Alaska News

A fleshy Fat Friday of Alaska grant and loan money from Feds

Last week, we worried that after a long diet, the $70 million Alaska received in grants and loans would result in bureaucratic extended abdomen. And if it continued it might have. But for all the flack the federal government gets about bloating, lawmakers seem to understand that occasionally, moderation is the better part of valor.

This week, the state only received a little under $30 million. Don't get us wrong, we'll take it. But hopefully next week will be another holy ham hock week.

Read on to see who got the spoils, from whence they came and descriptions of the grants.

  • $61,055 to support the Alaska State Historical Records Advisory Board.

U.S. Department of Energy:

  • $6,500,000 to the Tribal Clean Energy Projects for, and distributed to, the following three project areas:

--$3,600,00 to thirteen projects to assess the technical and economic viability of developing renewable energy resources on tribal lands to generate utility-scale power or study the feasibility of installing renewable energy systems on buildings to reduce energy use by 30 percent.

--$1,700,000 to four projects for pre-construction development activities. Three are developing more than 250 megawatts of new renewable energy generation, and one, when implemented, would reduce the need for diesel fuel for heating by 80 percent – or 9,600 gallons annually.

--$1,300,000 to two projects to deploy renewable energy technologies to convert waste and other biomass to energy. Once installed, the projects will generate 5 megawatts of energy per hour using municipal solid waste and using cordwood for heating to save between 2,500 and 3,200 gallons of propane.

ADVERTISEMENT

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development:

  • $16,599,715 to the following regions as Indian Housing Block Grants.

--$7,987,740 to the Tlingit-Haida Regional HA

--$6,392,638 to the Bering Straits Regional HA

--$1,388,953 to the Native Village of Barrow Inupiat Traditional Council

--$571,124 to the Organized Village of Kwethluk

--$185,923 to the Louden Tribal Council

--$73,337 to the Chilkat Indian Village

U.S. National Fish and Wildlife Foundation:

  • $106,594 to North Slope Borough Department of Wildlife for coastal surveys and response to stranded marine mammal incidents in the Arctic region.

Craig Medred

Craig Medred is a former writer for the Anchorage Daily News, Alaska Dispatch and Alaska Dispatch News. He left the ADN in 2015.

ADVERTISEMENT