Sorted by date Results 26 - 50 of 237
The state of Alaska, a coalition of business groups and a pair of electric-power organizations have opened a new round in the generation-long fight over environmental protections in Southeast Alaska’s Tongass National Forest. On Sept. 8, the state and two other groups of plaintiffs filed three separate federal lawsuits to challenge a Biden administration rule restricting new roads in parts of the forest, which is home to some of America’s last stands of old-growth trees. Each lawsuit asks U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason to ove...
A legal challenge by the state to the Biden administration’s reinstatement of the roadless rule, banning logging and road building on more than nine million acres in the Tongass National Forest, was filed Friday, Sept. 8, in federal court. The complaint continues more than two decades of battles over the roadless rule protections initially enacted in 2001 under a policy initiated by then-President Bill Clinton. In recent years then-President Donald Trump nullified the policy and opened the forest area to development, with the administration o...
Scientists and staff with the U.S. Forest Service are hopeful that the blackheaded budworm outbreak that began three years ago throughout the Tongass National Forest is beginning to decline. Data collected earlier this year revealed not only the extent of the damage done by the half-inch insect but evidence showed the worms are dying off. Elizabeth Graham, an entomologist with the Forest Service, said in a news conference on July 20 she has seen firsthand that there is lower activity of the bug...
John Edgington was born in southern California and after high school he went to Alaska for the first time as a summer stream guard for the Department of the Interior, before Alaska statehood. After meeting and marrying the love of his life, Michale, at Oregon State University, John completed his Masters degree in fisheries at University of Idaho. He became a biologist for the State of Oklahoma and after the birth of his daughter Sarah, the family moved to Fairbanks, Alaska, where John worked... Full story
The U.S. Forest Service is still seeking volunteers to fill out seats on the South Tongass Secure Rural Schools Resource Advisory Committee (SRS RAC), but with the deadline to apply fast approaching the committee is at risk of not having enough members to hold meetings. According to the Forest Service, RACs review proposals for projects on National Forest System lands, provide advice to the department, and vote on recommendations for the allocation of federal Secure Rural Schools Act funding to...
The U.S. Forest Service is seeing a nationwide push for new employees as they expand their operations, driven by an increase in funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act. "So all this additional funding gave us additional work and we need additional people to do that," Petersburg District Ranger Ray Born said. The Petersburg Ranger District is hiring mostly for technician positions including biological technicians to conduct surveys and recreation...
The Tongass National Forest has approved the Organized Village of Kake's request to use a U.S. Forest Service facility at Portage Bay as a cultural healing center according to an announcement from the department last week. The OVK plans to establish a program centered on cultural healing that would provide counseling to people struggling with alcohol, substance abuse, and other issues and reconnect them with their cultural identity. The program would be based out of the Forest Service's...
Unsettled Science To the Editor: This letter is in response to Sam Bunge’s response to my letter two weeks ago. The contention is based on the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) petition. Sam’s letter states according to Wikipedia.”The authenticity and methods of the petitioners as well as the signatories credentials have been questioned, and the project has been characterized as a disinformation campaign engaged in climate change denial.” My response: according to the University of Pittsburgh Library system,...
The Biden administration will ban new logging roads and most development in much of Southeast Alaska’s Tongass National Forest, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced Wednesday. The decision, which repeals a 2020 USDA action under the Trump administration, continues a quarter-century of action and counter-action over development in the region, which contains the world’s largest temperate coastal rainforest and is home to more than 72,000 people. “As our nation’s largest national forest and the largest intact temperate rainforest in the... Full story
The Petersburg and Wrangell Ranger Districts are seeking comments for nine proposed cabins as the U.S. Forest Service looks to construct new cabins in areas that are closer to communities and accessible by road or saltwater. According to the project's scoping letter, the Forest Service plans to redistribute the cabin system on the Tongass National Forest to meet increasing demand and to make cabins easier to travel to and easier to maintain. The four proposed cabins in the Petersburg area...
The U.S. Forest Service is seeking public input on proposed cabin projects in Alaska made possible through funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL). Of the $18 million allocated to the Forest Service for recreation cabins and historic buildings, $14.4 million will go toward cabin projects on the Tongass and Chugach National Forests. Over 50 cabin projects have been proposed across Alaska. And though only a handful will be funded, projects in the Petersburg and Wrangell Ranger...
WRANGELL – The U.S. Forest Service spent last week showing that the wildlife at Anan Creek aren't your average bears. From the chilliest to the chunkiest, the inaugural Anan Bear Awards were posted via Facebook from Oct. 3 to Oct. 7, honoring nine bears for their unique personalities. Paul Robbins, public affairs officer for the Tongass National Forest, said the awards are modeled after the Katmai National Park and Preserve's Fat Bear Week held at the same time. In that event, National Park Serv...
WRANGELL—“Not happy” was how Borough Manager Jeff Good described his mood last week when he received word that Wrangell was left off the list of Alaska communities sharing in $27 million in the final round of federal pandemic assistance funding. Wrangell was not alone in receiving nothing. Juneau, Sitka and Anchorage also came up empty. The funding formula was based on federal acreage within each borough, with population and economic conditions, such as poverty levels and unemployment, factoring into the formula. “I think Treasury got it wron...
