Environment

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For the first time, Juneau’s famous Mendenhall Glacier is not touching Mendenhall Lake, which was hidden beneath a thick sheet of glacial ice only a couple of hundred years ago. Scientists say this means the glacier has entered a new phase of its retreat.

Jason Amundson, a glaciologist at the University of Alaska Southeast who’s been studying the Mendenhall Glacier for years, said the glacier is the symbol of Juneau. 

“There’s several glaciers around, but when someone says ‘the glacier,’ they’re definitely talking about Mendenhall,” Amundson said. 

The inside of Juneau’s City Hall features a panoramic image of the glacier. It’s the most striking part of the landscape that travelers see when they fly into Juneau International Airport. It’s the capital city’s top tourist attraction, with more than 700,000 visitors each year. 

For generations, the glacier fanned out across the lake that it carved out. But it’s been rapidly retreating out of the lake over the past two decades. Now, scientists say it’s separated from the water completely. 

Amundson flew over the scene in a helicopter about two weeks ago. 

“That was the first time I had really thought, ‘Oh, it doesn’t look like it’s touching the lake anymore,’” he said, adding that photos posted on Facebook by local photographers confirmed it.  

But he said glacial ice and water will probably touch again for brief periods over the coming seasons. Rainfall and snowmelt could cause the lake level to rise enough to meet the ice. Also, the glacier still pushes toward the lake a fraction in the winter, when gravity pulls on the added mass of the snowpack. 

Eran Hood, an environmental scientist at the University of Alaska Southeast, said that despite these expected seasonal meet-ups, the Mendenhall is “functionally” no longer a lake-terminating glacier.

“It’s clear there’s a lot of shallow sediments through there that it’s kind of sitting on, or even perched up above,” Hood said. “There’s just not much chance at this point that it would really have meaningful interactions with the lake anymore.”

Climate change has accelerated the glacier’s retreat. Between 1941 and 2020, the local mean temperature rose by 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit. 

In recent years, Amundson said that glacial ice on the lake has quickly disappeared. 

“There was pretty rapid retreat that occurred because there was this shallow, pretty thin area of the glacier that was in the lake and that broke apart— like where the ice caves used to be,” he said. 

According to a previously unpublished report shared with KTOO and written by Hood, Amundson and their colleagues, the Mendenhall Glacier retreated fastest between 2007 and 2011 — losing roughly a football field per year — because icebergs were calving off at a high rate as the glacier’s terminus moved through the deepest part of Mendenhall Lake. 

Amundson said that’s because of the way that ice interacts with water. 

“When you have a glacier that’s in deep water, there’s a lot of pressure at the bottom, so the glacier tends to flow faster,” he said. “Then, if it’s flowing faster, it can break apart.”

Now that the ice isn’t touching the water, Amundson said the Mendenhall’s retreat could slow down. In the report, the researchers found parts of the glacier that terminated on rock retreated substantially slower than parts that terminated on the lake. Between 1998 and 2020, the ice attached to bedrock receded about 56 feet per year, while ice on the lake vanished at more than two-and-a-half times that speed, at roughly 148 feet per year.

“So once you get out of the lake, it’s harder for the glacier to retreat as quickly as it has over the last 5, 10, 15 years,” Amundson said.

But the glacier is still receding. Using ice-penetrating radar, the research team is currently trying to predict when it will pull into another lake of unknown size, shape and location that’s currently hidden beneath the ice. That could speed up the glacier’s retreat again.

Losing a scenic view

One day in the not-so-distant future, scientists say Juneau’s symbol will disappear from the vantage point of the U.S Forest Service visitor center that was built to feature its scenic vista.

Hood said he thinks that will happen sometime around 2050. 

Alix Pierce, the visitor industry director for the City and Borough of Juneau, said that losing sight of Juneau’s most accessible glacier could change how the city markets itself as a tourist destination. Although, she suspects many cruise ship passengers will probably still come to see the Mendenhall. 

