From Kyle Hopkins in Anchorage --

When Commerce Commissioner Emil Notti announced he’d give an update on Emmonak today, the big question was whether the governor’s team would launch any new proposals to get food, fuel or cash into the village. Maybe an effort to hand out fuel vouchers.

We didn’t hear anything of the sort. At least not yet.

Here's the Q&A portion of the press conference:

(Does this mean the first proposals this year will come from the Legislature? What would the price tag be, and is there the political will to pay for it? Sen. Donny Olson, for example, has said he wanted to see if the governor would launch something before proposing his own assistance plan.)

State department heads said that they can’t justify declaring an economic disaster in the cash-poor Yukon River village.

They’re looking to put the focus on existing aid programs – like public assistance, or federal subsidies for heating bills – before they propose any new form of help.

The explanation from the state continues to be that there was no natural disaster to wipe out food or fuel supplies, and that families’ average incomes are too high to qualify for an economic disaster.

“From our understanding, there’s food out in the villages and there’s fuel in the tanks. The people who have the food and the fuel are reluctant to extend credit,” Notti told reporters today in Anchorage.

Meantime, the Alaska Federation of Natives plans to start accepting and distributing donations on behalf of villages in the region, after this Los Angeles Times story about the village of Kuskokwim River village of Tuluksak fanned interest in helping the Y-K Delta.

I haven’t written in detail about why the state says Emmonak and other lower Yukon villages didn’t qualify for a fisheries disaster declaration this season, but it’s worth a look here at the numbers the state is using.

Notti – who attributes the current fuel and food woes more to heating fuel costs than the fishing season -- has said that fishermen in the region made only a few thousand less per permit than in the previous year. In other words, the state says that while fishermen made very little money last year, it wasn’t enough to dip the region below the federal poverty level.

The thing is, that federal poverty level the state uses is $26,500 per household and isn’t adjusted for the cost of living in Emmonak, or Kotlik, or other villages where milk approaches $10 a gallon. (Deputy Commerce Commissioner Mike Black says in the video that the state is rounding up cost of living numbers now.)

And while the state estimates households in the region made about $31,000 last year, that number is imperfect too because it’s calculated using 2000 Census numbers.

So how much do families in the Lower Yukon actually make? How much does it really cost to live there?

On my reporting wish list are a pair of numbers that would help tell the story of the Lower Yukon economy:

1.) A reliable estimate of household income in the region – including the percentage that comes from fishing, and the percentage that comes from the state and federal government.

2.) The amount of money a family in a lower Yukon village could make and still be considered below the poverty level – but adjusted to account for the higher price of food, services and transportation in remote rural Alaska.

Asked if a disaster declaration is off the table, Notti said, “It could happen, I suppose, but it has to wait.” State officials say such a declaration wouldn’t necessarily inject more cash into the village – especially not right away - while supporters say it could pave the way for federal aid.

Let’s say you had an accurate picture of how much it costs to live in Emmonak or other villages and found that the average household income is below the adjusted poverty level year after year.

Do you declare a disaster year after year? What’s that say about the region’s economy and the larger, crushing question of sustainability? In other words, with this much uncertainty over the short-term fix, what are the long-term answers?