Community Corner
By: LINDA ROBINSON, Outreach Coordinator
This month, council will be hosting visitors from Kazakhstan interested in studying citizen oversight in Alaska as a model for their own efforts. Citizens have been successful at initiating a citizens council in the district of Aktau (an oil rich region of western Kazakhstan), and are hoping to initiate other councils in the region as well.
Joining us are two members of the Aktau council, two members of non-governmental organizations from the western Kazakhstan and Atyrau regions, two representatives from Russian oil companies who are involved in social projects and transparency issues, and Askar Kushkunbayev, a representative of the Soros Foundation’s Public Finance Transparency Program in Kazakhstan.
They will visit council offices in Anchorage and Valdez, and take the ferry from Valdez to Whittier.
The Kenai Peninsula hosted its 25th annual Sport, Rec and Trade Show April 29 to Sunday, May 2. The council was represented at the show by myself and board members Iver Malutin and Al Burch of Kodiak. There were several informational booths on the region and its environment. People expressed interest to me about our information on invasive species and asked how they could help pass the legislation that would form an Alaska Invasive Species Council. Unfortunately, the legislation died in committee during the legislative session of this year. The council will be supporting efforts to reintroduce the bill and is looking forward to better results this next year.
The council’s May board meeting in Valdez began with a reception at the city museum to welcome our new executive director, Mark Swanson. We had a good turnout and the event presented a good opportunity for board members and staff to visit informally with local residents.
Board member John French and committee volunteers Roger Green and Bob Benda joined me at the Arctic Marine Oilspill Program Technical Seminar which was held in Halifax, Nova Scotia in June. Presentation topics included physical and chemical properties of oil and behavior of oil spills; shoreline response; remediation, restoration and rehabilitation of resources damaged by hazardous materials spills; oil spill contingency planning; oil spill modeling; and the detection, tracking, and remote sensing of oil spills.
John French gave a presentation titled “Important Considerations Regarding Ocean and Ecosystem Dynamics in Assessing Environmental Risks from Various Oil Spill Countermeasures.”
A copy of the proceedings is available in the council’s library in the Anchorage office, and French, Green and Benda each have a copy.
Mark Swanson and his family, along with board members John French and Walt Parker, attended the annual Tatitlek Heritage Festival in May. Board member Sheri Buretta taught classes during the week. The festival’s potlatch culminates a week of teaching native arts and crafts to students from around Prince William Sound and other communities. Students learn skin sewing, beading, woodwork, salmon preparation, and other native crafts, then display their work at the potlatch. The potlatch also includes an auction that raises money for future festivals.
Patience Andersen Faulkner and Rochelle van den Broek, both board members from Cordova, joined Mark Swanson and Donna Schantz at the annual Copper River Nouveau in Cordova. This is an annual fund raising event for the Prince William Sound Science Center. Along with a fabulous Copper River salmon dinner prepared by celebrity chefs (this year from Kinley’s restaurant in Anchorage), there were silent and live auctions that raised approximately $23,000 for the center.
The council has been extensively involved with the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Patience Andersen Faulkner and Joe Banta both visited the area to discuss the effects on residents (See “Council responds to Gulf of Mexico disaster” on page 1). Several other Alaskans have visited the area to help as well.
The council has also created a new website for Gulf residents with lots of information and lessons learned from the Valdez spill at: www.pwsrcac.info. Have a great summer!