Environment

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Landslides have killed at least a dozen people in Southeast in recent years. 

That prompted Aaron Jacobs, a hydrologist at the National Weather Service in Juneau, and his colleague to answer a major question people in the region have been asking: “Are we seeing more landslides across Southeast Alaska?”

A couple of years ago, scientists weren’t sure. Now, Jacobs says the answer is yes.

According to the study, published in the journal Landslides in November, news outlets reported 281 destructive landslides between 1883 and 2025 in Alaska. Jacobs said they decided to use news reports as the data source because if a landslide affected people or infrastructure, it probably made the news.

They found the number of reported landslides started to increase in the 1980s and has skyrocketed in recent decades. 

Fewer than 10 damaging landslides were reported per decade before 1980. From the 1980s to the 2010s, they found a 295% increase in impactful landslides across the state. In the 2010s, 84 damaging landslides were reported. In just the first half of the 2020s, 76 landslides have made the news.

“A big thing that stuck out was the precipitation-driven or triggering events that were increasing within the last 20 years,” Jacobs said. 

The four fatal landslides that hit Southeast in recent years — Sitka in 2015, Haines in 2020, Wrangell in 2023 and Ketchikan in 2024 — were all triggered by heavy rain or rapid snowmelt.

In the paper, the scientists drew a connection between rising average annual air temperatures — between 1.2 and 3.4 degrees Celsius — and a 3% to 27% increase in precipitation across Alaska over the past half-century. 

“It’s all connected,” Jacobs said. 

It’s a result of climate change. As the globe heats up, more intense atmospheric rivers are slamming Southeast because warmer air can hold more moisture. These downpours cause steep slopes to crumble. 

Climate change is also expected to raise the frequency and intensity of storms that dump rain on top of snow. When the rain melts the snow, it rapidly saturates hillsides and can make landslides more likely. Additional research published Wednesday by Jacobs and others found that this phenomenon triggered the 2023 Wrangell landslide.

Earlier this month, Jacobs and his colleagues posted a manuscript of a scientific paper addressing these rain-on-snow events that hasn’t been peer-reviewed yet. They used a high-precision weather forecasting model to assess atmospheric rivers in Southeast within the last handful of decades and project how they could change in the near future.

The researchers found that rain-on-snow events coincided with 8% of landslides assessed between 1981 and 2019, including some that were large and widespread. They predict that rain-on-snow events will happen more often and involve an increase in extreme rainfall and snowmelt between 2031 and 2060 as the atmosphere continues to heat up.

How people use the land also plays a role in where landslides occur and how they affect people. On Prince of Wales Island, scientists have mapped nearly 800 landslides. The island is crisscrossed by hundreds of miles of logging roads. 

“The writing is on the mountain,” said Quinn Aboudara, natural resources manager for the Shaan Seet tribal corporation in Craig. 

He said he’s noticed that landslides are more prevalent in logged patches and where roads cut across steep slopes. When he was growing up in Port St. Nicholas Bay, he said landslides weren’t as frequent and more snow fell in the winter. In recent years, it mostly rains. 

“Now we treat the rainy seasons as landslide season,” he said. 

Shaan Seet is piecing together a road and culvert inventory to identify problematic areas. During a deluge, Aboudara said some old culverts meant to funnel water under roads clog or just aren’t big enough to handle the runoff. He said that causes water pressure to build up in the hillside and can lead to landslides. 

“We’re looking to replace those with actual bridge works instead of culverts,” he said. 

At the Sitka Sound Science Center, Luka Silva is working on other measures to reduce risk. He manages the Ḵutí Geohazards Project, which works with Southeast communities to address gaps in landslide science and public safety. 

“Because no one wants to lose their neighbor or their home or their friends or loved ones in a landslide, and we have steps that we can take to make that less of a possibility,” Silva said. 

The center developed an early warning system for Sitka that Silva said other communities are using as a model. Scientists are studying soil thresholds to someday forecast landslides. Many communities are working on or already have landslide hazard maps. 

