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Gulf of Alaska Limitations ReportExecutive Summary The purpose of this report is to document economic and demographic changes for communities of the Gulf of Alaska, Southcentral Alaska, and Southeast Alaska over the period of 1950 to 2023. Over this period several major changes were made to the way that State and Federal commercial fisheries were managed in Alaska waters. These changes -particularly the introduction of the Limited Entry program in the mid-1970s and individual fishing quotas in the mid-1990’s - limited access to fisheries. Changes to fisheries access has implications not just for the fisherman directly included or excluded, but also more broadly to their home communities through the economic spillover effects that the fishing industry creates. Watson et al., (2021) shows that the impacts of the commercial fishing industry in Alaska extends beyond the income it provides to vessel captains. Fishing activity also provides for crew member and shore-side processing jobs and spillover effects into upstream and downstream industries. It also creates broader induced economic effects as income and wages are spent on local goods and services. However, as Watson et al., (2021) shows, these effects only tend to materialize in the home communities of fishermen. In other words, economic impacts follow fishermen.
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Effects on Households of a Proposed Anchorage Municipal Sales TaxExecutive Summary A coalition of Anchorage business leaders has proposed a sales tax for the Municipality of Anchorage. The tax would be levied at 3% of taxable expenditures. The proposal would allocate 2/3 of the revenues from the tax (2% of taxable expenditures) allocated to property tax relief, and the remaining one third (one percent of taxable expenditures) set aside to fund a capital improvements program. The tax would be temporary, set to expire after about 8 years. A study led by Nolan Klouda at the University of Alaska Anchorage Center for Economic Development (CED) estimated that the proposed sales tax would generate $180 million annually, with 16% of the total paid by non-Anchorage residents. A subsequent update sponsored by Project Anchorage initiative proponents also estimated that the tax would collect $180 million in total but projected 21% would be contributed by non-residents. The current study revisited the assumptions and data used by the previous reports, and after making minor accounting adjustments, confirmed the total revenue estimate of about $180 million, but with 20.5% ($37 million) derived from non-residents. It took a closer look at the $143 million estimated to be collected from residents and the property tax offsets these households might expect, focusing on the distribution of impacts across Anchorage households with different incomes.
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Equitable Compensation to Attract and Retain Qualified Teachers in High-Need Alaska Public SchoolsMeasuring the appropriate level of teacher compensation for different working conditions requires overcoming a number of empirical challenges, including defining and measuring differences in qualifications, effects of non-wage compensation, financial constraints, and lack of market clearing. We address those challenges in a study of teacher compensation in Alaska’s 462 public schools in 53 districts. Each of our three linked empirical specifications produces a set of different compensation adjustments needed to offset differences in working conditions across schools and communities. However, an overall pattern is clear: if districts wish to attract and retain teachers of similar qualifications across all schools, schools serving mainly racially minoritized and low-income populations will need to pay substantially more than they currently do. Estimated required compensation adjustments are quite large in some cases, illustrating the need to address working conditions and other factors that affect teachers’ choices to accept and stay in jobs at high-need schools.
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A rising tide that lifts all boats: Long-term effects of the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend on povertyAlthough not designed as a social program to redistribute income, the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend (PFD) has been reducing poverty by providing equal annual payments to nearly all state residents for over 40 years. We examine direct effects of the PFD on Alaska poverty rates since 1990, using US Census and American Community Survey Public Use Microdata Sample records to adjust for under-reporting of children's PFD income in official statistics. We estimate that the PFD reduced the number of Alaskans with incomes below the US poverty threshold by 20%–40%. We measure only a small effect on income distribution: a 0.02 reduction in the Gini coefficient. The effect of the PFD has been even larger for vulnerable populations. The PFD has reduced poverty rates of rural Indigenous Alaskans from 28% to less than 22%, and has played an important role in alleviating poverty among seniors and children. Aside from the special case of 2020, up to 50% more Alaska children—15% instead of 10%—would be living in poor families without PFD income. The poverty-ameliorating effects of the PFD have lessened somewhat since 2000, as dividend amounts adjusted for inflation have been declining.
