It's Summer in Anchorage

Back on April 28, I set out the criteria for determining when spring had arrived in Anchorage. It is only roughly related to the calendar.





Three weeks later I'm saying that summer is here because the tulips are out (though sad to say our dozen or so regular tulips of the last five or six years didn't come up at all) and the birch leaves have burst out. It could still cool down again, but we are out of the brown season and into the green. The arrival of mosquitoes is another sign. You can also see the difference between our rock garden today and April 28 by clicking the link above.

Jim Gottstein - Shining Lights Award 2007

Jim Gottstein tonight was honored by Temple Beth Sholom, Anchorage, as this year's Shining Lights Award winner. Jim comes from a prominent Anchorage family, and as he said tonight, his privileged life has enabled him to doggedly fight for social justice for those who can't fight for themselves. As an attorney, he has pursued rights for the mentally ill. [In the picture he has just gotten an Alaska Legislative Proclamation from Rep. Max Gruenberg.] He was critical in the establishment of the Alaska Mental Health Trust, which put aside money and land for the benefit of the mentally ill. He also won an Alaska Supreme Court case severely restricting forced medication of the mentally ill and has helped established a number of organizations to help the mentally ill. Jim's own mental health story, obviously and important part of this story is told, partially, by Jim at the Alaska Mental Health Consumer Web.

The Psych Rights site gives a more about the projects Jim has worked on. Below is a sample from that site:

PsychRights^�
Law Project for
Psychiatric Rights

James B. (Jim) Gottstein
(President)

Jim Gottstein grew up in Anchorage, Alaska. After graduating from West Anchorage High School in 1971, he attended the University of Oregon and graduated with honors (BS, Finance) in 1974. Subsequently enrolling in Harvard Law School, Jim completed his formal legal studies in 1978, graduating with a J.D. degree. In addition to over 25 years of private practice, emphasizing business matters and public land law, Jim has been an attorney advocate for people diagnosed with serious mental illness: Co-founded the Law Project for Psychiatric Rights (PsychRights) in 2002. Jim is currently president. See, http://psychrights.org. Co-founded Soteria-Alaska, Inc.,, in 2003, to provide a non-coercive and mainly non-drug alternative to psychiatric hospitalization. See, http://soteria-alaska.com/. Jim is currently president. Co-founded CHOICES, Inc. (Consumers Having Ownership in Creating Effective Services) in 2003 to provide peer-run, alternative services, especially the right to choose not to take psychiatric drugs. See, http://choices-ak.org/. Jim is currently president. Co-founded Peer Properties, Inc., in 2002, to provide peer (mental health consumer) run housing for people diagnosed or diagnosable with serious mental illness who are homeless, at risk of homelessness, or living in bad situations. See, http://peerproperties.org/. Jim is currently vice president.

Denali Trip 3 - Bears, Wolf video

Thursday was a great animal viewing day. Lots of caribou, hares, ptarmigan. A Northern Harrier. At the Teklanika River bus stop the tour bus passengers were using the facilities and out on the deck looking out over the river. Way over on the other side was a mother grizzly with three cubs, probably last year's. With the binoculars you could see them enjoying themselves first on the ice and then in the brush. There was also a herd of about 20 caribou grazing its way slowly toward the bears, maybe a mile or two off. But we wanted to walk. The road is blocked off for cars at that point, but you can walk. We quickly got down to the bridge over the river. And then continued on along the road for an hour. Part of the time we walked with a young Spanish couple who were going on to camp for a couple of days. They were equipped with their bear proof food containers (the park supplies those to backpackers) and their bear spray. They weren't happy that there were no rental bikes available this early in the season, but were enjoying the fact that we had the road pretty much to ourselves and the various park service vehicles. At mile 33 we said goodbye and turned around as they continued on.

When we got back to the bus stop the four bears were still there, and a quarter mile up the road cars were parked looking at another two bears playing on the ice shelf. I'm sure the giant telephoto lenses people had are great, but you have to wonder about their phallic symbolism. Anyway, I decided to try a little video since maybe the movement would show up better than I could get with a still. Had to push the telephoto all the way so it's pretty rough, but it gives you an idea. The second part of the video (and don't worry, it's very short) is much better. It's a wolf that came onto the road about 15 minutes later as we were driving along.

