Sorted by date Results 1061 - 1085 of 7954
After being shut down for less than a week, the borough-operated burn pit at the solid waste transfer station is back in operation. Crews salvaged enough material to rebuild the burn pit a little farther away from the cliff that dumped a rockslide on the site Oct. 6. Workers retrieved the metal grates from the slide debris, along with enough of the concrete blocks to rebuild the burn platform, said Tom Wetor, Public Works director. Nothing was damaged so much that it could not be reused. The site reopened on Wednesday, Oct. 11, to accept wood...
The Wrangell Athletic Club, created to raise money for school sports activities, has elected high school cross-country coach Mason Villarma as its first president. The group held its second organizational meeting Sept. 27, with its next meeting scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 25, in the chamber of commerce office at the Stikine Inn. The new board is working to get its IRS nonprofit status, which would allow the group to raise money and accept donations. Leslie Cummings, who was elected club secretary, reported high school wrestling...
In its first meeting after the Oct. 3 municipal election, the school board voted in David Wilson to serve another year as board president. The board at its Oct. 9 meeting also selected Brittani Robbins to serve as vice president and Angela Allen to serve as board secretary. It was the first meeting for John DeRuyter, who was elected Oct. 3 to serve a three-year term on the board....
The Southeast salmon drift gillnet season officially closed Thursday, Oct. 12, with the state reporting the harvest came in below the 10-year average of 2013-2022 for all species other than chum salmon. Though overall run strengths for all species other than king salmon “were generally good to excellent” in Southeast, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game reported Oct. 12, the drift gillnet harvest was weaker than usual for several reasons. The state reported there were fewer commercial gillnetters working — 341 this year, down by 20 boats...
Alaska fishermen will be able to harvest red king crab, the largest and most lucrative of all the Bering Sea crab species, for the first time in two years, offering a slight reprieve to the beleaguered fishery beset by low numbers likely exacerbated by climate change. There was no such rebound for snow crab, however, and that fishery will remain closed for a second straight year, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced on Oct. 6. “The Bristol Bay red king crab fishery for the prior two seasons were closed based on low abundance and par...
A year after state officials imposed unprecedented shutdowns on crab fishing in the Bering Sea, the snow crab population is in even worse shape than it was last year, when the Alaska Department of Fish and Game canceled the 2022-23 harvest. Survey results were presented Oct. 4 in Anchorage to the advisory panel of the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, which is charged by the federal government with managing fisheries in the region. The presentation was by Mike Litzow, a National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries biologist...
More than 63% of Sitka voters cast ballots Oct. 3 to approve a 1% seasonal sales tax increase to provide more funding for school repairs and construction. The ballot measure will raise the sales tax from 5% to 6% from April 1 through Sept. 30, starting next year. The sales tax passed 1,058 to 594. Sitka had a 1% seasonal sales tax for 20 years to cover the city’s share of school construction bonds, but it ended June 30 this year when the tax had raised enough to pay off the bonds. The new seasonal tax addition approved by voters this month i...
Sitka’s municipal clerk has notified resident Larry Edwards that his application to circulate a petition for a ballot initiative to limit cruise ship visitors to Sitka has been turned down. Clerk Sara Peterson notified Edwards that the proposal would be an “impermissible appropriation of a public asset,” which is prohibited by the state constitution’s provision for citizen initiatives. Edwards filed the application on Sept. 15, with 43 other co-sponsors, in response to the growth in cruise ship visitation which reached record numbers in 2022...
While ground work is underway at the Alder Top Village (Keishangita.’aan) subdivision upland from Shoemaker Bay, borough officials are at work researching options for how the residential lots — as many as 42 — will be sold. The sale is expected by next summer or fall. “People are excited about it,” said Kate Thomas, the borough’s economic development director. The community has never seen so many building lots come up for sale at one time, she said in an interview Friday, Oct. 6. “This is a new opportunity for us.” Borough officials want...
As the downtown barge ramp nears the end of its useful life, the borough is weighing its options for replacing and possibly relocating this piece of critical infrastructure. Assembly members and borough staff discussed replacing the ramp in its present location or moving it to 6-Mile or the Marine Service Center. Alternative locations for the ramp could free up the downtown area for tourism development but might also inconvenience the shipping companies that prefer to deliver their freight directly to downtown businesses. The ramp’s life e...
A team in Coffman Cove helped set free two killer whales that had been trapped in Barnes Lake on northeast Prince of Wales Island since mid-August for six weeks, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The orcas presumably stranded themselves by chasing prey into the lake during a high-tide cycle. Transient, or Bigg’s, killer whales are a genetically and culturally distinct population of orcas that live in the Pacific Northwest and feed primarily on marine mammals, according to NOAA. Barnes Lake has two entrances f...
Clint Kolarich, who served as Wrangell's district ranger since June 2019, has moved to Ketchikan to work as one of the Tongass National Forest's two deputy forest supervisors. He officially stepped into the new job on Sept. 13. District employee Austin O'Brien will step in as his interim replacement for the next 120 days. In the Wrangell district, Kolarich was responsible for the management of the area's natural resources. "It's all the folks in the district that do the work," he said. "The dist...
Wrangell may soon be home to its own unique variety of beer. James Leslie of Alaska Waters has plans to open the town’s first brewery in a century, and though he still has plenty of permitting hurdles left to clear, the borough assembly had no objection to his state brewery license at its Sept. 26 meeting. He hopes to start brewing in winter of next year at the very earliest. Opening a brewery “has always been bouncing around in my head,” said Leslie. “I’ve messed around with brewing a little bit. It would be cool if there was a brewery h...
