Sorted by date Results 4113 - 4137 of 5553
JUNEAU (AP) — A team of aviation investigators worked over the weekend in a remote, mountainous site in southeast Alaska to determine what caused the crash of a sightseeing plane that killed eight cruise ship passengers and the aircraft’s pilot. The DeHavilland DHC-3 Otter turboprop – also known as a floatplane – went down June 25. The excursion was sold through the cruise company Holland America. Seven investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board made it to the crash site on Saturday morning and are spending the day scourin...
JUNEAU (AP) — Alaska is facing the first tax increase in a decade after Governor Bill Walker signed the measure into law on Saturday morning. The law places new taxes on wholesale refined fuel, including gasoline and heating oil but not aviation fuel or fuel used by the Alaska Marine Highway, the Juneau Empire reported. The new tax will fund the oil spill prevention and response division of the Department of Environmental Conservation. The division is normally funded by oil revenue, but crude prices have declined and left a m...
Ahead of next month’s start to the football season, Alaska’s largest tribal group has made clear it will not be rooting for one of the National Football League’s 32 franchises by boycotting its primary sponsor. Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska gave notice last week to all tribal employees to discontinue use of FedEx services due to its sponsorship of the Washington Redskins. The announcement follows the council’s adoption of a resolution formally opposing the NFL team’s controversial name, urging FedEx to disass...
KETCHIKAN – As the Fourth of July holiday approaches, residents, visitors and campers are reminded that all fireworks, including sparklers, are prohibited in the Tongass National Forest. “People assume the restrictions apply just to developed recreations areas managed by the Forest Service, including campgrounds, picnic areas and day use areas,” said Forest Fire Management Officer Tristan Fluharty, “but no fireworks or pyrotechnic device of any kind may be discharged anywhere within the National Forests, regardless of weather conditi...
Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski’s office announced last week the state will be receiving $26.2 million from Department of the Interior through the Payments in Lieu of Taxes (PILT) program. Twenty-nine municipalities have been chosen for PILT payments, based in part on federally-managed acreages within their jurisdictions. With 1.6 million acres, the City and Borough of Wrangell will receive $379,944 this year through the program; with 1.8 million acres, Petersburg will receive $596,631. PILT provides monetary compensation to local governments c...
United Way of Southeast Alaska is currently accepting applications for its 2015/16 Community Impact Grant program. Up to $30,000 in funds will be awarded to applicants who successfully demonstrate community needs pertaining to health, education, or income stability. The criteria used in past years will guide the competitive selection process, such as collaboration, matching funds and having a clearly-stated, focused and achievable goal with measurable outcomes. Each award distributed carries an amount of up to $3,500, and can be used for materi...
ANCHORAGE (AP) — One Royal Dutch Shell offshore drill rig is headed to Alaska and a second is poised to leave, despite lacking final federal permits that would allow exploratory drilling and possible confirmation of rich oil reserves under the Chukchi Sea. A spokesman for Royal Dutch Shell PLC said that's routine. But an attorney for Oceana, one of dozens of groups objecting to Arctic offshore drilling, said seeing Shell's flotilla sail north puts pressure on federal agencies to sign off on the permits. ``They're not conditions that lead to g...
A "time honored tradition," U.S. Coast Guard Lt. Peter Vermeer took command of the USCGC Anacapa on Tuesday afternoon. Vermeer relieved Lt. Kathryn Cyr of her duty during the Change of Command Ceremony at Petersburg's Community Center in front of a crowd of about 60. Cyr, who had served as the cutter's commanding officer since 2013, will be moving to North Carolina with her husband, Lee Coyle, and their 5-year-old son, Gilbert, to attend graduate school. "Lt. Cyr, you have done a fantastic...
