Whether melting glaciers or declining snow accumulation caused by warming winters, it’s hard to deny that the world is changing. For the past year, the Wrangell Cooperative Association Earth Branch has been working to understand the changing environment and how the community can adjust to this new normal.

On Sept. 29, the WCA held its third and final public meeting for their Climate Adaptation Plan. They have been working with Two Bears Environmental Consulting since last October to compile data and community input to develop the plan. Now in the final steps, the consultant will soon provide a detailed report, with the intention of bolstering Wrangell’s climate resiliency for the future.

“The reality is things around us are changing, and that’s, I think, what people are starting to finally kind of connect to,” said Earth Branch Coordinator Kim Wickman.

Two Bears, an Anchorage-based company that has been doing this sort of consulting since 2017, started the process with a listening session last October. Jaimlyn Sypniewski, spatial analyst and modeling lead for Two Bears, said they always try to get the community’s input first, before diving into the data.

“The way it starts is that we come in assuming that we have no idea what’s going on in the community,” Sypniewski said. “So one of the things I try very hard to do is not to Google or get any bias.” 

After doing some of their own research, they returned to Wrangell to share what they had learned. Aside from their public meeting, they held an input session with tribal leadership and a luncheon for tribal elders where they presented their data and collected input to guide the project moving forward.

Elders shared concerns about future water availability, increasing storms, climate impacts on forage plants like berries, and an increase in water lilies in ponds that seem to be blocking creek flows, according to Sypniewski.

On this past visit, before the public meeting, they spent time at the high school, where students shared the changes they’ve seen in their lives and suggestions for solutions for the future. “All ideas are definitely accepted, and a lot of them will get looked into,” Sypniewski said.

Their process uses traditional ecological knowledge and anecdotal observations to structure the plan and inform the modeling. Then if there’s a disconnect between the data and the observations, Sypniewski said, then they can highlight those differences. “Which we didn’t actually have any in Wrangell, but it has happened in other communities.”

One of the major findings was that temperatures in Wrangell are warming, although not as quickly as other regions. Another finding was that, rather than drying out, rain in the area is likely to continue to increase. However, the rain is likely to experience big burst events that can worsen potholes and create problems for flat-roofed buildings, instead of rising overall generalized rainfall.

Future water availability was the biggest topic discussed by the sparse attendees on Sept. 29.

Addressing these issues is the point of the adaptation plan, which the WCA will share with the borough once completed so that they can work toward a more climate-resilient future together.

“Then the city can use the information that we’ve passed on to them to help adapt their plans for how they’re planning to build roads or we can help link them with other information or grant sources,” said Wickman.