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How Would a Road Affect Cordova?
Jack Kruse
The proposed road to Cordova has created controversy for more than 30 years. Several time work has been started and stopped on what is known as the Copper River Highway. In 1992 the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities hired ISER to study the potential economic and social effects of a road to Cordova. ISER's report provided information for a draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) on the road. That EIS was not released at the time of publication, however, the four volumes of the ISER report were released in 1993. Major findings of the report are outlined in this summary research report.
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Who Pays for Alaska's Schools?
Eric Larson and Matthew Berman
Alaska's public schools cost $1.2 billion in the 1992-93 school year. That included both operating and capital spending and amounted to about $10,000 for each of the state's 119,000 elementary and secondary students. This research summary looks at where Alaska's public schools got their money and how they spent it in 1992-93. We don't yet have complete figures for the 1993--94 year. The information is based on work by Matthew Berman, and Teresa Hull.
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Economic Contribution of Anchorage International Airport
Eric Larson and Scott Goldsmith
Airport jobs created by Anchorage residents and by non-local airport users wouldn't exist without the airport. The 750 jobs created by tenants that don't directly rely on air services would still exist without the airport; they could easily be somewhere else in the city. Those jobs are mainly with the U.S. Postal Service and the Alaska Department of Transponation's regional headquarters. Providing air transport services to Anchorage residents doesn't bring new money into the economy - it recycles money already in the economy. But the other airpon users do bring money into the Anchorage economy. The jobs created by those other user groups are what economists call basic jobs: jobs that generate economic growih by producing goods or services that are sold outside the region. The other source of jobs at the airport is Tenants Not Aviation Dependent. These jobs don't depend on the airport, but since they are physically located on airport land, a complete description of the airport as an economic entity must include them. They account for 750 jobs at the airport and another 600 jobs in the community - bringing the total of jobs at the airport and in the community to 12,300. The payroll for the 750 airport jobs is $29 million, and the 600 jobs in the community have a payroll of $15 million-bringing the total payroll for airport and related community jobs to $360 million. This is the economic effect of all of the activities physically located at the airport.
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Heavy Oil Development: The Economic Impact
Bradford Tuck
The extension of North Slope oil production, through new discoveries, enhanced recovery techniques, and development of marginal fields, has received considerable public policy _ attention. Less discussed have been the reserves of heavy crude oil. While more difficult to produce, there are billions of barrels of reserves in place. The present study looks at the economic impact of an hypothesized development of heavy oil in the Milne Point Unit-Schrader Bluff area. The general dimensions of the project envision development expenditures of about $550 million, with the bulk of that spread over the first nine years of the project. In addition, production expenses are estimated at about $600 million, or an average of $14. 7 million per year over the forty-one year production life of the project. Average production of oil is approximately 20 thousand barrels per day over the life of the field.The economic impact methodology used is based on that employed by Professor Scott Goldsmith in his study Marginal Oil Field Development: The Economic Impact (Institute of Social and Economic Research, University of Alaska Anchorage; June 5, 1995). The basic objective in this type of impact analysis is to measure the change in aggregate expenditure, employment, and population effects in both the private and public sectors that result from the direct project expenditures. In other words, how does the economy look with the project, as compared to without the project. The analysis can look either at impacts on some periodic basis, such as changes in the annual level of activity. or at the aggregate impacts over the life of the project.
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Common Property, Individual Quotas, and The Domino Effect: Diverse Management of Multiple Species Fisheries
Matthew D. Berman and Marcus Hartley
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Modern, Postmodern and Northern: A New Approach to The Political Economy of Northern Regions
Matthew D. Berman and Michael Pretes
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New Crude Oil Reserve Formation: Responsiveness to Changes in Real Prices and the Reserves-to-Production Ratio
Matthew D. Berman and Bradford Tuck
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On the Eve of IFQs: Fishing for Alaska's Halibut and Sablefish
Matthew Berman and Linda Leask
This year, anyone with a boat, longline gear, and a $50 permit could try for halibut in Alaska’s commercial fisheries. But that open access will likely end in 1995, when the federal government introduces Individual Fishing Quotas (IFQs). Quotas—shares of the catch—will be issued just to those who owned or leased vessels that fished for halibut between 1988 and 1990. An IFQ system for sablefish (black cod) under federal management will start at the same time. The IFQ plan is not popular with the men and women who fish for halibut: 68 percent of captains (permit holders) believe IFQs will unfairly allocate halibut, even though 78 percent agree they will make fishing safer. But the IFQ system could also cause big changes in wealth, income, and jobs in Alaska’s coastal communities, which rely heavily on fishing. ISER is studying the potential effects of IFQs, especially on small coastal towns, under a Saltonstall-Kennedy grant. As a first step we surveyed captains (most of whom were also owners) of vessels with longline gear. This publication reports our survey findings.
