Photo by Diana Haecker CANNONBALL RACE— Ten racers in three different divisions competed in the Bering Sea Lions Club Cannonball Snowmachine Race last Saturday. See story and photos on page 16. C VOLUME CXIII NO. 17 April 25, 2013 Port study puts marine development under scrutiny By Sandra L. Medearis Rather, an interagency effort is Until there is a project, there will be three. it needs to be a system of ports,” When visions of improved oppor- looking at Western Alaska port sites no money available. “We have the scenarios of we do Cordova said. “We started out at the tunities pulled families westward, from all angles in a three-year sys- The group of 40 or so agency, port nothing—no action, then we have beginning of this week and took out many did not reach California or tem study that will draw from a part- user and community representatives the standalones and then the combi- a 3,000-mile section of the state. other target destinations. Many ardu- nership between the federal Corps of met in Nome April 16 through 18 to nation of all three. As we move for- That 3,000 miles is one and a half ous journeys across the plains ended Engineers and the state Dept. of look at about 15 sites of marine ac- ward, the standalones and the times the east coast from Canada to where they ended. Towns sprang up, Transportation, as well as input from tivity along the coast of Western combination projects will all be Florida. It has to be a system—there tossed from a die cup, as increasing potential users and coastal commu- Alaska, kicked some off the list and compared to the no action plan— has to be more than this one single numbers of people settled areas with nities. settled on several alternatives for fur- what will happen if we do nothing,” site that moves forward, but we have arable land and potable water. These studies will rest in part on ther scrutiny. Lorraine Cordova of USACE said. to bite this off in pieces. It’s an ele- In contrast, plans to fund and information provided by the local No rank has been assigned to sur- “We have to look at them equally. phant we’re all trying to gain some build an arctic deep-water port sys- public throughout the study area. viving standalone alternatives—Port Until we compare them to no action, definition on, but again, long range, tem to meet economic needs will not Agencies and users are targeting of Nome, Point Spencer (Port it’s all equal comparisons until we we’re looking at a system of ports to happen wholly by isolated local con- 2014 to have a project identified for Clarence), Cape Riley (Teller) or a get to January. serve the Arctic, not just one.” Cor- sensus. final concentrated examination. system that is a combination of the This is the initial array of alterna- dova said. tives and none is more important “At the state level, all of these than the other.” areas are important; all of them de- It is quite possible that a port de- serve marine structure improvement, velopment and scrutiny could be a that this is the first area we’ll con- system of complementary facilities. “Indeed, the report calls out that continued on page 4 R. Foster Building finds a home By Sandra L. Medearis cent increase of rates across the Following a hash-over in execu- board. Gone, however, was a charge tive session, the Nome Common of $250 per day for film crews oper- Council voted to go ahead with ating within the port area. spending $300,000 to purchase land Cara Freeman of Original Pro- from Alaska Gold for acreage at the ductions took the podium to point north end of Steadman Street as a out that last season the production site for the Richard Foster Building. company had donated $20,000 to The building will house Nome’s East End Park, a project shared by Carrie M. McLain Museum, the Nome Rotary Club and City of Kegoayah Kozga Library and Kaw- Nome. The company that produces erak Inc.’s displays of culture and ar- footage for Discovery Channel’s tifacts. “Bering Sea Gold” reality TV pro- The vote was unanimous. Coun- gram would rather continue to make cilman Jerald Brown abstained, cit- donations and patronize local busi- Photo by Nils Hahn ing a conflict of interest. ness, Freeman said, and requested a EARTHDAY— Grace Okleasik, left, Heidi Okleasik, middle, and Natalie Parker, right, demanded to walk In other business, the Council daily fee be rejected. rather than drive home after school on Earthday, April 22, so they could pick up trash along the way and voted unanimously to approve the Citizen Eric Osborne seconded make for a cleaner