KNBA Morning Newscast for Monday August 3, 2015
Changing Arctic
By Tim Ellis, KUAC
The Inupiat people of Point Hope, Alaska, celebrate a successful whaling season with song and dance. But community leader Steve Oomittuk worries about what could happen to the ocean if the oil industry finds what it’s looking for in the Chukchi Sea.
“Are they capable of not having an oil spill or a blowout or anything like that? I feel they’re not ready,” said Oomittuk.
Royal Dutch Shell officials, who’ve been given conditional permission to explore in the Chukchi this summer, insist they can do so safely, as in this testimonial on the company’s website.
“Our current focus is to listen to the stakeholders and understand their concerns,” said Oomittuk.
Oomittuk was born in Point Hope, a village on Alaska’s northwest coast. He’s concerned offshore oil development will threaten the food supply of people who, like him, subsist mainly on what they harvest from the sea.
“Our parents and their parents before them have always wanted to ensure that our ocean is protected, and that our way of life continues,” said Oomittuk.
Another Native leader says that traditional way of life included hardships that most North Slope residents don’t have to deal with anymore, because of modernization that came with the oil industry
“To have fresh water, they had to melt ice and snow. To have heat, they had to burn whale oil. And to travel from place to place, they had to walk or use a dog team,” said Brower.
Charlotte Brower is mayor of the sprawling North Slope Borough, which gets 97 percent of its revenues from the oil industry. She talks often about how the industry has improved the lives of Alaska’s Native peoples, as in this recent appearance before the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
“We formed a local, home-rule charter government, and built roads, airports, schools, hospitals, houses and utilities,” said Brower.
Oomittuk agrees there’ve been economic benefits. But he’s troubled that it comes at a high price, a tradeoff between jobs and culture.
Yukon Quest
By the Associated Press
Mushers from across Alaska met in downtown Fairbanks Saturday to sign up for the 2016 Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race.
21 mushers had signed up for the 1,000 mile race by early afternoon. Nine of those mushers are rookies.
The race will start on February 6, 2016, in Fairbanks and end in Whitehorse, Yukon.
The upcoming competition will include the top three Yukon Quest finishers from 2015: Champion Brent Sass of Eureka, second-place finisher Allen Moore of Two Rivers and third-place finisher Ed Hopkins of 10 Mile, Yukon.
ARCTIC DRILLING
By John Ryan, KUCB
Arctic drilling is under way.
Shell Oil confirmed Thursday night that its Polar Pioneer rig sent a drill bit spinning into the floor of the Chukchi Sea about 5 p.m. Alaska time.
It came at the end of one of the most eventful days in the company's eight-year effort to find oil in the Arctic Ocean.
More than two thousand miles away, just a few minutes before the drill bit hit the sea floor, the company's icebreaker Fennica managed to free itself from a blockade of protesters in Portland, Oregon.
Shell has begun drilling a 40-foot-deep cellar for housing a blowout preventer.
It can only begin drilling into oil-bearing layers beneath the sea floor after the Fennica arrives at the drill site in the Chukchi Sea.
Interior Department officials say they expect to approve the deeper drilling quickly once the Fennica has returned to the Arctic.