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CONTACT: Robert Lundahl 415.205.3481 Caroline Mercado 805.464.1058 Howard Sprouse 360.808.4203 Visit The Remediators Visit us on Portl Life Goes On in Quinhagak as it has for Generations–with Adaptation Yup'ik community upends convention with local approach to toxic clean up
Self Preservation The Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta region of Alaska is home to the Yup’ik people, who practice a largely subsistence lifestyle characterized by seasonal hunting, fishing, and gathering. Getting ready for winter means preparing traditional foods including akutaq, sometimes known as ”eskimo ice cream,” a traditional subsistence food made from cockles and berries– and a few newer ingredients. Here we see self preservation as a form of the adaptation of traditional knowledge.
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PHOTO JOHN HUNTER (Yup’ik)
Village life, which may include ice fishing for trout in the Kanektok, or Moose hunting along the Eek River, and catching and drying copious amounts of salmon for Winter, presents a combination of old and new, sometimes in surprising combinations. Warming temperatures are one culprit, an example of change imposed from the outside.
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Old and New Boardwalks, Kotlik, AK, PHOTO : SPROUSE
It’s coming In Kotlik, effects of rising waters and melting permafrost can be seen between the old boardwalk and its new replacement, elevated above the flooding tundra. The trails lead to industry, subsistence economics and cultural practices, upending stability in the environment and delivering impacts equally across boundaries. So when the Village of Quinhagak and the Qanirtuuq Native Corporation were faced with the necessity of moving the village they already knew how to proceed. Warren Jones, the president of the village corporation Qanirtuuq Inc., explains. “I think it’s time to start preparing. It’s coming, there’s no way about it,” Jones said. “We have to relocate to better ground, get this engineers out here with their certificates and say this is good land, even though our Elders already know what land to pick.”
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Sled being prepared for Winter. PHOTO : SPROUSE
Quinhagak has priorities, like moving the sewer/lagoon and building a health clinic, and the clock is ticking, also, on a deadline for cleaning up leakage from military era oil storage facilities, as is mandated by the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation.
Howard Sprouse (The Remediates) and John Hunter (Yup'ik), Quinhagak, AK
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Adaptability as necessity Under quarantine, technicians and scientists are not able to fly into the village to conduct a typical remediation, which could involve moving large amounts of soil, or construction to raise tanks. But Tribal CEO, Warren Jones, applied a unique leadership vision to see the potential in bioremediation, on–site, accumulating–then breaking down hydrocarbons in a natural process compatible with Yup'ik values.
Wood Chips Permeated with Mycotreatment
Quinhagak is innovating under trying circumstances. The tribe is lighting the way for future business, in partnership with The Remediators, teaching, training and developing Integrated Bioremediation capabilities, and remotely monitoring toxic cleanups using natural processes across Alaska.
Quinhagak is even considering a remediation facility in the village itself, to grow the mushrooms, fungi, and phytoremediation elements, like poplar, in combination with Bio-Char to address spillage in other villages and locations in Alaska and beyond.
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"Eventually by using plants and trees selected for their specific ability to remove and concentrate toxins and microbes, which benefit plant growth as well as decontaminate many toxins, we now have a system that can be tailored to meet site specific requirements." –Howard Sprouse
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