A decade after a plan promised lower energy costs, Bering Strait villages are still studying the problem

The 20 tribal communities of the Bering Strait region run largely on diesel hauled in by barge — and they've been asking for help with their crushing energy costs for years. Now the Nome-based tribal consortium Kawerak is looking for contractors to size up the bulk fuel tanks, power plants and other infrastructure that keep those villages running, in the latest step of a planning effort that has moved slowly while prices have not.

The cost pressure is severe and getting worse. Sen. Lisa Murkowski said in a June floor speech that fuel had hit $9 a gallon in Dillingham and $14 in Nuiqsut — communities outside the region, but facing the same bind — and that villages taking summer barge deliveries are locked into those prices all winter. Buying fuel in volume is one of the few ways to blunt the cost. "Bulk fuel are basically large fuel tanks to where it allows a community to buy in bulk in order to get that cost down," Jocelyn Fenton of the Denali Commission said at a May discussion of rural infrastructure.

The communities have been pressing for this kind of help for a long time. Fifteen of the region's tribes are working through Kawerak's climate planning on energy priorities, and an earlier federal project funded energy training, an annual Nome energy summit, and on-site support for villages working on their own projects. But the paper has outpaced the progress: the 2015 Bering Strait Regional Energy Plan promised projects to cut energy costs, and diesel prices in the region have climbed ever since.

The new work, with proposals due Aug. 15, covers three linked pieces: a financial analysis for a regional energy entity, a regional bulk fuel assessment, and a critical infrastructure needs assessment with an implementation plan. Firms can bid on one or all three.

This is planning work, not construction. The notice names no villages, facilities or dollar figures, and no contractor has been chosen.