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Heath Whitacre, of the Petersburg Forest Service, went into detail on the Forest Service's efforts to maintain and restore watershed conditions in the Tongass National Forest late last month as part of a series of science talks featuring local professionals. A properly functioning watershed can create and sustain habitats that can support a diverse population of aquatic wildlife, including salmon. According to Whitacre, 80 percent of the Southeast Alaska commercial salmon harvest comes from...
Scientists at the University of Alaska Fairbanks have identified a new species of thalattosaur, a marine reptile that lived more than 200 million years ago. The new species, Gunakadeit joseeae, is the most complete thalattosaur ever found in North America and has given paleontologists new insights about the thalattosaurs' family tree, according to a paper published recently in the journal Scientific Reports. Scientists found the fossil near Keku Island near the village of Kake in 2011....
It’s been a long time coming but payments should soon be in hand for Alaska fishermen, processors and coastal communities hurt by the 2016 pink salmon run failure, the worst in 40 years. The funds are earmarked for Kodiak, Prince William Sound, Chignik, Lower Cook Inlet, South Alaska Peninsula, Southeast Alaska and Yakutat. Congress ok’d over $56 million in federal relief in 2017, but the authorization to cut the money loose languished on NOAA desks in DC for over two years. The payouts got delayed again last October when salmon permit hol...
A patchwork of logging roads already exists, and the project would connect those roads to make a 35-mile, single-lane road between Kake and 12-mile Creek north of the city of Kupreanof. The money was allocated in 2012 by State Sen. Bert Stedman, R-Sitka, as part of a program called "Roads to Resources" meant to help access to natural resources. "We need to have a transportation system in Southeast," Stedman said in a phone interview. "This road is part of a bigger drive to help stabilize and exp...
January 23, 1920 The Petersburg members of the Boy Scouts of America have offered their services to the Petersburg Fire Department to assist in keeping the crowds back from any fire which might occur and to maintain the fire lines. Their offer has been accepted by the firemen and in the future the boys will be on duty maintaining fire lines for the firemen. At a regular meeting of the Fire Department, the Boy Scouts were made volunteer firemen. Also the scouts decided to observe Universal Good Turn Week February 8 to 14 1920, in honor of the te...
Every year since 1991 Fish Factor has selected “picks and pans” for Alaska’s seafood industry - a no-holds-barred look back at some of the year’s best and worst fishing highlights, and my choice for the biggest fish story of the year. Here are the 2019 picks and pans, in no particular order - Best fish scientist – Dr. Bob Foy, director of science and research at NOAA’s Alaska Fisheries Science Center/Juneau – No one explains science better or with more passion. Biggest new business potential: Mariculture. Alaska is acting on plans to grow a $10...
January Following the shutdown of the U.S. government on Dec. 22, 2018, the U.S. Coast Guard stated it would continue offering essential services. The borough assembly approved $600,000 for a new baler. The USCG located debris from an overdue medivac aircraft that had three people onboard that was due to land in Kake several nights before. A decrease in air cargo coming into Petersburg affected the timely arrival of residents' packages after the retirement of Alaska Airlines' combi 737-400...
JUNEAU – As climate change rapidly alters conditions in southeast Alaska, lower snowpack levels have caused a massive decline of yellow-cedar trees. Without an insulating blanket of snow, the shallow roots of yellow-cedar trees freeze during late spring cold snaps. Left behind is a growing expanse of "ghost forests" of dead yellow-cedars, affecting roughly 678,000 acres (nearly the area of Yosemite National Park). The decay-resistant properties of yellow-cedar allow the trees to remain s...
The borough assembly failed to pass a letter to the Secretary of Agriculture and the United States Forest Service at an assembly meeting Monday expressing discontent with the process of reviewing the Roadless Rule in the Tongass National Forest. The letter, which was drafted by Assembly Member Chelsea Tremblay, notes that when the Forest Service presented their six alternatives to the Roadless Rule at a public meeting in November, it seemed as if the decision to go with the alternative six,...
The borough assembly took a neutral position on the future of the Roadless Rule at Monday's assembly meeting when they voted against a resolution that supported keeping the Roadless Rule intact and a resolution repealing it. Resolution #2019-14 was in support of alternative one of the draft environmental impact statement released by the United States Forest Service regarding the future of the Roadless Rule. Alternative one, or the do nothing option, keeps the Roadless Rule in place. Resolution #...
The roadless rule should remain intact To the Editor: The proposed Tongass exemption from the 2001 Roadless Rule is for the singular purpose of accessing the last bastions of high volume old growth timber, which will be largely exported in the round. If approved, this would be at great cost to taxpayers, and at great profit to Viking Lumber of Klawock and Alcan/Transpac Group of Vancouver, BC-both timber exporters. A recent report by Taxpayers for Common Sense, concluded that between 1999-2018,...
The value of Alaska salmon permits has ticked upwards in regions that experienced a good fishery this year while others have tanked. Not surprisingly, the record sockeye fishery at Bristol Bay has boosted sales of driftnet permits to nearly $200,000, up from the mid-$170,000 range prior to the 2019 season. Another strong run forecast of 48.9 million sockeyes for 2020 with a projected harvest of 36.9 million could increase the value even more, said Doug Bowen of Alaska Boats and Permits in Homer. What’s really raising eyebrows, Bowen said, is v...
