Once again, we remind you that we cannot urge you to take action on our behalf without involving ourselves in the additional IRS paperwork hassles associated with lobbying activities, but this is the key information you would need if you should decide to act on your own.

This is the third of three pages in the Budget Information series, detailing the roles and responsibilities of nonprofits and local, state, and federal government, the actions they need to take to address Juneau's urban avalanche problem, and the contacts you will need if you decide on your own to help out.

Action to Solve the Problem:

The Role of Nonprofits

We as a nonprofit community service organization do not care if the City and Borough of Juneau (CBJ) has us do the forecasting, if they hire their own staff, or if they collaborate with other state or federal agencies, so long as they have experienced and competent avalanche professionals familiar with local conditions doing a program that meets the established standard of care in the field.

We are not looking for work, we are looking to help our neighbors. The Southeast Alaska Avalanche Center is a nonprofit. We are an NGO, or Nongovernmental Organization, created to do a job that government should be doing but is not. Nonprofits by law exist to serve, not to make money.

Our staff makes its living doing private consulting work. The vast majority of the time we spend helping the Avalanche Center is donated. When we do charge for time, the rate is one-third below what we must charge when we work for profit. However, none of us are wealthy enough to afford to work as many hours as a forecasting program requires without compensation.

The Center has 32 corporate, agency, and organizational members, partners, grantmakers, cooperating agencies, and in-kind donors, but none of the private partners have ever provided more than a few hundred to a few thousand dollars, none can provide forecast operational funding, and there are no other sources like advertising that will provide enough.

We have worked for twelve years to find funding, and what we consistently hear back from potential funders is that operational budgets are a government responsibility. Given that the response buck also stops quite clearly at the feet of the CBJ, we believe this is so.

It is not our role as a tiny nonprofit to raise money for the CBJ to meet its responsibilities with. It is our role to work to get the CBJ to do so, and to assist them as we can in providing the necessary services. The likely funding partners are the state and federal governments, and the CBJ has far more leverage to get them to help than we ever will.

The March 1962 Behrends path avalanche in Juneau was only a 30-year event. The flowing snow stopped in the trees above the subdivision, so the houses were only hit by a cloud of fast-moving, chunky airborne snow. A 100-year or larger event would poroduce damage like that in Cordova 2000.

The Role of the City and Borough of Juneau

Since the urban avalanche response buck stops with the CBJ, it falls to the CBJ to take the lead role in solving the problem. The State and the Federal Government should chip in, but nothing will happen without a strong lead from our local government. Having taken the steps they have, the CBJ now has the moral high ground to ask the other levels of government to chip in their shares.

The CBJ needs to make avalanche programs an essential public safety budget line item for a professional contract to fulfill their legal, moral, and ethical responsibilities. Avalanche programs must be fully funded as core services to meet the standard of care.

The CBJ deserves credit for their efforts so far. They have done more to address the urban avalanche issue in the last ten years than in the previous forty years. Preparation for response is far along, the demonstration forecast program was a good start, and they have begun to do voluntary buyouts. All of these are major steps in the right direction, they just need to commit to a much stronger follow-through.

It is appropriate to thank the CBJ for the funding they have provided for avalanche programs so far, and to request that they seek partners to fund the entire $156,096 it would take to run a full-season urban avalanche forecasting program that meets the minimum established standard of care.

The Mayor and several Assembly members have indicated a commitment to finding funding for the 2008-09 winter, but they will need public support in order to bring the rest of the Assembly along, and any last-minute reassignment of funds to forecasting for this winter will require strong and swift action. The 2006-07 CBJ Urban Avalanche Program Report, PDF File (7.1MB) is the best summary of what we have been doing and what we would need to continue forecasting. You can find contacts for the Mayor, the Assembly members, and the City Manager at the CBJ website.

Searchers work through the debris of the Cordova 2000 avalanche. Heavy equipment must be used with care to avoid crushing or otherwise injuring buried victims. People with tools like shovels, wrecking bars, and battery-operated reciprocating saws are the best diggers, and trained search dogs are the best tools for locating victims. In Juneau, our local government has the responsibility for urban avalanche response. Forecasting eases that job by reducing the number of potential victims. With forecasting, people can choose to mimimize the time they spend in the avalanche zones when the danger is high.

The Role of the State of Alaska

The State of Alaska has a statute (AS 18.76.010.) that directs the Department of Public Safety to run a statewide avalanche forecasting and education program but nothing beyond a few awareness classes has been funded by the Legislature since 1987. They should be chipping in at least a third of the local forecasting budget, and supporting both highway and backcountry forecasting in our area.

If you choose to act on that issue, your representatives in and the leadership of the state legislature and their staffers are the people to talk to about it. Our Juneau delegation has been very supportive.

Our detailed statewide avalanche program budget presentation (1.7 MB PDF download) lists our longterm budget for Southeast and the budget for the statewide program as well.

Again, study the About Us section and the 2006-07 CBJ Urban Avalanche Program Report, PDF File (7.1MB) for information on what we do. You'll find contacts for the Governor, the Legislature, and the Department of Public Safety, which has the statutory responsibility, and the Departments of Transportation & Public Facilities and Natural Resources, both of which should be chipping in their fair share toward avalanche programs for transportation corridors, state lands, and recreation areas, on the State of Alaska website. The Department of Military and Veteran's Affairs' Division of Emergency Preparedness should also be involved.

For a small avalanche relative to the capability of the path, the March 1962 Behrends path avalanche in Juneau still did quite a bit of damage to houses and cars.

The Role of the Federal Government

The Alaska Congressional Delegation in Washington DC has introduced bills in this and in the last congress to provide a nationwide framework and funding for avalanche programs. None have moved very far or very fast.

They also could provide direct appropriations to programs in Juneau and in Alaska if they chose to. The federal government should also be contributing at least a third of the budget to local forecasting programs, including highway and backcountry programs.

Our Alaska delegation and their staff are your best source on what you can do to help them move their bills or initiate other funding. Sen. Ted Stevens, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, and Rep. Don Young each have their own websites.

Our detailed statewide avalanche program budget presentation (1.7 MB PDF download) lists our longterm budget for Southeast and the budget for the statewide program as well.

Part of the Behrends path starting zone is visible above Juneau here. Few who live below realize just how many tons of snow lie poised above them every winter.