Williams, a former Interior Department official under the Clinton administration, said Newtok could be consumed in five to 15 years. That's assuming a big storm doesn't hit beforehand. Tom and other tribal leaders fear the erosion could reach the town much sooner, perhaps in as little as three years.
Villagers, with help from state officials, have found a new site, nine miles away on Nelson Island. But moving people, houses and major buildings, such as the school and clinic, will be by all accounts an epic endeavor.
For millenniums, ice shelves and permafrost along the coast acted as shields against storms and tidal forces, but warming temperatures have melted much of those natural barriers.
More than 180 Alaskan villages are in danger, according to government reports. Those regarded as most imperiled include Newtok, Shishmaref and Kivalina. All three villages have made plans to relocate.
"How is it going to work, and who is going to pay for it? That's the million-dollar question," said Sally Russell Cox, a state planner involved in the Newtok relocation.
Cox said moving an entire village isn't too farfetched: "Villages in Alaska have relocated before, and Natives have been doing it on their own for thousands of years."
The Native people of Western Alaska were traditionally nomadic, following fish and game. Natives began settling in permanent communities only within the last century, and a majority of them in the last 50 years.
"That's the paradigm we'll be using: the community actively participating and the government providing assistance," Cox said. She said "a huge appropriation of government funds" to pay for the relocations would probably not materialize.
At this point, the priority is to buy more time for Newtok and the other villages by holding off the erosion as long as possible, Cox said. This would mean reinforcing sea walls and retrofitting major buildings. Temporary barge landings may be built.
It's also imperative that the villages develop emergency evacuation plans in case a big storm hits before relocation can begin, Cox said.
The most viable idea for Newtok involves evacuating residents to the new site on Nelson Island. But as of now, no building exists there that could shelter the entire population.
"We don't have answers yet," Cox said. "We're working on them."
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tomas.alex.tizon@latimes.com
