Stevens makes rare visit

Says funding may become harder to get

By Jesse Keane
The Tundra Drums
(published Oct. 26, 2006)

U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens made a visit to Western Alaska last week, passing through Bethel on Oct. 16.

While in Bethel, he visited a number of facilities and addressed the Bethel City Council. He said he had just come from visiting Alaska's National Guardsmen training in Mississippi.

At the council meeting, he said he believed improvements to the Bethel hospital would be a high priority.

"I think we do have a very serious question about updating this hospital," he said.

He spoke to a number of issues facing the region.

He said he believed that in the coming years, it may get harder to receive federal funding for some projects.

"The difficulty is getting increasing money for Alaska when you don't have an increase in local effort," he said.

Earmarks to Alaska were coming under closer scrutiny by other members, he said, and communities will need to participate more with local and state matches to cover new grants coming in.

"Our use of that money is being seriously questioned," he said, citing the controversy over the so-called "bridge to nowhere" as an example.

This issue could play out specifically in the Delta if communities fail to properly maintain new facilities that have been built for them.

"I think that's a local responsibility," he said. "Once they fail or freeze up, they're gone."

Stevens reported that he and others in Washington were looking closely at problems facing the No Child Left Behind Act in rural areas. But he defended the program from some of its critics.

"Some people criticize NCLB," he said. "But it is having an effect. We are discussing some of the problems."

He said he believed the tele-educaction programs used in much of rural Alaska showed some of the best promise toward achieving the standards of the act.

"You're way ahead of the country in terms of using technology for education needs," he said. "Our tele-education programs, I think, are the best in the country."

Stevens followed his Bethel stop with a visit to the site of the proposed Donlin Creek Gold Mine.

Regarding the mine, Stevens said he was withholding judgment on the project until he could see it for himself. But he said he thought it was a very different project from the controversial Pebble Mine in Bristol Bay.

Stevens had recently surprised many people over the summer by coming out against that mining project.

"Donlin Creek is not as massive an undertaking as Pebble," he said.