By Tim Bradner
Alaska Journal of Commerce

Climate change promises long-term changes for northern regions, including coastal erosion, thawing permafrost, retreating sea ice and more frequent forest fires. A group of Alaskans are now at working to develop ideas for ways of adapting to at least some of the effects.

Advisory groups involving about 100 Alaskans began work May 15 and 16 on a year-long effort to develop a strategic state plan for dealing with climate changes, a blueprint for guiding state and federal funding.

Last September Gov. Sarah Palin appointed a sub-cabinet group to address climate change issues. Through the fall and winter the state administration developed a plan for “stakeholder” groups, advisory panels of citizens with expertise in different areas, to develop recommendations.

“The end product will be a climate change strategy that will identify the impacts and the opportunities for adaptation, how we can deal with sustainability and cultural issues, and come up with a plan to prepare for a warmer environment,” said state Commissioner of Environmental Conservation Larry Hartig, who chairs the sub-cabinet group.

The plan is to be presented to the governor next year, Hartig said.

The state isn't waiting on more urgent coastal erosion issues, however. This spring the Legislature approved $10.6 million in state funding to help several Western Alaska coastal communities build protections against flooding caused by storms, based on recommendations of a separate task force of state and federal officials headed by Mike Black, in the state Department of Commerce, Community and Economic Development, and Patricia Opheen, chief of the Alaska U.S. Army Corp of Engineers' engineering section.

Meanwhile, Alaska is leading the nation in working out ways to adapt to climate change, Hartig said. Many states have global warming task forces at work, but most focus on mitigation, or measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to atmospheric warming, he said. Alaska is the only state working on adaptation, Hartig said. “A lot of states are watching what we do,” he said.

The work of the groups will be facilitated by newly appointed University of Alaska Fairbanks Chancellor Brian Rogers, as well as Ken Colburn of the Center for Climate Change Strategies, a nonprofit based in Harrisburg, Pa. The university is well represented in the overall effort, with University of Alaska Anchorage Chancellor Fran Ulmer serving on the adaptation advisory group.

Meanwhile, immediate state and federal actions to help coastal communities are focused on four Western Alaska villages threatened by erosion: Shishmaref, Newtok, Kivalina and Unalakleet, according to analysis prepared by Hartig.

Villagers in Newtok have already started relocating homes to a new village site in a safer area, which they have named Mertarkik. Some residents of Unalakleet have also started moving to higher ground in the community, the analysis indicated.

Koyukuk, in Interior Alaska, is also experiencing erosion problems, and Shaktoolik, on the Norton Sound, is also considered at risk from damage from flooding.

In Shishmaref, on the north side of the Seward Peninsula, a $31.5 million project to provide storm protection is planned. The Corps of Engineers has issued a contract for construction of 625 feet of rock revetment that will be completed over two years. An additional section of 750 feet of revetment has been designed and a third extension of 550 feet is planned.

About $23 million in federal funds is expected to be spent over the next two years, nearly $8.3 million of which has been authorized, along with $8.5 million in state funds that are proposed for the fiscal year 2010 state budget.

In Kivalina, $3.3 million in state funds authorized in this year's state budget will be matched with $11.6 million in federal funds also authorized to build 400 feet of rock revetment with options to build additional 400-foot sections.

The state has also funded $5 million for erosion protection at Unalakleet, along with $18.6 million in federal funds. Another $3.3 million, is to be matched with $5.5 million in federal funds, is for infrastructure in Mertarvik, the new village site for Newtok. The funds will pay for a road from an existing barge landing site at Mertarvik to the village site.