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Petersburg High School will test students involved in interscholastic, in-person sports that involve competition and travel on a weekly basis as the Petersburg School District looks for ways to get students participating in activities again, according to school district officials at the Petersburg School Board meeting on Tuesday. The school district will be using BinaxNOW Antigen tests, which are a low-level indicator for possible COVID-19 infection. Only high school students and their coaches w...
Southeast Alaska Power Agency will likely have to raise rates to pay off bonding for the replacement of a damaged submarine cable, said SEAPA board voting member Bob Lynn at a Borough Assembly meeting Monday. At a recent SEAPA board meeting, board members discussed bonding as a way to pay for the approximately $14 million replacement submarine cable. SEAPA has to pay Sumitomo, a Japanese firm, for the cable at one time, but $14 million is nearly all SEAPA has in financial assets, said Lynn. The...
The Petersburg Medical Center has discovered that one of its employees may have broken PMC's code of conduct and violated federal healthcare privacy laws when the staff member accessed medical information of patients not under their direct care, according to a press release from PMC. An internal investigation was conducted, which determined the records were inappropriately viewed; however, the investigation found that the violation was an internal breach and patient information did not go beyond...
Despite the ongoing outbreak, PMC is still scheduled to hold their next two COVID-19 vaccine distribution clinics. The first will be held on March 5 and residents who received their first dose of the vaccine on Feb. 5 will receive their second dose, said PMC Infection Prevention and Quality Manager Liz Bacom at the COVID-19 community update on Feb. 26. The March 12 clinic will mostly be giving out first doses to residents, but some second doses will also be administered. Both vaccine clinics...
Instead of his usual report, Petersburg Medical Center CEO Phil Hofstetter asked Dr. Jennifer Hyer to give the PMC Board of Directors a detailed report of how the hospital has been responding to the local outbreak of COVID-19 at their meeting on Feb. 25. Hyer was on call during the weekend of Feb. 19, 20 and 21 when active cases of COVID-19 began increasing in Petersburg. The active cases were being identified from different locations around town. While PMC had always been able to trace...
To help the Parks and Recreation Department set priorities for the upcoming year, the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board voted in support of sending out a public interest survey at their meeting on Feb. 25. The advisory board was in agreement with their support of the survey and directed Parks and Recreation administrative assistant Theresa Craig to distribute the survey online. The survey is available on the Parks and Recreation Center's Facebook page and will be available to the public until...
Petersburg's active COVID-19 case count reached a new high of 67 cases on Wednesday, according to a joint press release from the Petersburg Borough and Petersburg Medical Center. Two cases were reported on Wednesday, and an additional two cases were added to Tuesday's overall case count. Two more residents were also deemed recovered by public health officials on Wednesday. Because cases were added to both Tuesday's and Wednesday's case count, Petersburg had an overall active case count of 67 on...
The Borough Assembly meetings for March have each been postponed to avoid holding two meetings within one week The first assembly meeting in March will be held on March 8 at 12 P.M. and the second meeting will be on March 22 at 6 P.M. The assembly postponed their February meetings to allow contractors to replace the Assembly Chamber's audio system. As a result, the last meeting in February was held on Feb. 22. The first meeting in March was scheduled just one week later on March 1. "Having a...
Despite higher patient volumes at Petersburg Medical Center, total gross revenue was down in January and even lower when compared to the same timeframe last year. PMC had budgeted for 150 home health visits in January, but staff conducted 286 home health visits, according to financial documents presented to the Petersburg Medical Center Board of Directors at their meeting on Feb. 25. Emergency room visits were also up 14 percent and lab tests were up 3.1 percent. Other services, like rehab...
(Juneau) - The Alaska Department of Fish and Game is announcing the 2021 sport fishing regulations for king salmon in Southeast Alaska and Yakutat. These regulations will be effective 12:01 a.m. Wednesday, March 3, 2021 through 11:59 p.m. Thursday, March 31, 2022. The regulations are: Alaskan Resident • The resident bag and possession limit is three king salmon, 28 inches or greater in length; Nonresident • The nonresident bag and possession limit is one king salmon, 28 inches or greater in length; • The nonresident annual limit is four king...
Seven more residents tested positive for COVID-19 on Wednesday, bringing Petersburg's total active case count to 36, according to a joint press release from the Petersburg Borough and Petersburg Medical Center issued Wednesday evening. A large number of the current positive cases have been the result of community spread, but Incident Commander Karl Hagerman said the EOC hasn't been able to pinpoint any one business or location that has led to community spread of the virus. In response to the...
An aviation accident report on the Guardian King Air 200 medical life flight that lost control en route to pick up a patient in Kake in January 2019 could not definitively identify the cause of the accident due to limited information available. The report was conducted by the National Transportation Safety Board. Investigators were unable to recover the entire wreckage, and the Cockpit Voice Recorder did not contain recordings from the flight, according to the report. Investigators also...
The Borough Assembly updated several local health mandates and an emergency directive at an emergency meeting Tuesday in response to the expiration of the state's emergency declaration. The health mandates had previously contained language that reflected similar health mandates at the state level, but Alaska's health mandates related to COVID-19 expired Feb. 14 along with the emergency declaration. The Assembly updated the language in several of the local health mandates in order to reinstate...
