Winter cold snaps aren’t just causing frozen pipes and power outages in the lower 48. In Angoon, recent cold temperatures exacerbated ongoing issues with the town’s water supply. The Coast Guard stepped in to help by delivering bottled water to the community of around 450 people.

The troubles with Angoon’s water supply started on the morning of Feb. 3.

“We got a few calls about one of our main lines breaking and a pretty heavy river of water coming out of it,” said Mayor Joshua Bowen.

After a day’s worth of digging with jackhammers, torches and an excavator, the town’s water operators, Donald Johnson and Daniel Fredrickson Jr., found the culprit — a small pipe connected to a fire hydrant. They were able to bandage the pipe and stop the leak. But not before the town had lost a lot of water.

They’d also just completed some routine maintenance that meant the system wasn’t at full capacity. Then, came a stretch of single digit temperatures.

“And lots of people’s lines were freezing and breaking, and we were just losing water left and right. So all of that combined was making it very difficult to rebuild the water supply,” Bowen said.

The town’s water pressure had grown so weak that Bowen worried about drinking water safety and reached out to the Department of Environmental Conservation to request a boil water notice, which was granted last Friday (2-12-21). And then came Saturday morning.

“We woke up and a third of the town had no water at all, whatsoever, coming out of their taps, mine included,” he said.

This time, another residential leak and a broken water pump were to blame.

“Overnight, of all times, it decided to die on us the motor did. Without flow going through there, it was susceptible to freeze which it did. Froze and broke,” Bowen said.

They quickly got to work repairing the pump, but when Bowen got a call from the Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska asking if the town needed potable water, he said yes.

“Next thing you know I’m getting a call saying that the Coast Guard is bringing us a bunch of water and I’m really blown away that was really fast,” Bowen said.

Jeannie Greene is the Captain of the Coast Guard Cutter Hickory, a 225-foot buoy tender homeported in Homer. They were on their way back from dropping buoys in Ketchikan when they got the call that Angoon needed water. 

“We don’t usually get to partake in missions that are of immediate life safety concern,” Greene said. “Even though I understand Angoon, they were going to do okay for a few days, it did feel urgent and man we loved getting to do it.”

When the ship pulled into the ferry terminal on Saturday evening, Bowen and members of Angoon’s Tribal government, the Angoon Community Association, helped distribute the nearly 7,000 bottles of water.

“I brought the forklift out there and lifted the pallets right into the trucks and they went straight from the ferry terminal to door to door and delivered a couple of cases of water to every household,” he said.

Bowen said the additional water helped relieve pressure on the town’s water system, so they could get it back up and running. Angoon is working with Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium and other partners to upgrade its aging water and sewer lines to help prevent breakdowns in the future. 

The boil water notice remains in effect until they receive test results back from DEC, which Bowen anticipates later this week. 

Erin McKinstry is a Report for America corps member.

State officials have issued a boil water notice for the city of Angoon.

The Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation Drinking Water Program issued the notice on Friday (2-12-21) for anyone using the Angoon public water system.

All water should be boiled for two minutes before drinking it or using it for cooking.

The city of Angoon said in a press release that the notice follows “low pressure in the distribution system associated with freeze related leaks.” It will remain in effect until water samples show no harmful bacteria.

For more information, contact Angoon mayor Joshua Bowen at 957-7569 or James Latimer with the DEC Drinking Water Program at 726-3181. Temperatures in Angoon are expected to rise into the mid-30s over the weekend.

Another Angoon resident has tested positive for the coronavirus.

Angoon’s Mayor Joshua Bowen announced the new case on Wednesday (10-14-20) and said that contact tracing is underway. Free testing for Angoon residents is available Wednesday (10-14-20) and Thursday at the Jessie Norma Jean Health Clinic from 2 to 4 p.m.

Screening of incoming travelers will continue as will the city’s emergency order, which requires all travelers to isolate themselves from non-travelers for a minimum of two weeks after arriving in Angoon.

