The permafrost is dying: Bethel sees increased shifting of roads and buildings

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Retweeted by David Fahrenthold: https://twitter.com/Fahrenthold

Re: big New Yorker piece on climate change, this was front page of Alaska paper today—how melting permafrost is warping roads, buildings.

Link to tweet

‘The permafrost is dying’: Bethel sees increased shifting of roads and buildings
pencil Author: Lisa Demer clock Updated: 1 day ago calendar Published 2 days ago



Chief Eddie Hoffman Highway, seen on June 28, is the main thoroughfare in Bethel, and one of few paved roads. It has become a roller coaster of a ride over the past couple of years. The state Department of Transportation is studying whether heaving from the thaw-freeze of permafrost is a factor. (Lisa Demer / Alaska Dispatch News)

BETHEL — Along the main thoroughfare here, drivers brake for warped asphalt. Houses sink unevenly into the ground. Walls crack and doors stick. Utility poles tilt, sometimes at alarming angles.

Permafrost in and around Bethel is deteriorating and shrinking, even more quickly than most places in Alaska.

Since the first buildings out here, people have struggled with the freeze and thaw of the soils above the permafrost. Now those challenges are amplified.

"What they are saying is the permafrost is dying," said Eric Whitney, a home inspector and energy auditor in Bethel who has noticed newly eroding river banks, slanting spruce trees and homes shifting anew just weeks after being made level. "I'm just assuming it is not coming back while we're around here."
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About this Author

Lisa Demer is based in Bethel and covers rural Alaska stories. She has been a reporter more than three decades. Reach her at 907-543-3555.

https://twitter.com/adndotcom

[SonofDonald]

1. I've been to Bethel

Back in the early 90's, I visited when I worked for the petroleum industry, putting aside the usual tales of life in bush Alaska it's a very flat land with the kuskokwim river running through it, that whole coastal area in Alaska is flat with very few mountains or small hills.

It's the same way along the coast to the north and south, what worry's me is that if a large earthquake hits during the summer months with further melting of the perma frost the entire town would in reality be sitting on a huge plate of jelly.

Everything would sink while falling apart, we may see an entire portion of the state needing to be abandoned forever, an entire population needing to relocate, the Bering sea flooded with silt for miles offshore destroying the salmon run, the herring run, crab stocks etc.

An entire culture and way of life would end not to mention the loss of life.

I've wondered how long it would take to get here after I read the arctic was melting a few years ago, then I read that in Russia the permafrost is melting just last week.

This story is nowhere near over, it's just beginning.