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Long-term effects of group rights to fisheries: Evaluating the Western Alaska Community Development Quota programRestricting access to fisheries and other common property resources through creation of individual transferable rights has been documented to create wealth and promote conservation, but has also reduced employment and increased inequality in fishing communities. Creating group rights instead of individual rights has been suggested as an alternative strategy that could realize the benefits with diminished social cost; however, little independent evaluation of actual implementations of group rights to fisheries has occurred. The Western Alaska Community Development Quota (CDQ) program represents an example of allocation of group fishery rights to six not-for-profit organizations representing 65 small, largely Indigenous coastal communities. Using a unique data set of individual and household survey records spanning more than 25 years, we applied a difference-in-differences approach to measure changes in a variety of social and economic indicators, including Indigenous language use and educational attainment, employment, earnings, income, and poverty status, while controlling for demographic and general economic changes over the years. We found significant differences in outcomes for individuals and households in CDQ-participating communities from those residing in nearby communities ineligible for participation. Differences were especially pronounced for earnings and income. Results suggest that group rights can provide significant social benefits. The relatively small community populations provides insufficient power to determine statistically whether the benefits of the CDQ program have been increasing or diminishing over the years, or whether some communities have benefited more than others.
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MyPlace Rapid Rehousing Program: Innovation in Housing AlaskansThe initial plan for this investigation was to explore and describe the outcomes and impacts on the individuals and the community served by the MyPlace rapid re-housing program spanning from December 1, 2018 through April 30, 2021, which included the period of program funding from the Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority (AMHTA). A plan was developed to obtain existing pre and post HMIS data, interview stakeholders, collect emergency community service data, and to survey/interview a representative sample of program participants post completion of the program. Unfortunately, it was discovered that HMIS data was only collected at program entry and not exit. Additionally, despite months of recruitment efforts, former program participants did not respond in high numbers to requests to complete a post program survey, interview, or expressly consent to the collection of emergency service data. These challenges necessitated a revisioning of the project based on available data. The revised plan included modifications to both the project’s goals and the scope of the review. As revised, the project detailed in this report sought to 1) document the development and implementation of the program; 2) describe the participants of the program and their needs, housing outcomes, and any identifiable program and/or HMIS data that would show changes during program participation; and 3) describe the role, views, and experiences of program staff, community partners, and participating landlords. The methodology employed and results are described in the content of this report.
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Renewable Energy Policies in Fairbanks Alaska: Benefit-Cost Analysis of a Carbon Tax and a Renewable Portfolio Standard for Golden Valley Electric AssociationThe electricity sector is a major producer of carbon dioxide emissions. Specifically in Fairbanks, Alaska. The electricity sector is also a producer of PM2.5 emissions. PM2.5 emissions are particles that form in the air from complex chemical reactions in sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides which are emitted from nonrenewable power plants. Research shows (Wu, 2023) that both carbon emissions and PM2.5 emissions have negative influences on the environmental and social welfare of citizens. Carbon emissions contribute to climate change, while PM2.5 emissions pose serious threats to human health. In 2009, the Fairbanks North Star Borough (FNSB) was declared a nonattainment area by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). A nonattainment area is a designated area that does not meet the standard for clean air quality in the United States. Carbon emissions and PM2.5 emissions have lowered the air quality within the FNSB and contributes to global warming. Within the United States as a whole, approximately 40% of all human-induced carbon emissions come from electricity generators powered by fossil fuels. The policy problem is how best to encourage the FNSB to transition to more renewable energy sources. Transitioning the electricity sector away from fossil fuels to renewable energy would curb carbon emissions and PM2.5 emissions from this sector. However, renewable energy sources often entail high costs, intermittency, and insufficient generation capacity. Within the FNSB, the power producer is Golden Valley Electric Company (GVEA). GVEA was founded in 1946 and now operates nine nonrenewable and renewable power plants while also purchasing power from around the state of Alaska. Through the combination of power plants it owns and operates, GVEA is on average operating on 23.4% renewable and 