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Violent Death in Alaska: Who Is Most Likely To Die?
Matthew Berman and Linda Leask
Alaskans die by accident and commit suicide far more often than the national averages. They die in homicides at near the national rate. But when you look beyond the averages, it’s plain that some Alaskans are at much higher risk than others. This Review describes how rates of violent death—by which we mean deaths from accidents, suicides, and homicides—vary among Alaskans by race, sex, age, marital status, and place of residence. Differences in age and other factors don’t explain all the variation, but they give us a start in better understanding why violent death strikes some groups and places much more than others. The detailed analysis that follows is based on a computer file—provided by the Alaska Bureau of Vital Statistics—of death certificates of Alaskans who died between 1980 and 1990. This file includes recently revised statistics analyzed here for the first time. We calculated average death rates for that 11-year period, allowing us to see trends and to feel confident that rates for small towns don’t just reflect unusual circumstances in a single year.
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Measured Energy Savings from Weatherization Alaska vs. National Results
Steve Colt
This memorandum reviews the differences in measured energy savings from 102 Alaska weatherized homes (ISER 1993) compared with savings from a "cold-climate" region of the United States (ORNL 1993). The National study found a significantly higher level of gross energy saving (12.5%) in its sample of 1040 gas-heated homes than the Alaska study found in is sample of 102 homes. Alaska' lower level of percentage gas savings, relative to the US cold-climate region, cannot be attributed to differences in sampling, data retention, or analytical technique using PRISM. When measured by gas consumption per degree-day, the Alaska sample of weatherized homes appears to have higher thermal integrity prior to weatherization. From different starting points, both Alaska and US single-family homes appear to be achieving a post-weatherization thermal integrity of about .155 cf per degree-day. Alaska mobile homes reach a roughly similar final level of .142 ccf per HDD, commensurate with their smaller size.
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Operations and Maintenance Issues in Rural Alaska Sanitation
Steve Colt
Today, many rural Alaskans have inadequate water and sanitation facilities. As a result, they face unacceptable health risks and an unacceptably poor quality of life. While much has been accomplished during the past 30 years, the honey bucket remains the primary form of sanitation in scores of communities. This paper is intended to stimulate discussion about several issues related to operations and maintenance of rural sanitation systems. The paper focuses on operations and maintenance issues because so many observers agree that proper O&M is crucial to success but severely lacking in many communities today. Section 2 reviews the prior recommendations of the Alaska Sanitation Task Force and issues raised during meetings of the Federal Field Work Group. Section 3 provides some discussion of these recommendations and issues, based on subsequent research. Section 4 provides a simple method for quantifying the benefits of preventive maintenance and R&D. Section 5 discusses mechanisms for providing O&M assistance. Section 6 provides three case studies of life cycle costs for three different system types.
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Alaska's Low-Income Weatherization Program: Three Papers
Steve Colt, Linda Brooks, and Marybeth Holleman
This report combines three papers prepared for the Alaska Housing Finance Corporation (Rural Housing Division) between September 1993 and May 1994. "Measured Energy Savings from the Alaska Low-Income Weatherization Assistance Program" (1993) utilized the PRISM software system to measure energy savings in two phases to first determine potential savings for study homes using piped natural gas, and then measure the effectiveness of behavioral changes of occupants and physical changes to the housing units. This report presents preliminary results of the first phase. "Measured Energy Savings from Weatherization: Alaska vs. National Results" (1994) reviews the differences in measured energy savings from 102 Alaska weatherized homes compared with savings from a "cold-climate" region of the United States. "Cost-Effectiveness Analysis of the Home Energy Rebate Program and the Low Income Weatherization Program" (1994) compares the economic costs and benefits of two programs designed to reduce Alaskans' home energy consumption. This analysis looks at the overall social costs and benefits of both programs.