But some municipalities have struggled to take action. After residents in Juneau pushed back against updated landslide hazard maps, the Juneau Assembly declined to adopt them and rolled back development restrictions in landslide paths. Nearly identical stories played out in Sitka and Haines. It’s because homeowners don’t want to see their property values tank and insurance premiums rise. 

Silva urges people to keep the bigger picture in sight.

“We know what we know about how our landscape is going to change even further, and how our landslides are going to be more and more impactful and frequent,” he said. “What are we going to do about that? And what are we going to do to make people safer?”

This story has been updated with information about an additional study published Wednesday. 

The Juneau Assembly has stalled on deciding whether to disempower the Eaglecrest Ski Area’s board of directors until a joint meeting in March. 

Earlier this month, Mayor Beth Weldon proposed an ordinance to reduce the status of the city-owned ski area’s board from an empowered board to an advisory board. She cited the recent leadership turnover at the mountain and ongoing financial challenges.

At a committee of the whole meeting Monday night, Weldon further explained her reasoning for the proposed ordinance to the Juneau Assembly and the roughly 20 members of the public in the audience. 

“I’m literally trying to save Eaglecrest, and I think with the empowered board making the decisions, I don’t see the status quo changing,” she said.

Right now, as an empowered board, Eaglecrest has its own set of laws, rules and responsibilities. But, if it became an advisory board, members could only make recommendations to the Assembly. It would lose the authority to establish policies or make decisions without Assembly approval. 

At the meeting, Weldon argued the ski area needs more oversight, given the high amount of funding the city has funneled toward it in recent years, specifically on a new gondola project.

“If we are investing large amounts of money on things such as the chair lifts or maybe even the gondola, we want to have more of a say in how that money is spent, and currently, we don’t,” she said. 

In the coming years, the ski area is slated to run into a multimillion-dollar deficit. The deficit is a part of a plan to repair some broken and aging infrastructure while boosting pay to employees and preparing to operate year-round. 

Its expansion into summer operations relies heavily on the success of the gondola, which the ski area hopes to get up and running by the summer of 2028. However, many city leaders are worried the timeline — and cost — of the project will run far over what the board projected. 

The Assembly agreed to hold off on any decision-making until it holds a joint meeting with the Eaglecrest board on March 4. Assembly member and Eaglecrest Ski Area board liaison Neil Steininger said he thinks that’s the best option. 

“I think we owe it to everybody in the community to have a joint meeting with the Eaglecrest board to actually hash this out,” he said. 

The Assembly will then vote on whether to move the ordinance forward during a committee meeting on March 16.

Juneau teens and residents are calling on the Alaska Legislature and Gov. Mike Dunleavy to call off the state’s longtime push for a natural gas pipeline in Alaska. 

On Saturday, more than 40 people gathered at the steps of the Alaska State Capitol in downtown Juneau to protest the long-sought Alaska LNG project. The protest was led by Alaska Youth for Environmental Action, a youth-led environmental advocacy group with chapters across the state. 

Paige Kirsch is a senior at Juneau-Douglas High School: Yadaa.at Kalé and a member of the group’s Juneau chapter.

“I think it’s really important to be cognizant of the future of Alaska, especially because I do want to live here when I grow up, and I don’t want to live somewhere that’s purely for economic profit,” she said. “I just don’t think it’s really that fiscally responsible to keep investing in non-renewable resources.”

Alaska officials have been pushing for the proposed pipeline for decades and the state has already poured more than half a billion dollars into the project. If it’s built, the project would move natural gas from the North Slope to Southcentral for export overseas. A portion of the gas would be reserved for in-state use. The project has already been federally permitted. Last year, the Texas-based Glenfarne Group assumed majority ownership of the project from the state. 

Since then, it has announced a handful of nonbinding gas purchase and supply agreements. Last week, the company announced several more agreements it says moves the project’s first phase into an early development stage.

Proponents for the project say it would tap into an underdeveloped natural resource and provide energy security to a region facing shortfalls. But others remain skeptical about whether the project will actually be built, citing high costs and competing global energy projects.

