Sorted by date Results 935 - 959 of 1731
ANCHORAGE (AP) — An Alaska state corporation is the only remaining oil-and-gas leaseholder in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge after a second private company gave up its lease in the controversial area. Other than the state putting down millions of dollars in hopes that drillers might someday want to look for oil in ANWR, only two private companies submitted winnings bids in the 2021 lease, and now both have given up on the prospects and returned their leases. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management said Knik Arm Services, a small real estate a...
More than 50 years after many Alaska Natives were unable to apply for their rightful 160 acres of land because they were fighting in Vietnam, a solution is now in place that overcomes laws and regulations that stifled their efforts for decades. About 27 million acres of public land in Alaska managed by the federal Bureau of Land Management are being made available, with details and applications available online, according to an order filed Aug. 15 in the Federal Register. The parcels are mostly in the Northwest, Southwest and Interior regions...
Five dogs born in Haines in February were confirmed this month to be part wolf, according to Alaska Department of Fish and Game wildlife biologist Carl Koch. The state last month sent samples from six suspected wolfdogs to the University of California Davis for genetic testing. State wildlife managers have received results from five of the samples so far. Some of the owners and the state suspected the animals were wolf hybrids after one registered as 50% wolf on a DNA home test. “Some of (dogs) were described as difficult to manage by their o...
The percentage of Alaska children who are up to date on their routine vaccinations has fallen considerably since the beginning of the pandemic, prompting concern among health experts about the return of certain serious illnesses that had been all but eradicated in the U.S. until recently. Although there have been no outbreaks of vaccine-preventable illnesses — including measles, mumps or polio — identified in Alaska so far, recent flare-ups of those diseases in the Lower 48 and multiple countries are part of a disturbing trend that epidemiologi...
A legal dispute that began when Gov. Mike Dunleavy took office in 2018 will not be resolved before this year’s gubernatorial election. Last week, a federal judge set a 2023 timeline for a trial to determine financial damages in a case involving Libby Bakalar, one of four state employees who sued Dunleavy, his former chief of staff Tuckerman Babcock and the state after being illegally fired when Dunleavy took office. Babcock is now a candidate for state Senate and Dunleavy is running for reelection. The state has settled with three of the p...
Throughout rural Alaska, the summer’s fuel barges arrived with loads of diesel, heating fuel and a big bill for cities and boroughs. Away from Alaska’s road system and along western and northern coasts that freeze in winter, fuel arrives by barge or plane once, twice or a handful of times per year. This year, those deliveries are coming with prices near record highs. While consumers are paying at the pump directly, there is the growing potential for a second financial hit as towns, villages, cities and boroughs absorb high fuel costs in the...
Over a five-year period, 867 Alaska sea lions, seals, whales and small marine mammals like dolphins died or were gravely injured from interactions with humans, according to a report newly released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The report, required by the Marine Mammal Protection Act, lists documented cases of human-inflicted harm from 2016 to 2020 to mammal species managed by NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service. The vast majority of cases involve entanglements in fishing gear or marine debris, and Steller sea l...
ALONG THE COLUMBIA RIVER (AP) - James Kiona stands on a rocky ledge overlooking Lyle Falls where the water froths and rushes through steep canyon walls just before merging with the Columbia River. His silvery ponytail flutters in the wind, and a string of eagle claws adorns his neck. Kiona has fished for Chinook salmon for decades on his family's scaffold at the edge of the falls, using a dip net suspended from a 33-foot pole. "Fishing is an art and a spiritual practice," says Kiona, a Yakama...
Bear activity has been increasing in Juneau in August, said wildlife officials, and some of the bruins are looking in parked cars to grab some food. Carl Koch, assistant area management biologist for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, said the department is monitoring two black bears in the Mendenhall Valley area that have learned how to open car doors, and have caused “fairly significant damage” to at least three vehicles in the past few weeks. Another bear occurrence was posted on the Juneau Community Collective Facebook page, sho...
The Ketchikan City Council on Aug. 18 voted to adopt a seasonal sales tax rate structure. The current 4% rate within the city limits will increase to 5.5% from April 1 through Sept. 30, and will drop to 3% from Oct. 1 through March 31 each year. The change will take effect April 1, 2023. The city sales tax rate currently is 4% year-round, and is added to the Ketchikan Gateway Borough tax rate of 2.5% on each sale. According to a memo written by City Finance Director Michelle Johansen, the annual increase in revenue expected with the changes is...
ANCHORAGE (AP) — Two oil and gas companies have announced plans to invest $2.6 billion into developing a major oil field on Alaska’s North Slope. Australia-based Santos and Spain-based Repsol made the announcement, which was lauded by Alaska political leaders as positive news for state revenues and jobs. Santos, which has a 51% stake in the Pikka project, said Aug. 16 that its investment will be $1.3 billion. Santos last year acquired Oil Search of Papua New Guinea, which had been working for several years to advance the project. Santos, in...
As election day results came in late night Aug. 16 and into early the next morning, Alaska’s senior U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s slight lead over Trump-backed Republican challenger Kelly Tshibaka widened. By the afternoon of Aug. 17, with 395 of 402 precincts reporting, the trend continued and Murkowski was ahead 68,800 to 61,994. Democratic Party-endorsed candidate Patricia Chesbro held the third spot with just over 6% of the votes, at 9,620, and self-proclaimed “hard right” Republican Buzz Kelley rounded out the final four with 2.22%, or 3,45...
