Health

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins announced in July a plan to reorganize the Department of Agriculture, citing the need to decrease spending and bureaucracy. That plan is not final, but the current proposal includes consolidating tribal relations programs and personnel, according to the memorandum of the decision.

Leaders of the First Alaskans Institute, one of the state’s largest Native advocacy organizations, said the reorganization could diminish tribal voices and harm regional agriculture and food security.

Last month, the statewide nonprofit submitted a comment to USDA about the plan asking the agency to consult with tribes.

“We’re calling on the USDA to honor its trust responsibility by engaging in formal government-to-government consultation with Alaska’s 229 federally recognized tribes, before finalizing its organizational plan,” the president of the First Alaskans Institute, Apagruk Roy Agloinga, said in an interview.

“Food security for Native communities, it’s not just a policy issue,” Agloinga added. “It’s really a matter of survival, cultural continuity and self-determination.”

Another major statewide organization, the Alaska Federation of Natives, also urged the USDA to hold a tribal consultation on its plans, stating that the public comment period does not meet the requirements for consultation with tribal governments.

The USDA Office of Tribal Relations was created in 2010, after tribal farmers argued in court that the department discriminated against them.

Tikaan Silas Galbreath, the chief operating officer of First Alaskans Institute, said that the USDA’s reorganization plan might move the Office of Tribal Relations down from the higher-up secretarial level of the department. He said the change could diminish tribal access to USDA programs.

“It needs to be at that secretarial level to really have the influence that is required to really provide the services to the tribes,” Galbreath said.

Another USDA change that the First Alaskans Institute is concerned about is the consolidation of the Natural Resource Conservation Service program, which includes relocating its offices out of Alaska. Galbreath said the program has been helping Alaska tribes manage land and water resources and access traditional foods.

Galbreath said that access to USDA programs, whether to advance tribal agriculture or reindeer herding, is especially important in light of the changing environment.

“The change in the migratory patterns and the decline for many of the species has raised the question for a lot of our communities of, ‘How do we continue to provide protein security for our tribal members?'” he said. “The USDA and the programs available through the USDA are some of the solutions that are being looked at by the tribes.”

USDA did not respond to the comment the First Alaskans Institute submitted last month. However, the department did respond to a request for comment from KNBA, calling the proposed plan a first step to “right-size USDA’s footprint.” It added that the agency’s critical functions would not be affected.

The department has extended the public comment period on reorganization to the end of September and encouraged sharing feedback by emailing reorganization@usda.gov.

Heavy rainfall in Juneau this week caused untreated wastewater from a city pump station downtown to overflow into Gastineau Channel for several hours. 

Chad Gubala, the production and treatment manager at the city’s wastewater utility, said heavy rain paired with a high tide overwhelmed the pump station along Egan Drive, which is currently undergoing a major reconstruction. 

He said the potential environmental and human health impacts of the overflow are expected to be minimal to none. Samples of the water appeared to be very dilute. 

“It went out once again in an area where there’s typically no human contact,” Gubala said. “It gets diluted very quickly, and it gets consumed by the natural microorganisms in our channel pretty quickly as well, and becomes part of the food chain.”

The approximately 160,000 gallons of discharge was a mixture of stormwater and wastewater, or sewage, that was headed to the Juneau-Douglas Wastewater Treatment Plant. But instead, it overflowed into the channel before being treated. The overflow happened twice, first on Wednesday for a brief 30-minute window, then again on Thursday, which lasted several hours. 

Gubala said once the reconstruction project of the pump station is complete, overflows like this won’t likely happen again. The city notified the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation after the initial discharge. 

The city is currently undertaking several reconstruction projects for its utility infrastructure as much of it reaches the end of its lifespan. Gubala said repairing and maintaining infrastructure now is key to preventing other accidents like this from happening in the future. 

Juneau has a problem. A cat problem — indoor, outdoor, stray and feral. And the ones who aren’t spayed or neutered are multiplying at an alarming rate.

There are currently about 100 cats within Juneau Animal Rescue’s system, in foster care and the shelter itself. JAR hits capacity yearly, and it’s fundraising for a new building. But the number of unaltered cats in Juneau is growing faster and faster, and the shelter is struggling to keep up. 

Veterinarian Alicia Harris said it’s hard to know how many cats there are in Juneau. But she says they multiply fast.

