Wood Products, Nenana, Draft

INTRODUCTION a) Alaska Village Initiatives Alaska Village Initiatives (AVI) is the applicant organization in this proposal. Nenana Wood Products is currently funded by a grant to AVI from the Office of Community Services (OCS) within the Department of Health and Human Services. Alaska Village Initiatives, a private non-profit community development corporation, serves all of Alaska with programs designed to provide employment and business opportunities for low- income residents of rural communities. It was started in 1968 by rural residents, and is now comprised of over 140 member organizations, which represent over 50,000 rural Alaskan residents, and has a representative 23 member Board of Directors from all regions of the state. Proof of Alaska Village Initiatives’ non-profit status and general purpose are included in the Appendices. Also included in the Appendices is a listing of AVI’s Board Members which shows that the Board is over 90% Alaska Native and includes Edna Hancock, a tribal member from Nenana who has been closely involved with the development of this project. b) The Native Village of Nenana

The primary target employment populations for Nenana Wood Products, LLC, are the communities of Nenana (population 440), Alaska Native residents of Fairbanks (Alaska Native population 5,330), and Alaska Native residents in the surrounding areas. Nearly

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all of the 532 shareholders of Toghotthele, the Native Village Corporation1 for Nenana, live in Nenana, Fairbanks, and surrounding areas. Nenana is approximately 55 miles southwest of Fairbanks in the heart of Interior Alaska. It is in the western-most portion of Tanana Athabascan Indian territory and is located at the confluence of the Tanana and Nenana rivers. “Nenana” is Athabascan for “camp between the rivers”. It was first known as Tortella, an interpretation of the Indian word “Toghotthele”, which means “mountain that parallels the river”. Early explorers first entered the Tanana Valley in the late 1880’s, and the discovery of gold in Fairbanks in 1902 brought intense activity to the region. A trading post, mission and school were constructed in Nenana soonafter, with Native children from surrounding villages attending school in Nenana. In 1915, the construction of the Alaska Railroad doubled Nenana’s population and it was completed in 1923, when President Warren Harding drove a golden spike at the north end of the 700-foot steel bridge over the Tanana River. This provided the village with a transportation link to Fairbanks and Seward. A road was constructed south, but north, vehicles were ferried across the Tanana River. In 1967 the community was devastated by one of the largest floods ever recorded in the Tanana Valley. In 1968, a $6 million bridge was completed across the Tanana River, which gave the city a road link to Fairbanks and replaced the River ferry. The George Parks Highway was completed in 1971, which provided a shorter, direct route to Anchorage. The population of Nenana is now a diverse mixture of non-Natives and Athabascan Indians, with an approximately 50 percent Native population. The majority of Native households rely on subsistence foods, such as salmon, moose, waterfowl, and berries. Nenana has a cold, continental climate with an extreme temperature range, averaging from over 70 in summer months to a daily minimum during the winter well below zero. The highest temperature ever recorded is 98; the lowest is –69. The river is ice-free only from mid-May to mid-October. Nenana is located in the Yukon-Koyukuk (YK) census district, which has a total population of 8,350, of which 57 percent are Alaska Native. Fairbanks, the other project target area, is located in the Fairbanks North Star Borough, 55 miles northeast of Nenana, and is home to 5363 Alaska Native persons (1990 census). Over 36 percent of the Alaska Native people in the YK region live below the poverty level compared to the 7.5 percent that live below the poverty level in the Fairbanks North Star Borough. Over 50 percent of the Natives in the YK region are unemployed, compared to only 25 percent of the nonNatives in the region. Nenana had a median household income in 1990 of $15,500, compared to $37,468 in the Fairbanks North Star Borough. Unemployment in Nenana is nearly 5 times that of the Fairbanks North Star Borough, and unemployment in the YK region has averaged approximately 17 percent for the past five years.

