Western

In 2015, Western Alaska had the highest rate of sexual assault in the state per capita. By far. That’s according to a first-of-its-kind study from the Alaska Department of Public Safety that compiles reports of sexual assault from all state law enforcement agencies.

Three-hundred seventy people out of every 100,000 were survivors of sexual assault in Western Alaska last year. Megan Peters is the spokesperson for the Alaska State Troopers, one of the agencies that responds to sexual assault cases.

“The average victim age is 15-years-old, and it would be a female. And for the suspect information, the most likely suspects are male 22-year-olds,” said Peters.

In the majority of cases, the victim knew their offender. They were often an acquaintance, a friend, or a family member, and in most cases, the offender physically overpowered the victim. The majority of assaults occurred in the home of either the victim or the assailant.

In over half the cases, either the victim or the suspect was Alaska Native or American Indian. The most commonly reported charge was sexual assault in the first degree, which includes, among many things, penetration without consent.

Though Western Alaska had the most sexual assaults per capita last year, the Anchorage area had the highest number overall. There were 659, compared to Western Alaska’s nearly 275 cases. The Anchorage data only included the number of cases reported. It did not report other information, such as weapons used, type of sexual assault reported, location, and information on the victim or offender.

Peters, with the State Troopers, says future reports will allow for better comparison.

“The report was done this year for the first time because a couple years ago the legislature mandated that we study this a little more and put out what the findings were. This is the first year that we’ve had sufficient information to put it out,” said Peters.

Also, Peters says the report only includes felony level cases that happened in the state, and it can’t be compared with national statistics – or even Alaska’s statistics – in the FBI’s Universal Crime Reporting system, because the numbers are calculated differently.

The over 1,300 felony-level sex offenses included in the study reflect only reported cases, not convictions. For more information on the study click here.

President Obama today issued an executive order creating the “Northern Bering Sea Climate Resilience Area.” The area covers more than 100,000 square miles off Alaska’s western coast, from the mouth of the Kuskokwim to just north of the Bering Strait. The president’s order withdraws about 40 percent of the area from offshore oil and gas leasing. It also reaffirms an existing ban in the area on bottom-trawl fishing.

Alaska’s congressional delegation pre-reacted, before the order came out, warning the president not to close off any more of Alaska’s ocean. Sen. Dan Sullivan later said Obama imposed “a unilateral action to hurt Alaskans.”

But for 64-year-old Harry Lincoln, a subsistence hunter from Tununak, this isn’t a case of the president imposing his will on distant seas. Lincoln is chairman of the Bering Strait Elders Group. He said he was stunned to learn the president has acted on the urgent request of the 39 tribes Lincoln represents.

“It’s the happiest moment I ever had in my life!” Lincoln said.

Native American Rights Fund attorney Natalie Landreth said it’s a historic action.

“The level of presidential responsiveness to a group of some of the poorest and smallest native communities in the United States is the real story here,” she said.

She said the story began not in Washington, but in Bethel, in July of 2015, just before the president’s Alaska visit. The Bering Sea Elders were meeting and Landreth was there as their attorney. The elders, she said, were worried about the decline of sea ice and what the predicted increase in ship traffic would mean for the marine mammals they hunt.

“And then somebody said — I wish I could remember who: ‘Let’s ask the president for help.’ And I said, that’s what you’d call a hail Mary. And then I had to explain what that was,” Landreth recalled.

The term is applied to desperate efforts, with almost no chance of success. But, Landreth said, the elders resolved to try.

“Over the past 15 months,” the attorney said, “people from rural Alaska went to the president’s office and said, ‘This is what we need.’”

The order, she said, mirrors a resolution the Bering Sea Elders passed in June. Landreth said it can prevent the kind of conflict seen now with the Standing Rock Sioux over the North Dakota Access Pipeline, because a main theme of Obama’s order is the early inclusion of Bering Sea tribes in federal decision making that concerns their region.

“It’s not just the text of the order,” she said. “It’s the fact that the president would spend an inordinate amount of time to try to help these people. I’ve never seen that in my life. I’m not sure that we’re going to see it again.”

The area the president is withdrawing from oil leasing is roughly Norton Sound, the southern strait and around St. Lawrence Island.

Gov. Bill Walker issued a statement saying he supports tribal leaders in their efforts to protect their resources, but that he’s concerned about lost development opportunities for the state.

Landreth said the withdrawal doesn’t harm the economy because it has been offered and explored in the past, with no results.

“This is not a commercially viable area,” she said. “It just isn’t.”

And now that’s less likely than ever. Obama used a provision of the offshore leasing act known as 12(a). Drilling opponents maintain these kind of withdrawals are permanent. Alaska Congressman Don Young said he plans to ask the next president, Donald Trump, to reverse this order. That’s legally possible, but historically, these orders tend to endure.

Rachel Waldholz contributed to this story from Anchorage.

President Obama today issued an executive order creating the “Northern Bering Sea Climate Resilience Area” of 112,300 square miles.

The order aims to include local tribes in decision-making about shipping through the Bering Strait, among other activities in the area.

He also announced $30 million pledges from philanthropic groups for projects “related to shipping, ecosystem science, community and ecological resilience, and tribal engagement.”

The order withdraws 40,300 square miles from oil and gas leasing. For fishing, the order reaffirms an existing ban on bottom trawling. It is not, though, a “monument” designation, which some Alaskans feared would permanently lock up resources to development.

