Rayna Paul sat in an Anchorage office on Monday, scrolling through a spreadsheet filled with hundreds of names and phone numbers of Kipnuk tribal members.
"We are just on As," she said with a chuckle.
Paul is Kipnuk's environmental director who is in charge of the village's voting process. Over the next several days, she and her team plan to call every single adult tribal member – that's about 900 people – and ask them a pressing question: Do they want to rebuild the village in its current location or move to higher ground?
"It's very important for us to find out what the tribal members from Kipnuk want to do, so we can continue trying to move forward in applying for funding," she said. "We're always on a timeline."
Kipnuk sits about 4 miles inland from the Bering Sea, in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta. Last fall's disastrous winds and flooding destroyed homes and infrastructure there and contaminated land and water. Today, most residents remain evacuated in Bethel or Anchorage, including Paul. She said she wants the future Kipnuk to be safe.
"We love our community. We miss our community," Paul said. "We're doing it for our future generations to come, because they might not know what to do when this happens again. I think we're just going to be hit with many, many storm events."
The first community meeting about whether to relocate happened about a week ago. The decision to start voting followed swiftly.
Sheryl Musgrove, who directs the climate justice program under the Alaska Institute for Justice, is assisting the village in the process. She said residents need to act quickly to make the most of both the short construction season and the available funding for disaster recovery.
"It seems fast, but we're four months out from the disaster," Musgrove said. "The tribe just needs to know which direction they're going, so that they can put their efforts into following the path forward that they determine is the best path for them."
The relocation process can be costly, but Musgrove pointed out that so is repairing and rebuilding homes and infrastructure.
The fall storm also destroyed much of Kwigillingok and residents have already voted to relocate. Musgrove said that while the relocation of another village in the region, Newtok, took decades, she hopes that Kipnuk and Kwigillingok can be examples of how to move through this process faster.
"They don't have decades. They need to do it immediately," Musgrove said. "My hope is, they can show other communities that are going to be faced with this in the future, that you can rebuild someplace else – if that's what they decide – on a short timeline as the disaster recovery process."
Right now, Kipnuk leadership is looking at two sites for relocation. They are both between the village and Chefornak, in the area of a historical settlement called Cheeching. Both spots are located on higher ground, one close to the ocean and the second one further inland. The village would have to work with either the Chefarnrmute Corporation or U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to obtain ownership of the sites.
During the voting process, Paul said she and her team of four will also ask residents if they want to suggest any other sites for relocation.
They still have a lot of phone calls to make. While Kipnuk was home to about 700 people, Paul said the Native Village of Kipnuk has closer to 1,240 tribal members, and about 900 of them are ages 18 or older. She said they hope to reach all the adults within a week.
"It's hard, but it's doable," Paul said.
Paul said she's unsure how long the process will actually take and when the results will be announced. She said that if Kipnuk residents don't receive a call by Friday, they should reach out to her and provide their phone number.
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