According to numbers from SEARHC, this is the 13th case of the coronavirus reported in Angoon. The last case was reported over three weeks ago on September 20.

Erin McKinstry is a Report for America corps member.

Angoon has extended its emergency travel order until further notice, in an effort to stop the spread of COVID-19 in the small, remote community. Angoon’s mayor originally issued the order two weeks ago, following the first confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the community and believes it’s important to keep it in place.

Angoon’s travel order requires visitors or residents arriving in Angoon to fill out a travel declaration form and to practice “extreme social distancing measures” for two weeks. That includes staying 12-feet away from anyone outside of their household, wearing a mask at all times outside of their home or lodging, and avoiding businesses and public places. The order excludes those traveling for critical personal needs or for critical infrastructure.

Read the full resolution here

The Admiralty Island village of around 450 people has reported 11 total cases–four of which are active–according to a nurse practitioner at Angoon’s SEARHC clinic, Sara Lang. At a recent special city council meeting (9-9-20), she said all of the cases are part of the same cluster.

“Hopefully everyone understands what a cluster is,” she said. “They’re all related to one another in some way.”

Some members of the Angoon City Council opposed extending the order, citing concerns for residents who have to travel frequently for work or health care, or for employees that don’t have leave and may lose their jobs if they have to stay home. The council discussed possibly using CARES Act funds to help.

Mayor Joshua Bowen said he understood the economic pressure but also urged everyone to remember the health and safety concerns.

“We gotta think more of what can we do to help prevent this COVID-19 from affecting more people in our community than it already has,” Bowen said.

How to manage outbreaks of the coronavirus in small, remote communities like Angoon was discussed at the weekly meeting between reporters and top Department of Health and Social Services officials. Epidemiologist Louisa Castrodale said that smaller communities may have fewer cases than cities because of smaller populations, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t challenges.

“Because there’s sort of smaller units or smaller family units and opportunities for interact, it could be really difficult to keep things…to preserve somebody’s confidentiality and to not generate a lot of real concern with one individual,” Castrodale said.

Alaska’s Chief Medical Officer Dr. Anne Zink said another challenge is that national guidelines don’t always translate to small communities. Instead, they often have to come up with their own models for managing the coronavirus.

“We are being asked more and more on a national basis to be sharing what many of our small and rural communities have been doing to protect themselves,” Zink said. “Because they’ve just been doing amazing work.”

She pointed to examples like rigorous airport testing and culturally relevant guidelines that take things like lack of running water and overcrowded households into account.

“You know, isolation and quarantine are hard enough to understand when we’re talking and reading CDC guidance all the time. But it means something totally different when you live in a family of 14 people in a house,” she said. “And so I think making sure that you’re finding really culturally, meaningful relevant ways to translate the guidance as well as the recommendations.”

Angoon’s order is in effect until public health officials mark all of the town’s cases as recovered. Public health officials are asking community members to continue testing at least every other week. Free asymptomatic testing is available through the town’s clinic three days a week.

Erin McKinstry is a Report for America corps member.

The City of Angoon is going into lockdown, after six more positive cases of coronavirus were confirmed in the community today (Wednesday, August 26).

The news comes just a day after reports of Angoon’s first confirmed positive.

The new cases take Angoon’s total to eight, prompting Mayor Joshua Bowen to issue an emergency order requiring all travelers to the community to self-isolate for two weeks on arrival. The order also requires anyone who has tested positive for the virus to self-quarantine for two weeks, as must anyone who was notified by contact tracers that they were in close contact with a confirmed positive case.

The only exemptions to Angoon’s emergency order are travelers classified by the state as providing essential services or critical workforce infrastructure.

Community-wide testing began immediately on the announcement of the six new cases. Angoon’s 500 residents are being asked to limit their contact with other households until they’ve got their test results.

Meanwhile, in the nearby community of Kake, similar strict measures to contain an outbreak there seem to have paid off.