“But we’re going to need to be creative about how it changes, what it looks like, how we adapt,” Pierce said. 

A few years ago, the Forest Service looked at several different options for how to address that foreseeable future. 

“Some of those options were things like boating people across the lake to a satellite visitor center where they’d be able to see the glacier for longer,” Pierce said. “Those things weren’t ultimately selected in their final plan.”

Hood said the visitor center at Portage Glacier in Chugach National Forest could be a cautionary tale. In the 1990s, hundreds of thousands of people traveled there. But since that glacier pulled out of view, visitation has plummeted.

Paul Robbins, a spokesperson for Tongass National Forest, did not comment on how the agency might try to maintain scenic access once the current view of the glacier is lost. 

“Our current plans are focused on improving access and increasing visitor capacity, safety and enjoyment through the Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Facilities Improvement project,” Robbins wrote in an email to KTOO. “The project adds a Welcome Center, an outdoor plaza, enlargement of parking areas, additional restroom facilities, three new trailhead parking lots, and improvements to the existing facility.”

But Pierce said those improvements don’t address the decline of the glacier.

“Things like that, that are vital and necessary for managing the traffic flow that we have out there today, but aren’t necessarily looking into the future for how we adapt to climate-related changes to how people use the area,” she said.

UPDATE, Dec. 1:

The comment period has been extended to Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. 

Original story:

The comment period for the first phase of construction of a new ferry terminal north of Juneau ends this Friday. 

The state’s proposed Cascade Point Ferry Terminal is slated to be located just beyond where the road ends in Juneau on land owned by Goldbelt Incorporated, a local Alaska Native corporation.

The Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities began soliciting public comment for the first phase of construction in late October. 

Shannon McCarthy, DOT’s communications director, said the current public comment period is only for the first stage of the project and is not the end of public input for the overall project. She said a no-build option is still on the table, even though DOT has already signed a $28 million contract for the first phase of construction.

“We have been talking about this project for a long time, and it really does fit in with kind of the philosophy of shorter ferry trips, longer roads, so that we can really have that operational efficiency,” McCarthy said. 

The first stage would develop the access road to the site and a staging area for future construction. According to DOT, construction could begin as soon as next summer.

The Cascade Point terminal would be Juneau’s second ferry terminal, located about 30 miles north of Juneau’s already existing terminal in Auke Bay. 

Under the Dunleavy Administration, the state has been pushing for the project for several years, saying it would benefit travelers by reducing operating costs and travel time between Juneau, Haines and Skagway. A Canadian mining company also wants to develop an off-site ore terminal at the site in partnership with Goldbelt. 

DOT recently released an economic analysis of the terminal that portrayed it as having more pros than cons, despite criticism from regional officials, conservation groups and members of the Alaska Marine Highway Oversight Board. City officials in Haines and Skagway have also openly opposed the project. The Juneau Assembly hasn’t taken a stance on the project. 

“This is really a part of a larger strategy to really reinvest in the marine highway infrastructure,” McCarthy said. 

Written and emailed comments must be submitted by this Friday. McCarthy said the public comment period for the second stage of the project is slated to open in the coming months.

An Alaska Marine Lines barge that was taking on water off the coast of British Columbia has continued its journey south to Seattle.

The barge was spotted floating lower than normal last week near Bella Bella, about 260 miles south of Ketchikan, on its way from Alaska.

According to an email from Alaska Marine Lines Director of Marketing Ryan Dixon, the barge was damaged during transit but was “secure” and “not sinking.”

Dixon said the barge was not carrying groceries or supplies for Southeast Alaska that could cause supply chain disruptions for the region. The barge also did not contain bulk cargo or petroleum products, according to the email.

On Tuesday, the company announced that a second barge was sent to offload some of its cargo. As of Sunday, both were en route to Seattle.

On a dreary November day in Seattle, the U.S. Coast Guard put its past and future on display.

