify Alaska’s role as host to the ground-based mid-course missile defense system, designed primarily to shoot down warheads from North Korea. Clear is on the Parks Highway, 80 miles from Fairbanks. It is already home to an upgraded early warning radar system that will be part of the missile defense system.

Riki Ellison, chairman of the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance, says LRDR improves the view of the target, giving interceptors a better chance.

“You want to see it, just like a baseball player playing outfield. You want to be able to watch that ball once it gets hit off the bat all the way into the mitt, to make the best chance of catching the ball,” says Ellison, whose organization accepts money from the defense industry. “Right now, we can’t see it all the way through. We have to close our eyes for a good part of it, and then we have to look up and find it.”

That’s the “long-range” part of the name. Ellison says the “discrimination” part is also vital to defeating an enemy missile.

“When it goes though space, there’s a lot of junk. There’s a lot of parts. There’s a lot of stuff in that, including countermeasures, including decoys and maybe a couple of warheads in there, he said.  “So this radar is able to pinpoint exactly what the actual vehicle is, the target vehicle that’s carrying the weapon.”

George Lewis, a visiting scholar at Cornell University and a long-time critic of missile defense, says the discrimination is crucial. Lewis says existing radar will likely spot a North Korean launch right away, or when it clears any cloud cover in a minute or so.

“We will see it quite early in flight. This radar would probably be the first one that can begin to make serious discrimination measurements, and the earlier you do that, the better off you are,” said Lewis.

Existing radar, Lewis says, has a range resolution of about 30 feet.

“That means that at about 30 feet apart — if there are two objects that are about 30 feet apart — that’s the distance at which it would being to be able to tell that there’s two objects, instead of one,” he said.

A typical warhead is about 6 feet long, so Lewis says the current system would see lots of stuff as a possible warhead. Lewis says LRDR’s range resolution would most likely be about 18 inches. Even with LRDR, Lewis says it won’t be easy to pick out the warheads from the debris, but he calls it a necessary component.

LRDR is estimated to cost about $1 billion. Much of that will be spent on hardware and technology, though the system would require construction on site. The Missile Defense Agency says it hopes to have the new radar system operational by 2020.

 

The northern end of the Dalton Highway is closed again. A month after overflow from the Sag River shut it down, spring melt water has made the only access road to the North Slope oil fields impassable again.

On Sunday night the Alaska Department of Transportation announced a 4 day closure of the Dalton Highway from mile 375 to 410, south of Prudhoe Bay.  DOT spokeswoman Meadow Bailey says it was anticipated that overflow ice that that built up this spring would cause major problems during break up.

Bailey says the DOT is prepared for serious road damage due to erosion.

Bailey says the worst area remains between milepost 395 and 405, but the closure has been expanded to take in a few other areas where there’s water over the highway, and to allow a contractor to stage repair equipment and materials. She says the section of main impact is completely covered by flood water.

Bailey says the state has been in communication with North Slope oil companies and the truckers who supply them, and they prepared for the extended closure. After the flooding subsidies and emergency repairs are made, the section of road is scheduled for major reconstruction this summer that will raise it 7 feet above the current grade.