76.6% nonrenewable energy sources. GVEA has set goals for carbon reduction and implemented a strategic generation plan to increase their use of renewable energy; however, the state of Alaska has not implemented any renewable energy transition policies. Two models of renewable energy transition policies that have been proposed to curb emissions are a carbon tax and renewable portfolio standard (RPS). A carbon tax puts a tax on the amount of emissions that power producers emit into the atmosphere, while an RPS requires power producers to produce a minimum amount of electricity coming from renewable energy. Both policies are designed to encourage the reduction of nonrenewable energy sources. This analysis looks at the costs and benefits of a carbon tax and an RPS being implemented on GVEA’s nine owned and operated power plants. The costs of the power plants are totaled to calculate the short term marginal costs ($/mwh) and the long term Levelized Cost of Energy ($/mwh). The costs collected include capital costs, variable operating and maintenance costs, fuel costs, social cost of PM2.5, and the social cost of carbon. The benefits are revenue, benefit from PM2.5 reduction per ton, and benefit from CO2 reduction per ton. All the costs and benefits are collected from the years 2017- 2021 and averaged to get an average annual cost and benefit estimate. A pigouvian carbon tax is used to internalize the external cost of carbon through making the social cost of carbon equivalent to the carbon tax. The RPS is stimulated using GVEA’s proposed strategic generation plan which calls for the retirement of a nonrenewable power plant and the addition of a wind farm and new battery energy storage system (BESS). In this scenario the LCOE estimates are used to estimate the costs of the new renewable plants under the RPS scenario. This is because in the short term they will have to be initially built which will include capital costs. The other power plants that already exist and will continue to exist will use the marginal costs to estimate their costs because they are already up and running. This paints a realistic picture of the costs of implementing the RPS tomorrow. The implementation of a carbon tax results in a notable shift in both costs and benefits. Initially, the costs rose by $39,523,800 from the baseline. This increase is directly tied to the amount of carbon emissions released into the atmosphere, as the carbon tax is set equal to the social cost of carbon. These costs are specifically the marginal costs per megawatt-hour ($/MWh), as all power plants in this scenario are already established. Conversely, the benefits experience an increase. The benefits increased from the baseline by $101,982,620. This increase in benefits stems from various sources. First, it includes the government revenue generated from the tax itself. Additionally, there are substantial gains from the reduction in both CO2 emissions and PM2.5 These reductions occur as nonrenewable power plants, faced with the burden of the tax, are priced out of the market. These high-emission plants find themselves unable to sustain operations as their costs far surpass their revenue. Consequently, they are forced to cease operations, resulting in a decrease in both CO2 emissions and PM2.5. This further amplifies the overall benefits derived from the carbon tax. The benefit-cost ratio for both policies is above one,
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Comparative Research of rural Drinking Water Supply in Mongolia and AlaskaThis comparative research project on rural drinking water supply in Mongolia and Alaska aimed to understand the challenges, dynamics, and best practices surrounding water access and utilities in rural communities within these regions. Through meticulous planning and execution, three cities in Mongolia and three cities in Alaska were selected as primary areas of study to capture the nuances and variations inherent in water supply dynamics across diverse geographical and socio-economic contexts. The objectives included investigating rural water supply systems, developing evidence-based recommendations, and fostering knowledge exchange and collaboration. A comprehensive literature review provided insights into existing scholarly works relevant to the study, establishing a foundation for the research. The research findings highlighted common challenges faced by remote communities in both Mongolia and Alaska, including limited access to clean and reliable drinking water, inadequate infrastructure, and socio-economic disparities. Despite these challenges, successful strategies and initiatives were identified, emphasizing the importance of community engagement, stakeholder collaboration, and context-specific solutions. Interviews with key stakeholders provided invaluable insights into the complexities of rural water supply systems, challenges faced, successful strategies employed, community engagement initiatives, regulatory frameworks, sustainability practices, and lessons learned. The qualitative and quantitative analysis facilitated a comprehensive understanding of rural water supply dynamics, informing evidence-based recommendations and best practices. The study concluded that addressing water access and utilities in rural communities requires concerted efforts, including investment in innovative technologies, fostering community engagement, enhancing policy support, and strengthening cross-sector collaboration. By translating research findings into actionable recommendations, stakeholders can work towards improving the quality of life for rural residents in Mongolia, Alaska, and beyond.
