Second entry, Alaska's Food Security Risks

Today I am going to attempt to explain some of the risks Alaska residents face every day, and how they relate to our food security here.

First, it helps to know that the amount of food produced is generally accepted to be less than 5% of what is consumed annually. In other words, 95% of the foods you eat here, are barged, trucked, or flown many thousands of miles. Yes, I know you all know that....but I don't think most think through the risks.

As a kid growing up here in the 60s, we lived at Usibelli Coal Mine. Amazing place to be a kid, and then some. We weren't exactly Bush living (we had power and running water and were on the road system-but close to it) but we were literally at "the end of the road". At that time, the Parks Highway ended at Hurricane Gulch with a stub of concrete and steel hanging over the cliff face there. It was usually about five hours to drive to Fairbanks, depending on the condition of the gravel road, and my folks did this about every three or four months for groceries. There was pavement at College and Mom used to treat the first of the kids to call it. I have no firm memories of the Good Friday Quake in 1964, but do remember being dumbfounded at the water marks in downtown Fairbanks after the '67 flood. My point in bringing us bit of recollection forward, is that disasters happened in the past (and will happen in the future) and while the '67 flood might have been awful for Fairbanks area residents, we weathered it with ease. Why? Because my family (and indeed, everyone at the mine) generally had four to six months' worth of groceries on hand. It was prudent and all the grocery stores held large amounts of inventory as normal business. During those years, it was not uncommon to visit a grocery store and see many feet of empty shelves....the reason? Barges lost at sea.

Fast forward 50 years, and we have an entirely different business model. Today, to shave costs, most grocery retailers employ a version of "just in time" supply. This model was made famous and used to astonishing success with WalMart, for example. That is, there is typically scant inventory beyond what you see on the shelves. Ever notice the containers on trailers around the back of these stores? They come and go constantly, year round. This makes for a very shaky, very long supply chain to Alaska.

Our foods mostly originate on the West Coast, where consolidators of various types arrange the container loads which are then loaded onto the barge and thence shipped into the Port of Anchorage. There, it is offloaded, and then trucked to the store. At any time, a link in this chain could break....and maybe in a big way. It has been stated to me by a local official, that Alaska is five days away from anarchy at any given time. Because Alaska has just five days worth of food on hand. Imagine another Good Friday Earthquake....and what it would mean in terms of feeding the population. Today we have a huge amount of infrastructure which would be damaged by a quake of that magnitude. We could lose the port entirely, the airport, and the highways when bridges suffer catastrophic failure. That will mean loss of transportation networks, utilities, and of course.....a busted supply chain.

Imagine no natural gas for heat or power generation. No gasoline or diesel fuel for the same reason. And most importantly, no inventory arriving to replenish the grocery and bulk stores. Now, many "old time" Alaskans are an independent bunch and most will have some food stashed away, because, well.....disasters happen. I'd venture to guess that the urban resident is not so well supplied, but it's likely better in outlying areas where "trips to town" are a bit of a drive. We'll leave the hair raising implications of a lack of medical supplies completely out of this scenario because it's too alarming.

So, one big earthquake up here, and we could lose all transportation methods in a matter of a minute or two. This is a true risk, and one that local, state and the federal government is, of course, planning to handle. There exists a myriad of agencies, bureaus, commissions, and private interests who are working on developing plans to deal with such an event. But a truly effective plan is only as workable as the circumstances allow, and those plans will only function if enough infrastructure, communications, supplies and equipment, and people remain. For all their planning and exercises, I would not expect a cohesive and speedy response to a major earthquake.

Another likely scenario is also seismic. There exists off the coasts of Washington, Oregon and northern California, a geological feature called the Cascadia Subduction Zone. It too, is due for a large event and could happen at any time. Located off shore, you can think of it as a small piece of the Pacific plate that is being pushed under the continent, if that helps. Prior events from this fault have caused massive tsunami and landslides, obliterating the coastlines in some areas. Of course, it goes without saying that the entire western coast line of the United States is at risk at every moment. Since the majority of goods are shipped from the Pacific Northwest (Seattle, Portland) we are again reminded of the fragile supply chain.

Naturally, the risks presented by earthquake activity do not end there. One super sized event anywhere around the Pacific Rim, and we could (and will at some point) experience tsunami. We've all seen the videos of the destruction left by the 2004 tsunami that took over 200,000 lives in Indonesia, and more recently the Japan event earlier this year. It's an unnerving thought, to imagine something of that magnitude striking a US city. And in the scale of tsunami's, neither of those were very large-even more unsettling. Whether the eventual tsunami hits San Diego, or Portland, or the coast of Washington, or even here in Southcentral, the end results could be catastrophic for Alaska's people.

Snap one link in our very shaky, very long supply chain, and it'll be ugly.