A bald eagle looks over St. Paul Harbor in Kodiak, Alaska, above which turbines dot the ridgeline. Many Alaska communities are benefiting from wind- generated power.
the village’s wind farm is made up of 17 turbines that can pro- duce 1.14 megawatts of electricity. Jodi Mitchell is Tlingit and the chief executive officer at
Inside Passage Electric Cooperative. This nonprofit, consum- er-owned utility company based in the Tongass National For- est in southeast Alaska serves more than 1,400 residents of the rural communities of Angoon, Chilkat Valley, Hoonah, Kake and Klukwan. It has been developing small, state-of-the-art hydroelectric power dams that produce less than 500 kilo- watts. They are designed to allow for safe fish passage while weaning Alaska residents off diesel. “A vast majority of rural Alaska is dependent on diesel gen- eration, which is polluting. For each gallon of diesel fuel used, it puts 22.4 pounds of CO2
emissions into our pristine air in
Alaska,” Mitchell said. It is also very expensive. “It’s not just the fuel that you have to buy, but it’s also the variability in price [that you have to consider.] So as fuel prices go up, our rates have to go up as well.” “The best technology that we have found for our communi-
ties is small salmon-friendly hydro,” she said. Her company has created hydroelectric dams for the Alaska Native com- munities Hoonah and Kake, which are dependent upon their salmon resources. “There are more salmon in the stream now,” she said. Mitchell said the dams also can help get villages off diesel, so long as the river flows are strong. She said, “There are times when it’s raining hard, and we can turn our diesels off.” While renewable energies have not come without some cost
the Tanana Chiefs Conference, an Alaska Native nonprofit that works on behalf of Alaska Native tribes, including pro- viding health services and natural resource management. “Hopefully, they can see a project of this size and say, hey, we can probably have that here in Huslia, Galena, Bethel, Holy Cross or Ketchikan.” Wind is also a resource being tapped into in Alaska. Kotze-
bue Electric in Kotzebue, Alaska, was one of the first commu- nities to put up wind turbines. According to Kotzebue Electric,
to communities, or in some cases, to the environment, the bene- fits of even small projects such as these in Alaska have been great and far-reaching. During the past few decades, Native nations have become some of the largest producers of renewable ener- gies across the United States, some even providing or have the potential to provide energy to nearby non-Native communities. Johns said, “We know that many of the 574 federally rec-
ognized Indian tribes in this country have borne the brunt of the effects of fossil fuel extraction yet have vast clean energy resources to not only help their people, but also to contribute to the energy security of the entire nation.”
vincent schilling is an Akwesasne Mohawk journalist, public speaker and author. Follow him on social media at @VinceSchilling.
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