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The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971 formed over 200 village corporations, for-profit businesses which represent the tribal members of the community as shareholders. 2

Employment opportunities for Nenana residents are limited to a small number of permanent positions, with over 50 percent of the year-round jobs government funded, including the City, the School District, and Department of Transportation Highway Maintenance. Nenana has a private sector economy with a seasonal fluctuation as the center of rail-to-river barge transportation center for the Interior. Yutana Barge Lines is the major private employer in Nenana, supplying villages along the Tanana and Yukon rivers each summer with cargo and fuel. The City has started to develop a tourist economy, but so far with little result. Over 30 residents hold commercial fishing permits and begin their seasonal labors in June. Approximately 40 percent of Toghotthele’s original shareholders still live in Nenana, with others moving to Fairbanks, surrounding areas, and Anchorage to seek out employment opportunities, particularly in the summer. With increased local employment opportunity Toghotthele shareholders could return to or remain in the community. Nenana Wood Products, LLC represents the first sustainable local business opportunity in the Nenana area in recent years, and would mark the beginning of a shift away from government jobs to private-sector employment. The prospect of producing unique, quality products for the larger community of Alaska will improve the stature of the community of Nenana as a whole. c) Nenana Wood Products: Overview of Benefits Training Employment Useful Products for Alaska Native Communities Benefit of Selling Native Manufactures in “Big Box” Stores d) Double-diffusion Wood Treatment The U.S. Forest Service pioneered the development of a wood treatment process known as the double-diffusion wood preservation technique in Alaska in the 1950’s. They established a stake bed at the Palmer Experiment Station in 1954 to investigate the efficacy of this type of treatment technique on Alaskan tree species. Among other things, that study reported one hundred (100) percent survival of white spruce poles treated by the double-diffusion technique after 32 years exposure to the harsh Alaskan environment. Further adaptation of the double-diffusion treating system to the Alaskan economy and tree species was initiated at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) in 1990. That laboratory development, in cooperation with the Alaska Division of Forestry (DOF) Interior Operations Center, led directly to the deployment of the first double-diffusion treated bridge constructed primarily of local white spruce in Alaska: the 64 foot long Goldstream Bridge approximately 25 miles west of Fairbanks, Alaska in the Tanana

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Valley State Forest on DOF Lands, not more than 50 miles from Nenana, Alaska. Shareholders and employees of Tyonek Native Corporation (TNC) and personnel from the UAF study (now working in the private sector) constructed the first commercial size double-diffusion treatment facility in Alaska on the west side of Cook Inlet adjacent to the village of Tyonek. Alaska Wood Products (AWP), a wholly owned subsidiary of TNC, began operations in 1996. The Tyonek plant is located in the North Forelands Industrial Park and consists of a 3900 square foot sawmill with attached fabrication and treatment facilities adjacent to a 1500 foot long deep water dock and barge landing. Since the beginning of operations in 1996, AWP has fabricated and shipped treated and untreated materials from the Tyonek plant to a variety of job sites around the state. Products range from stress-laminated bridge systems to preservatively treated and fabricated dimension lumber and three-sided logs, to timber foundation mats and timber piling for the oil-field industry. The Nenana Wood Products, LLC plant in Nenana, Alaska would be only the second plant of its kind in the state of Alaska, and the only timber treatment and fabrication facility in Interior Alaska. Nenana Wood Products, LLC will use a process already proven effective by both laboratory research and full-scale commercial operations to provide Alaska markets with locally harvested, fabricated and treated materials. The Alaska Wood Products plant in Tyonek has refined the production processes to produce unique, quality products for Alaska industries, and is recognized as a superior and costeffective local alternative to foreign producers of treated wood products. Nenana Wood Products, LLC would augment the efforts of Alaska Wood Products to fill the needs of Alaska industries for cost-effective treated and fabricated timber products. e) Timeline of Activities (note this puppy is just a place-filler & needs MAJOR modification…) Task Name

Organize Staff

1) COMPREHENSIVE SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT PLAN / LONG RANGE GOALS RELATED TO THE PROPOSED PROJECT a) Specific Problems Addressed by Nenana Wood Products

b) Long Range Goals Addressed by this Application

2) RESOURCES AVAILABLE TO THE PROPOSED PROJECT

3) MANAGEMENT AND ADMINISTRATIVE CAPABILITIES