Sorted by date Results 1167 - 1191 of 8043
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... Full story
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...
For the first time since the pandemic, Wrangell High School students traveled to Shakes Glacier to survey the area and measure the rate that the glacier is receding. Students have been recording the glacier's movements since 2011. This year's cohort included freshman Andrei Bardin-Siekawitch, junior Aubrey Wynne and junior Della Churchill. The trio submitted applications to join the Sept. 7 trip, where they learned about surveying technology, data collection and environmental changes. They also...
A couple of Wrangell-area U.S. Forest Service cabins will have new 16-foot aluminum boats next year, courtesy of a national nonprofit organization. The new boats will go to two of the most popular cabins in the area: Middle Ridge, accessible by former logging roads near the center of Wrangell Island, and Virginia Lake, on the mainland across the Back Channel from town. The SeaArk boats were donated by the National Forest Foundation, a congressionally chartered organization that provides funds for conservation and recreation opportunities in...
The school district is looking at how to cover the bills for sports team travel to state competition last year, this year and in future years, and will hear from the community at a work session Oct. 16. The state travel budget is about $39,000 in the hole from last year’s spending, with no money in the account to cover any travel this school year, Kristy Andrew, district business manager said. The district does not intend to block any student athletes from traveling to state competition this year but does need to find a way to cover the expense...
Every Monday morning, Jenn Tucker harvests 3,600 living plants from one of the shipping containers that serves as a hydroponic farm and fills piles of crates for delivery across Ketchikan. Tucker is the farm manager for Outpost Agriculture, a nonprofit that set up its first hydroponic farm in Ketchikan last year and is eyeing development of similar, controlled environment agriculture operations across Alaska. The Outpost farm building on North Tongass Highway in Ketchikan is an assemblage of eig...
Mike Hoyt, who started work as the school district's activities director on Sept. 22, is no stranger to Wrangell. His mother, Diane Comer, graduated high school here. His father, Mike Hoyt, was born in Wrangell. And his grandmother, Ethel Lund, who died last year, grew up in town and helped found the SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium. Though Hoyt grew up elsewhere, "I've been here pretty frequently throughout my life." He moved to Wrangell a couple of months ago. In addition to taking...
As the holiday season approaches and online shopping continues to rise, Wrangell's delivery service faces challenges getting its job done in a timely fashion as it contends with missing address information. Chris and Dixie Booker, who own C&D Deliveries, play detective, using Facebook and other resources to lead them to the right location. "We have a bit of investigative work to do ourselves," Chris Booker said. "Our company is in charge of figuring out those kinds of situations. It gets to be...
The Wrangell Cooperative Association is taking steps to reduce the harm caused by fentanyl, opiates and other illegal drugs by providing free resources to community members experiencing addiction. As of Sept. 26, fentanyl test strips are available at the WCA office, Irene Ingle Public Library and the upstairs bathroom at the Kadin Building, where the state’s part-time Public Health Office is located. Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is 100 times more powerful than morphine, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. Since it i...
The SEARHC Wrangell Medical Center wants to help the community prepare for the respiratory illness season and will offer flu and COVID-19 vaccination clinics this fall and also provide RSV (respiratory syncytial virus) vaccine shots as soon as they become available. Flu shots, including a supply of high-dose vaccines for people 65 and older, will be provided at the annual community flu clinic Saturday, Nov. 4, reported Randi Yancey, medical office coordinator at the SEARHC facility. The clinic will run from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. “Patients can c...
Alaska’s ranked-choice voting system, which was in place for victories last year by the state’s first Democratic U.S. House member in half a century and the reelection of one of the last remaining moderate Republican U.S. senators, has become a test case for a nation struggling with political polarization. To fans, Alaska’s system shows how voters can reduce extremism and increase civility in government. To detractors, it is an overly complex system that fails to reflect true voter preferences and harms loyal party candidates, especially conser... Full story
The Alaska Permanent Fund Corp.’s investment earnings were again less than withdrawals in the 12 months ending in June, according to preliminary data scheduled to be released at the corporation’s annual meeting this week in Anchorage. The corporation, which manages the $74.9 billion Alaska Permanent Fund, earned a 5.18% return, less than its goal of 7.97%. Since 2018, an annual transfer from the Permanent Fund to the state treasury has been Alaska’s largest source of general-purpose revenue, paying for dividends and public services acros... Full story
The plane that crashed last month in Southwest Alaska, killing Eugene “Buzzy” Peltola Jr., was loaded down with about 520 pounds of moose meat and antlers, according to the first report on the crash released Thursday, Sept. 28, by the National Transportation Safety Board. Peltola, the husband of Alaska U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola, was flying a second and final load of meat out of a remote camp when the crash occurred, investigators said in a five-page preliminary report. A hunter told investigators that the second load was 50 to 70 pounds hea...
Alaska has gotten more money per capita from the federal infrastructure law passed in 2021 than any other state, according to participants at a news conference where the latest injection of funds for the state was announced. Alaska’s member of the U.S. House, Rep. Mary Peltola, and officials from the Biden administration used the event at the Alaska Native Heritage Center in Anchorage to announce awards totaling $100 million for broadband service in three rural areas. That brings Alaska broadband funding from the Infrastructure Investment a... Full story
First-time candidate John DeRuyter defeated incumbent school board member Esther Aaltséen Reese in Tuesday’s municipal election. DeRuyter was ahead 115-76 after election-day ballots were counted. Borough officials will tally absentee and early votes on Thursday, but there are not enough remaining ballots to change the outcome of the school board race. The school board seat was the only contested race on the ballot. Reese has served on the school board since her election last fall to a one-year term on the five-member board. DeRuyter is a me... Full story
The school district overspent its student travel budget the past two years and is considering filling the gap with money from team fundraising accounts — the cash that athletes, their parents and supporters raise for equipment, uniforms and other extras not funded by the district. Pulling as much as $36,000 from what are known as “class and club” accounts is controversial, particularly since the district has fallen short of explaining the problem and the solution, said several high school team coaches who spoke at the school board meeting on Se...
A record number of people visited Anan Wildlife Observatory this season - the largest amount since 2004, when the permit system was implemented. Of the 2,905 visitors who came through the observatory in 2023, 548 were independent or unguided and 2,357 were commercially guided. Guide companies used nearly 80% of their available permits - only 610 commercial permits were unused. The visitor count was slightly higher than the pre-pandemic peak in 2013 and much higher than the lowest recorded visito...
The 2023 Permanent Fund dividend will be $1,312. Disbursement of the annual payments to Alaskans will begin Oct. 5 and continue over the following weeks, the Department of Revenue said Sept. 21. Applicants who filed electronically and selected direct deposit to their checking or savings account should see the funds in their accounts on Oct. 5. The department will mail paper checks later in October to applicants who did not ask for direct deposit — the same for Alaskans who filed their application by paper instead of online. The dividend this y...
High oil prices could provide an additional $500 for Alaskans a year from now. As part of the end-of-session budget deal put together by legislative leaders, particularly in the Senate, lawmakers in May adopted a provision in the fiscal year 2024 state spending plan that will provide a one-time “energy relief payment” next fall if state revenues exceed estimates. Global supply shortages, caused largely by production cuts in Saudi Arabia and Russia, have driven up oil prices and boosted state revenues for the first three months of the fis...