Chapter 2
Lauren slammed her car door and tottered across the broken sidewalk to her office thinking that she had worn the wrong shoes. When she turned the doorknob, and stepped into the door of her new office, she thought she’d gone to the wrong place, but the woman at the desk in the little waiting room jumped to her feet and greeted her immediately.
“Welcome, Ms. Anderson. I’m Heather Whitcomb, I’ll be your assistant here in Naknek,” the woman who looked to be several years older than she was said.
Lauren stood stunned, rooted to the spot. When the memo had come across her desk that she was going to be assigned one of the biggest territories in Alaska, she’d been not only disappointed but confused. Now she was walking into an office that looked like it hadn’t been renovated since the 1950s. None of this made any sense, she was supposed to be in Kentucky, not Alaska.
“Is this all there is,” she said, without even thinking.
Her assistant laughed. “The rest of the staff is in Anchorage. Your predecessor, a Mr. Parker, liked this little town for some reason and moved his office here long ago.”
Lauren had no idea what to say, the assignment in Alaska had been a bit of a surprise from the very beginning. Her mentor in Atlanta had been pushing for her to fill a job in Kentucky working with abandoned coal mines, a job she was perfect for, but at the last minute the director had put her here and she was beginning to wonder who she’d offended.
“I was a bit shocked when I got here too, but once you get used to it, it’s not so bad. We have our own little kitchen, a nice little bathroom, and I understand that the boiler keeps it nice and toasty in the winter. Come on, I’ll show you around.”
Lauren followed her down a hallway to a nice little kitchen and poured them both a cup of coffee and gestured to the table in the middle of the room. As soon as they sat down, Lauren said, “I’m sorry if I seemed rude, I just didn’t expect this.”
“It’s okay, I don’t blame you,” Ms. Whitcomb said, “It is a bit of a shock when you’ve been used to the big offices we’ve been working in.”
“So, you’re not from around here?” Lauren asked, trying to get a better handle on the situation.
“No, the director asked me to join you here as a personal favor to him. I just got out of a messy divorce and it sounded like a good idea,” she said, shrugging her shoulders. “So far all it’s been is a lot of work, but there are some nice people in town.”
Two things stood out to Lauren: first that Ms. Whitcomb knew the director well enough to do him a personal favor and second that she’d had a lot of work to do. “What have you been working on?”
Ms. Whitcomb sighed. “I guess there’s no time like the present to show you what we have here.”
She got up from the table and Lauren assumed she was supposed to follow her. They walked back down the hallway to a closed door that they’d passed on the way to the kitchen. Ms. Whitcomb opened the door and stepped back to let Lauren into the room which was packed with box after box of documents. Each box had a label, but the sheer volume of material in the room left Lauren speechless.
“This is the extra office. Your office is across the hall, there are more boxes in there,” she said, leading Lauren across the hall and opening another door.
“What is all this?” Lauren asked, envisioning herself buried in paperwork for the rest of her career.
“I think it’s time you spoke to the director. I’ll get him on the phone for you and transfer it to your office,” she said, and turned on her heel, clearly not planning to tell Lauren anything else.
Lauren walked around and sat down at the desk, feeling the entire time like she didn’t belong there. As the minutes passed, she began to question her role here in Alaska, and the possibility that she’d been put here for a reason. Growing up in Georgia she’d seen plenty of prejudice in the world, but she’d never been touched by it personally. But for the first time she began to question whether she’d been put here because she was not only African American but a woman, she’d heard similar stories.
The truth was that she was much too qualified as a field agent and supervisor to be here in Alaska where the EPA had little to do. It was true that the area was a top provider for mined metals, oil, and natural gas, but other than the occasional new gold mine, most of the industry had been here for generations. She’d always thought that the director was a fair man, but maybe she’d been wrong about him and he’d stuck her here in Alaska to shut down her career which until now had been promising.
She was just plotting a huge lawsuit when the old-fashioned intercom on her desk beeped and Ms. Whitcomb’s voice came thought the grey box. “The director is on line two, just punch the blinking light.”
“Lauren Anderson,” she said, after she punched the button.
“Lauren, good to hear your voice. I assume you’re all settled in. How is Naknek, I hear it lovely this time of year. Has Ms. Whitcomb been taking care of you?” he said, sounding much too jovial for her current mood.
“She’s been fine,” Lauren said coldly. Hoping that there was an explanation coming.
The director took a deep breath. “Okay, I can hear that you’re unhappy and I don’t blame you, I wasn’t completely honest with you when I sent you out there,” he began, then waited for Lauren to say something.