In an emergency meeting of the Kake City Council this afternoon (Wednesday 8-26-20), Lloyd Davis reported that the last four people who tested positive on Saturday, August 15, had completed a 10-day isolation, and were no longer considered active cases. Kake, which experienced a total of 11 positives, now  was effectively virus-free.

“As of today, we don’t have any active positive cases,” said Davis.

Davis urged fellow council members to maintain the community’s travel restrictions, and to not schedule large gatherings or events.

“We need to get it out to the community there that we need to keep it as tight as we can there, for the sake of our school,” he said.

Davis said that remote education was proving tough, and he wanted to avoid the shutdown of schools that Angoon was now facing. 

Following Monday’s news of the first confirmed case of coronavirus in Kake, the neighboring Southeast community of Angoon is now requiring face coverings in most public places. They’ve joined cities and communities across Alaska with local mask requirements, including Juneau, Anchorage, Gustavus and Tenakee Springs.

Angoon Mayor Joshua Bowen issued an emergency order on Monday, August 10, requiring face coverings or masks in public buildings, businesses and churches as well as public outdoor spaces where social distancing is difficult to maintain. That includes the ferry terminal and the Alaska Seaplanes base, which provide the only links to the rest of the state.

The order does not apply to members of the same household or when employees can maintain six-foot distancing from one another in an office building. There are also exceptions for children under two and individuals that can’t wear masks because of health issues or disabilities. 

Bowen said he’d been thinking about issuing the order for a while.

“I’ve had it ready to put out for a little while now, but I’ve just been counting on people to do the right thing and to wear their mask without being mandated to do so,” he said.

But the tipping point came earlier in the day when a resident of the nearby community of Kake tested positive for the coronavirus. Additionally, the village’s local Tribe, the Angoon Community Association, had started to strongly encourage face coverings and an Alaska Marine Highway System employee on the ferry LeConte tested positive over the weekend.The LeConte services the small Admiralty Island village of around 450 people.

How the order will be enforced is a question that many communities with mask requirements have faced, especially in places with limited local law enforcement like Angoon. The order doesn’t allow for private citizens to harass other citizens who aren’t wearing masks.

“That’s the not fun part of these things,” Bowen said. “Enforcement.”

Bowen said technically the city can issue a five-hundred dollar fine for non-compliance, but he doesn’t plan to do so unless absolutely necessary. So far, he said public feedback has been positive, and they haven’t had any major issues.

The city used CARES Act funds to make and distribute masks to all residents a few months ago, and the Tribe has some available and is making more.

“The Angoon Community Association actually ordered a bunch of sewing machines and materials, and they will be going into production of maks here very soon,” Bowen said.

Angoon is also considering requiring all incoming travelers to self-quarantine upon arrival, something they’ll discuss at an upcoming city council meeting. Alaska’s reopening plan allows communities to enact stricter travel restrictions as long as people traveling for critical personal needs or as part of essential services or critical infrastructure aren’t subject to automatic quarantine or isolation upon arrival.

The order is in effect until September 15 or until rescinded by the city council. There are no confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Angoon.

Erin McKinstry is a Report for America corps member.

Over the last few months, cities, boroughs and communities across Alaska have received over $300 million in federal coronavirus relief — but the funding comes with significant strings attached. Leaders in some of Southeast Alaska’s smallest communities have said that there are unforeseen challenges of using that federal aid.

In mid-July, Angoon would normally be bustling with boats. Charters usually collect tourists to go fishing in Chatham Strait or to stay at remote lodges. But not this year.

“Right now, it’s very, very quiet in Angoon,” said Angoon’s mayor, Joshua Bowen.

Little to no tourism thanks to the coronavirus has had profound economic impacts on the Admiralty Island village of around 450 people. Lodges aren’t opening, the city is missing out on sales tax revenue, and getting stuff in and out–especially with a lighter ferry schedule this summer–has become more expensive too. 

“It’s not our fault. We’re just here and now everything that’s happening around us and around the world is increasing costs for us in the village, which are already high enough and that paired with the lack of what are normally around jobs,” Bowen said. “It’s definitely causing some hardship.”

