ATCEM Awards 2006
| Akutan | Klawock |
| Alakanuk | Minto |
| Angoon | Ouzinkie (two) |
| Eek (two) | Port Graham |
| Huslia | St Mary's |
| Kaltag | Sterling |
| King Cove | Venetie |
Akutan
Jacob Stepetin
Tribal Administrator, Akutan Traditional Council
Nominated by: Jennie Webster, IGAP Coordinator, Akutan Traditional Council
Jacob Stepetin is the tribal administrator for the village of Akutan. In 1990 he activated the Akutan Traditional Council . There was not an office in the village in the older days so he started from scratch. The person that helped him is Zenia Borenin. They both worked together without pay until they got an office from the Akutan Corporation. Since then the first thing Jacob did was to get a grant for recycling aluminum. To this day the aluminum is collected along with plastic by the IGAP office. The tribe pays a person to crush the cans and put them in totes to be shipped out. He also does a grant for the library to help educate the people and students in the village on different issues, including the environment. He is resigning his position here and we would really like to recognize him with this award. We wouldn't be this far advanced in our addressing tribal issues if it wasn't for him.
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Thomas Chikigak
Environmental Director, EPA/Native Village of Alakanuk
Nominated by: Jacqueline Alstrom, Environmental Secretary, EPA/ Native Village of Alakanuk
Thomas Chikigak is very goal-oriented and motivated. The Alakanuk Environmental Program has completed many successful endeavors since the council hired a full-time director in March. We had the annual spring cleanup with a lot of different, expensive prizes and the kids also made extra spending money.
Thomas is always on top of his priorities, which are to educate and inform the community of health issues and concerns in our environment. He started a recycling center for pop cans, pop tabs, inkjet cartridges, batteries, and bulk items. He also has fast feedback on questions regarding environmental issues. He has shown many educational videos, DVDs and CD-Roms to all ages ranging from kindergarten to elders. He shipped 25 ALPAR bags of pop cans to the Anchorage Recycling Center and is still in the process of collecting pop tabs towards the Ronald McDonald Foundation. He also recycled eight boxes of ink jet cartridges.
Thomas organized three joint committee meetings composed of city maintenance personnel, water/sewer operators, high school maintenance personnel, AVEC plant operators, Alakanuk Native Corporation managers, the tribal administrator, and our Environmental Department and discussed the upcoming summer backhaul program, where he gathered information on all the bulk trash to haul out of our village. They all cooperated to help reduce the amount of trash and hazardous materials from being dumped at the landfill. We then contacted YRITWC and informed them of the amount of bulk items collected. The backhaul project resulted in taking out all old 55-gallon drum tanks, snow machines, trucks, bikes, and Hondas. He has been gathering batteries in two totes that have been laying around our village.
With the help of our EPA coordinator in Anchorage, Adrienne Fleek, we spent unused funds to hire four village workers for one week to clean up the 1/4 mile perimeter area surrounding the village dump site along with a bulldozer operator to push the accumulated trash to the back. Thomas has been reusing paper. Now more of the residents are becoming aware and educated on our recycling program. He plans to locate grant funds to improve the city dump site, new dump trucks and trash bins and our own recycling center, as well as taking care of the quality of our potable water, air, and land. I am so content with the results Tommy has accomplished and he’s hoping to do a lot more in the future.
Angoon
Stella Estrada
RAVEN AmeriCorps member, Angoon Community Association
Nominated by: Joan McBeen, RAVEN AmeriCorps member and RAVEN mentor, Tenakee Springs
Stella was instrumental in getting the recycling center in Angoon working again. She has organized the school children to help pick up trash and raise community awareness. She is also very active with the school homework club and craft activities. As Stella’s mentor for the last seven months, I have seen the outstanding progress and contributions that she has made to her community.
Eek
Lorraine Brown
RAVEN AmeriCorps member, Eek Tribal Council
Since joining the AmeriCorps program in January 2002, Martha Kelly has done a tremendous job enlisting the help of the community in making Emmonak a better place to live. Her projects include:
- In three days Martha and two other volunteers cleaned the north side dump, once an embarrassing eyesore. People no longer throw their trash on the north side, instead they use the trash bins which are provided by the City of Emmonak.