The Petersburg Ranger District is looking for anyone with information regarding a possible arson at Man Made Hole Recreation Area. On June 16, the district's "recreation technician visited the site and found it had been vandalized," said Brad Hunter, recreation and wilderness manager. He added that it had occurred sometime between June 12, the technician's last visit, and June 16. "Somebody torched it," Hunter said. The perpetrator threw fuel down into the vault toilet and left a trail of... Full story
Justices with the Alaska Supreme Court are now mulling over the boundary dispute case between Petersburg and Juneau. If Juneau prevails, Petersburg could be forced to revert back to city status. The City and Borough of Juneau (CBJ) filed an appeal with the Supreme Court over a Superior Court Judge’s ruling in favor of the newly formed Petersburg Borough’s northern boundary line, which Juneau had earlier sought to annex, in March 2014. The Alaska Supreme Court heard both sides’ arguments on June 17 in Anchorage. Juneau attorney Amy Mead said... Full story
Traveling across Alaska to address the problem of domestic violence, Roberta James, domestic abuse specialist with Tribal Family and Youth Services, stopped by Petersburg on Monday. Provided by the Central Council Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska, Tribal Family and Youth Services uses a grant to travel to communities and work primarily with natives. “We all know there’s a high rate of domestic violence in Alaska,” James said. “Everyone is trying to do something.” A 2010 University of Alaska Anchorage survey showed that out of every... Full story
Paine & Partners, LLC of San Francisco announced Friday that it’s entered into agreements to sell Icicle Seafoods to two groups. According to the press release, Convergence Holdings, Inc. will acquire Icicle’s land-based wild seafood processing and farmed salmon activities while Dominion Catchers, LLC will acquire the company’s harvesting and processing vessels, as well as associated fishing rights. Paine & Partners bought Icicle in 2007. The seafood company began in 1965 when a group of employees and fishermen in Petersburg bought the Pacif...
With recent state budget cuts, the 1st Judicial District in Juneau now has more courts in its district than lawyers to cover them. Juneau District Attorney James Scott will be covering Petersburg’s criminal cases until a long-term plan is ironed out. The office had to cut Assistant District Attorney Nick Polasky loose and lost half its staff. “That was unfortunate, and we’re sorry to lose him,” Scott said. Statewide, the Department of Law lost 15 positions, three of which were attorneys, according to spokeswoman Cori Mills. The positio...
The Petersburg School District doesn’t “anticipate any large fluctuations” with the budget the state passed June 11, Finance Director Karen Quitslund said. The school board passed the district’s budget just two days before, on June 9, in order to meet a state deadline. But what the legislature passed “is what the school district projected for our operating budget,” Quitslund said. As planned, the district is losing $150,000 in HB278 and $30,000 in food grants. The Healthy Living grant that was a concern is being partially funded, though the...
Alaska State Wildlife Trooper Cody Lister is investigating a vehicle fire from the weekend, the second suspicious one in about a week's time. The first occurred sometime between June 12 and June 16 at Man Made Hole Recreation Area, where a vault toilet was torched, Recreation and Wilderness Manager Brad Hunter said. It's being investigated by the Petersburg Park Ranger District. The second fire, also "suspicious in nature," Assistant Fire Chief Dave Berg said, occurred Sunday night, around 11:30...
WRANGELL — The Red Chris mine in neighboring British Columbia passed its final bureaucratic hurdle, after the province’s Ministry of Energy and Mines issued a Mines Act permit amendment last Friday. The mine’s owning company, Imperial Metals, had earlier been granted its Environmental Management Act Permit on June 15, allowing Red Chris to begin discharging tailings into its tailings storage facility. From there, water can be discharged subject to provincial water quality guidelines. The Red Chris property is located in the province’s northwe...
WRANGELL — The United States Forest Service this month released a new fact sheet regarding wild salmon populations in the Tongass National Forest, available online and at the agency’s various offices. “It’s to demonstrate to the public just how important salmon are,” explained Martin Hutten, a supervisory biologist with the Wrangell Ranger District. The facts speak pretty clearly for themselves. The waters of the Tongass National Forest produce more wild salmon than all other national forests combined. Supporting these populations, TNF biologis...