WRANGELL - Mayor Steve Prysunka travelled to Washington D.C. last week to speak before the Senate Committee on Energy and National Resources. He was invited to speak on behalf of the National Association of Counties, an organization that works to advocate county priorities in federal policymaking. Prysunka spoke last Thursday, Nov. 21, on the importance of the Payment In Lieu of Taxes (PILT) Program and Secure Rural Schools (SRS) funds. "We're somewhat unique because we're actually the third...
WRANGELL - Plans are in motion to subdivide the old mill property around 6.5 mile Zimovia Highway, according to Terri Wenger with Anchor Properties. The property, currently owned by Betty Buhler, has been on the market for quite some time. On the Anchor Properties website the almost 39-acre lot is listed at $2.7 million. Wenger said that the plan is to subdivide the land into 11 lots, ranging in size from one to three acres. "I could be wrong, but I think that it could be possibly the biggest...
A resolution supporting alternative one of the draft environmental impact statement for the exemption of the Roadless Rule in the Tongass National Forest will go before the borough assembly at their first meeting in December after the assembly pushed the vote back by two weeks at their meeting on Monday. The United State Forest Service released the findings of its draft environmental impact statement earlier this month that showed the United States Department of Agriculture supported...
Southeast Alaskans have been given the opportunity to lift the onerous roadless designation from the Tongass National Forest, and yet many have testified to leave it in place. We're astonished. That's not the Alaskan way. Why do we want the federal government to maintain continued control of the Tongass? The roadless designation was put in place as yet another padlock on national forests that were already protected and commercial activity was eliminated or severely stymied. Half of the Tongass...
After officials from the United States Forest Service presented their six alternatives to the Roadless Rule at a public meeting last week and stated the agency preferred a full exemption of the rule in the Tongass National Forest, community members in the audience overwhelmingly spoke out against the exemption. Alternative six, the preferred alternative, would exempt all 9.2 million acres of the Tongass National Forest from the 2001 Roadless Rule that set out to protect and preserve inventoried...
Representatives from the United State Forest Service presented a draft environmental impact statement at a public meeting last week that listed a full exemption of the Roadless Rule in the Tongass National Forest as the preferred alternative. In Jan. 2018, then Gov. Bill Walker submitted a petition to Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue requesting that Alaska be exempted from 2001 Roadless Rule, according to Dave Schmid, regional forester for the Alaska region. Perdue instead asked the USFS...
The Petersburg Police Department will begin the process of seeking and hiring a police sergeant after the borough assembly on Monday gave Police Chief Jim Kerr authorization to fill the position. In the years that the police department has been short a sergeant, the borough has had to spend a considerable amount of money on overtime, according to Kerr at an assembly meeting in July. In the 2018 fiscal year, Kerr said the borough spent $155,214 in overtime. The police sergeant position, which...
The federal government’s plan to raze more roads through the Tongass National Forest is facing strong headwinds from fishermen, Native groups and coastal communities throughout Southeast Alaska. Over 220 Southeast Alaskan fishermen signed a letter to the Trump Administration last week opposing the abrupt push to exempt the Tongass National Forest from a roadless rule in place for over a decade. The exemption would release more than 9 million acres from protection and open nearly 200,000 acres to logging. The U.S. Forest Service made the a...
Rainforests under siege To the Editor: The Doomsday Clock of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists notes it’s 2 minutes to midnight. They list the unfolding climate catastrophe to be just as much an existential threat as that of nuclear war. A nuclear war can start with one push of a button. But our unfolding climate catastrophe started long ago with daily acts of denial by our elected officials in the service of extractivism — rather than the public interest. Regardless of whether it is raining outside, Southeast Alaska has been facing “se...
Members of the United States Forest Service met with the public last week to receive feedback and discuss the Central Tongass Project. The project encompasses many different projects in four categories: watershed restoration, recreation management, vegetation management and access management. Project Leader Carey Case said by lumping multiple projects together, the forest service will be able to work more efficiently. Goals and objectives of the project were identified in the 2016 Tongass Land...
Market winds down To the Editor: As another season comes to an end, we wanted to take a moment to thank our many supporters for helping make another year of The Market possible. Petersburg Economic Development Council is a deeply valued community partner and we are so grateful for their support. We also received a grant from the Alaska Farmers Market Association/USDA that helped with promotions and a batch of new stickers, thanks to the incredible artwork by Kaimia Designs. Above all else, thank...
In 2010 the Clausen Memorial Museum hired a geologist to help identify a portion of uncategorized geological specimens from the Reid Rock Collection. Starting in the 1950s until his death in 2005 Glenn Reid. Sr., collected precious metals, rocks and mineral specimens from Alaska, the lower 48 and abroad. Pieces from this collection are on display at Petersburg's Elementary, Middle and High schools as well as at Mountain View Manor. Even with these additional displays many of the pieces from the...
James Richard Schramek, 70, died at Providence Medical Center in Anchorage on August 28, 2019 from an unexpected GI bleed. On November 9, 1949 Jim was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota to Richard and Elaine Schramek. He was raised in Richfield, Minnesota. Attended Richfield High School and played Football and Baseball. In summers, he worked on the Arndt family farm in Owatonna, Minnesota. Jim followed the Schramek family's passion for camping, hunting and fishing. Deer, ducks, geese, squirrels, if... Full story
