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Acknowledging it is a “polarizing and divisive issue in Canada,” the Wrangell borough assembly will proceed “somewhat cautiously” in drafting a resolution on mining in the Stikine River watershed, Borough Mayor Steve Prysunka said. “Of course, we don’t want salmon impacted” by mining, he said. “We’re actually uniquely positioned, we’re at the outflow.” The Southeast Alaska Indigenous Transboundary Commission has asked the Wrangell assembly, and other elected bodies in the region, to adopt a resolution calling for a pause on new mining permits...
Six candidates are vying for three seats on the Wrangell school board. Angela Allen, Alex Angerman, Brittani Robbins and Elizabeth Roundtree are running for two open three-year terms. The top two vote-getters will win the election. Julia Ostrander and Jessica Whitaker are competing to fill one seat for an unexpired one-year term. Although each candidate has similar goals they want to achieve during their term if elected, they all have varied backgrounds and experience they believe would lend a...
One of the bigger issues that got David Powell interested in serving on the assembly several years ago was his belief that the borough needs to get out of the real estate business. He wanted Wrangell to sell off more of its property for private development, and to do it at a faster pace. He also wanted to serve because "I was interested in how things work with the city," he said. "In a roundabout way, I found it doesn't work as everybody thinks it works." Powell is running for a one-year term to...
Don McConachie Sr. served on the assembly or as mayor between 1998 and when he resigned as mayor in 2013 for health reasons. He's ready now to get back to work at City Hall. McConachie, 75, who is retired, is running against incumbent David Powell for a one-year term on the borough assembly. "Our city has changed an awful lot. It has deteriorated a substantial amount," McConachie said. He was reluctant to provide specific examples, explaining, "The best way to understand what's going on is to...
The state has opened up another round of federally funded pandemic aid for businesses, though this latest program is different from past assistance efforts: The money will be awarded based solely on financial need, not on the date of application. The state has set aside $90 million for the program, which is being administered by the Juneau Economic Development Council under contract to Alaska Department of Commerce. The application deadline is 8 a.m. Oct. 17. The money is from the American Rescue Plan Act, which Congress approved and the...
ANCHORAGE (AP) - Military leaders on Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson have declared a public health emergency and encouraged all personnel to avoid places that do not require masks or social distancing in response to increasing COVID-19 cases in Alaska, officials said. “We’ve all seen COVID-19 cases continue to spread rapidly across our nation, the state of Alaska and in our local community,” U.S. Air Force Col. Kirsten Aguilar, 673d Air Base Wing and JBER commander, said in a statement Sept. 17. “After close consultation with JBER mission...
BOISE, Idaho (AP) - In another ominous sign about the spread of the delta variant, Idaho public health leaders on Sept. 16 expanded health care rationing statewide and individual hospital systems Montana have enacted similar crisis standards amid a spike in the number of unvaccinated COVID-19 patients requiring hospitalization. The decisions marked an escalation of the pandemic in several Western states struggling to convince skeptical people to get vaccinated. The Idaho Department of Health and Welfare made the announcement after St. Luke’s H...
SEATTLE (AP) - Federal officials have approved a plan that calls for cutting nontribal salmon fishing along the West Coast when the fish are needed to help the Northwest’s endangered killer whales. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries adopted the plan Sept. 14 as recommended by the Pacific Fishery Management Council. It calls for restricting commercial and recreational salmon fishing when chinook salmon numbers are especially low. It’s one of the first times a federal agency has restricted hunting or fishing one spe...
BANGOR, Maine (AP) – Maine’s Penobscot River is on track to see the fewest Atlantic salmon in recent years, state officials said. According to a trap count report provided by the Maine Department of Marine Resources on Aug. 23, 520 salmon had passed through the Milford and Orono dams this year. Returning salmon are hampered by hydroelectric dams on the Penobscot and Kennebec rivers that reduce their ability to reach spawning grounds upstream. The total is the fewest fish counted, as of the same date, in four years and is the fourth-lowest tot...
BAR HARBOR, Maine (AP) — More than 125 boats participated in a protest against plans for a salmon farm in waters near Acadia National Park in Maine. Commercial and recreational vessels comprised the “Save the Bay” flotilla that motored around Frenchman Bay on Aug. 29. Some people on land also participated by holding signs stating their opposition. American Aquafarms has proposed raising 66 million pounds of Atlantic salmon annually at a pair of 15-pen sites off the coast of Gouldsboro. Ted O’Meara, of Frenchman’s Bay United, likened the scope o...
AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) - Environmental groups contend four Kennebec River dams in Maine are violating federal law by harming endangered Atlantic salmon. The dam operator, Brookfield Renewable U.S., is violating the federal Endangered Species Act because an exemption spelling out limits on the death and injury of salmon expired in 2019, according to a lawsuit by the Natural Resources Council of Maine, Atlantic Salmon Federation U.S., Conservation Law Foundation and Maine Rivers. The lawsuit, filed...
SALEM, Ore. (AP) - Experts say Oregon is becoming less resilient to drought as fewer seasons of abundant rain and snow prevent it from bouncing back from hot and dry conditions. Larry O’Neill, state climatologist at Oregon State University, said the current drought is “historically significant,” with about three-quarters of the state experiencing conditions considered “extreme” or “exceptional.” However, the state is actually in the fourth year of below-average precipitation, which has exacerbated the drought during “unprecedente...
