Western

Lumber prices have been soaring across the country as demand for wood during the pandemic outstripped supply. In the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, those high prices have been slowing down construction of new homes, exacerbating a severe shortage of housing in the region.

According to the Alaska Housing Finance Corporation, about 40% of the homes in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta are overcrowded, 12 times more than the national average. The demand for new homes in the region is estimated to be well over 1,000 units.

Efforts to address that shortage, which were already insufficient, have slowed even more due to lumber price increases. Association of Village Council Presidents Regional Housing Authority CEO Mark Charlie said that the organization usually receives enough federal funding to build 15 to 20 homes in the region annually. But, he said, that was before lumber costs to build a home shot up almost 40% in the past year.

“We get the same amount of funding from the federal government, and if the price of material for lumber and stuff go up, then that just means we build, you know, less homes,” Charlie said.

Orutsararmiut Native Council is facing the same problem, as the tribe builds a new subdivision to address Bethel’s housing shortage. ONC Housing Director Calvin Cockroft said that building costs are 80% higher than in previous years for materials, including not only lumber but other commodities like sheet metal. Additionally, Cockroft said that his suppliers are advising him to put in orders sooner rather than later.

“What the supplier did say was that, you know, if we don’t get the order really soon, that the prices are going to go up again,” Cockroft said.

Luckily, both organizations are able to offset some of these increased costs with federal CARES Act and American Rescue Plan Act funding.

Cockroft said that ONC plans to continue construction of the new subdivision as scheduled, despite the increased costs. ONC will start building four homes this summer in the new Bethel subdivision, and they expect to complete them early next summer.

In the case of the AVCP housing authority, federal stimulus funding allowed the regional housing authority to build even more houses than it normally would.

“Because we got extra money, the CARES Act funding that we got, we’re adding units to villages that are facing imminent danger of losing their homes due to environmental threats like erosions or sinkholes,” Charlie said.

Charlie said that CARES Act funding would allow AVCP Housing to start building six extra homes this year in Newtok and one or two in Akiak, Kotlik, and Chefornak. All four of those communities are facing environmental threats worsened by climate change.

But the lumber price hikes are hammering private businesses that didn’t receive funding from the CARES Act or ARPA. Brian Glasheen is the co-owner of AMW Construction, which builds and manages rental properties in Bethel. He said that lumber price increases dramatically changed his company’s plans.

“We had a very aggressive schedule for this summer. We picked up a couple new pieces of property and wanted to build a few more rentals. However, because of the lumber prices, we have decided not to,” Glasheen said.

Another part of Glasheen’s business is building new houses. Glasheen said that some customers have had to back out due to material costs, and that has left his company with little work to do.

“We likely will have to lay off some of our crew, for sure, in the wintertime, as we may not have enough work to keep everyone busy throughout the winter,” Glasheen said.

Glasheen said that AMW is getting creative, taking on construction projects outside Bethel, something they don’t normally do.

Most of the lumber sold in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta is imported. But there is also lumber produced and sold within the area. Prices for locally produced lumber are not increasing due to national market trends, but they are still rising for another reason.

Mark Leary, operations director for the Native Village of Napaimute, oversees a 400-acre timber lot and sawmill operation a few miles downstream of Kalskag that produces lumber for homes and cabins in the Y-K Delta.

“For our little operation, it’s all those wildfires thousands of miles away from us,” Leary said.

Leary said that because of record-setting wildfires in California and other parts of the United States in 2020, insurance agencies have been reluctant to offer wildfire insurance to lumber companies.

“We just recently found one and, of course, it’s quadruple what we usually pay,” Leary said.

He said that those higher insurance costs will have to be passed on to buyers.

In a region that is geographically isolated from the rest of the country, soaring lumber prices are a reminder that what is happening elsewhere in the country ends up affecting the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta.

Short-term rentals, also known as bed-and-breakfasts, provide thousands of dollars in tax revenue to the City of Bethel. They also house many of the town’s transient workers. But the city says some of those rentals are operating illegally because they’re in residential districts.

The city recently shut down one short-term rental, saying it was built without permission and in a residential district. But KYUK has identified about 10 others in residential districts — pointing to a broader housing problem in the Yukon-Kuskokwim hub community.

The story begins with a complaint. In June 2019, four neighbors wrote to the city saying that a couple was building an apartment or hotel in a residential area, the Blueberry Subdivision. The neighbors called the building “an atrocity” that violated city codes for the residential subdivision. In planning commission hearings, some neighbors said that the structure was too big and would attract undesired traffic.

On May 27, the commissioner for the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation chose to uphold a key state water quality certificate for the proposed Donlin Gold mine. The decision comes after an administrative law judge recommended that the DEC should not uphold the certificate in April.