(AP) - A landslide triggered by record rainfall significantly damaged three homes, prompted the evacuation of about a dozen residents and caused power outages in downtown Juneau, Alaska's capital city. Geological assessment teams determined Tuesday that favorable weather has returned the threat level to pre-slide levels. The city's public works department was preparing to begin removing debris, city spokesperson Meredith Thatcher said. Of the three homes, one was completely destroyed as it came...
Look around Southeast and you will see a lot of evergreen trees that aren't so green. Southeast Alaska's hemlock and spruce trees are fending off an assault by a number of pests and diseases, most notably a caterpillar that causes the conifers to turn reddish-brown. The main culprit is the western blackheaded budworm, a moth caterpillar that feeds on hemlock and spruce needles, according to U.S. Forest Service Alaska Region entomologist Elizabeth Graham in Juneau. Graham said Southeast trees...
WRANGELL-If visitors read the bear-sighting sheet at Anan Wildlife Observatory, which the workers fill out every season, bear names would sound more like tax forms: 7-05-A, for the first bear spotted on the stream to fish on July 5, and 7-05-B, for the second bear spotted on July 5. Well, humans only do so well with numbering systems before our penchant for nicknames kicks in: Casino, Crack and Scuba Sue, to name a few. Bear naming can be a controversial issue, Dee Galla, outdoor recreation...
The United States Forest Service announced plans Monday to improve three sites within the Tongass National Forest's Petersburg Ranger District. According to decision memos released by the USFS and signed by Petersburg District Ranger Ted Sandhofer earlier this month, the three sites include the Blind River Rapids, Crane Lake Trail, and Ohmer Creek. The first memo authorized the construction of a replacement shelter at Blind River Rapids and the addition of a picnic table. According to the memo,...
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is seeking to repeal the 2020 Alaska Roadless Rule which could restore protections to roadless areas within the Tongass National Forest according to an announcement from November 23. The 2020 Alaska Roadless Rule, approved under the Trump administration on October 29, 2020, allowed for road construction and timber harvesting in the Tongass which was previously protected by the 2001 Roadless Rule according to the USDA. The repeal comes as the department...
Former and current secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Thomas Vilsack, who was instrumental in reimposing the 2001 roadless rule on the Tongass National Forest in 2011 and is planning to reimpose it again before Nov. 1, has announced “a new Southeast Alaska Sustainability Strategy “to help support a diverse economy, enhance community resilience, and conserve natural resources.” This is to be “a collaborative process to invest approximately $25 million in financial and technical resources in sustainable opportunities for economi...
July 15, 1921 Buschmann’s first addition to Petersburg will be placed on the market within the next few weeks, according to John Thormadsater who is in charge of the land. H. P. Crowthert, civil engineer, arrived from Ketchikan on a recent boat and is in charge of the platting of the land which will be laid off into lots and blocks. The lots will be 50x100 feet and the streets will be of the same width as the present streets in town which they will be a continuation of. The land being platted is located on the Buschmann homestead south of town...
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — The federal government announced plans Friday to “repeal or replace” a decision by the Trump administration last fall to lift restrictions on logging and road building in a southeast Alaska rainforest that provides habitat for wolves, bears and salmon. Conservationists cheered the announcement as a positive step. Republican Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy criticized it and vowed to use “every tool available to push back.” The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s plans were announced on a federal regulatory site with little deta...
The Borough Assembly held a work session with staff from Alaska's federal delegation to discuss Alaska Natives Without Land legislation that will be introduced to the United States Senate in the coming weeks. The meeting is part of a series of work sessions the delegation is hosting throughout the region to gather feedback regarding the latest version of the Unrecognized Southeast Alaska Native Communities Recognition and Compensation Act. Sen. Lisa Murkowski originally introduced the act in...
A motion to support the 2020 Tongass Exemption Rule failed to gain a second at a Borough Assembly meeting on Monday. Mayor Mark Jensen requested the action item be added to the assembly's agenda as a result of a March 23 press release from the Gov. Mike Dunleavy who asked for support of the 2020 Tongass Exemption Rule from Southeast Alaska communities. Assembly Member Bob Lynn made a motion to support the legislation, but his motion failed to gain a second. Because the motion wasn't seconded, th...
Six people addressed the Borough Assembly at a work session on March 10 to express their support and opposition to legislation that would transfer 23,040 acres of federal land within the Petersburg Borough to an Urban Corporation. The intention of the work session was to give the public an opportunity to share their opinions with the Borough Assembly on the Unrecognized Southeast Alaska Native Communities Recognition and Compensation Act before the bill is reintroduced to the 117th United...
A 2020 audit of the Alaska Region timber sales program by the Forest Service Financial Compliance & Oversight Branch of the United States Department of Agriculture concluded that two timber contracts in the Tongass National Forest had been mismanaged. According to the audit, the timber sale cruising, appraisal, sale preparation and contracting program for the Big Thorne Stewardship Contract (BTSC) and the Kosciusko Good Neighbor Authority Agreement (KGNAA) weren’t always managed in accordance w...
