Legislature(2003 - 2004)
03/31/2004 01:05 PM House RES
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* first hearing in first committee of referral
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+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
HJR 41-LAND RECREATIONAL VISITOR PROTECTION ACT CO-CHAIR DAHLSTROM announced that the next order of business would be HOUSE JOINT RESOLUTION NO. 41, Relating to support for the Federal Land Recreational Visitor Protection Act. Number 0525 REPRESENTATIVE BETH KERTTULA, sponsor of HJR 41, thanked Mr. Glude, Mr. Handy, and Mr. Janes, members of the Juneau community who do avalanche work and have helped save many lives. JULIE LUCKY, Staff to Representative Beth Kerttula, introduced HJR 41, for the sponsor and testified: Alaska does have the highest per capita death from avalanche rate, which is not a statistic we're particularly proud of. This legislature and previous legislatures have shown a commitment to avalanche safety by designating November as avalanche awareness month. We did a bill just this year, and have done resolutions in the past. All of those have passed unanimously. But, we do need to do more for avalanche safety. Senator Stevens [U.S. Congress] has introduced S. 931 ... in April of 2003. It sits currently in the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources and has not had a hearing. ... What we would like to do with our resolution is send the message that this is also a priority for Alaska. Number 0763 STEVE HANDY, Juneau Mountain Rescue, testified: Juneau Mountain Rescue is responsible for snow and avalanche search and rescue operations in the Juneau operational area, which is rather large. It covers a great amount of area where people recreate in the snow skiing, snowboarding, [and] snow machining. We're also responsible for high angle technical rescue and back country search and rescue operations. Many resources are put at risk during these search and rescue operations. Again, I'm here to speak on behalf of the search and rescue community -- we're the guys who go out there, it's not the fire department or anybody else, it's Juneau Mountain Rescue or maybe PJ's - Air Force para-rescue jumpers. The knowledge and training and resources proposed by this bill [resolution] would not only have a tremendous impact on reducing the number of injuries [and] deaths ... caused to those who are recreating in the outback, but, from my perspective, it would also reduce the exposure of rescue individuals to these same things. When you go out there, after an avalanche has ripped, all that tells you is that another one's going to go too, or it's high probable .... Granted, that we do exercise great safety and we generally don't jeopardize our own lives knowingly, we're still out there. We use a large number of resources, including Army resources, private helicopter operations, ... whatever we can to get out there. I know, from my own exposure, and I live and play and work in the outback, I know that my friends and colleagues, through the efforts of the national ski patrol and Bill Glude's operation [Southeast Alaska Avalanche Center] with the avalanche research center, this education, this training, at this level, has greatly reduced a number of operations. We can't measure how many haven't happened. However, if the resources are allocated, if we have these resources and this training can grow to spread out statewide, then it can have nothing but a ... huge impact on taking away our dubious title as the number one state for avalanche deaths. Number 0979 REPRESENTATIVE GUTTENBERG referred to page 2 of the resolution, [line 4] where the National Park System is mentioned and asked if Mr. Handy could compare the avalanche problems in the National Park System with those outside of the system. MR. HANDY replied that he could not but added that those who recreate in those areas don't know the difference either. REPRESENTATIVE GATTO asked how often the rescuers themselves have to be rescued. MR. HANDY stated that in the course of his five years of experience, they had not had one incident where this happened. He attributed this success to training. REPRESENTATIVE GATTO noted that he believed that in the fire department's experience and statistically, the number of rescuers that die exceeds the number of people rescued. MR. HANDY was not familiar with these statistics but noted that he believes the training and resources that would be made available by the passage of HJR 41 could greatly reduce those statistics as well. He said the fire department does not normally respond to incidents in the outback [in the Juneau area]. BOB JANES, National Ski Patrol; Juneau Ski Patrol, stated he was very active in winter sports recreation and had been involved in the previous and current avalanche warning systems throughout the state. I have been involved ... [with] especially the thrust to reinstate, if you will, some of the shortcomings of what has existed here in the overall system for the last 20 years. That's namely, credible avalanche forecasting methods and that is included in Senator Stevens' proposed [S.] 931, among other things. It's an overall umbrella effort for public education. I represent the National Ski Patrol system today which includes the Alaska division of that national system, and the local Juneau ski patrol. I'm also a member of Bill Glude's Alaska Avalanche Center Board. I'm mainly endorsing this joint [House] resolution from the standpoint ... in order to get Senate Bill 931 out of committee and proceeding along because it covers everything that really is needed and some of these shortcomings I mentioned .... Number 1252 REPRESENTATIVE STEPOVICH asked for the number one reason for avalanche death. He supported the facts that awareness is the key and that recreational activity is not curtailed by the resolution. MR. JANES replied, "The awareness is the primary mission of the National Ski Patrol system. Their mission statement today is priority on public education, and training, and prevention, and all of this in the interest of public safety." REPRESENTATIVE GUTTENBERG asked where does Juneau get armaments, weapons, and munitions for avalanche control. MR. JANES replied, "Primarily through previous contacts with the military units, a lot of the previous surplus military ammunition for the recoilless rifle that's right across the channel here, the 105 millimeter and also 75, are used throughout the United States. There's still some of that military information available on the surplus market." REPRESENTATIVE GUTTENBERG asked if there was a cost to train local personnel. MR. JANES replied, "There's a cost involved in