Tenakee Springs will vote on whether to join the Southeast Alaska Solid Waste Authority, or SEASWA, on Tuesday (10-3-23).  Assembly member Steve Lewis, who submitted the ballot proposition, said joining the regional coalition would be a first step towards addressing the Chichagof Island community’s garbage disposal problems. 

“It’s gotten really expensive to ship stuff south, and Juneau’s landfill is just about full, so they’re going to have to think about shipping things south,” Lewis said.

Without other options, he said Tenakee Springs residents are turning to less savory methods. 

“A lot of people burn their trash on the beach, and that may include some plastics and things like that, which can be a problem,” Lewis said. “If they don’t get it completely burned, it ends up floating off and ending up as marine debris.”

Solid waste disposal is an ongoing problem in many Southeast communities. In Petersburg, costs are slated to go up by 34 percent next year. Chris Cotta, the chair of SEASWA, said the organization’s goal is to reduce costs and increase the efficiency of solid waste disposal region-wide. He said that member communities banding together means more negotiating power in contracts. 

“You know, it’s harnessing the power of numbers,” Cotta said. “When there are more of you, you have more bargaining power.” 

SEASWA is also eligible for funding that is earmarked for regional organizations. Cotta said they’re currently applying for a grant that could bring as much as half a million dollars to SEASWA. 

SEASWA’s bylaws require communities to vote to join the coalition, which currently includes Petersburg, Wrangell, and several communities on Prince of Wales Island. Tenakee assembly member Steve Lewis doesn’t expect the proposition to be controversial – there are no fees to join, and the community can vote to leave the coalition at any time. 

“It’s kind of a win-win situation all the way for small communities – or any communities, as far as I can tell,” Lewis said. 

 The state Division of Elections reports 132 registered voters in Tenakee as of May 2022. If the ballot proposition passes, the Tenakee Assembly will initiate a working relationship with SEASWA later in October.

Voters can read the full ballot proposition and find voting information online at the KCAW Election Center. And for disclosure,  Steve Lewis’s spouse, Rachel Myron, is a member of the KCAW Board of Directors. 

Last December, a record-breaking storm caused landslides and flooding around Southeast Alaska. In the roughly 100-person town of Tenakee Springs, the storm destroyed a bridge that provides vital access for a handful of residents. Now, the community’s turning to crowdfunding to help rebuild it.

On Dec. 2, Tenakee residents awoke to find their beaches littered with logs as big as two and a half feet in diameter. Gordon Chew was part of the clean-up crew at the time.

“We’ve been out all morning here with the tide coming in because the entire beach in front of all our houses is literally just littered with debris that’s come down out of the rivers,” he said when he spoke to KCAW on the morning after the storm. “Never seen anything like this before in the almost 20 years we’ve been here.”

A gauge on the mountain behind town recorded more than five inches of rainfall in 24 hours, according to the National Weather Service in Juneau. The storm uprooted trees and sent them hurtling downstream, clogging culverts and causing flooding. They also knocked out the 32-year-old Indian River Bridge, which stood around 20 feet above the river.

“It was well built and it just never even crossed our mind that a whole pile of trees would come floating down and catch it with their big tall branches,” Tenakee Spings resident Steve Lewis said.

The bridge served as the only land access to town for him and his partner Rachel Myron. Since December, they’ve relied on their skiff to get supplies, pick up their mail, and visit with friends. But rough weather, tides, and darkness can make accessing town by water tricky for the handful east end residents. Myron and Lewis live four and a half miles outside of town.

“In terms of our lifestyle, we’re tied to that bridge. It’s important to us,” Myron said. “One of the reasons we enjoy and chose to live here is kind of that reassurance of access to town and in particular the infrastructure of the ferry and all of that.”

But it’s more than just practical. Myron said the suspension footbridge was symbolic of the town’s commitment to pedestrian access. The town has strict limitations on cars, and Myron and Lewis’ house isn’t even accessible by ATV.

And, she said, it was a joy to walk across.

“I always hung out in the middle of the bridge where the bouncing effect was the biggest. And from there you can look up and down river and watch the bears and the salmon and just celebrate where we are,” she said.

Mayor Dan Kennedy said the town has reached out to state and federal officials about possible disaster relief funds to help rebuild the city-owned bridge. The town’s partially finished hydroelectric plant was also badly damaged in the storm along with two other bridges.

“We don’t know if we’re gonna get any disaster relief funds or state funds or FEMA funding. Probably even if we do, it’ll be a year or two down the line, which isn’t very acceptable for the residents out there,” Kennedy said.

