Resource development is good for our health
I t seems as though we are con- stantly beating back the regres- sive ideas that development of our abundant resources is bad, busi- nesses are bad, people who work for businesses are bad, and on and on. Generally, our response to these views has something to do with rev- enue to the State of Alaska, jobs, and the state’s gross domestic product. While true, these cold, dry facts draw little interest. To my surprise, an arti-
[LYTP^Q]P\`PY_Wd^_]`RRWP_ZʭYO\`LW - TʭPOO]TaP]^L__SPT]]PXZ_P[WLY_^ That stopped me. I had to ask, what caused this dramatic increase, larger than most of the rest of the US? The re- searchers’ discussion was interesting. Socioeconomic and race/ethnicity, be- havioral and metabolic risk factors, and healthcare factors combined to explain 82 percent of the contributing factors to change in life expectancy. This begged the question: What was
CATHY GIESSEL
cle published last May in the Journal of the American Medical Association caught my eye and put new and brighter light on what resource development means for Alaskans. It drew me in. I thumbed through the pages and came to Figure 2, Change in Life Expectancy at Birth by County, 1980 to 2014. It was a map of the US, Alaska, and Hawaii showing that the average life ex- pectancy of Alaskans had increased in every area of the state during those years. But the most dramatic increase could be seen in the North Slope Borough, North West Arctic Borough, Aleutians-East Borough, Kodiak, and Southeast Coast of Alaska; these areas saw an 8 year to 13 year increase in life expectancy, at birth, between 1980-2014. Nearly 80 percent of the state saw an increase of more than six years over that 35-year time period. Like seafood processing, hospitality, and the oil industry, trucking has traditionally been an Alaska industry that depends heavily on out-of-state work- ers. According to the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development’s most recent report on nonresident workers, out-of-state drivers repre- sented 18.5 percent of the workforce of 3,602 heavy and tractor-trailer drivers in 2016. That category of driver made an average quarterly wage of almost $14,000 that year. The nonresident count includes both seasonal workers and those who live elsewhere LYO]PR`WL]WdʮdTYQZ]]Z_L_TZY^ Crum says that since 2016, oil and gas companies SLaPʮZbYTYQPbP]NZXXP]NTLW_]`NVO]TaP]^Q]ZX out of state. But he says the practice remains com- mon in the seafood processing industry where com-
happening in Alaska during the years 1980-2014? Well, that’s not hard to answer for those of us who were here in those years. The TransAlaska Pipeline MPRLYʮZbTYRZTWTY $""=PO/ZR8TYPMPRLY[]Z - duction in 1990. The Magnuson-Stevens Act pushed Z`_ _SP QZ]PTRY ʭ^STYR ʮPP_^ WPLOTYR _Z TX[Z]_LY_ OPaPWZ[XPY_ ZQ ,WL^VL ʭ^SP]TP^ ?SP^P ]P^Z`]NP developments, along with others around the state, changed Alaska from a struggling new state, to an economically thriving place. These resources became jobs and opportunity for work close to traditional homes, something pre- viously unavailable. And boroughs were formed in these areas, enabling the ability to levy taxes that funded community infrastructure. Health care, education, clean water, wastewater treatment, and good-paying local jobs transformed rural and urban Alaska. The Alaskan people ben- Pʭ_PO,Q_P]_SP $ "OT^NZaP]dZQZTWZY_SP6PYLT .ZYR]P^^ʭYLWWdOPNTOPOTY $ #_SL_,WL^VLSLOL chance of supporting herself on her rich resources. Alaskan voters, all 46,000 of them, voted six-to-one to become a state. As a territorial kid growing up in Fairbanks, I re- member those days. I had the delightful chance to frequently go to work with my dad, a Wien Airlines captain. That meant riding along on an F-27 as he made rounds to rural communities around our state. They were referred to as “villages” then and they were isolated, poor, and small. Then came resource development. As a nurse practitioner, I had the wonderful privilege of pro- viding healthcare services in those same rural ar-
The Alaska Miner
April 2019
14
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