“Cats can become reproductively mature as early as four to six months, and their reproductive cycle is every 90 days,” she said. “And the average litter sizes are five to six kittens. So if you do the math … things can multiply very, very quickly and get out of control very fast.”

Two unaltered cats can turn into hundreds in just a handful of years. Harris has worked at JAR for close to a decade. 

“It has absolutely evolved and changed since I started here, and gotten worse,” she said. “Especially with birth defects and things like that, because of inbreeding.” 

She said the litters of kittens that people find and bring in increasingly have health problems.

Andy Nelson with JAR said the majority of kittens are coming from indoor cats whose population got out of control in someone’s home.

“It’s the ones that are indoors that, I think, are maybe more confined to smaller spaces where they’re breeding and repeatedly breeding inside,” he said.

He said he knows there are more in the community reproducing, but it’s impossible to know how many. 

And spaying and neutering can be expensive. JAR has cheaper prices for low-income pet owners, but Nelson says people can call the rescue to see if donations can cover their cats’ surgery.

“I would just say that if people find themselves in the situation or try to avoid the situation, but money becomes an obstacle, to reach out,” he said. “We can always do our best to work with people. 

Nelson said he believes a lot of these cats are the descendants of cats people took in during the pandemic, from litters sold or given away on Craigslist or Facebook. 

Those cats usually aren’t fixed before they are given to their new home, and Juneau had a vet shortage during the pandemic. That may have prevented people from spaying and neutering cats before they started reproducing. 

Nelson said anyone who is overwhelmed by cats in their home or neighborhood should reach out.

JAR Director Rick Driscoll said if anyone wants a new cat, they should consider adopting from the shelter instead of getting them off the internet. 

“When you come to JAR and you adopt a cat, you’re getting a cat that’s been spayed or neutered, that’s got its vaccinations, that’s got a microchip, and there’s a fee associated with that,” he said. “But when people get cats for free, the cost comes later, and the cost is actually more than the adoption fee.”

Nelson said part of that cost is the animals’ health.

“A lot of these come in and they’ve been suffering,” he said. “And so they’re not in good shape.”

But there are community members who are stepping in to help, like Shonda Belknap, who fosters litters of kittens and even pulls litters out from under porches. In a room in her house dedicated to foster kittens, she held up a pale, very furry cat with crossed eyes. 

“His name is Finnegan B Waddles,” she said. “He came to me very, very ill. We discovered through vet appointments that he has congenital hypothyroidism, which is very rare, but he is actually almost ready for fostering, I mean, for adoption” 

Finnegan is inbred. He’s only a few weeks old, but he will require daily medication for the rest of his life. Belknap said fostering brings her a lot of joy. 

“You cannot be stressed in a room with foster kittens,” she said. “They won’t let you. They look at you like you’re the only thing that exists for them. So they need you to be present in that moment.”

She said when she sees posts on social media of Juneau families whose cats are unaltered and reproducing, she offers help.  

“I have reached out several times to people I’ve seen online,” she said. “Like, ‘oh my gosh, that’s 12 cats,’ and I’m like, ‘let’s get mom fixed. Let’s focus on mom.’”

Belknap takes in litters that are surrendered or found, takes care of them until they’re able to get spayed or neutered and vaccinated, and often pays for those procedures herself before finding them homes in the community. 

She said she wants to see the population under control, so existing cats can get the love and care they need. And so those cats can love and care for the people who take them in. 

An Anchorage Superior Court judge’s ruling has cleared the way for the state of Alaska to repeal its “80th Percentile Rule,” enacted by the state in 2004 as part of an attempt to reduce health care costs in the state.

The Dunleavy administration repealed the rule in 2024, saying it was counterproductive and argued it contributed to higher health care costs. Medical providers say that isn’t true and that repealing the rule will cause some clinicians to close down.

In 2023, a group of medical providers sued the state, alleging problems with the process used to repeal the rule. On Aug. 27, following a four-day bench trial in February, Judge Yvonne Lamoureaux ruled in favor of the state.

In her findings of fact and conclusions of law, Lamoureaux concluded that the repeal was not “unreasonable or arbitrary,” and the state did not conduct an improper procedure.

An appeal to the Alaska Supreme Court is possible.

