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The 2024 Stikine River Birding Festival will take flight Wednesday, April 24. Minor changes have been made to the schedule of events, which no longer includes a golf tournament at Muskeg Meadows on Saturday April 27. However, there are still plenty of family-friendly events over the five days. The festival will kick off at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 24, with a Birding 101 presentation led by Bonnie Demerjian at St. Philip’s Episcopal Church. Demerjian will share tips and hints for bird identification. Other events and activities during on t...
The school district is requesting $1.75 million from the borough for the 2024-2025 school year budget, an increase from the $1.6 million contribution of the past two years. Even with the increase, the budget will draw down more than half of the school district’s reserves to balance revenues with expenses. The uncertainty of any increase in state funding is adding to the budget stress at Wrangell schools and districts across the state. The state funding formula has increased little more than a few dollars in the past seven years. The annual b...
Wrangell Cooperative Association’s Tl’átḵ - Earth Branch was awarded over $200,000 from the Bureau of Indian Affairs for its climate action and adaptation plan to help respond to the growing concerns and risks of climate change. In surveys conducted last spring, WCA learned that tribal and community members have observed warmer winters and cooler summers, earlier and weaker salmon runs, less game on the island and an increased presence of invasive species, said Alex Angerman, Earth Branch coordinator. The climate action and adaptation plan w...
The first small tour boat of the summer is due May 9, with the first large cruise ship scheduled for May 16, and it’s time for the borough’s annual pre-season informational meeting for businesses and anyone else involved in the tourism industry. The meeting is set for 9 a.m. Thursday, April 25, in the assembly chambers at City Hall. The agenda includes a review of the cruise ship schedule, along with staging and transportation logistics for business that pick up and drop off passengers. If all of the ships’ berths are full, Wrangell could...
Registration opens May 1 for the library’s summer reading program for kids, with some big numbers from last year to match. More than 90 kids signed up for last year’s program sponsored by the Irene Ingle Public Library, reading almost 2,000 books. It’s open to children who will be going into kindergarten through ninth grade in the next school year that starts in August. The program starts May 28 and will run through Aug. 3, with a party on Aug. 10, said Sarah Scambler, library director. “Each book is worth a certain number of points. For eve...
Citing what they characterized as unacceptable risks to wildlife habitat, water quality and the Native communities that depend on natural resources, the Biden administration on April 19 rejected the state’s controversial plan to put a 211-mile industrial road through largely wild areas of the Brooks Range foothills. The decision came in a supplemental environmental impact statement released by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, a branch of the Department of the Interior. The document selected the “no action” alternative as its policy choic...
In a devastating blow to California’s fishing industry, federal fishery managers unanimously voted April 10 to cancel all commercial and recreational salmon fishing off the coast of California for the second year in a row. The decision is designed to protect California’s dwindling salmon populations after drought and water diversions left river flows too warm and sluggish for the state’s iconic chinook salmon to thrive. Salmon abundance forecasts for the year “are just too low,” Marci Yaremko, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife...
The Biden administration said April 19 it will restrict new oil and gas leasing on 13 million acres of a federal petroleum reserve on Alaska’s North Slope to help protect wildlife such as caribou and polar bears as the Arctic continues to warm. The decision — part of a yearslong fight over whether and how to develop the vast oil resources in the state — finalizes protections first proposed last year as the administration prepared to approve the contentious Willow oil project. The approval of Willow drew fury from environmentalists, who said...
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has dismissed an appeal filed by the Pebble mine developer in its effort to obtain a key permit needed to build the controversial copper and gold mine upstream of Southwest Alaska’s salmon-rich Bristol Bay. The decision, released on April 15, lets stand a permit denial issued by the Army Corps in 2020. Rejection of the appeal is the latest setback for the developer. The biggest setback came in January 2023, when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency invoked a rarely used provision of the Clean Water Act to p...
Federal researchers indicate the gray whale population along the West Coast is showing signs of recovery five years after hundreds washed up dead on beaches from Alaska to Mexico. The increase in population numbers comes after the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association determined in November that the “unusual mortality event” that began in 2019 has ended. “It’s nice to be able to report some good news the last couple of years,” Aimee Lang, a research biologist with NOAA’s Southwest Fisheries Science Center, told The Seattle Times. The...
The borough assembly approved the sale of the former medical center and six adjacent lots to property developer Wayne Johnson on April 9. Johnson is a Georgia-based real estate developer hoping to build a 48-unit condo-style housing development with covered parking on the property. The borough sold the two acres of the former hospital property to Johnson for $200,000, which required approval from the economic development board and the planning and zoning commission as it was below the property’s appraised value of $830,00. Municipal code allows...
In 2017, a delegation from the Tlingit and Haida tribes flew to Colorado to meet with officials from the Denver Art Museum. The dozen tribal members came to discuss the return of a 170-year-old wooden house partition, painted by a master Indigenous artist. The panels - 67 inches tall, 168 inches wide - illustrate the story of how a raven taught the Tlingit to fish. The delegation told the museum that this screen never should have left Southeast Alaska and belonged home with its people under a...