- With the help of 50 volunteers, Martha cleaned the south side road and the bank/beach.
- Martha and two young boys from the village have gone house to house collecting batteries. They also went along the banks of the Kwiguk River to collect batteries that were sitting along the bank for a number of years. She has four totes waiting to be shipped out of Emmonak.
- The Emmonak School has resurrected its aluminum can collection project with Martha's help. The project is going strong with over 50 bags of cans collected!
- In a partnership between RurAL CAP and the Alaska Conservation Foundation, Martha and a team of three other AmeriCorps members, a RurAL CAP coordinator, and a representative from the Alaska Center for the Environment improved the home of a 92-year old elder. They built her a ramp and replaced windows that were about to fall out. Although the elder has lost most of her memory, you can tell she is very happy for the ramp and her new windows.
Thanks to Martha, "villagers of Emmonak now know where to place their used batteries and can bring their aluminum pop cans to the school for recycling," says Albert Westlock, Environmental Technician, Village of Emmonak.
Eek
Malcolm Ford
(former) Environmental Services Consultant,
UAF Water and Environmental Resource Center
Nominated by: Nick Carter, Tribal Administrator, Eek Traditional Council
In late 2003, UAF and the Native Village of Eek embarked on a three-year partnership to research ways in which drinking water sanitation can be improved. The data collected from the samples revealed bacteria was far beyond what our elders and community leaders had known to possibly exist and that, to the greater extent, contributed to childhood and elderly illnesses.
Each visit involved our youth and resulted in a better perspective of the environment, a greater understanding of their surroundings. They became participants in "Non-stop Science." Community members also had a part in the process. We saw words turn up like E. Coli and Enterococcus. In all, we learned and found a serious concern to be addressed.
Seeing through a project he was charged to complete resulted in a successful two year IGAP grant. Malcolm Ford's dedication did not end there. Mentoring and guidance for the new Environmental Coordinator will continue (pro bono) per tribal council wishes, as they aspire to build capacity.
Huslia
Elsie Vent
City Administrator, City of Huslia
Nominated by: Pearl Henry, BIRCH AmeriCorps member, Huslia Tribal Council
I have nominated Elsie Vent because she has been making a difference in our community by many means. Not only has she been working as the City Administration for over 23 years (and made many large and small changes for Huslia), she is also a great role model as a site supervisor for the last two years. Elsie has been encouraging with every project I have completed last year. Without her help and encouragement, there is no way I would have completed as many projects as I have.
Elsie was right in there with the Huslia Garden of Life from the beginning, helping with the trash bins for the Huslia community, and cleanup in our village. She has been in every single house to put fire safe products in every home. Elsie has written many huge grants for the community; such as the one for our new Huslia Clinic, and for a new water treatment center that is environmentally friendly. She has helped me write small grants for the compost material, a water container for the Huslia Garden of Life, encouraged use of materials that we already have here at the dump for trash bins, utilized the log slabs to make benches in the most popular sites from my house logs, had the Jimmy Huntington School donate used 2’x4's to be used on the new basketball court on the old airstrip and then would be used to build a shed for the tools and such for the Huslia Garden of Life. Elsie has done so much to help improve the environmental health as a whole for our community (a lot more than I have written in this letter) and I am honored to write this nomination.
Kaltag
Gina Madros
Environmental Coordinator, Kaltag Tribal Council
Nominated by: Georgiana Madros, Tribal Administrator, Kaltag Tribal Council
During the month of August 2006, Gina Madros and Lina Edwin have been collaborating with Anna Prat-YRITC, Vice Mayor Violet Burnham, and loader operator Albert Nickoli Sr. Together they have successfully backhauled these items out of Kaltag with Crawler Barge Lines: 13 refrigerators, 1 propane stove, 10 snow machine frames, 3 four-wheeler frames, 1 steel sink, 2 full totes of lead acid batteries and 56 30-gallon bags of recycled cans (since May 1st). They shipped them out on Frontier Flying Service when space was available. The Recycling Program is still in effect.