It crossed the road and disappeared. Some cars stopped to find out what we were stopped for, but they couldn't find the wolf. After they left, we saw it again, loping through the brush. Fortunately for the others, it was pretty fast, and a mile or two later we saw the cars stopped along the road watching the wolf continue at very good speed. Again, the pictures are great. This documentation rather than photography.

Denali Trip 2

We started with a hike along Savage River, enjoying the sun and blue sky. It was windy.








Soon we were near the Dall sheep that hang around there. On Friday, we looked into the new (our first time inside was last year) visitor center and caught their version of the Dall sheep. Taxidermy is out, the animals in here are sculpted.











We went on beyond the footbridge that loops back to the road and found a nice spot in the tundra to sit and enjoy the sun and scenery. We sat across from this ice patch (don't think it would qualify as a glacier) and relaxed and talked.

Eventually we made it back to the car and drove slowly along, stopping now and again to walk out into the tundra and to look at animals. As always at this time, caribou are plentiful and some are fairly close to the road.

The Alaska state bird, the ptarmigan, is plentiful in the park as they change from winter to summer plumage. This is a willow ptarmigan.

And arctic hare were regularly playing chicken, dashing in front of the car at the last possible moment.








Sanctuary campground was open (but not for overnight yet) so we pulled in, heated up the cashew chicken we had from the Thai Kitchen, read, slept, and generally enjoyed the sun and peace and quiet. Then the slow drive back to the Riley Campgrounds near the entrance. And to bed about 11pm.

Denali Trip 1

We just got back from three days at Denali National Park. (Denali is the Native name for the tallest mountain in North America, but the Ohio Senators always find a way to block changing the name of the mountain to Denali from McKinley, who just happened to be President when white explorers found the mountain.) The park is just shedding its winter look (the snow is gone from the road and the lower elevations except along the rivers and plants are just starting to poke out from the ground.



















In May, before the official park busses start, cars are allowed to drive to Teklanika Campground, about 30 miles in from the entrance. And there are hardly any tourists around. We left Anchorage at 8:30pm on Tuesday. Even though summer solstice is still more than a month away, the late light is with us as you can see in the pictures below as we drove the 237 miles north to Denali.

Here we are half an hour out of Anchorage, a little after 9pm.









And here's 11pm from Mile 135, the Denali viewpoint. Those are the lower level mountains of the Alaska Range, with the peak of Denali covered in clouds.




Further along, it's now midnight, but the sky is dusk, while the ground is still not 'dark' but headlights advised.


We're now only a few miles from the park. It's almost 1 am. That dark spot standing on the gravel bar is a moose. Most of these pictures will show more detail if you click on them. You should be able to see the moose.

I'll add the rest of the trip in a few separate posts.

Smart Pigs, but Dumb BP Execs: Does changing the report make the problem go away?

"Oil giant wants to rescind memo on corrosion," The Anchorage Daily News (ADN) carried an AP story today that reports that British Petroleum (BP) wants to revise an internal report they commissioned from Booz Allen Hamilton which found that "'[B]udget pressure' leads company managers to discontinue corrosion prevention programs at Prudhoe Bay." And no one has disputed that the corrosion led to the large pipeline leak and oil spill March 2006.

"The report examined the causes of the leaks, including how management decisions contributed to the incidents. One conclusion was that BP decided to save money by cutting the use of devices called "smart pigs" that detect weaknesses in pipelines.

"The incriminating documents and e-mails suggesting cost-cutting at BP surfaced earlier this month, according to the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. BP officials had previously denied any role cost-cutting might have played in the leak or the partial shutdown.

"Your own report clearly contradicts this assertion," U.S. Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., who chairs the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., chairman of the subcommittee on oversight and investigations, wrote in a letter to Malone on Friday.