When in place, the rule required that insurance companies reimburse out-of-network medical providers at a rate equal to the 80th percentile of charges for the given service.

If five clinics provide a given procedure, the required payment would be what the second-most-expensive clinic charges.

The rule was intended to prevent Alaskans from being left with large medical bills after visiting out-of-network clinics. The state and Alaska’s largest health insurance company, Premera Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alaska, contend that it required insurance companies to pay more for services than was warranted, contributing to higher insurance costs.

After eight days of deliberation, the jury in a sexual assault trial against a former Juneau chiropractor returned a verdict of not guilty on two counts, and hung jury on 12 others on Thursday.

Twelve former patients accused Jeffrey Fultz of sexual assault under the guise of medical care. They say the incidents took place during medical appointments between 2014 and 2020 while he was employed at Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium in Juneau.

Fultz’s defense argued that he was offering legitimate medical care to these patients. His attorney said he was not available for comment Thursday afternoon.

Jamiann Hasselquist is one of more than a dozen women who filed charges against Fultz. He was acquitted of the charges associated with her complaints and she won’t be able to refile them.

“I thought that he was going to go in handcuffs after this whole time, you know, four years or so,” she said.

Jurors were unable to return a unanimous verdict on the 12 other counts. Those charges resulted in a mistrial. That means those charges, alongside two that were declared mistrial during proceedings, can be retried if the state chooses to do so.

Christina Love reported Fultz to Juneau police in 2021. At the courthouse Thursday, she said Fultz can leave Juneau, but she and other women are left without justice.

“He gets to hop on a plane, and there are 12 victims in this case that are left here holding it,” Love said. “That is absolutely earth shattering that we’re gonna have to do this all over again, like I can’t even comprehend it.”

Love said she plans to move forward with her charges.

“As long as he’s out walking, we’re going to keep trying to make sure that he’s never able to do this to anyone ever again, ever,” she said.

Hasselquist said she plans to support the women who plan to testify again.

The trial lasted six weeks. A status hearing to decide will happen next for the mistrial charges is scheduled for Sept. 23 at 10 a.m.

This story has been updated. 

Alaska’s Department of Law is asking a judge to throw out much of a class action lawsuit over the state’s failure to process food assistance applications on time. Thousands of Alaskans are caught in backlogs that have plagued the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, and other aid programs for years.

But the state argues a recent Supreme Court case, Medina v. Planned Parenthood of South Carolina, means they shouldn’t be allowed to sue. Rather, the state argues that the federal Food and Nutrition Service, part of the Agriculture Department overseeing SNAP, should be the only entity able to enforce federal requirements.

“The Supreme Court’s recent decision in Medina makes clear that the plaintiffs have no private causes of action. This litigation must now end,” state attorneys wrote in a motion for summary judgment submitted Tuesday.

Attorney Saima Akhtar of the National Center for Law and Economic Justice, part of the legal team suing the state on behalf of Alaskans caught in the backlog, said in an interview that lawsuits like the SNAP case are an important way for citizens to hold their government accountable.

“Unfortunately, for better or for worse, a lot of times, agencies function better when there is oversight and when they are being held to standards and to account for what they are doing,” she said.

In June, the Supreme Court ruled that a South Carolina Planned Parenthood chapter could not sue the state over violations of the federal law that governs the Medicaid program. The justices ruled 6-3 that only the federal government could enforce that law.

Alaska Department of Law attorneys argue in a filing Tuesday that the decision means hungry Alaskans shouldn’t be allowed to enforce deadlines set out in the law that created SNAP.

Late last year, U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason granted a preliminary injunction, requiring the Division of Public Assistance to report monthly on its progress towards ending the backlog.

The state argues the ongoing court battle takes time and resources away from the Department of Health’s efforts to end the backlog — especially because the department continues to struggle with understaffing.

“This is not a situation where a state has moved to dismiss while refusing to take any meaningful remedial action,” state attorneys wrote. “However, the litigation continues to divert DOH’s limited resources.”

That’s no excuse, Akhtar said. She said the state’s continued failure to clear the backlog means oversight is necessary.

“I don’t think anyone is asserting that the time spent on the reports would magically allow them to clear the multi-thousand-case backlog they have,” she said. “That is not the problem.”

Department officials report they are making progress on the SNAP backlog, which stood at roughly 3,000 in August, down from roughly 4,500 in June.