King
Cove
Anne Morris
Tribal Environmental Coordinator, EPA IGAP, Pauloff
Harbor Tribe
Nominated by: Desirae Roehl, Tribal Environmental Coordinator, Agdaagux Tribe of King Cove
In December 2003 Anne Morris was hired as the tribal environmental coordinator for the Pauloff Harbor Tribe in Sand Point, Alaska. Although the tribe is located in Sand Point, its members originated primarily from the island of Sanak which is located approximately 110 miles away and is no longer occupied.
Since she began, Anne has been eager to learn and has taken the initiative to use what she's learned not only in their tribe's village of Sanak (which is only accessible by boat), but in Sand Point as well. She has successfully written and received grants to continue the EPA IGAP program, IGAP Unmet Needs funding and a Community Integrated Waste Management Grant from ANTHC.
Some of her work on Sanak Island includes the cleanup and removal of over 2,000 pounds of old lead-acid batteries, soil/water sampling and analysis, a project to fence in three cemeteries on the island, and a solar panel pilot project.
Since time spent on Sanak is limited, Anne focuses a lot of her attention in Sand Point, where the majority of the tribe members reside. She has worked hard to start an air quality program and recycling center in the community. Anne has also ordered and distributed reusable shopping bags to residents. She has collaborated her efforts with other local and state agencies to get the most out of each project and get the community more involved. She has presented at various air quality and solid waste trainings over the years to further educate other communities trying to attempt similar projects. Anne has also provided environmental information to the community residents during the school's Career Day. Anne also successfully started a community garden committee in Sand Point. She and her staff also distribute an educational newsletter that is always fun to read.
All of Anne's projects have taken a lot of hard work and dedication. Because of her work, both communities are healthier places to live and visit. She has also been an inspiration to many communities throughout our region and the state of Alaska, showing that if you work hard enough you can make a difference.
The success of Anne's projects can also be attributed to her staff, hired through project funds Anne has received:
Arlene Gunderson – Administrator
Eileen Dushkin - Environmental Assistant
Michelle Gronholdt – Recycling Foreman
Shalene Chebetnoy-Jackson – Air Quality Technician
Klawock
Mary Teri Haldane Kennedy
RAVEN AmeriCorps member, Klawock Cooperative Association
Nominated by: Cheryl Griffitts, Office Manager/Bookkeeper, Klawock Cooperative Association
Mary Teri Haldane Kennedy has done a tremendous job in our community. She started the walking club, the weaving circle, began a canoe journey, and distributed fire safety equipment and green cleaning kits to over 100 homes on Prince of Wales Island.
The first three activities: walking, weaving, and canoe involved getting the community involved. The walking club was for those wanting to get into shape. The weaving circle was one way to teach people how to use natural resources and when to get the bark. The canoe journey involved getting various organizations as well as volunteers to help out. However, that was not the hardest part; the hard part was getting the youth involved. The intent of the canoe journey was to learn cultural traditions by utilizing activities—to do beach cleanups and learn how and when to use different resources.
The fire safety equipment and green cleaning kits consisted of first doing home surveys. Mary conducted surveys in Klawock, Craig and Hydaburg and as a result, many homes now have the equipment to possibly save a life!
Minto
Jonathan Titus
RAVEN AmeriCorps member, Minto Village Council
Nominated by Joan McBeen, RAVEN AmeriCorps member, City of Tenakee Springs, and RAVEN mentor
J.R. has been a member of my mentoring group for seven months and I have witnessed his progress in achieving results. He initiated a school breakfast program and continues to prepare daily school meals. He is working with the teachers to prepare healthy meals and has raised money for the breakfast program through fundraisers. He participated in fire safety education and enlisted volunteers to assist him with Fire Smart equipment.
Ouzinkie
Gary Boskofsky
Volunteer, Ouzinkie Tribal Council
Two individuals have been the driving force behind the development of the tribal government of St. Paul's Ecosystem Conservation Office. Over the past four years, Aquilina Debbie Lestenkof and Phil Zavadil have worked tirelessly to improve the environment, the health of the wildlife, and the lives of the people of St. Paul Island. What started as a dream for greater tribal involvement for the protection of the fur seal population has today expanded into one of the most capable and proactive local
environmental programs in the State of Alaska. Today the work of the ECO Office not only touches all corners of St. Paul, but is also providing a model for positive tribally-driven environmental and natural resources management.
