Articles from the February 8, 2023 edition


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  • Halibut commission reduces Southeast commercial harvest limit 3%

    Anna Laffreey, Ketchikan Daily News|Feb 8, 2023

    A joint U.S.-Canadian commission voted last month to curtail halibut fishing along the Pacific coast this year. In Area 2C, which spans Southeast Alaska from the U.S.-Canada maritime border to Yakutat, the total allowable halibut take was set at 5.85 million pounds for 2023, down 1% from the 5.91 million pounds allowed in 2022, the International Pacific Halibut Commission announced. Guided recreational or charter fishermen can catch 800,000 pounds of halibut in Area 2C. Non-guided recreational fishermen in Area 2C are expected to catch 1.14...

  • Ketchikan shipyard operator sold to international private equity firm

    Ketchikan Daily News|Feb 8, 2023

    The parent company of Vigor Industrial — whose subsidiary Vigor Alaska operates the state-owned Ketchikan Shipyard — is being sold to an affiliate of international private equity firm Lone Star Funds. Financial terms of the deal involving the sale of the parent company, Titan Acquisition Holdings, were not disclosed in an announcement published last Friday by the Carlyle Group private investment firm. Titan was formed in 2019 by Carlyle and the private equity firm Stellex Capital Management, bringing together the Portland-based Vigor Industrial...

  • Legislature considers restoring traditional pensions for public employees

    Iris Samuels, Anchorage Daily News|Feb 8, 2023

    JUNEAU — Amid a deepening crisis in recruiting and keeping state workers, the Alaska Legislature is again considering measures to recreate a pension plan for public employees, but disagreements on the type and extent of the plan mean a long path ahead. A deficit of billions of dollars led lawmakers in 2006 to do away with the state’s defined-benefits plans, which gave state and municipal employees a dependable pension calculated on their years of service and average salary, not reliant on the ups and downs of the stock market. Instead, the stat...

  • EPA uses veto power and blocks proposed Pebble Mine

    Becky Bohrer and Patrick Whittle, Associated Press|Feb 8, 2023

    The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency took an unusually strong step Jan. 31 and blocked a proposed Alaska mine heralded by backers as the most significant undeveloped copper and gold resource in the world. The EPA based its veto on concerns over the mine’s potential environmental damage to Alaska lands and waters that support the world’s largest sockeye salmon fishery. The move, cheered by Alaska Native tribes and environmentalists and condemned by some state officials and mining interests, deals a heavy blow to the proposed Pebble Min...

  • BLM review recommends approval of $8 billion Alaska oil project

    Becky Bohrer and Matthew Daly, Associated Press|Feb 8, 2023

    The Biden administration released a long-awaited study Feb. 1 that recommends allowing an $8 billion oil development on Alaska’s North Slope that supporters say could boost U.S. energy security but that climate activists decry as a “carbon bomb.” The move — while not final — drew immediate anger from environmentalists who saw it as a betrayal of the president’s pledges to reduce carbon emissions and promote clean energy sources. ConocoPhillips had proposed five drilling sites as part of its Willow project. The approach listed as the preferr...

  • Cameras could replace federally required observers on fishing vessels

    Joshua Goodman, Associated Press|Feb 8, 2023

    PORTLAND, Maine (AP) - For years, Mark Hager's job as an observer aboard New England fishing boats made him a marked man, seen as a meddling cop on the ocean, counting and scrutinizing every cod, haddock and flounder to enforce rules and help set crucial quotas. On one particularly perilous voyage, he spent 12 days at sea and no crew member uttered even a single word to him. Now Hager is working to replace such federally mandated observers with high-definition cameras affixed to fishing boat...

  • Public Defender Agency short staff, will limit new clients in Bethel and Nome

    The Associated Press|Feb 8, 2023

    ANCHORAGE (AP) — A state agency that represents Alaskans who cannot afford their own attorneys intends this month to stop taking clients facing serious felony charges in parts of southwest and western Alaska due to staffing shortages. Samantha Cherot, head of the Alaska Public Defender Agency, notified the judges overseeing the Nome and Bethel judicial districts of the plans on Jan. 31, the Anchorage Daily News reported. The agency asked that Superior Court judges in those regions not assign new cases to the agency for certain felonies that c...

  • Classified ads

    Feb 8, 2023

    HELP WANTED Wrangell Senior Center is seeking a part-time driver. $17/hour. Position is 16 hours a week, Monday and Tuesday. Benefits include a 403b retirement account, employee assistance program, 12 paid holidays. Background check required. Apply online at www.ccsak. org/jobs. For more information, contact Solvay Gillen at 907-874-2066. GARAGE SALE BRAVE will host a garage sale 1 to 6 p.m. Friday, Feb. 10, and 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, Feb 11, at the Island of Faith Lutheran Church. BOAT FOR SALE 2013 inspected 14-passenger Bentz boat with...

  • Police report

    Feb 8, 2023

    Monday, Jan. 30 Traffic stop: Verbal working for expired registration. Traffic stop: Citations issued for expired registration and failure to provide proof of insurance. Citizen assist: Unlock vehicle. Agency assist: Hoonah Police Department. Motor vehicle accident. Agency assist: Fire Department. Welfare check. Tuesday, Jan. 31 Welfare check: Person is out of town. Traffic stop: Citation issued for failure to provide proof of insurance. Traffic stop: Verbal warning for improper display of tabs. Traffic stop: Citation issued for speeding in a s...

  • Peltola says Congress wastes time bickering rather than solving problems

    Riley Rogerson, Anchorage Daily News|Feb 8, 2023

    WASHINGTON — Alaska Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola has lamented “partisan bickering” on Capitol Hill during the first weeks of the new Congress. “One of the things that has not necessarily surprised me but disappointed me is how little actual work we’re doing even now this far into the session,” Peltola told reporters last Thursday. Peltola pointed to two measures she had just voted on. The first was on a Republican-led effort to remove Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Minnesota Democrat, from the Foreign Affairs Committee for her past comments regarding I...

  • Lawsuit challenges use of state funds at private or religious schools

    Lisa Phu, Alaska Beacon|Feb 8, 2023

    The question is resurfacing, but this time in a lawsuit: Can families enrolled in a state-funded correspondence program use their allotment to pay for private school classes? Last June, the Alaska Department of Education didn’t know the answer, so they asked the state’s attorney general’s office, which offered a response that drew some lines but left room for interpretation. Now, some Alaska families are suing the state with the hope of getting a definitive answer. “It’s a constitutional issue,” said Tom Klaameyer, president of NEA-Alaska,... Full story

  • Protections could end for grizzlies around Yellowstone, Glacier national parks

    The Associated Press|Feb 8, 2023

    BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — The Biden administration took a first step Feb. 3 toward ending federal protections for grizzly bears in the northern Rocky Mountains, which would open the door to future hunting in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said state officials provided “substantial” information that grizzlies have recovered from the threat of extinction in the regions surrounding Yellowstone and Glacier national parks. But federal officials rejected claims by Idaho that protections should be lifted beyond those...