Tidal Echoes presents an annual showcase of writers and artists who share one thing in common: a life surrounded by the rainforests and waterways of Southeast Alaska.

Tidal Echoes presents an annual showcase of writers and artists who share one thing in common: a life surrounded by the rainforests and waterways of Southeast Alaska.

Tidal Echoes presents an annual showcase of writers and artists who share one thing in common: a life surrounded by the rainforests and waterways of Southeast Alaska.

The 2017 edition of Tidal Echoes presents an annual showcase of writers and artists who share one thing in common: a life surrounded by the rainforests and waterways of Southeast Alaska.

This research is the result of a partnership between Covenant House Alaska and the Institute of Social and Economic Research at the University of Alaska, Anchorage, as part of a national effort, initiated by Covenant House Institute, to create partnerships between Covenant House service providers and academic institutions. This report documents trends in use of Crisis Center at Covenant House Alaska and the characteristics of its clients. Use of Crisis Center, measured by visits and length of stay, has been increasing since 2003. The number of youth coming to Covenant House Crisis Center from outside of Anchorage is increasing, as is the number Alaska Natives served by Covenant House. Data indicate that many after aging out of foster care, many youth end up at Covenant House. Similarly many who receive mental health care outside of the state, return to Alaska and end up at Crisis Center. Few have high school diplomas or GED and three out of four are unemployed.

World salmon markets are dominated by farmed Atlantic salmon. As farmed salmon production has grown, Bristol Bay sockeye salmon has become an ever-smaller share of world salmon supply. Norway and Chile are by far the largest producers of farmed salmon, followed by the UK and Canada. Historically, year-over-year changes in US monthly imports have been inversely correlated with year-over-year changes in prices. What explains changes over time in the price premium or discount of sockeye relative to competing farmed salmon? Looking at the relationship between price and supply changes, we conclude that the market is able to absorb 6-7% more fish at stable prices. As a consequence, we expect a 5% increase in price is 2019 despite 4% supply growth.

We evaluate the impact of universal income on childhood obesity. While the goals of implementing universal income are many, its influence on childhood obesity is of particular interest given the growing obesity epidemic and its future threat to global public health. We use evidence from Alaska’s universal income program, the Permanent Fund Dividend (PFD), which has provided annual, unconditional, and universal income to Alaskan residents for over thirty-five years. We use both survey and administrative data to evaluate how the availability of unconditional resources at an early developmental stage, in terms of PFD payments to the child, affects a child’s body mass index (BMI). Using date-of-birth eligibility cut-offs as an identification strategy, we find that an additional one thousand dollars in PFD payments decreases the probability of an Alaskan child being obese by as much as 4.5 percentage points. Back-of-the-envelope calculations for Alaska suggest these reduction may avert 500 cases of obesity and achieve medical cost savings of $2-10 million per year. These findings highlight just one of the potential social benefits of universal income and the potential it has as a tool for addressing the obesity epidemic.

We estimate the effects of universal cash transfers on crime from Alaska’s Permanent Fund Dividend, an annual lump-sum payment to all Alaska residents. We find a 14% increase in substance-abuse incidents the day after the payment and a 10% increase over the following four weeks. This is partially offset by a 8% decrease in property crime, with no changes in violent crimes. On an annual basis, however, changes in criminal activity from the payment are small. Estimated costs comprise a very small portion of the total payment, suggesting that crime-related concerns of a universal cash transfer program may be unwarranted.

We have constructed a simple but comprehensive village energy use model that includes space heating and transportation fuel use as well as electricity. Because people in isolated remote northern communities pay about 2/3 of their overall energy bills for heat and transportation (WH Pacific et al. 2012), knowledge of overall energy demand by major end use is important when considering energy systems that can make the best use of efficiency and renewables as resources to offset costly fossil fuels. Previous work (Devine & Baring-Gould 2004) provides community planners and policy makers with a good tool for estimating community electricity demand. This paper builds on that work with an integrated model that can be used to estimate overall village energy usage based on a relatively small number of socioeconomic characteristics, such as population; number of residential, commercial and public facilities; housing and building stock characteristics; and transportation patterns and equipment types. The Alaska Village Energy Model (AVEM) model uses the best available primary data from recent collection efforts, and can easily incorporate new data that may become available."

This paper provides a simple analysis of the cost of the proposed Susitna-Watana hydroelectric project from a ratepayer perspective, using data current as of June 2013. The Susitna Case 1 assumptions include a capital cost of 5.19 billion 2012 dollars, 100% debt financing at 5.0%, and an on-line date of 2024. Under these assumptions plus others described below, the production cost of Susitna power in 2024 would be 13 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh) and the cost at a Railbelt customer’s meter would be about 18 cents per kWh.1 By comparison, if natural gas is available to electric utilities in year 2024 at a price of about $9.50 per million btu, and ignoring potential carbon taxes, then the production cost and retail cost of power from a new combined cycle gas turbine going online in 2024 would be about 11 cents and 16 cents per kWh, respectively.