At the protest on Saturday, multiple teens took to a microphone to share some of the negative impacts they believe the pipeline would bring, including bisecting land, disrupting habitat and emitting carbon dioxide. Atagan Hood, a junior at JDHS, says Alaska’s dollars would be better spent on renewable energy to mitigate human-caused climate change. 

“We are told that the 800-mile Alaska liquid natural gas pipeline is a bridge to a cleaner future, but you cannot build a bridge to a stable climate out of fossil fuel infrastructure,” he said. 

Last year, an Anchorage Superior Court Judge dismissed a youth-led lawsuit challenging the pipeline.  

There was one counter-protester at the event on Saturday. Kevin Nye, a retired engineer, stood on his own holding a sign that read “Build the Pipeline.” He said he wanted to represent those in Alaska who support the economic benefits the pipeline would bring to the state. 

Glenfarne told reporters last week it expects to begin laying pipe later this year. But project skeptics say that the timeline is unrealistic. The company also initially said it planned to make a development decision by the end of 2025. That decision is now expected to come in February at the earliest.

Before juvenile salmon make their way to the sea, they grow and feed in freshwater, including wetlands, for anywhere between a few months and several years.

But new research finds that as air temperatures rise with climate change, the water that flows through coastal Alaska’s ponds and marshes is warming rapidly, too. That could spell trouble for Pacific salmon, which can’t grow – or live – in waters above certain temperatures.

“I’ve never really hoped so much that I might be wrong,” said Amaryllis Adey, a researcher at Virginia Tech.

Adey is a co-author of the report, which was published in December in the journal Nature. The researchers compared nine years of water and air temperature data from 20 ponds near Yakutat and Cordova. They found that the water was keeping pace with increases in air temperatures.

That’s notable because it marks a departure from what’s happening with other freshwater ecosystems as temperatures rise, Adey said.

Past research shows that rivers and streams are warming more slowly than the air due to a range of factors, including that they move quickly and benefit from glacial runoff. Wetlands, meanwhile, are typically shallow, still, and more spread out across the landscape – leaving them more exposed to the air.

“It was really stark,” she said. If “one degree of air temperature results in one-degree increases in water temperature, that could be really concerning in the future.”

The researchers’ next step was using the historical data to model what might happen in the decades to come.

The researchers looked at two possible scenarios. One was a future in which humans continue producing greenhouse gases at the current rate. Adey called that the “business as usual scenario” and said it resulted in a “drastic increase” in water temperatures.

“It was like up to 22 degrees Celsius by the end of the century,” Adey said.

That’s about 71 degrees Fahrenheit, which is really warm – and dangerous – for these wetland ecosystems. Coho salmon, for instance, stop growing at around 68 F. And death becomes likely once temperatures surpass about 73 F.

Adey says it’s certainly possible that salmon would adapt. But if they can’t shift the timing of their migrations or habitat use, she said, “they won’t be able to continue to grow and survive in these systems that are very economically and culturally dependent on them.”

The second scenario was less grim. If humans continue emitting at current rates for another decade and then begin reducing carbon emissions, water temperatures would still rise. But they would be less likely to reach dangerous levels.

The study looked specifically at two areas – the Yakutat Forelands and the Copper River Delta. But the results have far-reaching implications, including in Southeast Alaska.

“We’d expect that there’s going to be kind of similar responses across that coastal region,” she said.

Other organisms, including algae and bottom-dwelling invertebrates, are also temperature sensitive, the study said. That means warmer water could be felt by the entire food chain, ranging from different fish species to migratory birds.

Eaglecrest Ski Area’s board of directors is pushing back against the mayor’s proposal to remove most of the board’s decision-making authority. This comes after recent leadership turnover at the mountain and ongoing financial challenges.

Last week, Mayor Beth Weldon told the Juneau Assembly she asked the city’s attorney to draft an ordinance to reduce the status of the board from an empowered board to an advisory board. The Juneau Assembly will discuss the draft ordinance at its committee of the whole meeting on Monday evening. 

As an empowered board, Eaglecrest has its own set of laws, rules and responsibilities and makes decisions without direct Assembly oversight. If it became an advisory board, members could only give advice or make recommendations to the Assembly. It would lose the authority to establish policies or make decisions without Assembly approval. 

