Southeast

Cruise ships are subject to federal rules that limit how much they can pollute the water with toxic chemicals that originate from their exhaust. Think: heavy metals and leftover fuel oil.

But federal data shows that a subset of ships violate those standards in Alaska hundreds of times a year. And regulators don’t appear to be doing much about it.

That’s the key takeaway from data released in August by the Southeast Alaska Conservation Council, a Juneau based group.

Every year, cruise ships provide annual reports to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that disclose how many times they’ve discharged water that does not meet federal safety standards.

Aaron Brakel, a clean water campaigner at the organization, dug through reports from 46 operators in 2023 and 2024. All told, he found that 17 ships reported more than 700 violation days in Alaska in the two-year time frame.

Those violations came exclusively from vessels that use open-loop scrubber systems. Those systems suck in sea water to “scrub” toxic chemicals, including sulfur, from engine exhaust – and then dump it back in the ocean. That’s different from closed-loop scrubbers, which dispose of the discharge onshore.

“It’s troubling that even with these very weak permit standards, and very weak self-reporting requirements, that the ships with open-loop scrubbers are still reporting hundreds of violations of the limits every year,” Brakel said.

Open loop systems help cruise ships comply with international air pollution requirements that took effect in 2020. They do so by allowing ships to emit less air pollution while still burning cheap, heavy fuel.

That in turn has created a relatively new source of ocean pollution in Alaska that critics say has major implications for marine ecosystems.

“That can have a tremendous number of impacts on organisms in the marine environment,” Brakel said.

One study, published in 2021, found that exposure to gas scrubber discharge led to “severe toxic effects” for a tiny crustacean, known as a Pelagic Copepod, near the bottom of the ocean food web.

Gene McCabe heads the water division at the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation, which doesn’t regulate this type of discharge. He said federal standards for each pollutant were set using statistical data that suggests discharges that meet those standards shouldn’t harm people or marine life.

“Whenever we go beyond those water quality standards, we’re in a murkier area,” McCabe said. “We’re in a murky area because we can’t really say for certain that it is safe or that there will be damage or that there will be impacts.”

An EPA permit sets limits for pollutants including acidity, concentration of heavy metals and leftover fuel oil. But Brakel says violations of those standards have rarely led to federal enforcement.

“It’s a story of an orphaned permit, where these scrubber discharge requirements have never been enforced,” Brakel said.

In an emailed statement, the EPA declined to comment on enforcement matters. But the agency did note that it has taken enforcement actions against Carnival Corporation, including in 2017. That was after the company installed open-loop scrubbers on its ships starting in 2014.

By 2016, all but one of its Alaska vessels had violated federal acidity standards, according to state documents.

The company eventually paid a $14,500 fine and agreed to work toward addressing the issue, including by closely monitoring scrubber discharge pH and improving its scrubber systems.

But EPA also responded by loosening the existing standard while the company worked to remedy the problem – a policy Brakel said is still in place today.

McCabe, with the state, said he can’t speak to the federal enforcement strategy. But he emphasized that his department is still paying close attention.

“It is probably driving the reason why we are keeping an eye on scrubbers ourselves. Even though it’s not our permit, it’s still our water,” McCabe said. “And we want to at least have data where we can get it.”

Brakel, the conservationist, also took issue with the violation reports themselves. They don’t include when or where the violations took place. As he sees it, that keeps cruise towns from using the information to hold the industry accountable.

“If people can’t tell that this is happening, they have no way to respond to the industry to say,’ “Hey, what are you doing? Hey, these are our waters. Hey, this is our food,'” Brakel said.

The industry group Cruise Lines International Association did not respond to a request for comment.

The Alaska Marine Highway System ferry LeConte will continue to be out of service leading into the weekend.

The ferry, which services Southeast Alaska communities, was moored in Juneau because of engine trouble last weekend. Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities’ staff said they hoped to have the ferry up and running by Thursday. However, spokesperson Shannon McCarthy said Thursday that it still needs some work. 

“Our mechanics are working around the clock to get that fixed,” she said. “Unfortunately, we are confident that we will not be able to get the ship back in the water and get the U.S. Coast Guard approvals in time for Friday’s sailing. So we are canceling that.”

The ferry began experiencing engine loss and other mechanical issues last weekend when traveling from Hoonah to Kake. Ferry staff decided to have it towed to Juneau for repairs. The service disruption left many on the ship stuck in Juneau, including the Kake City Schools cross-country team. 

McCarthy said the department is offering refunds or rebooking affected passengers on the MV Hubbard or a private catamaran, but it cannot provide transportation for vehicles.

Alaska Marine Highway staff scrambled to fix the ferry before the start of the Klondike Road Relay on Friday. Many runners in Juneau and Haines rely on the LeConte to transport their teams and vehicles to Skagway for the start of the race. 

