Seward freshman wins 35th Caring for the Kenai with thermal asphalt proposal

A Seward High School freshman’s idea to replace road brine by using new thermal asphalt came out on top at the 35th Annual Caring for the Kenai final presentations on Thursday.

Hannah Leatherman, of Seward, was among 12 finalists in this year’s competition who gathered in the Kenai Central High School Little Theater to present their ideas to a panel of judges. Many of this year’s projects were pulled from news headlines, tackling local issues like the use of road brine on winter roads and the failure of the Central Peninsula Landfill recycling baler. Others brought forward ideas to pull trash from the Kenai River, combat invasive insects, clean small oil spills, promote careers in firefighting and more.

Several of the students had already brought on sponsors for their ideas or connected with local governments and organizations. One student described plans to bring his projects to the Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly next month.

“The contest has grown up,” Kenai Peninsula Borough Mayor Peter Micciche, one of the judges, said. “They’re looking at science in a lot of different areas that impact public safety, cost and environmental connection. I’m really proud of them … We have some brilliant young people coming out of this district and out of the State of Alaska.”

Leatherman said her project was intended to respond to both black ice and the complaints around corrosive properties of salt brine. She described a plan to gradually replace local roads with new asphalt enhanced with conductive graphene nanoplatelets that increase melting rates and decrease freezing rates. The material, she said, has already been tested on a public road, just last month in Teesside, England.

Leatherman earned the top honor at this year’s competition, and a $2,000 reward.

Kenai Central High School’s Kyle Foster took the second-place prize, $1,300, for his proposal for a “Moose Mush” fat tire bike and cross-country race series at Tsalteshi Trails and Centennial Park to raise funds to respond to invasive insects that damage foliage important to hungry moose.

Kenai Watershed Forum Executive Director Trent Dodson, another judge, said invasive insects are “off everyone’s radar,” but increasingly worthy of consideration as climates warm — “I love this project”

Tilea Lockwood, of Homer High School, proposed boxes installed in locations like the Homer Port and Harbor with absorbent pads and other materials that could be used to clean small oil spills. While people have learned to respond to large incidents, there hasn’t been much investment in smaller responses “that regular people can access immediately without calling harbor officials first.” That project earned her third place and $1,100.

“Stop the spills before they turn into a mess of soapy sludge or rainbow covering the harbors that eventually leaks out into the oceans,” she said. “Take action before it causes more harm to our fragile ecosystems and precious Alaskan way of life.”

For fourth place, and $1,000, SoHI’s Lucy Salzer proposed a program to encourage firefighters to visit high schools and drive recruitment in the youth “explorer” program. The idea, she said, is a response to “the significant staffing shortage” in contemporary fire stations.

Kenai Central’s Elloree Smith proposed the Magnet Masters Derby, a fishing derby held outside of the fishing season using magnets to pull waste from the Kenai River. She’d already lined up a possible partnership with the Kenai River Sportfishing Association and connected with law enforcement about disposing of any dangerous items that could be retrieved from the water. She earned fifth place and $850.

Rounding out the top six, Eli Richards of SoHi proposed the use of a robotic dog at the Central Peninsula Landfill to discourage eagles from gathering and spreading litter and disease. Eagles don’t naturally gather in groups like they do at the local landfill, and Richards said landfill staff are left cleaning up messes made by the wildlife. He was named sixth place and will receive $750.

Runners-up, who each earned $500 prizes, included SoHi’s Dorothy Brown for a project to beautify local roadsides with wildlowers; SoHi’s Shea Linton for compostable cardboard planters; SoHi’s Ollie Dahl for electronic and variable traffic speed signs; SoHi’s Thomas Cooper for magnetic fishing rods; Cook Inlet Academy’s Abigail Crumrine for shredding tires at the Soldotna landfill; and Alexis Verba for creating a public coat closet for those in need.

A release from Caring for the Kenai organizer and creator Merrill Sikorski says that in addition to the cumulative $10,000 in awards to the finalist students, $20,000 will be divided to classrooms that used Caring for the Kenai in their curriculums, with the lion’s share of the fund directed to the classrooms that produced the finalists.

“The creativity and resiliency of our community and our youth over the years never ceases to amaze me,” Sikorski says in the release.

For more information, including a full video archive of the presentations, visit caringforthekenai.com.

Reach reporter Jake Dye at jacob.dye@peninsulaclarion.com.