"In meetings with congressional staff, BP officials said they planned to remove lines from the report reading, "Budget pressure eventually led to de-scoping some projects and deferring others. For example, the plan to run a smart pig in the (Oil Transit Lines) was dropped in 2004 and 2005."

So, as I read this, they want to get rid of the lines that say their budget cutting led to the spill. Now, presumably there could be some legitimate challenge to the conclusion that Booz Allen Hamilton made, but BP isn't talking until the Wednesday Congressional hearing.

Most of the reports online seem to get there facts from Fairbanks News Miner, Reuters, and The Wall Street Journal. They all basically report the same things. The House subcommittee members and staff have seen the Booz Allen report and the Friday letter to BP from the committee. Presumably they or the legislators themselves are the sources of the information.

Upstreamonline adds "Sources familiar with the full report told Reuters this week the document blamed cost cutting at BP following two mergers for decimating internal controls over operations."

Jim Carlton at the Wall Street Journal adds that:

"The congressmen also disclosed in the letter that they had recently uncovered a Feb. 5, 2003, email from BP which they say suggests the company planned to pig the very lines that failed. However, they said, those plans appear to have been nixed by superiors. The email contains an "Authorization for Expenditure" that the congressmen said appears to be a proposal to "install permanent pig launching and receiving facilities" in several places, including transit lines where the spills later took place. But the expense request appears to have been turned down, they added, since it included a notation: 'rejected...for approval.'

"BP officials declined comment, saying those were "matters of interest" at Wednesday's hearing. Booz Allen officials weren't immediately available.

"Cost cutting has also been brought up as a possible link to a March 2005 explosion at a BP refinery in Texas City, Texas. BP officials have said they believe budgetary decisions didn't play a critical role in the accident, which killed 15 people and injured 180."

Either BP (1) really feels that the Booz Allen report is in error or (2) they want to disavow that the spill was due to negligence on their part. From what little is available, the second option seems a lot more likely.

So, why does this matter? I can think of a couple of possible implications. Some specific to the case, some more generalizable to longer term issues.

Specific BP implications:

1. One possibility is that BP is looking at potential lawsuits ahead and doesn't want their own internal documents saying that they could have prevented the spill if they hadn't been so cheap. (BP's 2005 annual net profit was $19 billion.) Not only are they exposed for the 2007 spill in Prudhoe, but also, according to the WSJ article, for the Texas fire that killed 15 people.

2. Alaskans were chagrined to learn that BP was claiming the money spent cleaning up the March 2006 oil spill as a business expense on their state taxes, thus lowering their tax liability. A May 8, 2007 press release from the House Labor & Com. Committee of the Alaska Legislature House says this about House Bill 128:

"In light of the recent events we, the Legislature, must work to close any loop holes we find in PPT." Rep. Kurt Olson (R-Soldotna), the bill's prime sponsor said. "The ability of producers to write off expenses incurred due to their own improper maintenance is a prime example. "When a producer makes the choice to cut corners on maintenance, the people of Alaska should not be made to pay." The bill , as of May 5, 2007, would be retroactive.

If this bill passes, and given the very recent scandals in Juneau concerning big oil's influence on the legislature, and the PPT (Petroleum Profits Tax) specifically, there's a good chance it will, BP would obviously not want internal studies 'admitting' their own improper maintenance becaue of cutting corners.

More General Implications

1. Enron told Arthur Anderson to get them better accountants when the accountant assigned to Enron raised questions about their accounting methods. Enron claimed the accountant was stuck in the old school and simply didn't understand the new world they were working in. They probably believed that, but they were also concerned that changing the way they reported their finances would negatively affect their stock. Anderson, not wanting to jeopardize one of their most successful clients, complied. When Enron eventually collapsed, Anderson went down with them. It's nice to see that Booz Allen wrote a report that did not reflect well on their client. But it looks like BP is playing Enron here by disavowing their own hired experts' conclusions.