In 1998, with the help of an EPA IGAP grant, Debbie and Phil opened the Tribal Ecosystem Conservation Office and began evaluating environmental conditions on St. Paul. Today they manage over a dozen programs performing environmental assessments and planning, disentangling sea mammals, researching local traditional diet, managing reindeer populations, performing research, monitoring military site clean ups, managing solid waste, and collaborating with various researchers, educators and agencies in protecting the ecosystems of the Pribilofs and Bering Sea.
They have been patient, but persistent, and always innovative in their approach to addressing the challenges of guiding progressive change in a remote Alaskan community. They incorporate education into all phases of their work, and often can be found with local school children combing the beaches of St. Paul, cleaning up beach garbage or disentangling a seal or sea lion.
They are as comfortable on the beach or in the classroom as they are with the computer, employing sophisticated GIS technology to map local conditions, and video to develop public educational pieces or to document changes to the rookeries. When you talk to Debbie and Phil, you get a sense of the pride that they share in their work and their community. You also walk away with a sense of the remarkable potential that exists when people who have energy, initiative and vision set their minds on accomplishing a worthy goal.
If you go to St. Paul (and everyone should at some point in their life), visit the St. Paul Ecosystem Conservation Office and look for these two helpful smiling faces. They will show you the beauty of the Pribilofs and a vision for how locally driven environmental management can be the future across Alaska.
Jill
Boskofsky
BIRCH AmeriCorps member, Ouzinkie Tribal Council
Nominated by: Sandra Muller, Site Supervisor, Ouzinkie Tribal Council
As Jill Boskofsky's supervisor, I have seen a big difference in her job performance around the community. She has kept the front beaches cleaned of toxic materials, hazardous wastes and other obstacles that can either harm community members or the environment. She has gathered groups of community members to help clean the road sides, collected cans, did a lot of, "alcohol and drug free" events and made them fun for all ages. Also to make the community a better looking place, she has planted flower gardens in places where trash used to accumulate. Jill has bought lumber, and had picnic tables made and placed them where old boats and skiffs were left to rot. She also had volunteers come in with backhoes and clean up old oil and diesel spills.
Throughout the past year, she has made not only the adults aware of garbage thrown on the sides of the roads or gathering places, but now the teenagers are also aware not to throw cans, etc. on the ground. There are yellow bags the teens have put out and are using wherever they hang out, which I believe is a huge improvement in our community! As we walk around the community, we no longer see old batteries or oil drums lying about. Broken-down vehicles left on the side of roads or driveways are towed and stored in proper places in our community dump.
As Jill's site supervisor, I wish her the best of luck on her nomination, she deserves to be recognized for the difference she has made in our community and all the hard work she put into every event.
Port
Graham
Violet Yeaton
Environmental Planner, Port Graham Village Council
Nominated by: Patrick Norman, Chief, Port Graham Village Council
Mrs. Yeaton has been an employee of the Port Graham Village Council for over six years, and has been instrumental in developing an environmental presence in our community. Through her work with the EPA's Indian General Assistance Program our village has been able to implement changes that continue to have a dramatic impact on the our ability to sustain a traditional lifestyle.
Her work with the Port Graham Environmental Department has allowed our village to extend the life of the current landfill by setting up an inert waste staging area, and a collection center for household hazardous waste. Used batteries and tires are also being separated and stored as well, and these items are then backhauled out of the community by the Kenai Peninsula Borough. The reason we are able to manage our landfill and hazmat area effectively with the small amount of resources available, is because of the high level of environmental awareness by our village residents. This awareness is a direct result of Mrs. Yeaton's tireless efforts to bring environmental education to the forefront of people’s minds, and help our village make decisions that have positive impacts on the environmental health of this community.
Mrs. Yeaton has also been involved with our local Environmental Health Committee which meets once a month to discuss local environmental health topics and is comprised of community members, elders, and high school students. At these meetings, Mrs. Yeaton relays information that she has gathered from conferences and trainings and leads discussions on different environmental topics. She is a valuable resource for this community and her expertise is vital to our ability to effectively manage and maintain our natural resources.
