A spokesman for Gov. Mike Dunleavy told the Anchorage Daily News that the governor vetoed a $2.5 million proposal to acquire some earthquake monitoring equipment last summer because there was not enough time to review the proposal or enough detail.

Writing about Dunleavy’s ill-advised Aug. 8 veto of $2.5 million for the monitoring equipment, the newspaper said the veto took place “due to a lack of time to assess the project. So the governor encouraged the university to resubmit the request with more detail.”

In fact, there was plenty of time and more than enough detail to make a decision about this vital project for the most seismically active state in the nation.

The National Science Foundation is decommissioning a $50 million earthquake research venture and is giving the state the chance to buy it at a steep discount and keep it going.

Instead of inventing a lame “time ran out” excuse, one that has not been corrected by the Anchorage Daily News—or the Associated Press, which picked up the false claim and gave it wide distribution—the Dunleavy administration should have simply admitted that the veto was one of the bad decisions made by the governor last summer before the recall campaign got his full attention.

In his veto message, Dunleavy said, “if this is a priority project,” it should be resubmitted.

Dunleavy, still in full budget retreat mode because of the recall, has included $2.5 million in his proposed budget for the next fiscal year to continue the vital earthquake monitoring project and reverse another one of his vetoes.

The University of Alaska asked for $5 million to buy equipment that would otherwise soon be removed. The Legislature cut the request in half and Dunleavy cut it to zero.

The university is now asking for the $2.5 million, saying it can use that to develop $5.8 million per year in federal support.

Full details on why this is a priority for Alaska have been available for a long time. The proposal to acquire the stations first appeared in this University of Alaska budget document in November 2013, when Dunleavy was in the Senate.

“This investment will, for the first time, provide sustained comprehensive earthquake monitoring across Alaska,” the regents told lawmakers more than six years ago. A 2016 report said it was an “unparalleled opportunity.”

In a report delivered to the state in November 2017, the University of Alaska said, “This initiative will fundamentally change Alaska's ability to assess and prepare for earthquakes, including those that cause tsunamis.”

“In September 2017, the National Science Foundation completed installation of the $50 million USArray network of seismic monitoring stations. The Alaska Earthquake Center (AEC) is integrating USArray with the state's existing seismic network to provide high accuracy earthquake assessments across all of mainland Alaska including for the first time: the North Slope, Western Alaska, and Southeast. Data and products served by the center help determine building codes, insurance rates, tsunami evacuation zones, emergency response plans, and the design of every major infrastructure project in Alaska.”

“The USArray project will end in 2019 and the network is scheduled to be removed for use elsewhere. At that time, all of these capabilities will stop,” the 2017 report said.

In May 2018, the Alaska Earthquake Center published a 46-page report about how to incorporate the stations and benefit Alaskans by making many of the stations permanent.

Funds for the equipment were included in the capital budget prepared by the Walker administration and introduced by Dunleavy on Jan. 14, 2019, but Dunleavy excluded the proposal from his budget in February. He had all the time in the world.

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