Within sight of the Space Needle, three eye-catching red icebreakers towered over Pier 36. It was the first time since 2006 that the Coast Guard has had three active icebreakers in the same place at the same time.

In the coming years, that scene will become more common, and not just in Seattle. After years of underfunding, the Coast Guard’s icebreaker fleet is undergoing a massive expansion, with almost $9 billion for new ships.

On Tuesday, the U.S. government signed the Icebreaker Collaboration Effort — or ICE Pact — a three-nation agreement with Finland and Canada that will see some of those ships built in Finland, whose shipyards will train Americans to build more.

“It’s an exciting time to be a polar icebreaker sailor,” said Capt. Jeff Rasnake, commanding officer of the Polar Star, America’s only heavy icebreaker.

So many ships are about to join the Coast Guard’s fleet that the agency isn’t yet sure where it will put them all. The Coast Guard has earmarked millions for a port expansion in Seattle to accommodate three heavy icebreakers, plus another $300 million for Juneau to serve as a port for a medium icebreaker.

More space will be needed on top of that, and Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, said his intent is to have as many of the new ships based in Alaska as possible.

“We want home port decisions on these icebreakers sometime in early 2026,” he said. “That is my goal.”

The need for new icebreakers is clear: As the Earth warms amid climate change, no place is warming faster than the Arctic. Melting ice is opening new routes for shipping, places to mine and drill, and seas to fish or view from the deck of a cruise ship.

In many cases, control of those new routes is being disputed among nations.

“Right now, things are heating up in the Arctic, and not just on the ice,” said Capt. Kristen Serumgard of the icebreaker Healy.

Russia is expanding its military presence in the Arctic, including with icebreakers, and as NATO confronts Russian aggression in Europe, there’s been international concern that the United States and NATO should be prepared to match Russia in the Arctic as well.

China is operating significant numbers of icebreakers in the Arctic, as are European nations, each interested in maintaining their right to access the area.

“It’s a geopolitical hotbed up there,” Serumgard said.

Rasnake, who typically works in the comparatively calm Antarctic, said that “with lines being drawn and a lot of different contested (seafloor) land claims, it’s — I wouldn’t say the wild, wild West, but maybe the wild, wild North.”

Shipping traffic through the Arctic Ocean is on the rise, with more ships traveling Russia’s Northern Sea Route and the Canadian-American Northwest Passage each summer.

As yet, the Northwest Passage isn’t regularly used by commercial shipping, said Steve White, executive director of the Marine Exchange of Alaska, which monitors the area for safety risks.

While that’s the case, “we are seeing a trend of more and more traffic, though, going through the Bering Straits, both on the US side and on the Russian side,” he said.

With more ships comes more risk. On Sept. 6, the Dutch cargo ship Thamesborg ran aground in Franklin Strait, part of the Northwest Passage. The accident didn’t release any pollution and no one was injured, but it took 33 days for the ship to be freed and sent on its way.

The Northwest Passage and the Northern Sea Route each funnel through the Bering Strait, which is split between American and Russian control.

“The reason this is so important for people to understand is that the Bering Strait — you’ve only got about (51) miles between the US and Russia, and you have the biodiversity, the wildlife that’s there,” White said. “This comes at a time where we’re getting more storms, the communities are struggling up there with food security and the top priority, the salmon returns … the fabric of our Alaskan communities up there is under threat, and it’s under threat from what’s going on with the weather changing and increased traffic.”

The U.S. Coast Guard is the federal government’s nautical Swiss Army knife — it performs rescue operations, enforces fishing laws, stops drug smugglers, runs border patrols, performs safety inspections, anti-pollution patrols, counter-piracy patrols, and enforces America’s maritime laws.

The U.S. Navy runs submarines under the Arctic ice, but it doesn’t operate icebreakers. It leaves the Coast Guard to do that — on the Great Lakes, on American rivers, and in the Arctic and Antarctic.

But for years, the national icebreaker fleet has been underfunded.