“As we know, they’re having major financial issues, and I just think the city needs to have more oversight over what’s happening to Eaglecrest,” she said. “I think the government is standing in its way right now, and it needs to be changed.”

But, at a special meeting on Thursday evening, Eaglecrest’s board moved to draft a letter to the mayor and Assembly asking to remain an empowered board. The board intends to finish the letter this weekend, in time for the Assembly discussion during its committee of the whole meeting on Monday. 

Board member Jim Calvin said remaining an empowered board is in the community’s best interest. 

“The board is deeply engaged in gondola planning work, and we’re deeply engaged in recruiting a new GM (general manager),” he said. “We’re initiating some business planning work, and all of that is at risk of completely derailing if we’re not an empowered board.”

The tension between the Eaglecrest board and the mayor comes after the ski area’s general manager resigned and the board chair stepped down earlier this month. Eaglecrest has also had several issues with its facilities that sullied the beginning of its season, including a broken water line and issues keeping Ptarmigan lift open. 

Eaglecrest is expected to run into a multimillion-dollar deficit in the coming years to repair some broken and aging infrastructure, while boosting pay to employees and preparing to operate year-round. Its plan toward financial stability relies heavily on revenue from the gondola, which the ski area hopes to get up and running by the summer of 2028.

According to the board, the city plans to post the general manager position online next week, which will remain open until it’s filled. 

Alaska lost about a third of its U.S. Forest Service employees in the past year due to federal staffing cuts led by the now-defunct Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. Before that, the agency had around 700 Alaska-based staff. This month, the agency told KTOO that 467 remain. 

Leading this workforce in flux is Jerry Ingersoll, the U.S. Forest Service’s acting regional forester for Alaska, covering both the Chugach and the Tongass National Forests. Ingersoll has worked for the Forest Service for 40 years and took on the role in November 2025. 

In this interview with KTOO’s Alix Soliman, Ingersoll talks about changes he’s leading Alaska Forest Service staff through, including the impending consolidation of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Tongass National Forest plan revision.

The following transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

Listen to this conversation:

Alix Soliman: What is your vision for this role?

Jerry Ingersoll: This is a period of change, and it is my job, I think, to keep the boat upright and the passengers in. There’s changes in national policy associated with changes in political leadership, and it’s my job as a professional civil servant, not only to implement those changes, but also to take care of the people in the communities involved.

Alix Soliman: Over the summer, USDA Secretary Rollins announced the consolidation and restructuring of the USDA, and the USDA made statements to the press that several Alaska forest offices will close. What is the timeline for that reorganization? Do you know what’s going to happen?

Jerry Ingersoll: I don’t, and that’s probably the largest piece of that answer is that I don’t know. The announcement of the Secretary’s decision and of moving forward with the reorganization has not yet come and I’ll hear about it when the rest of you do. And I’m in an Acting Regional Forester position because that’s part of this interim organization. I’m filling in until this larger reorganization takes place. Many employees left the agency over the last year, more in Alaska, even as a percentage of our organization, than in some other parts of the country. And so we’ve got people stepping up, covering for their departed colleagues.

Alix Soliman: Let’s talk about the Tongass Forest plan revision, which has been underway for a while now. Can you just go ahead and share where we are at now with the revision and what the next steps are?

Jerry Ingersoll: We expect within the next few months, maybe less than that, to publish a notice of intent to begin revision of the Tongass land management plan. As you say, that’s been anticipated for a while. So I would anticipate, after the notice of intent gets published, that we will host public meetings and engagement sessions around the Tongass — around Southeast Alaska — this spring. I’d expect that we will engage federally recognized tribal governments in government-to-government consultation. We’ve already begun that process, but we’ll do so even more as we officially launch the revision, and then we are hoping to complete the process and revise the forest plan over the next couple of years.

Alix Soliman: Some federal comment periods have been expedited. Do you expect a shorter public comment period than has happened in the past for this revision?

Jerry Ingersoll: You know, I think it’s too early to know for sure. We want to — we want to fully engage people in the development of their plan for their forest, and we don’t want to spend all of our lives on planning and not on doing.