Sorted by date Results 276 - 300 of 324
The Petersburg borough assembly unanimously voted in Bob Lynn by paper ballot to serve on the assembly seat left vacant by Sue Flint after she stepped down in early November. Lynn served on the committee charged with developing the borough charter the assembly now has the task to implement as it continues with borough formation. Lynn said he was actively against borough formation initially. “But now that it’s done, it’s time to move on and see what we can do to make the charter represent all the people who live in the borough,” Lynn said. Lynn... Full story
ANCHORAGE (AP) — Two environmental groups say the federal government is taking too long to decide whether a subspecies of gray wolf found in southeast Alaska old-growth forests should be considered for endangered species protection. In a letter Tuesday, the Center for Biological Diversity and Greenpeace urged the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to decide whether additional protections are needed for Alexander Archipelago wolves, which are found on Prince of Wales Island and are genetically distinct from other wolves in the Tongass National F...
KETCHIKAN — The changing face of visitation on the Tongass National Forest, along with the reality of shrinking budgets, has prompted Tongass managers to begin strategically planning for the future of the forest’s 152 recreation cabins. Increasing costs and declining funding resulted in a $600,000 budget shortfall in the forest’s cabin program this year. In the strategic plan, managers aim to identify cabins that are underused, dilapidated, or otherwise unsustainable, and explore how the forest can refocus available funding on those cabins whic...
WRANGELL — Local U.S. Forest Service employees express frustration with the ongoing government shutdown this week. The Wrangell Unit of the Tongass National Forest has been closed for 15 days following negotiations between the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives and the Democrat-controlled U.S. Senate Oct. 1. The office’s 28 employees have been instructed call a 1-800 phone number each day to determine whether the office will be reopened, according to Forest Service Ranger Bob Dalrymple. Dalrymple himself and one other per...
U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski intervened on behalf a Wrangell daycare operator after a US Forest Service officer issued her a citation in July for picnicking with her daycare children at Middle Ridge in the Tongass National Forest. US Forest Service Law enforcement officer Doug Ault fined Marilyn Mork $375 for operating a business on federal land without a permit. Mork said former U.S. Senator Frank Murkowski caught wind of the situation, made a copy of the citation and sent it to his daughter, Senator Murkowski. Murkowski happened to be meeting...
U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski and Petersburg residents had a conversation Tuesday night in the Sons of Norway Hall about community, regional and state issues. The first subject Murkowski brought up was the less than ideal condition of the Petersburg jail. “You were in the running with Bethel for the worst city jail,” Murkowski said. “And now Bethel’s (jail) is looking pretty good. You win the prize in my view, of all the communities that I’ve gone to, for the worst conditions.” Murkowski f...
July 26, 1913 – The Day is rapidly approaching when there will be no “waste places” of the earth. Modernism is sweeping aside all the old customs, traditions and habits of the world and there is no spot too remote or too small to escape his attention. A railroad is piercing that Africa where Livingstone faced countless deaths and where scores of other explorers found weird animals and strange men, to add to the truthful “fairy story” of nature's wonders. Australia has ceased to be a land of oddities and is yielding to the Anglo-Saxon's push and...
SITKA — Half a century of Sitka history in a 61-foot steel hull is being auctioned off by the U.S. Forest Service. The M/V Sitka Ranger, which entered service in 1959 as the floating presence of the Forest Service in the Tongass National Forest, is on the auction block. Roy Mitchell, deputy regional fleet manager for the Forest Service in Anchorage, said the Sitka Ranger and its sister ship the M/V Tongass Ranger are being auctioned off because there’s no longer enough field work in the cou...
Dean John Weeden, 82, passed away on July 17, 2013 at St. Mary's Assisted Living in Eureka, Mont. He was born on November 7, 1930 in Lynn, Mass. to Dagny Thoresen and John Sven Weeden (Widen). Age five to seventeen he lived in Brooklyn, N.Y. with his mother and step-father Ole Olsen. Dean hopped a train out west when he was seventeen years old launching his first job in the Forest Service doing seasonal work in Idaho. In 1951 he served in the Air Force as a Surgery Technician for the 452 Bomb...
The Tongass National Forest issued its Record of Decision and Final Environmental Impact Statement for the Big Thorne Project last week. The decision allows for the harvest of 148.9 million board feet from approximately 6,186 acres of old-growth and 2,299 acres of young-growth near Thorne Bay and Coffman Cove on Prince of Wales Island within the Thorne Bay Ranger District. According to Tongass National Forest Supervisor Forrest Cole, the U.S. Forest Service believes the action could help stabilize the timber industry in Southeast Alaska as the...
Local preference To the Editor: I attended the Borough Council Meeting on July 1, 2013. I was disappointed to see attendance was so low but maybe the listening audience was large. Other than Department Heads, Councilpersons, me, Joe Viechnicki and the new police chief, there was only one other person present. Acting Mayor Sue Flint conducted a short, sweet, and to the point meeting that everyone appreciated. Bravo. There were two things that bothered me. The first was personal in that they are going to enter into a contract with Mike Renfro...
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — More than 200 scientists have signed onto a letter asking Congress to enact legislation protecting 1.9 million acres of salmon habitat in this country's largest national forest. The proposal is billed at the “Tongass 77,” referring to the number of watersheds in the Tongass National Forest that would be protected from activities like logging, mine development and road-building. There is currently no bill pending in Congress but the roughly 230 scientists who signed the letter, dated Monday, as well as other activ...
