Money to help erosion-threatened village is going to the Matanuska Valley instead

PALMER — Almost $3 million originally bound for the eroding Bering Sea village of Newtok is headed for Butte and Sutton instead.

The money, from a Federal Emergency Management Agency hazard mitigation grant, was part of a plan to move Newtok residents to a new site called Mertarvik 9 miles away across Baird Inlet.

Newtok faces a combination of sinking land, rising sea levels, and the steady decades-long encroachment of the Ninglick River.

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The village could lose a drinking water well and four or five homes to erosion this winter, according to Newtok's attorney. Fuel is shuttled in by boat after a storm last year destroyed the village barge landing.

One resident already moved with three grandchildren from her house about 40 feet from an undercut bank to Mertarvik, where she is now living in a Sierra Designs tent pitched inside a Conex trailer, according to Newtok attorney Mike Walleri.

But the state Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management in July deemed Newtok's grant application incomplete and not eligible for federal  funding.

Rather than lose the money altogether, homeland security officials say, they submitted the next project on the priorities list: the Matanuska-Susitna Borough's request for about $3 million to buy out homes along the eroding banks of the Matanuska, not in a remote coastal village but about 45 minutes from the state's largest city.

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"I was hurt. That was my initial reaction," said Newtok tribal administrator Andrew John by phone Monday. "We're dealing with the lives of my people."

On Friday, FEMA rejected the village's appeal of the state's decision not to award the grant.

Newtok's original grant application to move 13 houses was tied to a disaster declaration from November 2013 storms that ravaged Southwest Alaska villages along hundreds of miles of coastline. That grant was awarded, but only $250,000 was spent before the community rescinded it to try a different plan.

A legal dispute between the old tribal council that had worked on relocation since the 1980s and the new one complicated community decision-making from 2013 until 2015.

The village decided on a different course of action in late September 2016.

Walleri said the village council decided against moving homes to Mertarvik after losing the barge dock.

Instead, the community wanted to buy and demolish houses and build 30 homes at the new site. That meant filing a new grant application.

The state originally asked Newtok to remove a replacement housing plan from the original grant application and then denied the new application based on the lack of such a plan, according to a letter Walleri wrote in August appealing the state's decision.

It's also unfair that the money then went to a completely different region than the 2013 storms hit, he said in an interview Tuesday.

"This particular disaster was a disaster that didn't involve the Mat-Su," Walleri said.

But Mike O'Hare, director of the Division of Homeland Security, said this week that the agency did all it could to help — Newtok received several extensions — but the village's new plan for the money ran out of time with a mid-August deadline.

"My team was working very closely with the Newtok Village Council to identify those deficiencies," O'Hare said. "We tried to give them as much time as possible without failing and losing the money."

Asked what made the application incomplete, Homeland Security spokesman Jeremy Zidek said missing items required by FEMA included cost estimates for home values and a future housing plan.

The FEMA money could have expired as soon as next month, Zidek said.

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Instead, the funds will be redirected to the Matanuska, where erosion has devoured dozens of homes and threatens several more.

There were about 18 people signed up at one point, said Mat-Su Assembly member Jim Sykes, who represents Butte and Sutton.

The federal funding, with some additional state money, could buy out most of them, Sykes said. Residents could also benefit from fixes including dikes or bank restoration.

But all of it costs millions, and even $3 million will go fast, he said. "I feel for the people of Newtok. I know everybody needs the money, but we can sure put it to use here."

Newtok can still apply for FEMA funds as a tribal entity, state officials say. The village council also discussed working with the Alaska National Guard to supply barracks as housing during a meeting with Gov. Bill Walker's administration last week.