“As vessels age, they require a lot more TLC,” McCarthy said. “We do try to get anything fixed when they’re in for their normal service in the shipyard, but because vessels are older, some unforeseen circumstances will happen.”

McCarthy said the department plans to share another update on the vessel’s status on Saturday.

A woman accused of stabbing her husband to death in the Southeast Alaska community of Metlakatla was arrested early Saturday morning.

Court records show that Jade Jordan, 33, charged with one count of criminally negligent homicide in the death of Kevin Jordan, 36.

In a charging document against Jordan, police said when they arrived at the Jordans’ residence Saturday, they saw Jade Jordan standing in the driveway with dried blood on her. Her husband was lying face down in the driveway with stab wounds. Medics took him to the local medical clinic, where he was later pronounced dead.

The couple’s two children were home at the time.

Alaska State Troopers from nearby Ketchikan assisted in the investigation Sunday. They said Jordan told them that she and her husband had been drinking and were arguing and pushing each other that night. That’s when troopers said she stabbed him near the left clavicle with a kitchen paring knife.

The public defender’s office in Ketchikan is representing Jordan. Staff did not immediately return a request for comment.

A preliminary hearing is set for Friday in the Ketchikan Courthouse.

Twenty-nine Kake City School students and five chaperones were stuck overnight in Juneau over the weekend following mechanical issues with the Alaska ferry MV LeConte.

Kake City School District Superintendent Anji Gallanos said the school’s cross-country team was on its way back from a meet in Hoonah on Saturday when the LeConte was unexpectedly towed to Juneau. Alaska Marine Highway System officials said the ferry had mechanical issues.

Students stayed on the ferry while it was towed to Juneau overnight before ferry staff sent them home on a catamaran Sunday morning.

Gallanos estimates the catamaran trip home and lodging could have cost the district upwards of $20,000 if the ferry system didn’t step in. That’s roughly a quarter of the district’s travel budget for the whole school year. She said the additional cost might have meant the district would need to limit future sports travel.

“We would have had to do some pretty extensive fundraising,” she said. “We might have had to make some decisions as to whether or not we could bring more players to games throughout the region, or even be able to participate.”

The district budgeted $80,000 this year for student travel for a limited number of sports, including basketball, wrestling, volleyball, cross country, and art and music festivals. In an email to KTOO, Gallanos said the district has gone over its budget for travel in the past.

Gallanos said ferry service to Kake is limited in general. This year’s winter ferry schedule has the LeConte scheduled with service to Kake two to three times a month. She said the district uses the ferry system for more than just sports travel.

“We really rely on those ferries,” Gallanos said. “And the more ferries, the more opportunities we have to reduce our budget in our school district so we don’t have to rely on costly things like airfare, flying in things for parts and goods and services.”

Kake’s student athletes have about a month before they travel to Palmer for the state cross country meet. Gallanos said they will likely fly for its next meet because of limited ferry service. The LeConte remains out of service as of Tuesday afternoon.

The Alaska Marine Highway System ferry MV LeConte broke down over the weekend. 

Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities spokesperson Shannon McCarthy said the ferry, which serves Southeast Alaska communities, will be out of commission until at least Thursday. 

“Marine Highway staff and crew are working as hard as they can to get this vessel back up and running as quickly as possible,” she said. 

McCarthy said the ferry began experiencing engine loss and other issues on Saturday when traveling from Hoonah to Kake. She said ferry staff decided to have it towed to Juneau for repairs on Sunday.

The service disruption left many on the ship stuck in Juneau, including the Kake cross-country team. The department offered catamarans for stranded riders to travel to Kake and Angoon. 

Alaska Marine Highway staff says they are scrambling to fix the ferry before the start of the Klondike Road Relay in Skagway this Friday. 

The Klondike Road Relay is an annual tradition for many Alaska endurance runners. The 10-part relay race begins Friday evening in Skagway. Runners will take turns running throughout the night and morning over the Coast Mountains and into Whitehorse, Yukon. Many in Juneau and Haines rely on the LeConte to transport their teams and vehicles to Skagway for the race. 

McCarthy said the department is looking for alternative solutions for impacted travelers until the LeConte is fixed. 

“We are really hoping to have the vessel repaired and back returned to service quickly,” she said. “But if by any chance we don’t have all of our ships available running, we will absolutely be looking at alternative service, such as a catamaran.”

The LeConte is currently moored in Juneau at the Auke Bay Ferry terminal as it undergoes repairs.

For about a decade, Scott Jackson had a system. He was the owner of Rocky Pass Tannery in the village of Kake on Kupreanof Island, where he and his team tanned sea otter pelts.

