An Alaskan island is losing ground

Source: Los Angeles Times

KIVALINA, Alaska — Beneath a moonlit Arctic sky, Joe Swan Jr. and most of his 12-person crew were taking a cigarette break when a dump truck arrived and emptied another load of black sand at their feet.

The backhoe driver, who happened to be his wife, gunned the engine, spewing a diesel haze into the air as she dug into the pile and filled another 2,500-pound sandbag for the sea wall shielding the island from the Chukchi Sea.

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They bring more sand. The ocean takes it away.

Kivalina is disappearing, the victim of a warming world and a steady natural erosion that probably began long before the Eskimos settled here 100 years ago.

"You see the white water out there?" Swan said, pointing to some ripples a couple hundred feet offshore. "That's where the beach used to be."


Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-sci-kivalina25nov25,0,4146460,full.story?coll=la-home-center

"Erosion is destroying our island," wrote Kelly Hawley, 17, a senior. "We ask if you can provide help for our poor island."
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Depends. Did your island vote Republican?

Wait...Looks like you're poor. You're screwed.

Surely Senator Ted Stevens will surely come to the rescue. Maybe he can have a bridge built to connect the island to the mainland.

is not one of those things....Per Capita Alaska receives more Federal money than any other State...by a long shot..

Town info:
http://www.city-data.com/city/Kivalina-Alaska.html