Nathaniel Herz
Nathaniel Herz is an Anchorage-based reporter and audio producer.
Stories
This oil platform stopped pumping 30 years ago. Alaska still won’t make the owner tear it down.
Once offshore oil platforms drain their wells, the government has the power to force the companies that own them to tear the structures down. But the owners can put off that costly process using a strategy one critic calls “delay, deny and diddle around.” And in Alaska, the state has let them do it — for decades.
An appraiser told Anchorage its property was worth $3M. The city sold it to the former mayor for $2M.
The municipal board that approved the sale — and a below-market lease — includes two members with ties to former Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich, who also used to represent Alaska in the U.S. Senate.
Tesla needs graphite. Alaska has plenty. But mining it raises fears in nearby Native villages.
Graphite is a critical ingredient in the batteries needed to power America’s electric vehicle revolution. But every ounce of it is imported. A proposed mine in a remote part of Alaska would change that. But some of the people who live nearby fear it will endanger their way of life.
Alaska Gov. Dunleavy policy adviser who said ‘divorce is worse than rape’ resigns
Jeremy Cubas resigned from his $110,000 a year job as Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s pro-family policy adviser after Alaska Public Media and APM Reports revealed that Cubas defended Hitler, used racist slurs and said a man raping his wife is "an impossible act."
City contracts drive millions in pandemic profits for Anchorage soup kitchen
Bean’s Cafe cashed in big running the Sullivan Arena homeless shelter.