The Petersburg Medical Center has the potential to vaccinate residents who want but have not yet received their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine on March 12, but recipients will have to commit to getting the shot, said PMC Infection Prevention and Quality Manager Liz Bacom at the COVID-19 community update on Feb. 19. She asked those who have not put their name on PMC's COVID-19 vaccine waitlist to do so before the vaccine clinic on March 12 where first doses of the vaccine will be...
Two sample sites in the waters around Petersburg tested above the Alaska Water Quality Standard (WQS) for fecal coliform, according to a preliminary marine water quality report on Alaska's ports and shipping lanes by the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation. Water samples were taken at six locations in the Wrangell Narrows over the course of 30 days during the summer of 2020. While fecal coliform was identified at all six locations, mean concentrations of the bacteria was above the...
The Borough Assembly awarded a bid to Rainforest Contracting for the repairs to the Motor Pool Shop for an amount not to exceed $1,130,450 at their meeting on Monday. The borough's insurance company will only be covering repairs to the Motor Pool Shop that are related to the Aug. 2019 fire, which comes out to $1,074,800. The remaining $55,650 of the project will be funded by the borough's Property Development Fund and will be used to make repairs to the building that were identified prior to...
The Registration Area A (Southeast Alaska) Tanner crab harvest strategy establishes commercial Tanner crab fishing season length using estimated mature male biomass and the number of registered pots at the start of the fishery. As of 9:00 a.m., Wednesday, February 17, 2021, there are 58 pot vessels and 4,640 pots registered for the 2020/2021 commercial Tanner crab fishery. At the current estimated mature male biomass and effort level of 4,640 registered pots, the harvest strategy provides one...
The commercial Dungeness crab fishery in Registration Area A (Southeast) will close in Districts 1 and 2, and Section 13- B outside of the Sitka Sound Special Use Area by regulation at 11:59 p.m. on Sunday, February 28. All Dungeness crab must be landed within 24 hours of a closure [5 AAC 32.031(d)]. Vessel operators unable to meet this deadline must contact department shellfish staff (Joe Stratman: (907) 772-5238, (907) 518-0755) within the 24 hours following the closure to request...
Greeting, screening and testing services at James A. Johnson Airport will remain in place until June 30 for intrastate, interstate and international visitors under two health mandates passed by the Borough Assembly at a special meeting on Tuesday. "It's a good way to protect the community, and it gives people a free source for the testing most of them want," said Vice Mayor Jeigh Stanton Gregor. Public health mandate #9 had been in effect prior to Tuesday's meeting, but needed to be updated to...
The Borough Assembly awarded an equipment procurement contract for the Blind Slough Hydroelectric project to Gilbert Gilkes and Gordon, Ltd. for a total of $2,002,396 at their meeting Monday. Gilbert Gilkes and Gordon, Ltd., which is based out of the United Kingdom, was one of five companies that responded to Petersburg Municipal Power & Light's Request for Proposals. The company has agreed to defer the start of any work on the equipment until funding has been secured by the Borough. Utility...
The Petersburg Volunteer Fire Department responded to a house fire on Tuesday in the early morning hours, which likely left the building a total loss, said PVFD Assistant Fire Chief Dave Berg. A family of three awoke just before 4:45 A.M. on Feb. 16 when the smoke detectors in their home at Scow Bay Loop Rd. began going off, said Berg. They could also see flames through their living room window. None of the occupants were harmed in the fire, said Berg. The home is built on top of a garage,...
The Canadian government issued an order on Feb. 4 to prohibit cruise ships in all Canadian waters until Feb. 28, 2022, but Dave Berg, cofounder of Viking Travel, said the restriction would only affect one cruise line expected to port in Petersburg this summer. Victory Cruise Lines' foreign-flagged ship Ocean Victory is scheduled to port in Petersburg eight times this season, with the first stop expected on July 17. According to the Jones Act, which regulates maritime commerce in the United...
A local resident who has recently traveled has tested positive for COVID-19, which is the first case reported in at least the last seven days, according to a joint press release issued Wednesday between the Petersburg Borough and Petersburg Medical Center. The individual has been quarantining since their arrival in town while waiting for the results of their COVID-19 test. The individual is currently in isolation, and the Public Health Office has been contacted. The community risk level...
Alaska's disaster declaration, which was used to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, expired on Sunday after the state legislature and Gov. Mike Dunleavy failed to extend the declaration. Petersburg's Emergency Operations Center Incident Commander Karl Hagerman said some local health mandates are unaffected, but other local mandates are suspended until the Borough Assembly can update them on Monday. With the absence of a disaster declaration, Dunleavy issued four health advisories on Feb. 14...
Petersburg Medical Center administered a second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine on Feb. 11 to residents who received their first dose on Jan. 14, said PMC Director of Nursing Jennifer Bryner at the COVID-19 community update on Feb. 12. About 350 residents received their second dose of the vaccine on Feb. 11. An additional 50 doses were also administered to first time receivers during the vaccine clinic, said Bryner. Those that received their first dose on Feb. 11 will get their second shot on...