A 24-year-old Illinois woman submitted a fake COVID-19 vaccination card to visit Hawaii with a glaring spelling error that led to her arrest: Moderna was spelled “Maderna,” according to court documents. In order to bypass Hawaii’s 10-day traveler quarantine, she uploaded a vaccination card to the state’s Safe Travels program and arrived in Honolulu on Aug. 23 on a Southwest Airlines flight, the documents said. “Airport screeners found suspicious errors ... such as Moderna was spelled wrong and that her home was in Illinois but her shot was...
WATERBURY, Vt. (AP) - Three Vermont state troopers who are accused of being involved in a scheme to create fraudulent COVID-19 vaccination cards have resigned, state police said Sept. 7. The three ex-troopers are suspected of having varying roles in the making of fraudulent vaccination cards, according to the state. “The accusations in this case involve an extraordinary level of misconduct — a criminal violation of the law — and I could not be more upset and disappointed,” Col. Matthew Birmingham, director of the Vermont State Police, said in...
The borough Saturday afternoon reported a new COVID-19 case in the community, followed by a second case reported Saturday evening, raising to nine the number of known infections in the past three days. The afternoon case is a Wrangell resident and "close contact to a previously identified positive case," the borough said in a statement released at 4:30 p.m. Saturday. "This individual is symptomatic and is isolating." Then, at 7:30 p.m., the borough reported another resident had tested positive for COVID and was isolating. Saturday's second...
Not content with the $1,100 Permanent Fund dividend adopted on the final day of the special legislative session that ended Tuesday, Gov. Mike Dunleavy three hours later called lawmakers back for a fourth special session starting Oct. 1 to “get the rest of this year’s PFD.” Dunleavy, who is running for reelection next year, has been promoting a dividend this year of more than double the $1,100 approved by legislators. The Department of Revenue has said it would send the payments to Alaskans about 30 days after the measure is signed into law,...
Finding an apartment or home to rent or buy is difficult in Wrangell, leaving many scrambling for a place to live. “Wrangell is extremely tight, plain and simple,” said Bennett McGrath, owner of Anchor Properties in Petersburg. McGrath’s business focuses on home sales in Wrangell, Petersburg and Sitka. Kathleen Harding with MoveToWrangell.com is the only agent based in Wrangell. A survey of landlords conducted by the state earlier this year showed no vacancies for one-bedroom apartments and homes in the Wrangell/Petersburg census area. In ad...
Judy Bakeberg loves baseball. Specifically, she loves the Seattle Mariners. She's been following the team since its inception in 1977, and she's been a fan of baseball since she was a child. Now the Wrangellite has been chosen as the Mariners' 2021 Ultimate Fan for Alaska, a title that comes with lots of perks and bragging rights. On Oct. 1, Bakeberg and her daughter, Leslie Cummings, will be flown to Seattle and treated to a two-night stay and fan celebration in a box suite at T-Mobile Park....
Daily COVID-19 cases across Alaska over the past 30 days are about triple the average of the 18-month pandemic — more than quadruple on several days last week. The heavy caseload, particularly seriously ill unvaccinated individuals infected with the highly contagious Delta variant, has strained hospitals in the state’s population centers. Wrangell has fared better than much of the state, however, with just five cases reported in the first 14 days of September, a steep drop from the community’s record of 48 cases in August. State health offic...
After the number of people taking COVID-19 tests in Wrangell slowed down earlier in the summer, the volume doubled in August as the community reacted to the surge of new infections in town. The borough reported 48 cases of COVID-19 in Wrangell in August, the highest monthly total since the pandemic count started in March 2020 and more than one-third of all cases in the community since the coronavirus tally began. The SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium, which provides tests at the airport and the Wrangell Medical Center, administered 75...
Social distancing and masking requirements will continue to stay in place at Wrangell public schools. At the school board meeting on Monday night, Superintendent Bill Burr updated board members on a change in some language in the district’s COVID-19 mitigation plan, but students and staff will still be required to wear masks and stay apart. The board in August agreed to review the mitigation plan and masking requirement monthly. “There were a few additions we had to [the mitigation plan],” Burr said Monday, which will ease the testing requi...
Though its passage is uncertain amid partisan battles in Congress and even disagreements among the majority-holding Democrats, the trillion-dollar infrastructure bill could be an opportunity for federal help with costly improvements to Wrangell's water system. However, all communities in Alaska "have to be honest in regard to timing," said Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who visited Wrangell last weekend. In addition to waiting on Congress to decide on the legislation, "we know what it means to bring a (bi...
Working to carve up Alaska into 40 legislative districts of approximately equal population, a state board has released its draft maps based on the 2020 U.S. Census that move Wrangell, Petersburg and Ketchikan into the same House district. Wrangell has shared a district with Ketchikan the past decade, while Petersburg has been part of the Sitka district. Population shifts, particularly increases in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough, forced the Alaska Redistricting Board to move boundaries across the state to keep legislative districts roughly equal...
Sometimes businesses can gain fresh insight with a new perspective. Just ask Terie Loomis, owner of Silver Liningz Boutique. In June, Loomis opened the doors on her Front Street shop down and across from where she'd been a few years earlier. On Labor Day, she was in the shop to gauge what traffic would be like on a day she's typically closed. Silver Liningz specializes strictly in women's apparel, carrying tops, jeans, dresses and intimate clothing, along with jewelry, accessories and other...
The Wrangell Cooperative Association will assist with a two-year research project into seafood consumption rates, intended to help state officials understand the importance of clean water and healthy seafood for the community’s Indigenous population. The Bureau of Indian Affairs’ Tribal Climate Resilience Program has approved a $130,000 grant to the Southeast Alaska Indigenous Transboundary Commission, which will administer the program and work with WCA. The project will include a survey of current and past seafood consumption and its imp...
