Kivalina Erosion
2004 Using beach gravel for drainfield work.
August 2004: A new drainfield for the City's washeteria facility is constructed by Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium (ANTHC) of Anchorage outside of the Norton's housing unit. The beach has been used as fill for the drainfield. An employee informs them that is not a good idea and that it would cause erosion. The crew does nothing with that information and continues with the work.
October 2004 Principal housing unit - original position.
October 19 2004 Photo courtesy of Tom Hanifan
October 2004: Kivalina has a storm that caused the water to rise and the waves are big enough to let the water overtop the bank and flow into the village, filling the streets with water. It would not be considered a flood because it was the waves that went over the bank and onto the streets. The event was well documented and is stored at the Tribal Office. The principal's housing unit has been compromised and must be moved. Instead of moving it inland, it is repositioned parallel to the bank.
October 19, 2004 Photo courtesy of Tom Hanifan
September 2005 Principal housing unit - repositioned after storm.
October 2005: A storm hits Kivalina. There is significant erosion activity outside of the school. The principal's housing unit has yet again become compromised and is about to be taken out to sea. Residents and some school staff alike rally to save the building by placing anything they can on the banks of the building. Empty 55 gallon barrels are gathered by the scene and school maintenance personnel has the tools to open the tops so they can be filled with gravel. Women and children alike volunteer to fill sandbags with gravel from the school's old drainfield. The men are down below the bank placing the sandbags inside the barrels with waves crashing around them. The principal's housing unit is saved and is later relocated inland after the storm has abated some. In that storm, 70 feet of land has eroded outside of the school where the beach had been disturbed by the drainfield construction crew.
2005 Airport with metal sheets and half of the D3 airplane.
The wind storm continues and the airport is now in danger and is rapidly eroding from the fierce waves. This time, it must be the work of men as the space is limited. They try anything, including remnants of a D-3 plane. Those are taken out to sea as if they were foam material. Finally, in a desperate attempt to control the erosion, someone remembers the 8 x 24 metal sheets sitting outside of the watertank farm. There are four sheets and all are placed individually in a line on the banks near the airport. They work through the night in the dark to place them into position. Finally, towards morning, they are all in place and the erosion stops with only 12 feet to spare from the airport.
This event prompted the Northwest Arctic Borough (NAB) under the direction of Tom Bolen, former Public Services Director, to address the situation. He put together a proposal which called for plans to put a seawall around the compromised area near the oceanside beach. He diligently sought funding from the State of Alaska and the Denali Commission and was eventually successful in acquiring funding. Thus began the work of putting together the seawall.
2006 Drake Construction is contracted for seawall work. Excavating from the beach.
NAB contracted NANA Pacific, an engineering and construction management company which is headquartered in Anchorage to design the seawall and acquired the seawall material called HESCO concertainers, an erosion control product that has been used successfully in other parts of the state, according to Tom Bolen. Drake Construction is contracted to construct the seawall. After completeion, the wall got tested in September and sustained minimal damage to it's structure. Repairs were performed and a celebration was planned for it's completion on October 12 in which many dignitaries were to attend. On October 11, a wind storm hit Kivalina with gusts of up to 40 miles an hour. The seawall failed considerably and the celebration was cancelled.
October 2006 - Senator Stevens questions Tom Bolen about the seawall at the Kivalina Clinic. Beside him is George Cannelos and Steven's aide.
October 14, 2006: Senator Ted Stevens and Denali Commission Director George Cannelos came to Kivalina along with Tom Bolen and various others to assess the damage done to the wall. All wondered why the wall failed but local residents repeated yet again to them why the wall failed. To fill the HESCO baskets, despite the warnings from the local residents and a few employees that were hired, the Drake Construction crew was told to extract gravel from the beach directly in front of the AVEC fuel tank farm to use as part of the fill. During the process, they were told by some workers that it would cause serious erosion to the bank but their words went unheeded and work continued. Gravel was also taken from the beach outside of the airport, which is why it eroded there.
August 2007: Northwest Arctic Borough gives the responsibility of hiring personnel to the project foreman of Kivalina. Two crews are hired for day and night shift. Work begins repair on the damaged seawall using one (1) cubic yard super sacks provided by the US Army Corps of Engineers. The Corp is funded $800k for repairs to the seawall by the State of Alaska. Part of those funds are used to purchase second hand heavy equipment for the repair work from the Kikiktagruq Inupiat Corporation located in Kotzebue. KIC mechanics are contracted for a year to address repairs to the heavy equipment as they are many years old. Repair work continues through November 2007, last day being the 1st.
September 12, 2007: Winds are expected to hit with wave height up to eight (8) feet. Kivalina receives a fax from National Weather Service of this event. Northwest Arctic Borough is alerted also and there ensues a telephonic meeting between Bob Schaeffer of NAB and his employee Enoch Adams Jr., who is also the Vice Mayor for the City of Kivalina. Because of the failure of the seawall, there is the imminent danger of a fuel spill of fourteen (14) bulk fuel tanks owned by AVEC, Inc. should waves become severe enough to cause the tanks to topple into the ocean. They decide on a 'voluntary evacuation' as a precautionary measure. Mr. Adams calls Mayor Austin Swan, Sr. to assist him with alerting the people of Kivalina. A house to house visit is agreed upon and each house is asked if they would like to evacuate to Kotzebue because of the upcoming threart so a list is made. After the visits, 90 are taken to Kotzebue via airlines and 131 are transported to the Port Site facility by 4-wheeled hondas, including women and children. Only 86 people remain in Kivalina including the work crew hired by NAB and the Incident Command volunteers and some local residents who chose not to evacuate. Everyone returns home on September 14.
Local governmental councils continue the fight for relocation. The local erosion crew continue to fight the erosion problem.
www.nana.com/ndcenews/ndcenewsfull2.html
STUDIES BY US ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS
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