“This does seem a little bit out of the ordinary,” she said carefully; the man was still her boss at least for now.
“Maybe I should have explained first, but I was afraid you would turn the job down and I really do think that you’re the best one to untangle the mess up there.”
“I take it you mean all these boxes of papers,” Lauren said, envisioning herself scanning and compiling years of paperwork for the next two years.
“Yes, but that’s only part of it,” he said, then added, “We’re in a bit of a mess here, Lauren, and I could really use your help.”
The use of her first name threw her for a minute. “Well, I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s going on. This office is a mess and not exactly what I would have expected from a district supervisor.” She was getting tired of playing games. “Let’s get right to the point. What exactly is it you expect me to do?”
“As I said, I need you to clean up a mess. The man who ran that office before you disappeared about two months ago and I think that if you look at just a fraction of all that paperwork you’ll soon discover why,” the director said, then paused as if what he had to say next really bothered him. “It bothers me to say it, but Neil Parker took bribes from everyone he could during his career with the EPA, most of them amounted to nothing much at all, permits for small gold mines, an occasional safety violation over looked. But it’s become apparent that he worked closely with Montgomery Mining, made a fortune in bribes from them to do anything from approve a building permit to ignoring all safety regulations. It’s been going on for a long time and with him gone we’ve got a nasty little situation on our hands.”
“I don’t understand, if Montgomery Mines is that bad we can just bust them, make them pay for cleanup. If what you’re saying is true, someone should be in jail,” Lauren said, her anger rising as she began to understand what had happened.
“I’m afraid it’s not that easy,” the director said, then explained about Seth Montgomery as his recent rise to the head of the company. “He can’t be held accountable from what I understand, the company can be, but he can’t be personally held responsible.”
“Then we’ll make the company pay for cleanup,” Lauren said, clearly not understanding what the problem was.
“That’s true, but it’s important that no one finds out about the bribes, you do understand that. Without someone to hold accountable, the blame is going to fall on our shoulders, and I think you can understand that we don’t want to happen,” the director said in his best politician voice.
Lauren knew immediately what he meant. “What you mean is that you need me to save your job.”
There was silence for so long, she was sure she’d over stepped, but then the director laughed and said, “That’s one of the reasons I knew you’d be perfect for this job. You never beat around the bush. So, I’ll tell you that yes, I need you to save my hide. I screwed up and trusted Neil Parker, he was one of the good old boys when I took over, it never even occurred to me that he might be rotten to the core.”
“What is it you want me to do?” she asked, not sure how he wanted her to handle this situation.
“I want you to get Seth Montgomery to agree to pay all the cleanup costs and operate his mines according to current standards,” the director said as if he’d just asked her to run to the grocery store for milk.
“Oh, is that all?” she asked, as a joke.
“Well, there might be one other little thing that you’ll have to deal with,” he said, as if she could handle any more. “The land in question is under a lease from the Yup’ik tribe and expires in a few months. I’ve heard rumors that they’re going to refuse to sign a new one, which is going to expose the extent of the pollution on the land and us in the process. If you could help convince them to sign that new lease it would make our job easier.”
Lauren sat back in her chair in shock. “I don’t know if I’m the right person for this job,” she said, thinking about how long it would take her to repack the few belongings she’d brought with her.
“You’re wrong, you’re the perfect person for this job. Look, just check out the situation and if you still feel the same way, I’ll find someone else to do the job,” the director said, but she could hear the disappointment in his voice.
“I’ll check it out,” Lauren said, resigned to her fate, at least for now.
“Thank you, Lauren. I think you’ll find that it’s going to be more rewarding than you think,” the director said, then hung up.
Lauren stared at the phone for a long time, then hit the red button on the intercom, pleased when Ms. Whitcomb’s voice answered immediately. “I guess you’d better come in here,” she said.
Sam and Julie were sitting at the kitchen table using their favorite technique when they had to make a big decision. Sam had taken the pro side and Julie had taken the con and one by one they were listing each, then evaluating it to help them decide if they would take on the project in Alaska or stay where they were in Coldwater Canyon.
“We’ve only been here for a few years, there’s still so much to do,” Julie said.
“But we’ve got the program up and running, the data we have now is more than enough to write our paper,” Sam countered, then added, “And a winter in Alaska would give us the peace and quiet we need to actually write the paper.”
Julie jumped on that. “Alaska in the winter?”
“It won’t be that bad, we’ll live in town,” Sam reasoned.
“What about Annabelle, she’s only two, it’s not like we can take her into the back country with us,” Julie asked, sure she’d gotten him.