The city doesn’t have the money to repair the bridge on its own, so when a local resident started a $15,000 GoFundMe account, the council thought, ‘why not?’ With some volunteer labor and local expertise, the fund should cover the cost to rebuild the bridge and restore access for east end residents.

“Very similar to when we have an accident or the situation with the entangled whale or whatever, everybody who knows how to help comes together and finds a way to help each other in this town and that’s one of the beauties of living here,” Lewis said.

So far, the fund is about a fifth of the way toward its goal. Kennedy said if they do receive state or federal funding down the line, they’ll reimburse the costs. But in the meantime, he said, they couldn’t afford to wait.

Editor’s note: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that the Indian River bridge was 22-years-old. Erin McKinstry is a Report for America corps member.

It was the middle of the night on the day before Thanksgiving when a gut-wrenching sound awoke residents in the Chichagof Island town of Tenakee Springs. 

“It was a pretty sad and mournful and awful sound,” resident Wendy Stern said.

Resident Steve Lewis described it as plaintive cry for help. “It was just this sort of whistling and groaning (sound).”

Neither of them actually heard the noises until later in the day when the sound carried closer to their homes. But they were among the first to respond to its source: a 40-foot humpback whale caught in tanner crab pot gear that, according to resident Gordon Chew, came from Kodiak, around 630 miles away.

“People were very shaken up after losing a lot of sleep and listening to a bellowing humpback whale all night,” Chew said. He awoke to calls from those distressed residents.

Large whale entanglements are fairly rare in Alaska. Only around 10 are spotted each year, and most whales shed the marine debris or fishing gear on their own. But once or twice a year, human intervention is required to save a whale’s life. And as Chew, Lewis and Stern would soon learn, this was one of those times. All three are part of a network of volunteers trained by NOAA to respond to whale entanglements.

As soon as they got the go ahead from NOAA, Chew and Lewis headed out in a skiff to collect footage, while Stern followed in a support boat. An orange buoy marked the spot where the animal was now frozen in place. Slowly, Chew lowered a waterproof video camera on a long pole into the water.

“It had an anchor on the tail, lines going forward, a buoy in its mouth, another buoy at its tail. And it really could barely move,” Stern said. “It was awful to see an animal all bound up like that.”

“We could hear it breathing and it was labored, the way it was pinched and folded in half,” Chew said.

Then, they relayed the photos and footage to people like large whale entanglement specialist Sadie Wright at NOAA. 

“It was amazing that people were willing to give up their holiday preparations in order to get this animal free,” Wright said. “We were able to work with those folks in Tenakee to evaluate the photos and the video, come up with a safe and deliberate plan to do these disentanglement tactics from a distance to keep people safe,” Wright said.

That’s because disentangling a whale is dangerous. Don’t try this at home. Both Chew and Lewis have had extensive training, have access to specialized tools, and have assisted with multiple entanglements over the years. And they consulted with NOAA every step of the way. 

Chew said even some of the most experienced responders have been killed.

“You know a 40-ton animal can do an awful lot of damage. A pectoral fin can weigh 900 lbs., just the fin off the side of the animal. So I mean if it comes down on you or your boat, it would be very very bad,” Chew said.

By the time they were ready to try to cut the whale free, it was Thanksgiving morning. Two more boats joined them A long, careful dance began. What Stern described as an agonizingly slow process.

“Everyone thinks of maybe some kind of YouTube video where you go out and there’s these heroes and maybe they’re in wet suits and they go down and they cut off the gear and the whale jumps in the air and there’s a rainbow,” Stern said. “It’s just not that way.”

First, they cut the whale free from the heavy crab pot weighing it down.

Then, they followed the whale as it began to swim, hoping it would shed the remaining gear. Chew made several unsuccessful attempts to cut it away.

“I wish I could’ve done more. And I just tried and tried and tried,” he said. “And it was one of the most challenging things I’ve ever done, and I just stayed focused on trying to be successful.”

Finally, as the daylight waned and the whale approached the rougher waters of Chatham Strait, they cut a buoy off the base of its tail. It took a dive and disappeared, just in time for Thanksgiving dinner.

“Helping a big animal like that is a wonderful way to spend Thanksgiving,” Lewis said. “We were really happy to be able to spend our day doing something really good for the world or at least for that whale.”

But like most real-life stories, this one doesn’t have a definitive happy ending. The whale was still trailing some lines and had a buoy stuck in its mouth. NOAA experts say it’s highly likely that the powerful animal will shake the remaining gear. But unless someone spots the 16-year-old humpback again, who’s since been photo-identified as a known Southeast Alaska whale, they won’t know for sure.