When Nome, home to the endpoint of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, ran short of fuel in 2012, the U.S. Coast Guard struggled to muster a single icebreaker, the Healy, to escort a Russian icebreaking tanker to the town.

At the time, the Healy was the Coast Guard’s lone operating icebreaker. Soon afterward, it reactivated the Polar Star, which had been mothballed because it was old and needed maintenance.

While both ships continue to operate, they’re less capable than modern ships and have suffered mechanical breakdowns, some significant.

Last year, the Healy caught fire and had to abbreviate its summer patrol. While it returned to service in the fall and went on to discover a volcano-like mountain on the Arctic seafloor, it’s now due for an extended period of maintenance.

“She’s 25 years old and been breaking ice for 25 years, right? That is hard on a ship,” Serumgard said.

Two American icebreakers in the Arctic Ocean in 2025

If America’s icebreaking fleet is near a low ebb, this summer saw the first steps toward the planned resurgence.

As a stopgap until new ships arrive, Congress last year ordered the purchase of the Aiviq, an oilfield services ship designed to work in the Arctic Ocean.

Eight years ago, following a disaster that saw the Aiviq lose control of a drilling rig during a storm, the Coast Guard deemed the ship “not suitable for military service without substantial refit.”

Since then, the ship has been overhauled and the Coast Guard’s opinion has changed.

After Congress appropriated the money, the Coast Guard purchased the Aiviq, quickly converted it, and in August this year, commissioned it as the icebreaker Storis.

At the time of that commissioning, commanding officer Capt. Corey Kerns said the ship and its crew would “need to learn to crawl” before they could get fully up and running.

In addition, there were unanswered questions about how well the Storis would handle the kinds of storms that troubled the Aiviq.

In October, Kerns sat down for another interview after returning from the Arctic.

“One of the things that kind of surprised me was that it went smoother than maybe I would have expected,” he said.

“She was able to perform, get through the whole thing without any major issues,” Kerns said of the ship’s first patrol.

As a result, Kerns felt confident enough to guide the Storis into the Arctic Ocean, where it worked with the icebreaker Healy to shadow two Chinese research ships in parts of the ocean that the United States claims.

The presence of those Chinese ships and others that have operated in conjunction with Russian shipshas alarmed some American officials.

If China and Russia are present in the region, it behooves the United States to be there too, Kerns said in August.

“The ability to be present guarantees your ability to to maintain sovereignty. And that’s what we’re trying to get at here in the Arctic. We need more icebreakers to be present in our waters and be clear what is our waters,” he said.

The Coast Guard cutter Waesche, a “thin-hulled” ship, also monitored the Chinese ships. Both it and the Storis participated in Arctic Edge 2025, a military training operation near the Russian border that also included Canadian forces.

There’s still work to be done with the Storis, Kerns said. It hasn’t been certified to host Coast Guard helicopters yet, and it hasn’t done a full icebreaking test.

“We got into the ice and we showed that she could break flat ice to some extent, at certain speeds, but … probably not a fully worthy test of capability in the ice, so we’re discussing that now,” he said.

Thirteen years ago, the Aiviq lost control of the drilling rig Kulluk, causing it to run aground on Kodiak Island. That disaster took place after rough seas flooded the Aiviq’s fuel tanks and caused it to lose power.

This summer, as the Storis sailed across the Gulf of Alaska, it again encountered rough seas.

“There were a few nights where you didn’t sleep as well, but it was perfectly safe,” Kerns said.

He said his crew are already overhauling equipment and preparing for next summer in the Arctic, working in conjunction with the Healy.

That ship spent 129 days at sea this summer, primarily focusing on science, according to an official Coast Guard description of the patrol.

“We know more about the surface of the moon than we know about the seafloors, so it’s kind of a really amazing area of exploration,” Serumgard said.

En route back to Seattle, the Healy was diverted to help search and rescue efforts in Southwest Alaska following Typhoon Halong, which devastated the region and left hundreds of people homeless.