The community’s burn pit at the solid waste transfer station on the north end of the island is closed until further notice after a rockslide Friday morning, Oct. 6, destroyed the steel racks, I-beams and concrete blocks at the facility. “Due to concerns with stability of the cliffside, and the need to rebuild the burn pit, wood waste, brush and large burnables will not be accepted until further notice,” said a borough notice issued on Friday. “The area around the burn pit has been barricaded off and is off-limits to the public.” Though th...
Alaska Seaplanes has decided to shut down its Wrangell and Petersburg operations, citing poor economics. Its last flights to the communities are scheduled for Oct. 31. “Unfortunately, it wasn’t financially sustainable with the ridership,” Carl Ramseth, general manager, said Thursday, Oct. 5. “It hurts to pull out of those two communities.” Alaska Seaplanes started scheduled service into Petersburg in spring 2021, with daily flights from Juneau, and added a Sitka-Petersburg-Wrangell-Sitka flight in May 2022. The air service, which was founded i...
New voices are sought in addition to returning singers as the community chorale begins rehearsals for the 2023 Christmas concert on Monday, Oct. 16, in the high school music room. “I never know until we have our first rehearsal,” chorale director Bonnie Demerjian said of how many people to expect at the first rehearsal. “We have a group of people that have been with the (chorale) well over 20 years, and then every year we get new people, so it’s always a surprise.” While the chorale is always looking for new participants, Demerjian said she...
The American Legion’s Christmas party for children, now in its 13th year, came from a suggestion by Marilyn Mork’s daughter, Jenny, after they had attended a Christmas party for kids in town. “They had a party which was like, hot dogs and hot cocoa or something like that,” Mork said. “Santa was there, and they all got to see Santa, and got a candy cane, and an orange or apple or something. And that was it.” Afterward, Mork remembered her daughter’s suggestion. “Jenny said, ‘Wouldn’t be awesome if we could … give them a gift?’” While the par...
Commercial trolling for king salmon in Southeast is back on the desk of the National Marine Fisheries Service, following on judicial rulings this past summer that saw the fishery shut down — and then reinstated — as a case brought by environmentalists wound its way through the courts. NMFS issued notice on Oct. 4 that it is beginning work on an environmental impact statement and review of alternatives to its incidental take permit which allows Southeast trollers to harvest kings, many of which are destined for the Pacific Northwest feeding gro...
First-time candidate John DeRuyter won a three-year term on the school board in the only contested race in the Oct. 3 municipal election, which drew the fewest number of voters to the polls in years. The turnout was down 64% from last year’s election, when the mayor’s office and two bond issues were on the ballot. The borough assembly certified the election results on Oct. 5, with 192 votes cast on election day and 26 absentee and early votes added to the count. The total of 218 ballots is down from 602 votes cast in the 2022 election; 486 vot...
Alaskans have high rates of chronic health conditions that can lead to death, and they are failing to follow lifestyles that would keep those chronic conditions at bay, according to a newly released state report. Two-thirds of Alaska adults are overweight or obese, nearly a third have high blood pressure and 27% have high cholesterol, according to the state Department of Health’s annual Alaska Chronic Disease Facts report. COVID-19 became the third-leading cause of death for Alaskans in 2021, after cancer and heart disease, and the various c...
The Alaska Division of Public Assistance has temporarily stopped dropping people from Medicaid for paperwork-related reasons after thousands of low-income Alaskans — including families with children — lost health coverage that they may still be eligible to receive. Nearly 14,000 households have lost their Medicaid coverage in the past two months. Almost 265,000 households were enrolled in the program as recently as April, before the state embarked on the federally required review of participants’ eligibility. The state Division of Public Assis...
Almost five years after the original petition was filed, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has ruled that the complaints against mining activity in British Columbia warrant fact-finding and further analysis, which could result in a determination that pollution puts the health and rights of Alaska Natives downriver of the mining at risk. The ruling found the petition “admissible” and within the commission’s jurisdiction to determine whether the mining and Canadian government and British Columbia approvals violated the Alaska tribe...
Borough Manager Jeff Good submitted his resignation on Sept. 27 after nearly two years of service. He has accepted a civil engineering job with the Bureau of Indian Affairs which will allow him to live in Wrangell and also spend more time with family in Oklahoma and Texas. The assembly will formally accept Good’s resignation and discuss a succession plan at its Tuesday, Oct. 10, meeting. The borough may hire a new interim manager internally or conduct a more widespread search to find a permanent replacement before Good’s last day on Jan. 1,...
The Stikine Sportsmen Association is offering a $2,500 reward for information leading to the conviction of whoever illegally killed a cow moose and left the carcass to rot in the woods south of town. A hiker discovered the kill and reported it Sept. 24, said Chadd Yoder, the state wildlife trooper in Wrangell. After inspecting the carcass, he estimated it had been dead five to 10 days. The moose was “human killed,” and all of the meat left at the site, Yoder said Friday, Sept. 29, declining to share too many details about the ongoing inv...
The effort to extend the Mount Dewey trail has hit an unexpected bump in the road. The only company that bid on the project, Ketchikan Ready-Mix, asked over half a million dollars more than the borough had budgeted to improve the trail’s accessibility and minimize wetland impacts. The trail extension is currently funded at $947,000, a figure that includes construction, inspection and administration costs. The budget is mostly federal funds. Ketchikan Ready-Mix offered to take on the project for $1,532,580. The borough has been working to improv...
