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Center for Environmentally Threatened Communities
We support communities to address environmental threats and achieve their vision for a safe, healthy, and sustainable future.
Newsletter Issue 52
Six Things You Should Know
- This issue explores how two communities move threatened homes to safe places.
- After four years of service, our team member Katie Lund is leaving to attend graduate school.
- The United States (U.S.) Government Accountability Office published recommendations on how federal agencies can improve support for Alaska communities to address environmental threats.
- Alakanuk, Alaska developed a Near-Term Infrastructure Protection Plan, which describes the community’s strategy and projects to address environmental threats.
- A new 90-minute film covers part of Newtok, Alaska’s relocation.
- Point Lay, Alaska declared a climate change emergency due to permafrost degradation.
How Two Rural Alaska Communities Move Threatened Homes
Kwigillingok, Alaska
The corner of an inhabited home in Kwigillingok, Alaska was hanging over the riverbank. The land beneath part of the home had been lost to the river. Fortunately, two months ago, the community relocated the home to a safe location. The project took six laborers three full days. They jacked up the home, placed it onto a relocation skid, braced the house, and towed it to a new location using a dozer and a cable. The move was a huge relief for the residents of the home. In Kwigillingok, a tundra village, there are few roads and most transportation occurs on boardwalks that are elevated above the coastal wetland. Relocating homes is easiest in the winter when the land and waters are frozen. According to Dustin Evon, the local Resilience Coordinator, the project was strenuous physical labor and also a great learning experience. Dustin has three recommendations for other communities who want to move homes:
- The more people, the better.
- Involve residents with experience operating heavy equipment and with specialized structural knowledge.
- Be proactive in identifying where you can find heavy equipment and how you can reconnect the home to utilities. Kwigillingok will likely relocate more homes away from the riverbank next winter, but the community does not currently have access to heavy equipment. The dozer and cable were in the community for an Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium (ANTHC) construction project and will be shipped out of the community this summer.
March 2022 relocation in Kwigillingok. This photo shows the skid is being inserted underneath the house. Credit: Native Village of Kwgillingok.
Huslia, Alaska
Since 2014, community members in Huslia, Alaska have moved nine homes threatened by erosion. Most homes are built with milled spruce logs that come from four to eight miles out of town and sit directly on the ground. Relocating log homes requires digging around and under the base of the home. If any of the bottom beams are rotten they are replaced. Moving older homes requires bracing as even a gentle move can create cracks and gaps between the logs, which requires air sealing after the homes have been moved.
According to Liz Wright, the Tribal Administrator in Huslia, it takes one to two weeks to move each home, with larger homes and buildings taking up to four weeks. In 2019, the community moved four homes in response to rapid erosion and flooding. They started with an “all hands” community call over the radio to request help. 80 people worked for six days to move homes, build a dike behind the community to stop flooding, and anchor forty-foot trees along the bank to reduce erosion. Later, the community finished home relocations with one 12-man crew. Huslia has roads in the community, which enables homes to be moved on wheels. The community owns two large house moving dollies, a loader, dozer, excavator, compactor, and other equipment all of which make the relocation process smoother. The community starts by building pads out of sand at the new site. After leveling the site, they build a new foundation on the pad with lumber. After the home is moved on top of the new foundation, the crew adds a vapor barrier and insulation to the bottom of the home. Most homeowners install pony walls to enclose the area beneath the house after the relocation is complete. The local power plant operator disconnects and reconnects the home to electrical service.
There is often a multi-year delay between home relocation and funding for the design and construction of wells and septic systems or other water and sewer service. During that time, most residents build an outhouse and haul water from the washeteria. This year, the community anticipates relocating five more imminently threatened homes using a crew of two carpenters, five laborers, one foreman, and one equipment operator.
Preparing to move a two-story home in Huslia in 2019. Photo Credit: Teri Vent.
Craig and Aubrey Bifelt and their children in front of their home on April 18, 2022. This is one of five erosion-threatened homes the community expects to move in the summer of 2022. Photo Credit: Elizabeth Wright.
Thank You and Farewell Katie!
After four years and more than 8,000 hours of service to communities across Alaska, Katie Lund is leaving her position with ANTHC to attend graduate school. Since joining ANTHC as an AmeriCorps VISTA volunteer in 2018 she has provided technical assistance to more than 20 communities for over 100 projects, plans, and initiatives.
“Katie is my go-to person. She has played a big role in our community. She has made a lot of progress over the last four years. She has a lot of patience and is very dedicated. She gets right to the point. She goes above and beyond to help us. She has been very dedicated to helping our community. We’re going to miss her very much. We wish her the best and are really sad that she is leaving.”
- Pauline Okitkun, Tribal Administrator, Village of Kotlik
“Thanks for all of the work and time and effort to help our community, including coming out to meet with us in person, and showing so much care. I wish her well. She has done so much not only for the community of Alakanuk but for other villages as well. She made weekly calls to check up on us and see if we needed help with anything. She has done so much.”
- Juanita Joseph, former Tribal Administrator, Village of Alakanuk
“We will miss her dedication to our community in making improvements in Golovin and throughout Alaska. Best Wishes and good luck in your future!”
- Chinik Eskimo Community
Katie Lund, center, during her first trip to Kotlik, Alaska in 2018. Credit: ANTHC
Resources
The U.S. Government Accountability Office has published a new report titled Federal Agencies Could Enhance Support for Native Village Efforts to Address Environmental Threats.
The community of Alakanuk, Alaska developed a Near-Term Infrastructure Protection Plan, which describes the community’s strategy and projects to address environmental threats.
Gather your friends, family, and colleagues and watch this free 90-minute film on the Newtok, Alaska relocation.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers published the Alaska National Shoreline Management Study. See page eight for the key recommendations.
The Kawerak Social Science Program published a framework for co-production of knowledge in the context of Arctic research: Negeqlikacaarni kangingnaulriani ayuqenrilnguut piyaraitgun kangingnauryararkat.
About the Center for Environmentally Threatened Communities
The goal of the Center for Environmentally Threatened Communities (CETC) is to support rural Alaskan communities experiencing infrastructure impacts associated with flooding, erosion, and permafrost degradation. The team does this through community planning, project development, grant writing, project management, grant management, and other technical assistance.
ETC@anthc.org | (907) 729-4521 | www.anthc.org/cetc | 4500 Diplomacy Drive, Suite 561, Anchorage, AK 99508
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