Alaskan Town Could Be Underwater By 2017, Villagers Dubbed 'America's Climate Refugees'

In Alaska, the entire village of Newtok is being relocated because coastal erosion threatens to put the village's highest point underwater by 2017, according to the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers, which points to climate change in Alaska as the cause of the erosion.

This week, the Guardian is running an in-depth series on Newtok, calling the villagers "America's Climate Refugees."

Newtok is a riverside village of about 350 indigenous people on the west coast of Alaska, about 400 miles south of the Bering Strait that separates the state from Russia. The Ninglick River snakes around Newtok before emptying into the Bearing Sea. As it flows, the river erodes the land, some years carrying away more than 100 feet of earth, the Guardian reports. The community experienced major floods in September 2005 and February 2006, and talk of having to relocate the village has been happening since as early as 1994.

The erosion rates in Newtok have been exacerbated by thawing permafrost, declining sea ice protection, increased storm surge exposure, and warming temperatures, according to the Newtok Planning Group. 

Indigenous populations have inhabited Newtok for at least 2,000 years; they are known as the Qaluyaarmiut people. The Qaluyaarmiut people are avid fishermen and live a traditional Yup'ik Eskimo subsistence lifestyle.

Eventually the entire village will have to be relocated to a spot, about nine miles downstream on the opposite side of the Ninglick River. The relocation of the village will coast as much as $130 million.

Nearly 500 miles from the Alaskan capital and 100 miles from the nearest doctor, gas station or paved road, the village is so remote that it seems an unlikely victim of climate change. But the Alaska has warmed twice as fast as the rest of America over the past 60 years, the Guardian reports.

"The snow comes in a different timing now. The snow disappears way late. That is making the geese come at the wrong time. Now they are starting to lay their eggs when there is still snow and ice and we can't go and pick them," said Newtok resident Nathan Tom. "It's changing a lot. It's real, global warming, it's real."