In August 2018, the DEC issued a “certificate of reasonable assurance” to Donlin Gold that said that the state can count on the company’s operations to comply with water quality standards. The Army Corps of Engineers required the certificate before it issued its federal one. The Orutsararmiut Native Council challenged the certificate and passed a resolution opposing the mine. The tribe is based in Bethel, the largest community downriver from the proposed mine.

ONC tribal citizen Gloria Simeon said that DEC’s latest decision risks the health of people in the region and did not take into account the opposition from many of the tribes in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta.

“We have our work cut out for us,” said Simeon.

In April, Administrative Law Judge Kent Sullivan ruled that Donlin Gold’s mining operations would not guarantee a “reasonable assurance” that the mine would meet and maintain state environmental and water quality standards — specifically for mercury levels, water temperature and salmon habitat.

Sullivan said that the agency and Donlin Gold did not properly calculate the risk of mercury levels in the water. Donlin Gold is planning to build the mine in a mercury belt, where levels already exceed the state standards. Sullivan said that Donlin Gold and the agency were “tak[ing] the misguided approach resorting to sleight of hand” when they used a different calculation to justify the certificate.

Disturbing salmon habitat in Crooked Creek, a Kuskokwim River tributary near the mining operation, is another issue that the tribe is concerned with. Sullivan said that “salmon and salmon habitat in a large segment of Crooked Creek will be significantly and detrimentally impacted by the project.”

Sullivan’s recommendation to not uphold the state certificate potentially jeopardized the Corps’ federal permit, one of the major ones that Donlin Gold needs to operate. DEC Commissioner Jason Brune had the final say over whether to accept the recommendation. He chose to reject it.

In his decision, Brune said the analyses performed by federal and state agencies throughout the permitting process showed that the mining operations would meet state and federal environmental and water quality standards.

Donlin Gold applauded the decision. Donlin Gold spokesperson Kristina Woolston said, “Simply put, we will not operate the project without demonstrated compliance with the state’s water quality standards.”

Calista Corporation, which owns the mineral rights to the mine, also agreed with Brune’s decision.

Thirteen tribes in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta have passed resolutions opposing the mining project. During the 2019 convention of the Association of Village Council Presidents, 35 tribes voted to pass a resolution opposing Donlin Gold, citing possible environmental impacts to the Kuskokwim River.

On May 23, a fire started in a home in the village of Crooked Creek in Western Alaska. None of the four inhabitants, including the homeowner and her 2-year-old son, were at home at the time. The fire ravaged their house, and a man was injured trying to stop the flames. Through a series of fortunate events, nobody perished and the fire did not spread.

Crooked Creek lacks a fire department and running water to its homes and businesses. But a visiting construction company, Brice Inc., happened to be in town, and happened to have a water truck on hand. Brice employee Kane Peacock says that’s how they put the fire out when they got to the scene.

“It was definitely a little hectic at first,” he said. “We had a bunch of fire extinguishers there and everyone to help. But realistically at that time, the flames were so large that he couldn’t get close enough to use a fire extinguisher. So it was kind of just the guy running the hose off the water truck.”

The tribal administrator for Crooked Creek, Elena Philips, lives next door to the home that burned down. She said that before the water trucks arrived, community members were trying to put out the fire and one got hurt.

“One of our community members was hosing inside the house trying to get the fire out before it got really bad. And he slipped on something and cut his wrist,” said Philips.

She said that the cut was really bad.

“It was a scary time because he could have bled to death because we don’t have a health aide here,” she said.

Fortunately, Philips said that Kyle Inman, who has experience working as a firefighter and medic in Bethel, happened to be in town. He was able to locate the key to the clinic and treat the injured man while he waited for the medevacs to arrive.

The man was first medevaced to Bethel and then to Anchorage, where he is in stable condition and recovering from his injuries.

Recently, there have been several other fires around the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta region. This week, there was a dump fire in Chevak that responding village police officers and firefighters put out with buckets of water. There have also been two separate wildfires near Akiachak and Scammon Bay, and a tundra brush fire in Bethel. All were quickly extinguished. There was also a snowmachine that caught fire in Aniak, but the fire was also put out and did not damage any other property.

The state opened hunting season for musk ox stranded on ice floes in Western Alaska on Thursday.

The musk ox were stranded on the floes after wandering onto the sea ice during breakup. Most of the musk ox can be found in the coastal waters near Nunivak Island and Nelson Island.

Residents don’t need a permit or a tag to participate in the hunt and can take up to two musk ox.

Hunters must submit a photo verifying the musk ox were taken from a free-floating ice floe surrounded by seawater. Photos should be submitted to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game within 48 hours of harvesting.

Musk ox season is set to close on June 30.