The Alaska Senate has passed a capital budget to fund roads, school repairs and rebuilds, housing, water and sewer systems and other public works projects across the state — but the spending plan is short of funds to cover repairs to Wrangell’s three aging school buildings. The budget bill approved by the Senate on April 12 will move next to the House for its consideration and possible amendments before a legislative adjournment deadline of May 15, at which time the governor could exercise his authority to veto individual items in the spe...
The U.S. Forest Service is adding a dozen new positions in Wrangell, plus changing two jobs from seasonal to permanent. Most of the new hires are on the job, with a couple still in the hiring process. District Ranger Tory Houser estimated it's a 15% to 20% gain in staff. "Many of the positions are recreation positions," she said. "In our case, the influx is more a management decision to transition from having seasonal, temporary employees to having permanent employees that work a seasonal...
A high school organization founded by students several years ago aimed at inclusivity and students helping each other has expanded its focus, and its store in the school's commons area is selling an assortment of sandwiches, beverages and other snacks during lunchtime. BASE, founded by a group of Wrangell High School students in 2019, has grown over the years from decorating the halls to providing needed food to students, arranging teacher appreciations, working with school staff to learn how to...
The state capital budget approved by the Alaska Senate last week includes $200,000 for the borough to start planning an emergency access route for when Zimovia Highway is blocked by landslides or other disasters. The route would connect the old logging road at Pats Creek on the west side of Wrangell Island to the Spur Road on the island’s east side. The borough estimates the total cost of design and construction at roughly $5 million, and requested $500,000 in state funding to start planning and design work. The Senate approved the capital proj...
The borough assembly approved a three-year collective bargaining agreement with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers on April 9, covering public works, light and power, port and harbor and maintenance jobs, totaling about 23 positions. The agreement includes amendments to some job descriptions and the wage and grade table, effective July 1. Borough Manager Mason Villarma said they wanted to make sure changes were made to reflect inflation. He also said the borough noticed that some wages weren’t competitive with other municipalit...
The borough assembly on April 9 approved Mason Villarma’s contract as borough manager. The assembly vote was unanimous. Villarma went to work as finance director in September 2021 and has been serving as both finance director and interim borough manager since November 2023 when Jeff Good stepped down as manager to accept a federal job. Villarma’s four-year contract for borough manager goes into effect May 5. During his tenure as interim borough manager, he helped see the borough through the deadly landslide Nov 20 and recovery efforts. He spoke...
An Anchorage Superior Court judge has struck down an Alaska law that allows the state to allocate cash payments to parents of homeschooled students, ruling that it violates constitutional prohibitions against spending state money on religious or private education. “This court finds that there is no workable way to construe the statutes to allow only constitutional spending,” wrote Judge Adolf Zeman, concluding that the entire law must be struck down. The April 12 decision has major and immediate implications for the more than 22,000 students en...
The time of year is approaching when birds flock to the river flats, and Wrangell is once again hosting the Stikine River Birding Festival. The festival will run from April 24 to 28 and will include a variety of bird-themed events and activities free of charge. This year is a bit of a lighter year, Matt Henson, who is organizing festival planning, said. They are focusing on community-centered, family-friendly events. Rather than a couple weekends of programming that the festival has offered in years past, this year’s schedule will be more c...
After more than a quarter-century, the nation’s largest national forest is getting a new management plan. On April 22, Wrangell community members will get a chance to learn about the proposed revisions to the forest plan and share their thoughts. A forest plan can be compared to zoning, Paul Robbins Jr., public affairs staff officer for the Tongass National Forest, explained. The plan helps guide management decisions, such as focusing on what areas are managed for recreation versus other activities, rather than looking at specific trails and c...
The chamber of commerce at its annual awards dinner last weekend honored several members of the community for their service, including the fire department and emergency medical services crew, municipal electric line crew and borough employees for their response to the deadly Nov. 20 landslide that hit Wrangell. “Nowhere was the ‘I can help’ spirit more evident than in November of last year when a tragic landslide befell our community. For weeks, volunteers and first responders showed just what an amazing place Wrangell is,” said Carolin...
The Alaska House has sent to the Senate a state operating budget for the fiscal year that starts July 1 with an almost $2,300 Permanent Fund dividend that would be the single largest expenditure in the spending plan. The budget also includes $175 million in additional one-time school funding, raising the total state contribution to school district operating expenses to just over half of what House members voted to spend on this fall’s dividend. The boost in state aid for the 2024-2025 school year, if approved by the Senate and signed into l...
The Alaska House of Representatives on April 11 rejected a constitutional amendment that would have guaranteed payment of the annual Permanent Fund dividend. The final vote was 22-18, five votes short of the two-thirds majority required to advance the amendment to the Senate for further debate. If it had won legislative approval, the amendment would have gone to the public in this fall’s general election. The amendment was part of a plan created in 2021 by a bipartisan working group after the state came within a week of a government shutdown d...
The South Tongass Volunteer Fire Department station in Ketchikan caught fire early morning April 9, damaging multiple fire and EMS response vehicles. When the Wrangell Fire Department heard about the damages, they responded quickly by lending an ambulance to Ketchikan, sending it out on a barge later that same day. The fire started at 2 a.m. April 9, according to information from the Ketchikan Gateway Borough, and was under control by 3:49 a.m. and extinguished by 4:30 a.m. No one was injured in the fire. The Ketchikan department lost a 20-year...