According to the White House:

The Northern Bering Sea Climate Resilience Area is delineated for the purpose of focusing a locally-tailored collection of protections related to oil and gas, shipping, and fishing. The order also establishes a Task Force charged with coordinating Federal activities in this area to enhance ecosystem and community resilience, conserve natural resources, and protect the cultural and subsistence values this ecosystem provides for Alaskan native communities. Further, agencies are directed to consider traditional knowledge in decision making and establish a formal consultative mechanism for engaging with regional tribal governments to seek their input on Federal activities.

This is a developing story.

The last commercial harvest of Pribilof Island blue king crab was in 1999. Extremely low population numbers have kept that fishery closed.

“They’re almost like unicorns in the trawl survey now,” said Lauren Divine, co-director of St. Paul’s Environmental Conservation Office. “There are very, very, very few being found. When you find one it’s kind of unreal. It’s kind of surreal. ”

As the blue king crab population goes down, fishermen on St. Paul Island face more restrictions to reduce bycatch. And when those crab are caught accidentally, that can lower fishing quotas even more. Those precautions are intended to protect crab and help the species rebound.

One idea Divine thinks could help the species recover is outstocking. That’s when female crab are plucked from the wild, flown to a hatchery where their eggs are raised until the young crab are dime-sized, and then they’re all returned to the ocean.

That method is being tested in Kodiak on red king crab and Divine says they’re seeing positive results.

“That gives us a lot of hope to say if it worked with red king crab, we could do this outstocking,” Divine said. “We could put these babies in the wild somewhere where we could go back and check. We could actually track survival, see them molt, and see the success of these crabs surviving.”

But the restrictions in place to protect the crab also make it difficult to do research on the species. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game would have to issue a permit to allow Divine to remove crab out of the water. That permitting process takes a long time, but Divine thinks it’s time to try.

“In the 16 years that we’ve been looking at this species and been trying to rebuild this species, nothing else has worked,” she said. “There is nothing to suggest that simply not touching them is going to do anything for the population in the future.”

At this point, she says scientists have exhausted other ideas. There’s only so much you can take from one population and apply to another.

Divine dreams of the day St. Paul’s fishermen will be able to fish without being limited by blue king crab bycatch.

The village of Newtok plans to request a federal disaster declaration from President Barack Obama before he leaves office. The village is facing rapid erosion due to climate change, and officials say a disaster declaration may be the best chance to unlock federal funds for relocation before the existing village becomes uninhabitable.

There’s no question Newtok faces disaster. Erosion and melting permafrost have destroyed the landfill, the sewage lagoon, and the barge landing. An engineer’s report this month estimates the village of about 350 people will lose four to six homes by next fall, and the school sometime in 2018.

Joel Neimeyer is co-chair of the Denali Commission, the federal agency charged with coordinating village relocation in Alaska. He said many places are facing threats from erosion — but Newtok is in a class by itself.

“I’ve worked all across rural Alaska for 31 years, been to over 100 communities. I’ve never seen anything like this,” Neimeyer said.

The problem is, Newtok faces a slow motion disaster. And that’s not what federal disaster relief is set up for. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, is designed to respond to specific events: a hurricane, a flood, an earthquake.

And the federal government has historically insisted Newtok seek funding through more traditional avenues. But Mike Walleri, the attorney for the Newtok Village Council, said at this point, that’s not going to work.

“We just simply don’t have time,” Walleri said.

That’s the message representatives from Newtok took with them on a trip to Washington D.C. this fall. Walleri said it was an eye opener for people in the capital. Despite President Obama’s trip to Alaska last year highlighting exactly this issue, he said, official Washington didn’t realize the true state of things.

“Most people had not been aware that Newtok could not take advantage of what they call the catalog of federal assistance, simply because the village will be destroyed before the normal federal assistance can be applied for and implemented into the field,” he said.

Walleri said despite the traditional limits on FEMA, the president has a lot of leeway in defining a disaster. And a 2013 change in the Stafford Act, which governs disaster relief, allows tribes to request a federal disaster declaration directly, instead of going through the state.

That declaration would make the village eligible for funding from agencies across the government. That could include direct assistance to individuals to repair or replace homes, money to replace public utilities, and funding that could be used to move to the new village site upriver. Walleri said Newtok needs about $80 million.

It’s far from a sure thing. Even if the president issues the disaster declaration, Congress would still have to appropriate the money.

But Newtok thinks it’s worth a try. Walleri said the tribe hopes to make the request within two weeks.

Alaska’s former attorney general has a new job.

Craig Richards will be the vice president and general counsel for the Bering Straits Native Corporation.

Richards said he looks forward to serving the Nome region.

“Really, what convinced me that it was the right place for me was just meeting everyone and seeing what a good rapport and good team environment they have, and the ability to help out the Nome region,” Richards said.

Richards had two contracts with the state after he abruptly resigned as attorney general in June. The first was for $50,000 to consult the state on oil and gas issues. Richards’ second contract was for $10,000 to advise on “fiscal and other issues.”

Gov. Bill Walker’s spokeswoman Katie Marquette said Richards’ work has ended. Richards declined to say what his new position will pay.

Richards was a close adviser to Walker on the proposed natural gas pipeline, and on Walker’s plan to solve the state government’s budget crisis. He said he’ll miss working in the upcoming legislative session.

“As someone that’s had a history in finance and economics — and oil and gas in the state — you know, it’s probably been since the early ’70s that we’ve had the kind of issues that have to be tackled that we do now,” Richards said. “So, not being a part of that is going to be, you know, a disappointment but on the other hand, I’m also excited to move on to the next thing.”

Richards said his new job won’t conflict with a state law that bars former state officers from working for two years on matters that they participated in personally and substantially.

He said his new duties will be very different than his old job.

He’ll report to Corporation President and CEO Gail Schubert, provide counsel on legal matters, ensure legal compliance and oversee risk management.