In Seattle, the Polar Star was preparing to leave on a five-month roundtrip to Antarctica, where it will help supply research outposts across that continent.

Rasnake said he believes the Polar Star is in the best shape it’s been since being reactivated in 2013, and he looks forward to it possibly breaking the record of the most Antarctic missions by any Coast Guard icebreaker. That would come — if all goes well — in December 2026 or January 2027.

A huge expansion of the fleet is on the horizon

If the Polar Star does break that record, it may not have many opportunities to expand on it. The Coast Guard’s first new heavy icebreaker since the Polar Star is now under construction in Mississippi.

Named the Polar Sentinel, it’s expected to be complete by 2030. The Republican-backed budget plan that President Donald Trump nicknamed the “Big Beautiful Bill” includes funding for two other heavy icebreakers after the Sentinel.

Thirteen other icebreakers were funded in that bill, said Sullivan, the Alaska senator.

“There’s funding for three to four Arctic Security mediums. Those are the target ones for our state. And then there’s 10 light icebreakers. Those are smaller. Those do work in the Great Lakes and other things like that,” he said.

The medium icebreakers, known as “Arctic Security Cutters,” are among 11 planned ships being built by two separate industry groups. Canada’s Davie Shipbuilding is planning to build five ships — two in Finland, and then three at a to-be-expanded Texas shipyard.

The second group, which includes American, Canadian and Finnish firms, will build two ships in Finland and a third simultaneously in the United States, then build three others in the United States.

The first five ships are expected to be delivered to the Coast Guard within 36 months of a contract being signed, meaning they could be patrolling the Arctic Ocean before the end of the decade.

The newly commissioned Storis will also need upgrades to complete its conversion from a civilian ship. First on the docket may be additional military communications gear, but Kerns said the Coast Guard is also considering how to fit more crew aboard.

In the longer term, Kerns — who has a nautical engineering background — is working with his crew on plans for a deeper refit that could allow the Storis to serve as a kind of “logistics ship.”

As currently built, it carries several large holds originally intended for drilling mud and other materials needed for oil wells at sea. Those could be repurposed, he said this month, and his crew is coming up with ideas for the ship’s first major refit, expected sometime after summer 2026.

The new ships and the changes to the Storis are only part of the Coast Guard’s plan in the coming years. Each ship will also need people and equipment ashore for maintenance and support. The Coast Guard is involved in an ongoing struggle to acquire acreage to expand its Seattle base, which the port authority is reluctant to cede.

Pier space at the Coast Guard’s Alameda base, in California, is also constrained.

“We’re looking for space in all possible areas,” said Capt. Brian Krautler, chief of operations for the Coast Guard’s Pacific Area.

The Big Beautiful Bill included $300 million to build a base in Juneau to host the Storis. Other places in Alaska — Seward, Kodiak, Nome, or Dutch Harbor — might also accommodate one or more of the new Arctic Security Cutters. Kodiak is home to the largest Coast Guard base in the country.

Speaking this week at the signing of the so-called ICE Pact, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said that the Trump administration sees the expansion of the icebreaker fleet as a top priority.

“Today is a major milestone in the race to secure the Arctic for all of our countries,” she said. “The Arctic is the world’s last, most wild frontier, and our adversaries are racing to claim its strategic position and its rich natural resources for their own. If we give up that high ground, then we will condemn future generations to permanent insecurity, and we’re not going to let that happen on our watch.”

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Juneau’s sole electricity provider, Alaska Electric Light & Power, is appealing the Regulatory Commission of Alaska’s decision to approve Juneau Hydropower as a new public utility. Last week, AEL&P requested that the Superior Court of Alaska consolidate two separate cases involving disputes between the hydroelectric companies.