June 7, 1913 – The Seattle Times says that a chain of ten hotels is intended to be built at the most interesting points throughout Alaska and the Yukon Territory, and at the cost of $30,000 for each. One of them will be built each year. The first is now finished and is located at Atlin Lake. Each hotel will be located on a tract of 120 acres of land and will be supplied with steam heat and all other modern conveniences. Mr. Dickeson, manager of the White Pass and Yukon Railroad in speaking of the project, said “The people of the United Sta...
SITKA (AP) — A couple escaped a landslide by running down a narrow, pebble beach away from the shifting mountain. The slide happened Sunday just as Kevin Knox, 41, and his girlfriend, Maggie Gallin, 28, returned from fishing in a rowboat to the National Forest Service cabin at Redoubt Lake, about 15 miles southwest of Sitka, KCAW reported. “We had just tied the boat up and Maggie was in the cabin, and it just let loose _ a huge piece off of the side of the mountain. I yelled for Maggie to run, to get out of the cabin. We started running dow...
Tonka Mess To the Editor: Thanks for this truth. Additionally, the Tonka mess goes far beyond these later-made changes. The Final EIS is devoid of important habitat & wildlife information that ADF&G put on record earlier in the Tonka planning process. That was removed at the direction of the State's Tongass timber tzar (in DNR), who executed the Parnell administration's political policy. The governor is entitled to his policy, but an EIS must be a fact-driven document. The Forest Service failed the public interest Larry Edwa...
ANCHORAGE (AP) — Alaska's challenge to the Clinton administration-era roadless rule in national forests was rejected Monday by a federal judge, who said it came too late to be considered. The rule that was put into place in January 2001 restricts road construction in national forest areas without roads. The Bush administration in 2003 exempted the vast Tongass National Forest, the nation's largest at nearly 26,563 square miles on Alaska's Panhandle. A federal judge in March 2011 overturned that decision and the state of Alaska sued to o...
During the March 5-6 meeting of the SEAPA Board of Directors, the reports of operations manager Steve Henson and special projects director Eric Wolfe highlighted a number of projects and new information related to the Tyee Lake Hydroelectric project. An analysis of a Petersburg electrical tower that is sloughing is a topic of importance in the report. “Petersburg Municipal Power and Light discovered a bank that was sloughing near the outside set of anchors on Tower 76-1M on Mitkof Island. There are two anchors per pole of the three pole s...
March 2, 1983 – The Crystal Lake Hatchery staff has a proposal before the Alaska Legislature to double their rearing capacity. Jim Billi, hatchery manager, told a large crowd of fishermen and interested townspeople at the February 18 meeting at the Counciil Chambers that it would only take a capital outlay of $3,000,000 and an additional $75,000 operating expenditure to do this. At the present time 800,000 kings and over 2,600,000 cohos are hatching out at the hatchery, Billi said. The hatchery will be releasing these smolts from 1981 a...
March 9, 1983 - Ground breaking for construction on a two-story addition to the Petersburg High School this summer will be recommended to the Petersburg School Board by an ad hoc committee. The ad hoc committee, set up by the school board, completed their study of school construction March 3. The recommendations of the 11 member committee and a possible floor plan were presented to school board members March 4 so they would be able to look over the proposals and act on the recommendations at their March 8 meeting. “The school board asked for t...
Senator Mark Begich has once again introduced legislation to repeal the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule. “It’s past time to eliminate this cookie cutter federal regulation that is stifling the Southeast Alaska economy,” Senator Begich said last week. “Southeast communities and small businesses need options to strengthen the region’s economy through responsible resource development like potential mining projects on Prince of Wales Island as well as economic timber sales.” Begich also added that roadways would be a path to greater eco...
Cruise ship sewage mixing zone To the Editor: It is with a feeling of pride that I can now tell family and friends that I am now a 'Cruise ship sewage mixing zone Alaskan commercial fisherman'. Imagine, out on the beautiful waters of Southeast Alaska, catching salmon from the fecal and heavy metal polluted waters. It's only a million people or so a season on the cruise ships. And for sure, once word gets out salmon and seafood consumers around the world will all want to purchase our fecal and heavy metal laced seafood. A nod of thanks to our...
WRANGELL — After carbon testing, a skull found on Government Slough last year has been found to be more that 1,000 years old – and is of Native Alaskan heritage. The skull, which was discovered by Wrangellite Vena Stough while hunting near the slough on Oct. 5, was first turned over to the Wrangell Police Department, who then handed it over to the Tongass National Forest supervisor’s office in Petersburg. According to U.S. Forest Service District Ranger Bob Dalrymple, the testing showed a range...
Dilution is the solution for pollution sums up the Parnell Administration policy when it comes to cruise ship discharges in Alaska waters. A bill being moved quickly by state lawmakers will repeal a 2006 citizens’ initiative that requires cruise ships to meet Alaska water quality standards at the point of discharge, and instead create mixing zones for dumping sewage, hazardous chemicals and other wastes. Alaskans won’t know where those zones are, as House Republicans rejected amendments to require disclosure of the locations. The measure, intro...