and better Nome. updated Port of Nome Tariff 9. the idea, saying the gold mining The measure includes a 10 per- continued on page 4 Fairbanks climber breaks legs, rescued from Mt. Osborn Climbing partner Ian McRae of Nome saves life, lowers injured mountaineer down steep gully By Diana Haecker after a rock fall in a remote location climbed that particular route, as it’s ence, the Dark Knight suddenly flap- Sterns’ legs and broke them or if the Fairbanks climber Andy Sterns, of the Kigluaik Mountains north of a hidden, 3,000-ft. high gully seen ping into your air space, they are rope slacked and caught his legs and 46, was rescued from Mt. Osborn by Nome, a place hard to reach and so only from the northeast side of Mt. sensed with the sixth, not the vision broke them as Sterns was swept Nome Search and Rescue volunteers hidden behind the ominous Mt. Os- Osborn. or the hearing. I took hold of the about 60 feet downhill. on Saturday morning after a climb- born that communications proved Sterns flew in from Fairbanks last power-point ‘biner and cowered After the rock fall and the ava- ing accident rendered him unable to difficult. week. On Thursday, the two moun- under my helmet. The Death Eater lanche stopped, McRae realized that continue his trip. Sterns’ climbing partner Ian taineers drove up to mile 26 on the passed close over me. A huge snow his partner had been swept downhill Sterns suffered two broken legs McRae, 50, of Nome, a long time Kougarok Road. From there, they avalanche followed that suffocated and was badly hurt. mountaineer with years of experi- got on a snowmachine to ride an- and threatened to sweep me. Andy “Andy was screaming bloody ence in Alaskan and Kigluaik moun- other 16 miles in Grand Central Val- was swept, which I was able to infer murder a full rope-length below. The tain climbing, was there to help ley to Grand Union Glacier on the when a tug of force came on my har- blue rope was core shot for 20 feet, On the Web: Sterns get out of the accident site. north side of Mount Osborn. ness.” but not gone. The orange rope was www.nomenugget.net He kept him hydrated and warm The two accomplished climbers McRae added that he knew it was strangely buried in the snow. There at their base camp tent at 1,400 feet set out to climb a couloir named the rock fall. “It’s better to not look up was tension on the rope and on the E-mail: and continuously fired off the SPOT “Sluicebox”, around noon on Friday, and just cower.” screws, and I could not immediately [email protected] beacon to get help. April 19. “It must have just missed me, it meet Andy’s frenzied request for About halfway up the steep, cold, impacted the snow, hit really close “SLACK, PLEASE! ON BLUE!!” Difficult climb icy and rocky gully, it happened. where Andy was beneath me, maybe described McRae in his blog. Sterns and McRae had planned McRae told The Nome Nugget 50 feet. I was unscathed,” McRae this trip for a while until work sched- that the rocks started falling about said. Rappelling the injured ules and weather predictions aligned three hours into the climb. A rock had fallen on the ropes that McRae spent the next eight to to give this difficult climb a shot. As he described on his blog, joined the climbers. nine hours belaying and traversing McRae said that nobody has ever “They always seem like such a pres- It is unknown if the rock hit continued on page 8 2 THURSDAY, APRIL 25, 2013 OPINION THE NOME NUGGET Foster’s Report Ulu News By Rep. Neal Foster ULU News I am most proud, however, of the passage of SB 62. District 39 By Sen. Donny Olson This bill will help small rural schools access funds for Well, another session has come and gone and much to my surprise, on Hello again from Juneau. With the legislative session school construction. It received a lot of scrutiny in both time. With the weighty issues we had before us this year, I expected to go into adjourning last Sunday I am looking forward to having bodies but in the end it received unanimous support from overtime. There has been a lot of talk about the speed of things this year. In more time to spend interacting with constituents and the legislature and the administration. I look forward to general, the Republicans are calling this rapid pace “productive,” while De- communities within my district. working on other rural education issues in the future. mocrats call it an “erosion of the public process.” I think that both sides have Legislative Intern I’ve introduced other pieces of legislation and I look a point to make.