He can still recite the steps in precise detail. Pressure wash the fat off the pelts for four hours. Put the pelts in a pressurizing machine called an auto-tanner for three hours. Hang the pelts until they swell. Shave them with a circle beaver fleshing knife. Put in a citric acid bath for three days. Neutralize with baking soda. Oil. Dry.

“It takes a lot more than you realize to make a good, soft, supple, sewing hide,” Jackson said.

About a year and a half ago, he closed the tannery. Jackson said trying to keep up with the high demand was unsustainable. At one point, Jackson said they tanned 187 hides in a month with fewer than a dozen employees.

“Pretty soon it becomes stress, and pretty soon it becomes unhealthy,” he said.

When Rocky Pass Tannery shuttered, that left their customers throughout Southeast Alaska with few options to continue their traditional cultural practices of hunting and skin-sewing sea otters.

Access to tannery services is just one of many barriers facing sea otter hunters. Federal rules restrict sea otter hunting to those who are a quarter or more Alaska Native or an enrolled member of a coastal tribe. Federal regulations also say that hunted sea otters must be converted into “authentic Native handicrafts.” These barriers are making it more difficult for hunters to tackle sea otter overpopulation, which is threatening shellfish populations in Southeast Alaska.

Shipping out-of-state

Now, many sea otter craftspeople ship their pelts to the only sea otter tannery outside of Alaska — in southern Idaho.

Aanutein Deborah Head is a skin-sewing teacher from Craig on Prince of Wales Island and one of Jackson’s former customers. She’s an experienced sea otter hunter and skin-sewer. But she never learned how to tan.

“I could have said, ‘Grandma, show me how to tan it so the hide doesn’t fall off of it,’” Head said. “I didn’t, and that’s lost to me.”

It was more convenient when she could send her sea otters to Kake, Head said. In particular, it costs her a lot more in shipping to send the skins on a thousand-plus-mile journey to southern Idaho.

Kootink Heather Douville learned how to skin-sew from Head while growing up in Craig. Now, she’s an avid hunter. Like Head, she also sends her sea otter pelts to Idaho so she can make and sell handicrafts like hats, pillows and fur ball earrings.

From the time she spots a sea otter in the water and aims for its head to when she finishes the last stitch on a handicraft, just about every part of the process is either expensive or time-consuming. She hunted 200 otters last year and about 120 this year.

“For me, it’s not just an investment as far as money goes, it’s your time,” Douville said. “I think that’s why we have so few hunters out there, in addition to the blood quantum limitations through the federal agencies.”

An alternative approach

In Klawock, just six miles north of Craig, Anthony Charles has found another way to save on tanning costs — by doing the tanning himself. He’s been running a sea otter product business for about seven years with his father. He used to ship to Rocky Pass Tannery before it closed, but decided to tan himself to save on shipping. Even though Kake is significantly closer than Idaho, it’s still about 100 miles by air from Klawock.

A couple of years ago, Charles bought tanning equipment and set it up under a tent. When his setup was destroyed in a windstorm, he was faced with a difficult decision.

“I almost kind of walked away from it after that,” he said.

Instead, he decided to rebuild and keep his tanning operation going.

“I had to really bite down,” he said. “It was worth it.”

But tanning in-house doesn’t work for everyone. Douville tried tanning on her own at one point, but felt that it didn’t produce a high enough quality pelt for sewing. She also prefers to focus her time on hunting and sewing.

“If I were to hunt and tan my own pelts, I would have a big stack of pelts, but no time to convert them and sell them,” she said.

Impact on sea otter overpopulation

Jackson said that since he’s closed the tannery, it seems like sea otter hunting has slowed down in Kake.

Douville said she feels like she’s not making much of a difference in the sea otter populations.

“They’re multiplying at a much faster rate than I can hunt them,” Douville said.

Despite the barriers, Douville remains committed to hunting and sewing as a way to connect to her Lingít culture. As she learned more about sea otter overpopulation and its threat to shellfish, she says it became even more meaningful for her.

“The last bucket of clams my dad dug was in 2011 and the last sea urchins we got was when I was a little kid,” she said. “When you remove access to a traditional food, you’re removing the ability to pass on that knowledge to the next generation on how to hunt or collect the food.”

The future of tanneries

Jackson, the former tannery owner, is unsure what the fate of local tanneries will be.

“Are we going to have tanneries around forever? I don’t know,” said Jackson. “I know that we all don’t live forever, and eventually we got to tap out.”

He’s not sure if he’ll reopen the tannery in Kake, but Jackson said he’d like to go to other towns and teach people how to set up a sustainable tannery.

“I think tanning would be number one, and teaching them how to sew is number two,” he said. “We got to open up our minds a little bit and say, let’s have a tannery in every community.”