FAIRBANKS, Alaska (KTVF) – Tanana Chiefs Conference (TCC) brought together members of different communities on Sep. 26 to 27, and entities to processes of completing infrastructure projects aimed at addressing the needs and challenges faced in the interior.
Development in Alaska has been an ongoing topic since at least the gold rush days. It’s an ongoing need that has developed new challenges while retaining many of the challenges that have existed in Alaska for thousands of years. It’s also a very important issue for rural communities that face aging infrastructure, a changing environment and challenging economy is threatening the existence of many rural communities.
Those places must also strike a balance between economic gain and conservation of existing habitats to protect their way of life too.
Tanana Chiefs Conference has been working to address those issues with an infrastructure summit that wrapped up last week.
“We have new people coming into leadership on the tribes and they need to learn so every few years it’s good to reconnect people,” explained Shannon Erhart, the tribal development deputy director for TCC. Summits like this one allow those in leadership to meet potential project collaborators and share information. That includes learning how and who to acquire funding from which is vital to improving problems faced in the rural communities, such as housing.
“We have 37 federally recognized tribes or 42 communities that we support and housing tends to be the number one priority and issues,” said Erhart. Among those issues are aging homes and buildings many of which haven’t been renovated or replaced in decades. But, “water and sewer became a big issue, especially after the Covid pandemic,” as well, Erhart said.
The issues with housing and sewage have been emphasized by overcrowding as well which has in turn become an issue of out-migration and a loss of schools.
However, part of solving those housing issues also means addressing a different issue however. “The biggest concern is high cost of living,” said Erhart. This means, “a lot of people want roads because it will lower costs for fuel, for food and just basic needs,” explained Erhart.
Many rural communties currently rely on river barges and air cargo which is more expensive, requires more planning and is less reliable. “But then the implications of building new big roads that are going to connect us to highways for that, there’s consequences,” Erhart said.
Consequences such as the potential destruction of habitat, changes in animal behaviors and possibly the people too. This could mean animals that have been relied on as resources leaving the area and more people leaving their communities, further exasperating the issue.
While the summit works to address some of these issues by spreading ideas and concerns the goal here was not solving the issues by getting started on solutions. “We try to connect dots and so we just try to assist in that sense,” said Erhart. “Anything we can do to help them with their projects that they have on a local level that they want and how to advance those is what our goals is to help get them to.”
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