2. What does this say about the ability of large corporations to deal with bad news that might expose them to liability? If having it in writing from your own hired consultant sets up a company for a lawsuit, it's better not to write it down, or even ask the question in the first place. One option, that I'm sure already exists in practice, is to recognize the company's own attempts to honestly deal with a problem and give some credit when determining penalties. For companies that don't even study the problem or have white washed reports, the penalties would be greater. Perhaps consulting firms have different reputations and you hire one kind if you want a white wash and another kind of firm if you want honest, even if painful, feedback.

Goodbye John Alexander

We left the Bat Mitzvah lunch a little early to get to the memorial for John Alexander. Along the way we passed an anti-war rally, something I mention because John would have strongly approved.

I don't know when I first met John, probably around 1982 at the Municipality of Anchorage where he was Director of Labor Relations. We also had another connection at the University of Alaska Anchorage when John was enrolled in a doctoral seminar. John was always (at least outwardly) calm. He seemed to be seeing things from above and back a ways where his view was clearer than those of us caught up in the middle. He always saw the humor in the situation. It isn't that he didn't take things seriously. He took things so seriously, that he had to have a little distance to keep his sanity. John was always out doing things for other people and was involved in so many community activities, including theater.

The picture is from our Labor Day BBQ last September.


The memorial was at the IBEW meeting room, an appropriate place for a strong union man, and in addition to some local folks talking about John, his brother and brother-in-law gave us a glimpse at the John before he came to Alaska. Roseanne, John's wife, left us not that long ago, and I still miss her warmth and wit.


It was also nice to see Layli, the niece John and Roseanne loved so much, here with Craig ("the reason I'm living in New Jersey.") I hope we can keep in touch with her, John and Roseanne's living legacy.






John, we'll save a spot for you at this Memorial Day BBQ. And several desserts.





See also Good-bye Bea Rose for more on John and Rosanne

Leah's Bat Mitzvah and Sabbatical Year

I didn't really know Leah, but her Mom is my dermatologist and I like her mom a lot. I was impressed by her poise, her seriousness, and preparation and the thoughtfulness of her comments. Her mom should be (and was) very proud of Leah today. So were the relatives who came from out of state. She even had a moose looking in through the picture window for a few minutes.



Her Torah portion from Leviticus was a reminder of how old the environmental movement is. Moses is to tell his people to rest the fields the seventh year.




And God also tells Moses that the land belongs to God, that people cannot own the land, they can only use it for a while and they must protect the land. Something that doesn't seem to have translated well into most economics texts. Click here for a commentary on this Torah portion.












At the end of the service we had the blessing over the bread and people gathered together for a beautiful meal in the newly enlarged room in the Synagogue.




[Blog etiquette is something I continue to improvise as I go along. Picture taking during the services is generally frowned on and I decided I'd leave out pictures of people altogether for this event. Can't explain why. It feels right.]

Looking for the hooded merganser at Goose Lake

After dinner at the Thai Kitchen, Catherine wanted to look for the hooded merganser she'd seen the other day at Goose Lake. We didn't find the mergansers but there were widgeons, a bonaparte gull, and a pair of magnificent Pacific loons, and a yellow legs.




Joe and I, fooled by the bright sun, and thinking we wouldn't be out long, only were in our shirts. So while Joan and Catherine were watching birds, we took one of the cars home to warm up. When the ladies got home they said the loons 'ran' across the lake several times making all kinds of noise. And the only bird close enough for the camera was the yellow legs.

DELTA Meeting

Spent this afternoon with the Statewide Steering Committee of DELTA, a non-profit that works to prevent intimate partner violence. Given Alaska's position as the state with the highest rate of domestic violence, this is a critical project. See, for example, Amnesty International's Report: The Failure to Protect Indigenous Women from Sexual Violence in the USA. We've got a lot of high power talent on the committee, with lots of experience dealing with the issue. Most funding goes to intervention - working with the abused and the abusers after the fact. The emphasis is on prev
ention - focusing on those conditions that contribute to violence in the community and society as a whole so that structural changes can be designed and implemented. We are following a set of steps established by the Center for Disease Control and have been trying to gather data documenting various aspects of the situation in Alaska. We're also mapping people and agenices that deal with intimate partner violence or otherwise affect the lives of the abused and abusers.