“We’ll bring Nicole with us,” Sam said. “Isn’t that what our plan always was?”
Julie knew she’d been beat on that one; Nicole had been with them from the day that Annabelle had been born, she was more like one of the family and Julie would never consider moving anywhere without her. But she still had one more worry.
“Sam, how do we know that Seth is telling us the truth, this whole thing is kind of hard to believe,” Julie said, the playful tone gone from her voice. “I don’t want to put my name on something that’s going to come back and haunt me.”
“I was worried about that too, so I called a few friends at the EPA. They’re trying to keep this quiet so it was a little hard to get information, but it sounds like this Parker guy was rotten through and through.”
“So, you think Seth is telling the truth that he didn’t know how bad things had gotten?” Julie asked.
“I do, I remember when he came out last year all he talked about was living in the back country and how much parts of Coldwater reminded him of home. He just didn’t seem like the type to have had anything to do with this.” Sam had given a lot of thought and knew deep down that his cousin was telling the truth.
“I agree. So, are we doing this or what?” Julie had already made up her mind, and now she was even more sure.
“I think we are,” Sam said with a huge grin. “I’ll miss Coldwater Canyon, but it’s going to be an adventure and if we can do some good in the process then even better.”
Seth had been pacing restlessly around his rooms at the vet clinic, thinking that it was taking his cousin and his wife a long time to make up their minds, but then he reminded himself that this would be a big move for them. Still, he wished that they’d hurry, he was anxious to get home and get the next part of his plan started. Something told him that the day of reckoning was close at hand. Neil Parker had been gone for two months and there was no way someone at the EPA hadn’t caught on to what he’d been doing for all those years.
Not to mention the quickly approaching expiration date of the lease and his impending meeting with the governing council of the Yup’ik tribe, scheduled for later that month; he needed to be ready soon. It had been Tina’s suggestion that he go to the EPA himself, expose everything to them before they found out themselves, but the plan he’d come up with would only work if he could get the lease signed.
The solution had come to him one night as he paced the big house that he hated so much, just being there reminding him of how difficult his childhood had been. And he was restless because he missed his little cabin and knew that it would be a while before he would be able to escape the mess he’d just inherited. The problem had been swimming around in his head, so complicated he wasn’t sure what he was going to do. Refitting the mines and the lumber operation to function to standards would involve a big investment, which he knew the company didn’t have, not with the looming cleanup costs.
What he really needed was a new source of income he realized, trying to take one part of the problem at a time. If he had money coming in, he’d be able to use it to fund the cleanup without touching any of the assets of the company. That’s when he remembered his long ago dream of diversifying the mining company to include renewable energy. He went straight to his computer and began doing research, amazed that the answer had been right in front of his face all along.
After some intense planning and a little help from Tina, who had become his biggest asset, he worked out that with both solar panels and wind turbines he could make enough money to clean up the mines and replant the forest where it had been clear cut. Now he had a formal plan, including blue prints, surveys, and economic predictions all ready to go, but he still needed to get the lease to make it happen.
Then he was back to Sam and Julie; the Yup’ik wanted ecologists, hydrologists, and geologists to be involved. They didn’t trust the government to get the job done, they wanted private scientists who had no ties to the government running the cleanup and wouldn’t budge on that request. It had taken months to assemble a team that was willing to work together, now all he needed was Sam and Julie.
They had been the obvious choice, and one that would please the tribe as well. But he wasn’t sure that he’d done enough to convince them that this was a unique opportunity to not only study a healing ecosystem but be a large part of the healing. The truth was that he could have hired any number of very qualified ecologists, but he wanted Sam and Julie and the fire they seemed to bring to the projects they were involved in, that they were family only added to their allure.
Knowing that staying up all night wouldn’t do anything to help the situation, Seth climbed into bed and hoped that in the morning he’d have Sam and Julie’s answer and he could move on with the rest of his trip to California. Between meeting with engineers and suppliers for the solar panels and wind turbines, and visiting the university to see what other help he might be able to get, he’d be here for at least another two weeks.
Under any other circumstances what he was trying to do might have been fun, but with so much on the line, he just couldn’t enjoy himself. Hopefully though, everything would go according to his plan, the lease would get signed, the EPA would cooperate, and then he would be able to enjoy himself.
It was exciting to think that in a few years the land he loved so much would have been repaired, the ugly marks his family had left on it would disappear, the animals would come back and the people would be able to live off the land like they’d been doing for generations. Those positive thoughts finally allowed him to shut his eyes and go to sleep, the moon shining in the window comforting him as he drifted off.