Permafront is “melting like chocolate ice cream,” causing erosion that threatens towns and leaks toxins. 
Will Crain
Newsdesk.org
It has been widely reported that global warming threatens to sweep scores of coastal Alaskan towns into the sea.
Now, the Anchorage Daily News reports that severe erosion is also threatening the ocean by dumping toxins from landfills and garbage dumps into the water.
"A (dump) is kind of like a Pandora’s box of surprises," Tamar Stephens of the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation, told the paper.
Among the materials of concern are heavy metals and biological contaminants.
The US military has spent millions of dollars to try to halt the erosion at Cold War-era landfills, but funding is in short supply for many small town dumps and some former military bases.
At least five military bases threated by tidal erosion have no cleanup scheduled.
The Baltimore Sun reported on the quest of Stanley Tom, a resident of Newtok, Alaska, to try to raise funds to relocate his entire village.
The mostly Native American town is in such a precarious situation that the next big storm could wipe it out, activist Deborah L. Williams told the Sun.
"The situation is very urgent," she said. The area’s permafrost is "melting like chocolate ice cream in the sun."
Newtok is just one of 180 Alaskan towns that are threatened with extinction as increasingly rapid erosion sweeps them into the ocean.
Historically, sea ice has protected the land from the brunt of winter storms, but scientists say that global warming has reduced the amount of sea ice, causing erosion to accelerate.
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