The village is losing ground three times faster than it was 10 years ago, according to studies of Napakiak’s erosion. During high tide, the river is only 64 feet from the high-schoolers’ original classroom and gets closer by the day. On windy days, waves crash against the shore where students used to play, battering it until the land relents and crumbles.
Akiak City Administrator David Gilila says the village is in danger of becoming an island in the Kuskokwim River.
The size of king salmon returning to Western Alaska rivers to spawn has been decreasing over the past few decades. Researchers at the University of Alaska
In Chefornak, a family was forced to evacuate their home because a sinkhole caused by thawing permafrost formed underneath it. That family had to move into a building intended to be a quarantine facility.
Kwigillingok, a community on the Bering Sea coast of the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, is used to some flooding during high tides. But in recent years, that flooding has grown more severe, reaching a new threshold last week.
The spill followed a sudden rise in warm temperatures in recent days. Hooper Bay Mayor Sandra Hill said that the thaw and rain had melted the previously frozen land surrounding the sewage lagoon, causing a wall of the lagoon to cave.
“It got very cold the day we got there, it got down to like single digits and ice came out of the mountains and rivers and sloughs everywhere,” said Allyn Long, general manager of Alaska Logistics.
The Kuskokwim River king salmon run does not look particularly strong this year, but chum numbers look even worse. Historically, around 60% of the salmon in the river at this point in the season would be chum or sockeye, but right now Bethel Test Fishery numbers show that just over 20% of the salmon are.
A big winter storm came in from the Bering Sea and battered the Western Alaska coast from the evening of Nov. 25 through Nov. 26. Some communities, like Hooper Bay, have reported flooding.
Kuskokwim River chum salmon numbers remain off-the-charts low. However, sockeyes are still coming in strong. Meanwhile, the summer rain has not been
Some people in Bethel have called this the dreariest, wettest summer of their lives, and they're right. Last month was the wettest July in Bethel in over
The animals have been decaying on the isolated stretch of sand north of Manatee Cove Park
The storm could have threatened the town’s winter subsistence stock if not for the work of local power plant operators.
A critical artery is threatened by thawing permafrost.
Southwest Florida is reeling from a toxic algae bloom called red tide. Hundreds of tons of dead fish are washing up on beaches.
The Kuskokwim River breakup has led to widespread flooding, affecting roads and drinking water in several communities, with Kwethluk experiencing significant impacts.
This is not the first time this village has faced the threat of erosion and flooding, but relocating won’t be as easy as it was last time.
Meteorologists say the brunt of the storm is likely headed for the southern edge of the Seward Peninsula.
In villages like Kongiganak, communities have stopped burying their dead because, as the permafrost melts, the oldest part of their cemetery is sinking.
Two quakes shook the coast of the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta Tuesday night about 45 miles offshore of the community of Hooper Bay.
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