But CARES Act funds are providing some relief. The City of Angoon has spent about $49,000 of the $220,000 they’ve received from the program so far. The town distributed $50 store credits and $100 energy credits to each household. They also helped support a school food program, made and distributed masks to all local residents and purchased laptops for city council members to work remotely. 

Angoon has lots of ideas for the remaining funds, which could include an extra $22,000 if they spend at least 80 percent of what they have already. The additional funding is part of a second and third wave allocated for communities whose economic activities were significantly impacted by the pandemic.

A big priority for the town is hiring a dedicated employee to help coordinate CARES Act spending. That person would submit required monthly expenditure reports to the state and make sure that they’re spending the money appropriately. Expenditures that don’t follow federal guidance have to be paid back. 

Lynn Kenealy is a local government specialist for the Alaska Division of Community and Regional Affairs, the state agency in charge of distributing the federal funds to local entities. 

“We suggest communities take care when choosing expenses,” Kenealy said. “Each community is responsible for assessing what is allowable and may have to return money if it’s misspent.”

She said they have helped communities brainstorm, but they can’t be the final decision makers. According to federal guidance, the money can be used to cover “necessary expenditures” incurred due to the COVID-19 public health emergency, and it can’t include items listed in the budget prior to late March. Eighty-nine Alaska communities eligible for funding haven’t accepted it yet, leaving around $40 million allocated for them on the table, according to the most recent data from the state. At the local level, figuring out how those funds can be used hasn’t been easy. 

“The state was kind of vague on what can be used as far as expenditures and everything,” said Jessica Adams, who’s the city treasurer for the Chichagof Island community of Pelican. “This is my first time dealing with anything like this. Mainly for me, it was just how to go about doing the reports and how often they needed them, what all they needed from us.”

Thankfully, Adams said, the Alaska Municipal League stepped in to help answer their questions. The non-profit provides resources and support to local governments. 

Like Angoon, Pelican relies heavily on summer tourism, and they’ve been hurting economically this summer too. But, Adams said, the town has focused its spending more on health and safety measures. The local clinic has been unstaffed since March, and their EMS group is all volunteer. They needed the basics: masks, hand sanitizer and cleaning supplies.

“So when they announced that there was going to be CARES Act funding, it kind of…there was a lot of relief for all of us in here because we knew that we were going to be able to do the necessary things to kind of prepare Pelican for what may be headed,” Adams said.

They’re also looking at investing in sanitation services or a cell tower to improve emergency communications.  Whether they’ll use all the funds is as unknown as when the pandemic will end, but both Pelican and Angoon officials say they feel relief knowing that the money is there.  

Of all the CARES Act funding allocated for Alaska communities, cities and boroughs, only around 58 percent has been distributed so far. That includes the second and third waves of funding for certain communities. The state is reaching out to any eligible community that hasn’t yet accepted the money. This pool of CARES Act funding must be spent by December 30.

Find more information and resources about coronavirus relief for communities at DCRA’s website.

Erin McKinstry is a Report for America corps member.

Angoon Mayor Joshua Bowen declared a local disaster emergency Wednesday [3-18-19] in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

In a letter to the public, Bowen called the declaration a “proactive measure” that will allow the city to use emergency funds and apply for aid from the state and federal government. The declaration is valid for a week, but can be renewed by the city council. 

As of Thursday [3-19-20], there were no confirmed COVID-19 cases in Angoon. 

Like other towns throughout Southeast and across the nation, Angoon is taking steps to limit human contact to slow the spread of the virus. School had already been cancelled for the rest of the month following Governor Mike Dunleavy’s statewide order, the store is accepting grocery orders over the phone, and Bowen announced that city hall is now closed.  

In the letter, Bowen urged the public to limit trips outside of Angoon to essential travel only. For those returning from out of town, he asked that they avoid contact with at-risk groups, like the elderly and people with underlying medical conditions.  

Governor Mike Dunleavy’s proposed ferry budget would be a slight increase in spending on the Alaska Marine Highway System. But senior state transportation officials warn that long gaps will be the new normal.