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Avoid getting burned: lessons from the McKinley wildfire in rural Alaska, USACSIRO Publishing, 2024-10-25Background Climate change and continued development in the wildland–urban interface (WUI) have increased risks to property and infrastructure from destructive wildfires. Aims A better understanding of the factors associated with building survival will promote resilience of WUI communities. Methods We studied factors associated with the likelihood that a building burned during the 2019 McKinley fire in the Alaska boreal forest, USA. We examined the potential influence of both ecological or socio-economic factors on building loss. Key results The probability of a building burning was significantly associated (P < 0.001) with a building burning nearby (within 30 m). Having less flammable deciduous cover nearby (within 100 m) improved survival. Buildings with lower value on larger parcels were more likely to burn, as were buildings with larger perimeters. Other important factors associated with burning included the number of buildings both nearby (within 30 m) and within the property parcel boundary. Conclusions Our results suggest that social and ecological factors contribute to building survival, indicating that a comprehensive social-ecological approach would provide the most effective support to WUI communities with wildfire risks. Implications Implications A comprehensive approach that integrates social, economic, and ecological factors is important in understanding building loss in WUI wildfires.
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Any Police Contact in Alaska, 2022This fact sheet presents results from the 2022 Alaska Police-Public Contact Survey on adult Alaskans' formal and informal contact with police in the past 12 months.
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Formal Police Contact in Alaska, 2022This fact sheet presents data from the 2022 Alaska Police-Public Contact Survey on adult Alaskans' formal contact with police in the past 12 months.
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Alaska Homicide Arrest Rates, by Place: 1985-2022This fact sheet presents Alaska homicide arrests rates per 1,000 population in Anchorage and 1,000 population outside of Anchorage from 1985-2022.
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Homicides Reported to Police in Alaska, by Place: 1985-2022This fact sheet presents data on homicides reported to police in Alaska per 1,000 population in Anchorage and 1,000 population outside of Anchorage from 1985-2022.
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Contacts Between Police and the PublicThe Alaska Justice Information Center (AJiC) administered the Alaska Police—Public Contact Survey (PPCS) from May 1, 2022 through September 30, 2022. The primary aims of the PPCS were to develop an Alaska-specific estimate of adult Alaskans who came into contact with police in the preceding 12 months, to describe the nature and outcomes of police—public encounters, and to assess the attitudes and perceptions of adult Alaskans as they pertain to police. The Alaska PPCS survey instrument was developed using modified versions of survey questions included in the U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics’ Police-Public Contact Survey, which is the primary data source for police—public contacts in the United States.
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Passages AlaskaThrough deep engagement with Ping Chong and Company’s interdisciplinary theater production ALAXSXA | ALASKA, students and educators in Passages Alaska explore little-known Alaska histories, and they create artistic expressions of personal stories and community stories that acknowledge and celebrate their lived experiences as integral parts of that Alaska history. The course unfolds as nine units, one week each (5 sessions, 90 minutes each). The lessons and units may be adapted to other course structures. Each of the nine units fulfills Alaska History content standards through an arts-based, arts-integrated pursuit that is linked directly to, or inspired by, the content of Ping Chong and Company’s interdisciplinary theater production ALAXSXA | ALASKA, created by Ping Chong, Ryan Conarro, Gary Upay’aq Beaver, and Justin Perkins. Each unit features video excerpts from the production, provided as part of curriculum materials. The journey of the course culminates with a viewing of the full production, followed by dialogue and reflection. Each unit also links to EncountersAlaska.com, a web archive of real contemporary Alaska stories created by Ryan Conarro and Ping Chong alongside the production ALAXSXA | ALASKA. Each unit in Passages Alaska articulates fulfillment of one or more Alaska Arts Standards, Alaska Cultural Standards, SEL Standards, and Alaska History Content Standards. Each unit invites learners to explore their own personal stories, and the stories of their families and communities, in response to cultural and academic content.