WRANGELL — Wrangell Medical Center interim CEO Marla Sanger last week announced her intention to conclude her contract on October 30. In a letter addressed to friends and colleagues, she explained the decision was a difficult one, but Sanger will be returning to Vancouver, Wash., to be with family. Sanger had initially been brought aboard in November 2012 as part of PeaceHealth’s leadership contract with Wrangell’s hospital. Initially the contract was to have lasted only a year, but Sanger stayed on as the hospital transitioned past a troub...
JUNEAU (AP) — Congress is picking up a bill that would create corporations for residents of five southeast Alaska communities left out of a landmark land settlement decades ago. The bill authored by U.S. Rep. Don Young went before the House Subcommittee on Indian and Alaska Native Affairs Wednesday, the southeast Alaska radio network CoastAlaska reported. The Alaska Republican chaired the hearing. Earlier this year, U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, introduced similar legislation. Haines, Petersburg, Wrangell, Ketchikan and Tenakee were e...
JUNEAU (AP) — Thousands of Alaskans will have to find a new insurer after a shake-up in the state's health insurance market. Aetna and State Farm plan to pull out of the individual plan market in Alaska, and Assurant Health plans to leave the health insurance market altogether, state Division of Insurance Director Lori Wing-Heier said Monday. At the end of 2014, the companies covered fewer than 6,000 policyholders, she said. Two major insurers remain for individual policies, Premera Blue Cross Blue Shield and Moda Health. Wing-Heier said the d...
The first ever National HIV Testing Week for the U.S. will be observed June 21 – 27. During this week, community partners throughout Alaska are encouraging people to become aware of their HIV status. Free, confidential, rapid testing is available at many sites, including the offices of the Alaskan AIDS Assistance Association (Four A’s) in Anchorage and Juneau. National HIV Testing Week is sponsored by a broad coalition of national organizations. It leads up to and includes June 27, which has long been recognized as National HIV Testing Day...
Their adventures were always meant to be educational in addition to fun, but two stuffed animals ended up teaching a different sort of lesson after taking an unplanned trip on a state ferry. Eight-year-old Kate Thompson was thrilled to be reunited last week with her traveling companion, Piglet, and her friend's sea turtle, Aurora, after a post her mother made about losing the stuffed animals went viral on social media. "I wanted to teach her when you make a mistake, you admit to it and do the...
The state legislature has finally reached a budget agreement, drawing a “collective sigh of relief from Alaska,” as Rep. Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins (D-Sitka) put it. The $5 billion budget will include funds pulled from the Constitutional Budget Reserve to balance it. The state still faces a nearly $4 billion budget hole in fiscal year 2017. This year’s legislative session went over seven weeks as legislators couldn’t reach a compromise. It sparked the possibility of a partial government shutdown on July 1 that had Governor Bill Walker sending... Full story
Dungeness crab season is now open, and fishermen are flocking to the sea earlier. This time last year, there were 151 permits registered, Alaska Department of Fish and Game Petersburg Shellfish Biologist Joe Stratman said. The 2014-15 season ended with 192 permit holders. This year, there are already 193 permits registered, he added. "We have an increase in effort this year," Stratman said. And the results of last year's season may be a contributor, he added. The 2014-15 season was a good one... Full story
The Public Safety Advisory Board is forwarding a proposed increase in ambulance rates to the Borough Assembly. The proposed increases range in cost from just over $300 to $827, depending on the level of service needed. The most emergent, Advanced Life Support (ALS) Level 2, would be the highest as the most care is needed. “We currently are $300 flat rate. It doesn’t matter what type of call it is,” said Sandy Dixson, Emergency Medical Services and Fire Director, during Wednesday’s meeting. Any adjustments would reflect Medicare rates, she add... Full story
