Nome gets very dusty. These organizations try to do something about it

The snow has barely melted off Nome’s roads and fine dust kicked up by cars or the wind already becomes a nuisance and more than that, a health hazard.
Nome Eskimo Community Executive Director Emma Pate this week called for a meeting of a newly forged coalition of Nome organizations to attack the problem of dust as the region anticipates a very busy summer of construction projects and associated heavy truck traffic rolling through Nome. Nome Eskimo Community is the federally recognized tribe for the community of Nome.
Last fall was the worst dust season many had seen in their years in Nome. Driving to work last fall, Pate observed school children on their way to their school bus stop covering their noses and mouths to not inhale the dust clouds kicked up by car traffic. Not only is it a safety issue when the lingering dust trails after cars and reduces visibility to zero, but pedestrians face added danger by inhaling unknown particles. So Pate decided to send out an email to other entities in Nome with the request: “Help us mitigate the issue.”
Around the table in the Nome Eskimo Tribal Hall were representatives from NEC, Bering Straits Native Corporation, the City of Nome Public Works and Norton Sound Health Corporation’s Environmental Health Program.
BSNC and its subsidiary Sound Quarry will see a lot of contractor traffic this summer as Brice Construction for the next five years will harvest granite rock from Cape Nome, truck it to the port of Nome and barge it to Utqiagvik for a large coastal erosion prevention project. In addition, the first phase of the Port of Nome expansion will begin this summer, with the contractor Kiewit also harvesting rock, trucking the huge armor rock boulders to Nome near the port to have it ready for placement into the water next year.
Also, Steadman Road is being worked on this year, a project by the Dept. of Transportation.
Timelines are getting close to work beginning and those present were urgently asking to reach out to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the State DOT and their contractors to see what dust mitigation plans are written into contracts and what their plans are to combat the dust.
As roads are being used continuously, City of Nome Public Works Director Cole Cushman added that increased traffic means less time for repair or maintenance of the roads, worsening the situation.
Plans were made to contact not only contractors for the big projects trucking between Cape Nome and the Port of Nome but also the local trucking companies to invite them to work on a solution together.
Pate said in a subsequent interview with Nugget that it’s not a Nome Eskimo Community problem, or a city of Nome problem, but “ a community problem,” that requires collaboration across the board to come up with a solution. “The main purpose of the meeting is to work together with our resources within our community, and those that come in to our community and work to focus on mitigating the dust issue, because we're all breathing air,” Pate said. “It has an impact on our greens or berries, and it has an impact on our children, you know, all of us. Basically, it's not healthy and it's not safe.”
Pate said the next dust mitigation collaboration meeting is scheduled for the end of the month, and invitations are extended to the out-of-town contractors, the U.S. Corps of Engineers, the Nome DOT team and local contractors.