training because it's ... a technical maneuver. Generally, the cost of munitions, and transportation, getting them here through federal aircraft or what have you, is pretty nominal." Number 1406 BILL GLUDE, Director, Southeast Alaska Avalanche Center, testified: I've been an avalanche researcher, and educator, forecaster, and consultant since the 1970s. ... Since 1995 with the Avalanche Center, I've personally taught over 5,000 people in avalanche courses. We currently have no operating budget at all and I've been keeping track of hours this year. I'll be donating about two to three thousand hours worth of time to avalanche education. The only funding that we have this year is $3,000 for doing avalanche education throughout Southeast, which includes travel to the outlying communities, and $10,000 in two small grants. One [is] from [the] Skaggs Foundation and one from Sea Dogs, which is covering some of our basic expenses to keep the program operational. Other than that, I'm volunteering all my time except for when I'm actually teaching courses. We are a non-profit. These [a chart entitled US Avalanche Fatalities by State, the last 10 years] are some figures that were compiled last fall. For the last 10 years, what you can see there is Alaska is number one for avalanche fatalities -- not just per capita, but total number of avalanche fatalities. If you looked out at per capita, we'd be far, far ahead of Colorado which is second. They are a much larger state than we are in terms of population and they have far more winter visitors. The other key difference, I think, in Alaska, that's worth focusing on, is that in many of these states, most of the avalanche fatalities are recreationists. But, in Alaska, we have workers who are exposed. We lost an operator on the Seward Highway who was clearing debris from an earlier slide in the year 2000. We lost a person who was operating an excavator on a construction project for a power plant in Cordova also a few years ago. We have a number of urban residents who are exposed. We also have a number of transportation corridors that are affected. Number 1574 MR. GLUDE continued: I got some figures from the State Division of Emergency Services, after the year 2000 avalanche cycle, and their best estimate of a ballpark cost for that whole avalanche cycle was about $11,000,000 in total damages. What they didn't calculate was the disruption of commerce, the disruption of transportation, and all the ripple effects of those, which are considerable. Avalanches are something that in Alaska really affects all of us. We lead the nation in avalanche fatalities, yet if you look at that chart, all of the states that have a significant number of avalanche fatalities on that chart have federally funded avalanche education and forecasting programs with the sole exception of Alaska. We're the one state that doesn't have anything. We've got a couple little non-profits, we've got a number of groups like the ski patrol and the mountain rescue group that are working with us. We have in the Chugach National Forest, the Chugach National Forest Avalanche Center, which is simply one ranger who is out doing winter patrols who cares enough about avalanches to be looking at the snow while he's doing that and using their existing website to try to publicize the information. ... There were a couple of questions about provisions in the bill that I can probably address. One that's a little confusing is why is Senator Stevens running this through the National Park Service (NPS) and Department of Interior when traditionally it's been agriculture and the Forest Service that has handled avalanche issues. The answer to that is, it's a simple matter of political strategy. The Forest Service, as we all know, is very fond of their hierarchy. They like everything to be controlled right from the top all the way to the bottom and one of their priorities right now is that we not have any nationwide federal level earmarks of funding. The problem is when you're dealing with an issue like avalanches, you need a coordinated program nationwide to allocate the resources, so, for example, states like Alaska don't get left out. In order to go around the Forest Service's hierarchy, he has routed the money through interior, and put the Secretary of Interior in charge, and then set up a board which would administer the money. The other issue is that this was originally set up at a bill to address the availability of weapons and ammunition for avalanche explosive work. It was expanded to cover research, education, and many of the other avalanche concerns, so, you'll notice there is quite a focus on the availability of weaponry in the bill, but it does cover other uses as well. We had a question on the risk to rescuers. I know of, in the last 10 years, in Europe there was one instance where [an] avalanche rescue party that was searching for victims of a first avalanche was hit and its members were killed by a secondary avalanche. That's the only one I know of, but it's always a risk that we're quite aware of because avalanches are like salmon -- if there's one avalanche there are probably other avalanches - they come in runs. Number 1769 CO-CHAIR MASEK stated she did not believe that Hatcher Pass was in the national parks and wondered how this resolution would affect the Hatcher Pass area where there are many avalanches. MR. GLUDE replied that the funding in Senate Bill 391 was in no way restricted to national parks. He said: We do lose quite a few climbers on Denali every year, most of them from out of state. But it would allow funding to any entity, including private businesses, departments of transportation, state, and local governments that have avalanche problems. It could be used to address issues in Hatcher Pass and other areas of Alaska as well. CO-CHAIR DAHLSTROM, upon determining no one else wished to testify, closed public testimony. Number 1840 CO-CHAIR MASEK moved to report HJR 41 out of committee with individual recommendations and the accompanying fiscal notes. Number 1858 REPRESENTATIVE KERTTULA stated that the committee had to finish considering her motion for one [conceptual] amendment, page 2, line 12, adding the Chair and the Ranking Member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, to those who are notified. CO-CHAIR DAHLSTROM called for objections and seeing none, adopted Amendment 1. Number 1908 CO-CHAIR MASEK moved to report HJR 41, as amended, out of committee with individual recommendations and the accompanying fiscal notes. There being no objection, CSHJR 41(RES) was reported from the House Resources Standing Committee.
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