“It would be nice to know the end of the story. It’s part of the part for me that’s kind of hard,” Stern said. “I wish I knew what ultimately happens to this whale.”

But maybe, just maybe, one of Tenakee’s many whale-loving mariners will deliver that happy ending soon.

Erin McKinstry is a Report for America corps member.

Mount Edgecumbe students work with a Science in the School volunteer during a class on octopus anatomy. All photos by Ed Schoenfeld.

Marine biologist Reid Brewer stands at the front of a Mount Edgecumbe classroom, dangling an octopus from his hands

“So what we’re going to do is to pass out some of these octopus. We’ve got enough to do an octopus for every two or three people,” Brewer says.

The students, from mostly rural Alaska and attending the state-run boarding high school, are about to take them apart.

“For dissection etiquette, don’t touch people with slimy hands. I would recommend against fixing your hair after we’ve started,” Brewer says.

Marine biologist Reid Brewer shows an octopus to Mount Edgecumbe science students.

Some greet the slimy mollusks’ arrival with disgust, then curiosity and a little giggling.

Brewer holds up an eight-armed pacific octopus and the interactive lesson begins.

“Each of the arms is covered with 230 to 280 suckered discs. This octopus could probably hold about 4,000 to 5,000 pounds using these suckered discs,” he says.

Brewer is usually based in Unalaska, working as an agent for the Alaska Marine Advisory Program.

But this particular week, he’s teaching students at Edgecumbe and other schools, as part of Sitka Whalefest’s Science in the Schools program.

“So I want you to look at the center part,” he tells the students. “Lift up the legs, where all the legs come together underneath it. And you should find a black, parrot-like beak. It’s right in the middle.” (Learn more about the giant pacific octopus.)

The students become focused as they locate, then remove, the beaks. With Brewer’s instructions, and program volunteers’ encouragement, they start searching for a variety of organs.

A few miles away, Sitka middle school students are learning how seals regulate body temperature – by dipping their faces into cold water. And high schoolers are being briefed about marine acoustics.

“We’re trying to bring in scientists who have cutting edge ideas and are good at working with students,” says Steve Lewis of Tenakee, Science in the Schools’ program coordinator.

“Part of my role is as an educator and a scientist to try to bridge that gap to help some of the scientists figure out some of the tricks to really integrating and making kids remember what they talked about and drawing them into the system,” he says.

Lewis says most students respond well, and it’s not hard to spot which ones are interested in marine biology.

An Edgecumbe student gets ready to work on a small octopus.

He says Sitka students make a good audience, since many are from fishing families and have experience with ocean life. But he says Edgecumbe students seem the most interested in dissections.

“A lot of them are from Coastal communities around northern Alaska, and you can just see their eyes opening. They’ve done this before with hunting animals but they’re learning so much more about their physiology and what these organs that they were just pitching out as offal are doing for these animals and how it adapts them to their place in the ocean,” Lewis says.

Dissections – formally called necropsies – are difficult for some students. At least one lost her lunch during Brewer’s octopus class.

But Lewis says most get over it and do fine.

“Certainly you have some kids holding their noses. But usually once you get in there and things start to be interesting and you’re pulling lenses out of eyeballs and passing them around, all of a sudden they lose their fear,” he says.

Back in the classroom, Brewer instructs students as they cut into the octopus’ mantle, looking for internal organs.

“OK, so what I want you to do with the mantel is to turn it so the eyes are facing down and there’s a little slit back here and I want you to cut that slit,” he says.

Brewer circles the classroom, offering advice where it’s needed. He stops to help three students from Southeast and the Interior.

Katie Wilmarth from Red Devil, Brittany Woods-Orrison from Rampart, and Natasha Kookesh from Angoon dissect their octopus.

“You guys get it? Yeh. So once you that I want you to cut this way all the way and what we want to do is to peel the mantle back from the organs. Just use your fingers,” he says.

This is the fourth necropsy for Katie Wilmarth from Red Devil, Brittany Woods-Orrison from Rampart, and Natasha Kookesh from Angoon.

“We started with a crayfish and then we went to a frog. And then a rat. The rat was really gross. … This one’s the coolest one so far,” the students say.

Brewer continues around the room helping students locate and identify organs, explaining their functions as he goes.

Octopus sessions were offered to more than a dozen classes hosted by WhaleFest’s Science in the Schools program. It also organized another 60 sessions on other marine topics.

Coordinator Lewis says he’d like to add ocean acidification classes. And some day, he hopes to offer similar sessions in other Southeast communities.