Nenana, AK - As the leaves flush yellow on Toghotthele, a group of local Tribal members and land owners gathered inside the Nenana City School gymnasium with less than a week of notice from the Alaska Department of Transportation (DOT) to hear about the proposed Nenana Tolchaket Road expansion. Four tables are lined with plans for a 15 million dollar road project funded by the State of Alaska. The 20 miles of new road would open 140,000 acres of traditional use lands for industrial agricultural production from the Native Village of Nenana on the George Parks Highway to the Kantishna River bordering Denali National Park and Preserve.
Christina Sunnyboy, Chair of Toghotthele Corporation, Caroline Ketzler, 1st Chief of Nenana Native Village and Toghotthele Board Member, and Eva Burk, Vice Chair of the Toghotthele Corporation, Executive Director of Rock Crossing Consulting and Graduate Research Assistant with Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Policy, spoke in a circle as a small group created their own public forum with the project staff. Burk said, “You are not considering the cumulative impact of this entire project. It’s not just this road and not just this agricultural land sale. On top of it all, our fish are already crashing. The key message is, this is not the time. The land and the waters are telling you. That’s why we are here.” As Burke spoke to the room, others unfurled a large banner decorated with hand-painted blueberries that read ‘No Consent. No Road’.
Christina Sunnyboy spoke next, “ there is not a total ‘in-support’, no one has asked us officially ‘are we with the project?’, but now that comment has reopened, we have a chance to make our voices heard. DOT has contacted us for possible road work, but what it does, It opens up Toghetelle lands, and I don’t believe it’s worth it to our shareholders.”
Community Member, Kathleen Demientieff, Nenana Tribal Council Member, continued in the circle, “ I was born and raised in Nenana. I am subsistence fisher-woman, I am subsistence hunter and trapper, you name it. I am very discouraged by the State of Alaska. Very disrespectful against our tribal members. Even with Josh (Mayor) . We weren’t notified. We would have fought this. And now you have a schedule. I will call my representatives. I’m going to stop it.”
For nearly 3 hours the community exchanged passionate concerns on the rushed public process, unfinished environmental reviews and inadequate consultations with the Nenana Tribal Council from Alaska DOT. The most common message from the group was clearly around the lack of Tribal and community consultation, as well as an aggressive schedule of development on fragile wetland ecosystems that have been stewarded for generations.
First Chief Caroline Ketzler of the Nenana Tribal Council pulled the attention of the circle as she shared her story. “My family fought for their rights to hunt and fish on these lands and they won years ago against the state. Now you guys are opening it up to anyone and everyone. What do you think is going to happen out there? Exactly what happened in the Minto flats. Decimation. That’s exactly what it is. We are losing our animals and our fish right now. All of my life growing up I heard chiefs talking at the potlatches and they would tell me and everyone else in the room that ‘one day our animals will be gone from this land and all you will have is the land itself.’ That’s today. We run the risk of having people from all over in a pristine area that we’ve kept that way for generations. It’s not just you guys pushing a road in there. It’s way more than that. That’s my heart and soul in that country.”
Josh Verhagen, Mayor of the City of Nenana also spoke with the room, “ It’s not like I’m just lock step with everything the State wants to do. I’ve shared my concerns and have some pretty severe concerns with the agricultural project and this project, and some of them they have listened to. I think there is a more effective way to collaborate and it is to share our knowledge and share our resources. To find a way to make this a better situation. ”
As the meeting neared a natural closing, Johnathan Hutchinson, Principal Engineer and Project Manager for DOT, said “ If we can’t present this community with additional information and vice versa and network and share this information, we are not moving forward at all.”
Missing from the DOT delegation was a representative from the Office of History and Archaeology. The assessment of cultural use sites is necessary to upholding free, prior and informed consent under the the United Nations Declaration of Indigenous Peoples. The State plans to begin assessing cultural sites on Monday, September 12th despite the call from stakeholders present at the meeting for a pause in the process. Public comment is open through Sept. 30
Press Contacts:
Eva Burk, Vice Chair of the Toghotthele Corporation •
edburk@alaska.edu, 907-322-7467
Caroline Ketzler, First Chief Nenana Tribal Council •
carolinejketzler@gmail.com, 907-371-5277
Brandon Hill, Native Movement Communications Co-Director • brandon@nativemovement.org, 207-632-0861