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Economic Comparison of Power Generation Alternatives for Thorne Bay, Alaska
Steve Colt and Mark Foster
This study is an economic screening analysis of power generation alternatives for the city of Thorne Bay, a community of about 650 people located on Prince of Wales Island in Southeast Alaska. The City currently operates a municipal utility providing electric service to 190 residential and 40 commercial and small industrial customers. City power is currently generated by three diesel units with a total installed capacity of [600 + 650 + 325] = 1,575 kilowatts (kW). Three non-diesel alternatives for base load power are considered in this analysis. The first is an intertie from the Craig-Klawock power grid to Thorne Bay, which would allow Thorne Bay to receive power from the Black Bear Lake hydroelectric project now under construction by Alaska Power and Telephone (AP&T), a regulated investor-owned utility. The second alternative is a wood-waste fired power plant located in Thorne Bay, making use of the wood waste from the Ketchikan Pulp Company (KPC) sort yard. The third alternative is a biomass power plant, also loctaed in Thorne Bay, but fired primarily from municipal solid waste generated on Prince of Wales Island. This plant would also use wood waste, but as a supplemental fuel.
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A Study of Five Southeast Alaska Communities
Steve Colt, Lee Gorsuch, Charles Smythe, and Bart K. Garber
The Forest Service of the US Department of Agriculture and the Bureaus of Land Management and Indian Affairs of the US Department of the Interior contracted with the Institute of Social and Economic Research to prepare a report presenting the available, factual evidence on why the five studey communities of Haines, Ketchikan, Petersburg, Tenakee and Wrangell were omitted from ANCSA - and how the historical circumstances and conditions of the study communities compare with those of the Southeast communities that were recognized under ANCSA. The first two chapters ofthe report examine Congress's broad authority to settle aboriginal land claims and the development and application of Congressioal and adminstrative criteria for villages and urban communities recognized under ANCSA. Chapter 3 examines Tlingit and Haida land claims settlement. Chapter 4 assesses similarities and differences in Native population characteristics of the study communities at the time ANSCSA was passed. Chapter 5 describes historical Native use and occuption of the five study communities and of ANCSA communities in Southeast Alaska. Chapter 6 reports how ANSCA enrollment procedures were carried out in both the study communities and the recognized villages and urban communities. Chapter 7 reports on the financial benefits that shareholders of Southeast village and urban corporations have realized over the years, as compared with the benefits the at-large shareholders received. This report is accompanied by four appendices that provide the basis for summaries included in the main report. Appendix A: A History of Occupation and Use, Appendix B: List of Persons Interviewed for Study Community Histories , Appendix C: Citation Database for Chapters 1 and 2 , Appendix D: Comments of Reviewers and Related Documents
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Childcare Assistance Programs: Caseload Analysis
Steve Colt and Liz Talbot
The Department of Community and Regional Affairs provides child care assistance programs which served almost 4,000 children in FY93. The total demand for these programs has proven to be quite volatile during the past three years. This volatility causes problems for funding agencies and legislators because funds must be committed more than one year before managers learn what the actual demand will be. As a result, waiting lists have increased rapidly at times during FY91, FY93, and FY94 as demand outstripped available funding. During at least one period, however, funding was more than sufficient to meet short-term demand and monies were lapsed, making it difficult to serve all clients when demand picked up again. In this research memorandum we examine the data on monthly and annual demand for the four major child care programs administered by the department. We look at overall growth trends, sources of volatility, and we develop a simple statistical model that explains much of the observed changes in demand.
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Tracking the Structure of The Alaska Economy: the 1994 ISER MAP Economic Database
Oliver Scott Goldsmith and Teresa Hull
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Economic Forecasting in a Remote Northern Region: Lessons from Alaska
Scott Goldsmith
The driving force behind the economic transformation of Alaska has been petroleum development. Exploitation of this resource has created an extraordinary surplus of which a large portion has been retained within the region and used for growth and development. The importance of this surplus--oil company profits, federal taxes, and state-local taxes--can be seen in a comparison of the components of value added in Alaska with the US as a whole. (Value added is a measure of the value of all the goods and services produced for final demand in an economy and is similar to Gross Product.) For the US as a whole employee compensation (wages paid and benefits to workers) is the largest component of value added and its share has remained almost constant over time at about 57%. In contrast, in Alaska employee compensation, originally 68% of value added, had fallen to 37% of value added by the late 1980s. The other components of value added, payments to other factors and profits, increased from 32% to 63% of the total. Most of this increase reflects the value of oil production above its cost. It is this surplus, more than any other factor which has challenged economists attempting to forecast the direction of the economy. But some of the more traditional aspects of the economy have also made it difficult to forecast. Presented at First Alaska-Japan Regional Forum on the North Pacific, Niigata, Japan"
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