Newtok is drowning: move or be washed away only options for community.

• Author: Bohi, Heidi
• Position: Towns in Transition

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Job creation, the economy, energy prices, social perils--these are some of the common issues that community leaders statewide list as they struggle to balance basic needs and quality of life in the face of limited resources, shifts in administrations and disenfranchised residents.

In Newtok, a subsistence village of about 360 on the Ninglick River near the Bering Sea, mere survival is the talk of the town as it watches the north banks erode, taking with it the 66 homes here and destroying other critical community necessities, such as the barge landing and community tank farm. Although it has selected a new community site nine miles southeast of Newtok, and is beginning the slow, painful relocation process, for now the village is in a chicken-egg holding pattern, says Stanley Tom, tribal administrator for the Newtok Traditional Council.

Advancing erosion, increased flooding and the resulting loss of Newtok's infrastructure makes securing public funding for rebuilding more critical than ever. Public agencies are delaying these awards, though, resistant to invest in new capital facilities that certainly will not remain standing when the Ninglick River predictably arrives at their doorsteps.

NADA

"Because of the relocation, there is nothing we can do," Tom says, adding that in the meantime residents stand by helplessly watching the village deteriorate, knowing that time is not on their side.

Until enough residents actually relocate, State and federal agencies cannot justify providing funding for subsidized housing and basic services in the new location. At the same time, despite the unhealthy and dangerous current living conditions, it is difficult for locals--many who are elders--to make the decision to leave the only home they have ever known to settle in a place that does not yet have even basic services such as electricity and sanitation services.

"We don't want to leave our subsistence ground, we were born here, but we can't do anything about it--our village is just going to wash away," Tom says.

QUESTIONS, No ANSWERS

To date, Tom says, there is no accurate estimation of when the relocation will be complete, though 2014 is one projection. Although the tribal government and government agencies are working cooperatively, funding is scarce on all fronts.

This is not the first time Newtok has had to escape the ravages of the sea. First reported by the U.S. Geologic Survey in 1949, villagers had moved to Newtok from Old...