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“An Exile They Gladly Embrace”: Queer Ecology in E.M. Forster’s MauriceE.M. Forster’s novel Maurice, first written from 1913 to 1914 and published posthumously in 1971, is often noted for being the only one of Forster’s novels to feature an explicitly gay protagonist. This, as well as the fact that the novel has a happy ending, is what kept Forster from publishing it until after his death (Forster 250). According to Forster, Maurice “was the direct result of a visit to Edward Carpenter at Milthorpe [sic]” where Carpenter’s partner, George Merrill, touched Forster on the backside and apparently made a strong enough impression that Forster began writing Maurice right away (Forster 249-250). As one scholar Wendy Parkins writes, Carpenter’s life with Merrill at Millthorpe involved trying to live as close to nature as possible, away from “the trappings of civilization” (Parkins). It also involved “a new way of seeing, like a new way of living, that offered an opportunity to enrich daily experience, once the conventions of middle-class domesticity were set aside” (Parkins). Parkins associates this lifestyle with queer ecology, an emerging theory which draws from queer theory and ecocriticism—among others—in order to examine the ways in which sexuality connects to nature and the environment. While Parkins focuses on Carpenter’s life, it is also useful to consider how Carpenter and Merrill’s lifestyle is echoed by the presence of nature in Maurice, as well as the ways in which nature influences the characters and their relationships. This can be done using the theory of queer ecology to provide new insights into the novel’s perspective on queerness. Maurice can also be seen as a precursor to queer ecological theory due to the entanglement of queerness and nature in the text. In Maurice, Forster repeatedly associates heterosexuality with society and homosexuality with nature, challenging the dominant ideas of heteronormativity and homophobia in English society at the time. Whereas homosexuality was often seen as unnatural by English society, Forster’s association of homosexuality with nature implies that it is, in fact, natural and should not be criminalized or condemned. By linking boundaries between nature and society with boundaries between heterosexuality and queerness, and by showing the way these boundaries can become blurred, Maurice demonstrates that the parts of nature that are deemed ideal for one society are not the full picture of what is actually natural.
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Domestic Violence Treatment Interventions: Evidence from the Past DecadeA literature review of ten peer-reviewed meta-analyses (2014-2024) was conducted to evaluate the preventative effects of domestic violence treatment interventions for perpetrators and victims.
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Service Receipt among Alaskan Women Who Experience Intimate Partner Violence, Sexual Assault, or StalkingThe Alaska Justice Information Center (AJiC) at the University of Alaska Anchorage has released a new report, "Service Receipt among Alaskan Women Who Experience Intimate Partner Violence, Sexual Assault, or Stalking." This report used data from the 2020 Alaska Victimization Survey (AVS) to estimate the extent to which victims of intimate partner violence, sexual assault, and stalking needed and received victim services. It also estimated the extent to which victims are likely to report to the police in the future.
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Mapping the wildfire threat to boreal communitiesConsiderable interest and effort in identifying significant wildfire risk is drawn from the catastrophic impact of increasingly large and destructive wildfires on people, their health and safety, and the values and developments that support them. Improved methods include updated efforts to represent hazard and exposure across landscapes and within communities. The tools and techniques applied and evaluated here are collectively called Wildfire Exposure Assessment, a process developed and published by Jennifer L. Beverly (University of Alberta) and others. The simplicity and speed of the Exposure Assessment method make it an important prospect for communities planning for the protection of their citizenry and the values that support them. It makes few assumptions about factors difficult to assert and quantify over planning time horizons. Applied here specifically for communities in the Boreal biome, its utility is evaluated for three communities: Anchorage and Fairbanks in Alaska, and Whitehorse in the Yukon Territory. Further, it has been applied to all lands for both Alaska and the Yukon Territory based on vegetation classification from 2014. To this day, all spatial depictions of wildfire hazard begin as vegetation maps. The NASA Arctic Boreal Vulnerability Experiment (ABoVE), among its many environmental assessments, produced a consistent, historical catalog of vegetation and land cover classifications over the life of the LANDSAT period of record, dating to 1984. These provided a consistent and useful set of products for use in establishing the spatial distribution of wildfire hazards and the utility these datasets could provide for the three boreal communities considered.
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Global gateways as telecoupled human and natural systems: The emerging case of the Bering StraitNumerous narrow marine passages around the world serve as essential gateways for the transportation of goods, the movement of people, and the migration of fish and wildlife. These global gateways facilitate human–nature interactions across distant regions. The socioeconomic and environmental interactions among distant coupled human and natural systems affect the sustainability of global gateways in complex ways. However, the assessment and analysis of global gateways are scattered and fragmented. To fill this knowledge gap, we frame global gateways as telecoupled human and natural systems using an emerging global gateway, the Bering Strait, as a demonstration. We examine how three telecoupling processes (tourism, vessel traffic, and natural resource development) impact and are impacted by the coupled human and natural system of the Bering Strait Region. Given that global gateways share many similarities, our analysis of the Bering Strait Region provides a foundation for the assessment of other telecoupled global gateways.