“AMHS will provide significantly less services, leaving many communities without service for up to six months,” reads page 6 of the governor’s transportation operating budget released earlier this month.

The $49.9 million appropriation would be slightly more than the previous year. But there will be long lulls between ships.

“Communities will have service gaps. There’s no doubt about that,” Department of Transportation Deputy Commissioner Mary Siroky told CoastAlaska. “But I don’t know if a service gap is going to be six months, five months, four months; we don’t have that figured out.”

That’s been the reality for coastal communities on Prince William Sound and smaller Southeast town like Angoon.

Angoon Mayor Joshua Bowen says the city recently hired a private boat to take residents to Juneau for groceries and other supplies. Its 450 residents hadn’t seen a ferry for more than a month.

“We spent $13,100 chartering those two catamarans,” he said.

Some 47 passengers shelled out $75 for a one-way ticket — more than they would’ve for a state ferry — but, that didn’t cover the cost of the charter.

The city lost about $8,000 on the venture. It won’t be repeated any time soon. Bowen says the private sector can’t fill the gaps left by the state ferry service.

“I don’t see it working without some sort of subsidy,” Bowen said. “For the smaller towns that just don’t have the numbers.”

The ferry Tazlina was able to make a couple recent runs to Angoon. But only after the state brought heavy equipment to operate Angoon’s broken ramp.

Normally this isn’t necessary. The ferries LeConte and Aurora are designed to handle these small docks without assistance. But in a cost-cutting move, the state laid up the Aurora rather than fix it. And the LeConte is out for repairs until May.

Siroky says budget realities mean fewer ferries are the new normal. 

“There is no way that the marine highway system will be able to provide the kind of service they did the year before this,” she said.

Last year, Dunleavy’s austere budget proposal would have shut down the ferries in October. That didn’t happen.

Instead, he reached a deal with lawmakers who slashed ferry funding by $43 million. Legislators later tried to add $5 million back to the ferry budget — Dunleavy vetoed it.

But that initial threat to end ferry service and the compromise budget that’s led to less service has been widely unpopular in coastal communities. 

Now the governor’s facing a recall campaign. He’s changed his chief-of-staff, budget director and he’s also changed his tack.

Reporters at the Governor’s Mansion holiday party in Juneau asked about the state of the ferries. He said that help could be on the way. 

“We’re looking at the possibility of getting some help there with $20 million dollars out of the LNBA,” the governor said.

The Legislative Budget and Audit Committee reviews budget requests from the executive outside of the normal budget process.

“We’re looking at coming up with some solutions, long-term solutions for the marine highway system,” Dunleavy added. “We know it’s important to the people of Alaska, especially on the coast that use it.”

The Dunleavy administration commissioned a $250,000 private consultant study to remake the Alaska Marine Highway System. It was delivered in October. But the state has pushed back its public release until January.

DOT Deputy Commissioner Mary Siroky couldn’t confirm the governor’s numbers. She says she understands her agency is asking for something closer to $5 million.

“The department is working on a supplemental budget request that I don’t know where that $20 million number came from,” she said.

Meanwhile, Angoon is doing what it can to keep goods and people moving. Bowen says a city-owned excavator is being repaired. The hope is that it can operate the ramp without the state’s help so the Tazlina ferry will be able to return next month.

“We’re not just sitting here feeling sorry for ourselves,” the mayor said. “We’re trying to figure out ways that we can help the state help us. And we understand that it’s, you know, it’s an expensive thing. And, and we’re just trying to do our part to keep the ferries rolling.”

But fewer and fewer ferries are rolling.

The Tazlina is being pulled out of service on January 19 for modifications so it can sail with a smaller crew. That’ll leave just two ferries: the Lituya running between Ketchikan and Metlakatla. And the mainliner Matanuska crisscrossing Southeast.

But that larger ferry can’t get into to coastal towns with small docks: communities like Angoon, Tenakee Springs and Pelican.

Those towns will likely go without service until at least May.