Re-Locate LLC

Re-Locate LLC was formed to direct immersed research into the development of mobile infrastructure, including water and sanitation systems, for Kivalina and other communities planning to relocate. These systems are usable at existing community locations and can be moved to future sites.

The LLC has developed, in partnership with the Kivalina City and IRA Councils and Biomass Controls, the world’s first winterized human waste bioreactor. The Kivalina Biochar Reactor is the village’s response to honeybuckets, an overflowing landfill, and declining public infrastructure budgets. The unit converts separated solid human waste to biochar, a carbon-rich and pathogen-free byproduct. The Kivalina Biochar will be installed in Kivalina in the fall of 2017. Read an article about a training we hosted in December at Red Dog Port site here (starts on page 3). NANA’s Village Economic Development program and Teck funded the project, at the joint request of the Kivalina City and Tribal Councils. We are grateful to all of our partners.

Reactor Photo Credits: Andrew J.S.

Reactor interior during fabrication

Kivalina Biochar Reactor Training (Red Dog Port Site, December, 2016).

Re-Locate LLC is also participating in the Alaska Water and Sewer Challenge (AKWSC) as part of the Summit Team. The purpose of the AKWSC is to develop decentralized, in-home water and sanitation systems designed to the economic, social, and environmental parameters that exist in Alaskan communities still lacking water and sanitation infrastructure. Systems should store, clean, and reuse fresh and wash water and should pre-process human waste within the home. The use of urine diverting dry toilets (UDDTs) has revolutionized what is possible for decentralized and relocatable systems not only in the home but downstream where centralized but mobile systems process separated grey water, solid human waste (the Kivalina Biochar Reactor), and urine.

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Re-Locate is building artistic and web-based platforms that intend to make the social, political, and environmental issues related to relocation visible to global audiences.

With support from: ArtPlace America; the National Endowment for the Arts; North American Partnership for Environmental Community Action (NAPECA); Alaska Design Forum; First Nations Development Institute; BOKU, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna; Embassy of the United States, Austria; California College of the Arts, Center for Art and Public Life; McCool Carlson Green Architects; mayer sattler-smith architects; The World Justice Project; Wochenklausur; Architects Without Borders Austria; IoA, University of Applied Arts Vienna; Forensic Architecture, Goldsmiths University, University of London; Three Degrees Warmer; Department of Anthropology, Simpson Center for Humanities, Canadian Studies Program in the Jackson School of International Studies, Program on Climate Change and Atmospheric Sciences in the College of the Environment, College of Arts and Sciences, and the Center for the Study of the Pacific Northwest, University of Washington; Seattle University; the City of Vienna, Austria; National Endowment for the Humanities; Anthropology and Environment Society of the American Anthropological Association; Civilization; Creative Time; CoDA; NANA Village Economic Development program; Teck; Lynden Freight; JADE Craftsman Builders; University of Vermont Spatial Analysis Lab; MapSmith; and Alaska Pacific University.