Alaska

H

Conservation

Alaska is experiencing environmental changes that scientists attribute to global warming. These changes include rising average temperatures, retreating glaciers, melting sea ice, coastal erosion, thawing permafrost, and alterations in wildlife migration patterns. Although the state has taken an inventory of its greenhouse gas production, it has yet to take steps to limit production of these gases, which are believed to play a major role in global warming.

Alaska’s Department of Environmental Conservation is responsible for the conservation, protection, and improvement of the state’s natural resources and environment and for the control of water, land, and air pollution.

H

1

Air Quality

While air quality in Alaska is generally good, the state has a few air pollution problems. A leading problem is high levels of carbon monoxide in urban areas during winter. During temperature inversions in winter, which trap pollutants near the ground, air quality in Fairbanks and Anchorage occasionally fails to meet federal standards. Automobiles, and in Fairbanks coal-fired power plants and home heating, contribute to air pollution. Toxic air emissions, especially ammonia and benzene, are largely confined to areas near oil refineries.

H

2

Waste Management

Landfills designed with modern environmental safeguards have been opened in Alaska, although much of the state’s solid waste is disposed of in older facilities. Open dumps are the primary disposal facilities in rural Alaska. The state made progress in reducing the amount of toxic chemicals discharged into the environment during the late 1990s and the 2000s.

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H

3

Water Quality

Virtually all of the state’s waters are unpolluted. Nevertheless, many in Alaska drink water from systems that violate federal safe drinking water standards. Most of the drinking water problems stem from inadequate public sewerage, especially in rural areas. Water quality has also suffered because of oil spills and poor petroleum waste disposal practices. In March 1989 the supertanker Exxon Valdez ran aground in Prince William Sound and discharged about 260,000 barrels, one of the worst oil spills in U.S. history. Experts estimated that the environmental and ecological damage caused by the spill could take decades to undo.

III

Economy of Alaska

Fur seal, sea otter, and beaver pelts were the basis of economic activity in Alaska for more than 150 years after 1741. The first Americans arriving in Alaska after 1867 entered into the fur trade, established a small steamboat trading system along the Yukon River from its mouth to Fort Reliance, near present-day Dawson, and began exploration for gold. By the late 1870s Alaska was recognized as a significant source of canned salmon, and in the 1880s and 1890s major gold deposits were discovered along the south bank of the Yukon and in what became the city of Juneau.

The major gold rushes began in the late 1890s after the 1896 discovery of gold in the Klondike in the Yukon Territory, and continued through the next two decades. To produce food to support mining operations, farming began in the Fairbanks area, Glenallen, and elsewhere in the early part of the 20th century, while fish canneries became very significant in the years from 1900 to 1920. Other minerals, particularly copper, tin, mercury, and silver, were also mined in large quantities.

During the 1940s and 1950s large military bases were built throughout Alaska. The construction industry developed rapidly during and after World War II and manufacturing began to develop in the 1960s.

Beginning in the late 1970s, the economy of Alaska underwent a fundamental, and rapid, change as the state’s enormous oil deposits, discovered in the 1960s, were exploited. Crude oil was first shipped from Valdez in 1977. By 1980 state government revenue from the oil industry had grown to the point where the state government abolished its personal income tax.

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