Mrs. Yeaton is passionate about her work, and about preserving the culture of her people. It can sometimes be hard to change people's attitude about environmental awareness, but you can see the impacts she has had on this community. When kids walk down the street and see some garbage, they stop and pick it up. When someone is working on a vehicle or has some kind of hazardous waste they need to dispose of, they call the Environmental Department and ask where to put it. When people have environmental concerns or ideas for new projects, they know who to go talk to. These are just some of the things that she does for this community. She is always working on new ideas to keep Port Graham the wonderful environmentally healthy community that it has been for generations.
St.
Mary’s
Serena Alstrom
Environmental Dept., Yupiit of Andreafski
Nominated by: Sam White, Tribal Administrator, Yupiit of Andreaski, St. Mary’s
Serena Alstrom started working with the Yupiit of Andreafski in the Environmental Department in September of 2001 and is still working harder than ever in the community of St. Mary's. With her faithful assistant Jay Hootch, who has also worked for Andreafski since 2001, she has accomplished many projects in St. Mary's. Three months into their jobs they held an environmental workshop at St. Mary's High School and that's when the program started to expand.
The concerns come from the Andreafski tribal membership and Serena and staff started finding ways to improve the environment. Many accomplishments include:
- 2001 and 2002 Environmental Workshops
- Annual Spring Clean-ups
- 2003 Recycling Challenge
- 2003 and 2004 Lower Yukon Environmental Gatherings
- 4-H Fisheries School Program (in its third year) with 4th through 6th grade classes
- Selecting Youth Representation in ANHB & AFE conferences
- Backhaul Projects partnership with YRITWC removing 25 vehicles plus 200 batteries, and 250 lbs. of electronics
- Developing an environmental internship to better educate youth
- Started a community garden
- Developing a Community Recycling Drop-off Center
- Working St. Mary's School Staff to implement Environmental. Education in their curriculum
We know she is not finished yet. Serena wants to do more for the community, Region, and the State of Alaska.
Sterling
Connie Ferguson
RAVEN AmeriCorps member, Sterling Elementary School
In making Ugashik a more environmentally safe place to live, "it is much cleaner than many places that I've seen with landfills where folks can take their garbage," says Tribal Administrator Roy S. Matsuno. Hattie's efforts include:
- Completing landfill ordinances so that the planned landfill will be managed accordingly.
- Helping obtain the used oil burner for Ugashik, so that oil can be used to heat the equipment building.
- Working on the ANHB grant to rid Ugashik of over 400 55-gallon fuel drums, which were crushed and sent to the Naknek landfill.
- Helping to set aside an area for the recycling center, which will be used to collect batteries (lead acid and household), fishing web, old metal, aluminum cans and old appliances. Hattie is looking for funding to get these materials shipped out of Ugashik.
- Coordinating with the Lake and Peninsula Borough to find funding to rid Ugashik of the "WinRay," a derelict old ferry that is sitting on the banks of the Ugashik River.
Venetie
Lance Whitwell
Environmental Coordinator, Native Village of Venetie
Nominated by: Gideon James, Tribal Operations Director, Native Native Village of Venetie
Lance has worked for the Native Village of Venetie tribal government for about six years. He started as a RAVEN AmeriCorps member for two years, then went on to take the lead as Environmental and Energy programs Coordinator.
During these years he has been instrumental in bringing a sense of local ownership and problem solving to the communities of Venetie and Arctic Village (which is also under his jurisdiction).
Just to name a few projects Lance has backhauled:
- 2,300 lbs of lead acid batteries,
- 1,200 lbs of appliances,
- 750 lbs of PCB contaminated transformers
- and 175 lbs of aluminum cans
He has also performed such things as:
- Oil spill responses
- Hazard material response
- Emergency services coordinator
- Volunteer fire chief
- Fuel spill remediation
It is not only his work that needs recognition, but it is more in the way he performs his daily duties, and in his general behavior, willingness to learn, and listen to the needs and concerns of the communities he works with. Those communities are not only his home community, but all over the State. Communities and EPA workers contact Lance for guidance and even just for moral support. Many, many times I have heard from people in other communities how Lance has helped them in their own job, or has given them inspiration, or assistance in some way that goes above and beyond the call of duty.