Thanks to over a quarter of a million dollars in funding, Norton Sound Economic Development Corporation will return to Wales and Brevig Mission next summer to clean up debris along the coastline. The efforts are part of NSEDC's Clean Waters Program, which is approaching its 20th year of running.
The program began in 2006, when a group of NSEDC board members raised concerns over old nets and marine debris polluting the shores of the economic development corporation’s 15 member communities. Since then, NSEDC says they’ve removed over a million pounds of debris from communities across Norton Sound.
Renae Ivanoff, NSEDC’s Fisheries Research & Development Director, said that removing debris is a priority not just for the corporation, but for the health and well-being of the entire region.
“All the marine debris can impact our subsistence activities, including preventing or limiting access to resources, polluting or harming any target species. Our primary objective really is to help improve access to these resources, while also safeguarding the environment."
- Renae Ivanoff, Fisheries Research & Development Director at NSEDC
The program has a two-fold purpose; to preserve the environment and to create jobs. Ivanoff said cleanup efforts typically last four to six weeks each summer and include six cleanup crew members and a crew leader.
“Bringing these projects into the communities, we're also able to provide economic employment opportunities, where a lot of these communities are at a disadvantage, relating to low income and high energy costs,” Ivanoff said.
The projects are part of a rotational schedule put in place to ensure all of NSEDC’s member communities benefit from the program.
For 2024, the Clean Waters Program focused on Gambell, a village on the western tip of Saint Lawrence Island. Ivanoff said the island is a hotspot for foreign marine debris and over eight summers, NSEDC has gathered approximately 172,914 pounds of debris.
Next summer, the program will return to Wales for the first time since 2018. There, they've already collected nearly 40,000 pounds of debris. The project will focus on over six miles of coastline to the north of the village.
NSEDC will also return to Brevig Mission, where nearly 80,000 pounds of debris have already been collected. For 2025, they plan on cleaning up to 20 miles of coastline west of the village.
It’ll mostly be a manual effort, with workers traversing the coastline on ATVs with trailers. Each piece of debris will be picked by hand and ferried to local landfills. It’s a lot of work, but Ivanoff said it’s worth it.
“Our efforts fall within our elemental backbones of NSEDC’s mission, to provide economic development through employment. And so we go back to NSEDC being for the region and for the people and for its resources,” Ivanoff said.
2025’s program was supported by a $200,000 grant from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in collaboration with the University of Alaska Fairbanks and Alaska Sea Grant. An additional $69,150 in funding will come from Ocean Conservancy.
Ivanoff said NSEDC is working on cataloging the marine debris items recovered by the program in the hopes of further spreading awareness on the issue.
