DALTON HIGHWAY
Haul-road Trucker Defies Odds

Big-rig driver John Taylor, 64, has logged 3 million miles without an accident as a driver for Carlile Transportation Systems in Fairbanks, the Fairbanks Daily News Miner reported. And what makes the feat even more impressive is that Taylor is a Haul Road driver, traveling the challenging and often dangerous route between Fairbanks and Deadhorse on the Dalton Highway—the road featured in the TV show Ice Road Truckers.

Taylor has driven an average of 130,500 miles—or 130 trips to Prudhoe Bay and back—each year for the past 23 years, all without an acciden

The 414-mile Dalton Highway, also known as the Haul Road, is one of the roughest, most remote roads in the world, following the trans-Alaska oil pipeline through the Brooks Range to Prudhoe Bay, the News-Miner sai

Taylor makes two or three round trips to Prudhoe Bay each week. Each trip is 1,000 miles and takes approximately 34 hours—12 hours driving each way, and 10 hours of rest time, required by law, the News-Miner said. A satellite beacon on top of Taylor’s truck tracks his movement

Taylor takes the achievement in stride, saying he knows of other drivers on the road who have racked up even more accident–free miles. “I’m just doing my job,” he told the News-Miner.

ALASKA VILLAGES
Study: Dumps Pollute Water

DOUG HUNTMAN

University of Alaska Fairbanks doctoral student Edda Mutter is sampling the water and soil around village dumps to see if pollutants from trash and untreated sewage are migrating into the surrounding environment.

A University of Alaska Fairbanks graduate student is sampling the water and soil around village dumps to see if pollutants from trash and untreated sewage are migrating into the surrounding environment. Most of the state’s more than 200 villages have no means of waste disposal other than setting aside an area as a designated dump. Many of these towns are on river systems and built on low-lying tundra atop permafrost—conditions that allow for seepage into surrounding ponds and sloughs, the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ Geophysical Institute, reported.

Doctoral student Edda Mutter visited seven villages in rural Alaska last summer and collected water and soil samples from their dumps. She found elevated levels of aluminum in the water samples from all seven communities, along with high levels of E. coli and other bacteria, the Geophysical Institute reported.

An environmental study completed in 2003 reported that 72 percent of Alaska village dumps are within about one mile of homes, and at least 30 percent are within one-quarter mile of homes. More than 56 percent of village dumps are seasonally flooded, and 34 percent of dumps are one-quarter mile from a village drinking-water source, the Geophysical Institute reported. About half of villages have no indoor plumbing or sewage treatment facilities, and residents dump their honey buckets at the same dumpsites as household tras

Mutter plans to do another round of sampling this summer to further asses the extent of the seepage problem.

HAINES
Medevac Insurance More Popular

	ADAM HATCH
	Many people living in rural Alaska have started purchasing medical emergency transport insurance. Residents without medevac coverage can pay $6,000 to $25,000 for an emergency flight. The cost of ground transportation from an airport to a hospital is additional.

A growing number of rural Alaska residents are investing in insurance that will pay for them to be transported to larger communities in case of medical emergencies.

Sales of the coverage—at $100 per household—have increased in recent years as health clinics sent more patients via air ambulance to regional hubs like Juneau, Anchorage and Seattle, the Chilkat Valley News reported.

The town of Haines recently purchased medevac coverage for its 44 volunteer responders and their families, and some Skagway residents have suggested the municipality should buy the same coverage for the entire tow

Residents without medevac coverage pay $6,000 to $25,000 for emergency flights—depending on the speed of the evacuation and the level of medical care required enroute—and the cost of ground transportation from an airport to a hospital is additiona

Last year, about 65 residents were medevaced from Haines—a dramatic increase from just a few years ago, when emergency flights were reserved only for patients near death, the Chilkat Valley News reporte

Changes in medical culture based on national standards of care, advances in treatment and technology, and increased concerns about liability are behind the increase in medical flights.

SOUTNHCENTRAL
Scientists say little birds have big memories

The black-capped chickadee, one of the few Southcentral Alaska birds that doesn’t head south for winter, may be giving scientists insights into the human brain. A recent study shows that the birds’ memory centers are larger than those in members of the same species that spend their entire lives in warmer climates, according to Down to Earth magazine. Scientists have theorized that a larger memory center allows the northern birds to more easily find stored food and survive winter. The study seems to show that local environments can influence brain development, and the brain can be trained and enlarged like a muscle as required by each environment, said biologist Vladimir Pravosudov of the University of Nevad

The finding can be applied to humans as well, Down to Earth reported, and may be useful in finding causes and treatments for human diseases including Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s.

WASHINGTON, D.C.
Alaska Seafood Labels Are True

When you buy Alaska seafood, you get what you pay for. A report recently issued by the National Conference on Weights and Measures says Alaska is the only state to show zero violations in a seafood labeling investigation, according to the Web site www.alaskaseafood.org.

SERINE HALVERSON
A report recently issued by the National Conference on Weights and Measures said Alaska was the only state found to have no violations in its seafood labeling.

A voluntary, multi-state investigation revealed significant overcharges for seafood originating in many states, due to incorrect package weights on some frozen seafood products. The investigation found that of the 17 states participating in the investigation, only Alaska was found to have zero violations, meaning every package of Alaska seafood held the exact weight of seafood it claimed to contain.

The Alaska Division of Measurement Standards and Commercial Vehicle Enforcement assisted in the study, testing 82 lots of 14 brands of Alaska seafood at nine locations.

The National Fisheries Institute, a seafood industry association, launched the investigation because of growing concerns that reduced funding for weights-and-measures inspection programs may be tilting the playing field in favor of dishonest businesses. The study revealed that some packers included the weight of ice in the labeled weight for the seafood, which is prohibited by state and federal law.

SOUTHEAST
Internet Site Identifies Whales

JANET NEILSON

researchers at the sitka campus of the University of Alaska Southeast and Glacier Bay National Park have posted photos of nearly 2,000 humpback whales in a new online catalog so whale watchers in Southeast can positively identify the whales they see.

Humpback whale watchers in Southeast can now positively identify which whales they see, thanks to a new Web site. Researchers at the Sitka campus of the University of Alaska Southeast and Glacier Bay National Park have posted photos of nearly 2,000 humpback whales in a new online catalo

The photographs feature the black-and-white pattern on the underside of flukes or tails, which are unique, and can be used to identify each whale, The Associated Press reported.

The markings are similar to fingerprints. Observers using binoculars or a camera with a telephoto lens can see the details of a whale’s flukes and identify the whale from a distance.

The library will be useful to whale researchers, as well, because it will provide a single source for photos of Southeast whales, gathered by 16 groups of scientists and photographers over the past 30 years.

http://www.alaskahumpbacks.org

NUNUM IQUA
Food Store Will Reopen In Village

For most Americans, picking up a few items from the grocery store is as easy as jumping in a vehicle or walking down the street. But in some Alaska villages, that’s not an option: there is no grocery store and residents must travel to nearby villages by plane, boat or snowmachine, wait for the next barge to arrive, or mail-order food, which is costly.

That may be changing for the residents of the western Alaska village of Nunum Iqua. The Yukon River village has not had a store for more than a year but, with the help of the Native association, two local entrepreneurs will soon reopen the trading post, the Tundra Drums reported.

The village corporation ran the former store, and its closure compounded woes in a community hit hard by poor commercial fishing and crippling energy costs, the Tundra Drums reported. The city has operated a small survival store out of a city office to provide necessities for villagers who could not travel.

The new store will provide local jobs and will give a share of its earnings to the tribal council, which is an investor in the business, to be spent on new ventures or dividends to tribal members.