The appeal follows more than a decade of disputes between AEL&P and Juneau Hydropower — a company that plans to increase the borough’s hydroelectric capacity by nearly 20%. The company plans to shuttle power to rural parts of Juneau in the next few years through its Sweetheart Lake Hydroelectric project. This summer, the commission ordered AEL&P to facilitate Juneau Hydropower’s connection with its existing electricity infrastructure and the two utilities hashed out agreements to make that happen.

Alec Mesdag, the CEO of AEL&P, disputes the commission’s decision to exempt Juneau Hydropower from a requirement to have at least 10 customers when it certified the company as a public utility. The company has one contracted customer: Coeur’s Kensington Mine.

Mesdag also has outstanding complaints about the agreements the commission ordered AEL&P to sign, which he hopes the Superior Court will help resolve. Namely, AEL&P is required to reserve 8.5 megawatts of transfer capacity in its system, even before Juneau Hydropower is up and running, without compensation. 

Mesdag said he worries he could incur additional costs if, in the meantime, AEL&P’s existing customers increase their power use enough to eat into that reserve. 

“Do I have to build upgrades to ensure that we can, you know, transfer another eight-and-a-half megawatts on top of that?” he said. 

But once operating, he says Juneau Hydropower has to pay AEL&P $1.2 million per year for using the system.  

Mesdag also disagrees with the commission’s decision to approve of Juneau Hydropower’s design of the interconnection point, where electricity generated at Sweetheart Lake will join AEL&P’s Snettisham power line to Juneau. 

“It is a bad precedent that any entity who disputes the utility’s position on what creates a safe and reliable interconnection that protects its customers can simply insist that their project will die if the commission does not order the utility to accommodate their every wish,” Mesdag said.

Duff Mitchell, the managing director at Juneau Hydropower, said the appeal is “frivolous.” The two utilities spent more than a week in hearings before five commissioners, who decided to approve Juneau Hydropower’s public utility certificate and the Sweetheart Lake project plan.  

“Basically, their case is, you know, we got our butt kicked in the hockey game five to zero, and now we’re a sore loser and we’re blaming the ref,” Mitchell said.

He called AEL&P’s disputes mere “quibbles” and said he’s “charging forward” with financing and building the new hydroelectric plant at Sweetheart Lake. 

“We’re proceeding with the lawful order we have, and we’re moving on to put this project into construction,” Mitchell said. “We’re bringing the power for Juneau’s prosperity.”

Mitchell said he plans to break ground next year. According to Juneau Hydropower’s Federal Energy Regulatory Commission license restrictions and commission certificate, construction must begin by September 8, 2026, and be completed three years later. 

The Regulatory Commission of Alaska declined to comment.

Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that the cases were already consolidated.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration proposes to open nearly all of the oceans off Alaska to potential oil and gas drilling.

The draft offshore leasing plan includes the Bering Sea, the Gulf of Alaska and other areas important to the fishing industry. It’s part of a national proposal that includes the entire coast of California, where drilling is fiercely unpopular.

“By moving forward with the development of a robust, forward-thinking leasing plan, we are ensuring that America’s offshore industry stays strong, our workers stay employed, and our nation remains energy dominant for decades to come,” Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said in an emailed announcement.

The top Democrat on the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee, Rep. Jared Huffman of California, pledged to fight, in court and in Congress. Huffman said it doesn’t make sense for Alaska either.

“I just think it’s incredibly reckless,” he said. “I mean, we know what the seafood economy means to the state of Alaska.”

The plan goes beyond what Alaska advocates of offshore development have favored in the past. In 2018, Alaska’s all-Republican delegation to Congress praised an offshore plan that included lease sales in Cook Inlet and the Chukchi and Beaufort seas. But they asked the first Trump administration to remove the Bering Sea and the Gulf from consideration.

The plan released Thursday is a “first analysis,” with two more planned before final approval. If it survives, the first lease sale would be in the Beaufort.

It’s not clear oil companies would be interested. Shell spent 10 years and $7 billion trying to drill there before giving up on offshore Arctic exploration.