Democrat Mary Peltola is leading Alaska's special election for U.S. House, but the state's new ranked-choice voting system may leave Republican candidate and former governor Sarah Palin the ultimate winner. As of Aug. 17, with 395 of 402 precincts reporting, Peltola had earned 58,689 (38%) first-choice votes in a race that will determine who fills Alaska's lone U.S. House seat until January, completing the term left unfinished by the death of Congressman Don Young earlier this year. Palin...
Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy received nearly twice as many votes as his nearest rival in last week’s primary election for governor. The incumbent received 64,676 votes as of Aug, 17 to 34,248 for former Gov. Bill Walker, running as an independent, and 33,974 for former Anchorage Rep. Les Gara, running as a Democrat. Dunleavy won by an even larger margin in Wrangell, where his 256 votes in the Aug. 16 primary far exceeded the combined total of Walker, 126, and Gara, 63. It was the opposite 30 miles away in Petersburg, where Walker outpolled D...
The total of invasive European green crabs found in the waters around Metlakatla has risen to 34 live ones, plus some dead ones and a dozen shells of the destructive species. The latest count, from Aug. 9, follows the discovery in July of the first sightings ever in Alaska, according to the Metlakatla Indian Community Department of Fish and Wildlife, the state Department of Fish and Game and federal NOAA Fisheries. The live crabs have been found in Tamgas Harbor, and the dead crabs in Smuggler Cove. Green crab infestations are damaging in...
The Anchorage School District is dealing with such a severe bus driver shortage that nearly all students will be without bus service for weeks at a time, officials announced last week. There are only enough drivers to serve 7,000 of the district’s 20,000 eligible bus riders at a time, according to deputy superintendent Mark Stock. Bus service will be available to families for three weeks at a time, followed by six-week periods without service, on a rotating basis, officials said. It’s unclear how long the bus route suspensions will per...
With the start of the school year just around the corner, staff members at Mt. Edgecumbe High School in Sitka are scrambling to find housing for new teachers. The search has consumed much of the summer for Miranda Bacha, who took over as principal this summer. Housing was still needed last week for four incoming teachers — 15% of the teaching staff. “This is how I’m spending all my time now,” Bacha said. “That’s basically all I’m focusing on, getting them housing. If we were four short, you’re talking 16 classes, 16 core classes. I’m ta...
SEATTLE (AP) — A federal court ruling last week has thrown into doubt the future of a valuable commercial king salmon fishery in Southeast Alaska, after a conservation group challenged the government’s approval of the harvest as a threat to protected fish and the endangered killer whales that eat them. The ruling, issued Aug. 8 by U.S. District Judge Richard Jones in Seattle, said NOAA Fisheries violated the Endangered Species Act and other environmental law when it approved the troll fishery. The ruling means the federal agency will have to...
A group of conservative Alaskans, headed by a leading member of the Alaska Republican Party, has formed a new campaign organization intended to encourage Alaskans to call a constitutional convention and allow sweeping changes in the way Alaska runs its government, sets its budget and regulates the lives of its residents. Jim Minnery, president of the anti-abortion Alaska Family Council, announced the creation of ConventionYes on Aug. 8. Minnery is a member of the new group’s steering committee. The group’s chair is Craig Campbell, national com...
A committee of the Alaska Legislature voted unanimously on Aug. 10 to spend an additional $50,000 on its investigation into the firing of Alaska Permanent Fund Corp. director Angela Rodell, bringing the investigation’s total budget to $150,000. Anchorage Sen. Natasha von Imhof, chair of the House-Senate Legislative Budget and Audit Committee, said the money is needed to get the investigation “to the finish line,” and she expects a full report in October. Members of the committee hired a special investigator in January to determine wheth...
After several years of research, Sitka’s new online landslide-warning system is now live. But the site — which uses data from the National Weather Service alongside historical data to determine the level of landslide risk in Sitka — is only a start to the landslide research that remains to be done, said a scientist on the project. “It’s a conclusion but it’s also kind of a beginning,” said Jacyn Schmidt, geoscience coordinator at the Sitka Sound Science Center. Educating Sitkans on how to react to the possibility of landslides, and building...
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — The federal government is conducting a review of four hydroelectric dams on a Maine river that could result in a lifeline for the last wild Atlantic salmon in the United States. The last of the wild salmon live in a group of rivers in Maine and have been listed under the Endangered Species Act since 2000. One of the rivers is the Kennebec River, where Brookfield Renewable U.S. owns four dams. Brookfield wants to amend its federal licenses for the four dams and receive a new 40-year operating license for one of them. T...
Several landslides have closed the cruise ship dock in Skagway for the rest of the summer, causing what’s expected to be at least three dozen vessels to skip the tourism-dependent port by the end of summer. The municipality issued an emergency declaration on Aug. 4, citing the need to shore up the slide-damaged areas and the loss of more than 100,000 cruise passengers to cancellations and rescheduling. A mid-July report from a geotechnical and environmental consulting firm showed “significant risk” of “catastrophic failure” of the mountains...
The Skagway Borough Assembly has directed the borough manager to pursue negotiations for the SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium to take over management of the community health clinic and lease the municipally owned building. In the meantime, the Dahl Memorial Clinic, which costs the municipality about $1 million per year to operate, will get a temporary executive director at the price of about $150,000 for three months through a company that also sells training and restructuring services to health centers. The company has prepared a...
For the first time in a decade, the Alaska Permanent Fund Corp., source of more than half of Alaska’s general-purpose state revenue, posted negative investment returns for an entire fiscal year. As of June 30, the last day of the just-ended fiscal year 2022, the fund reported having earned minus-1.32% over the preceding 12 months. The decline will not have an immediate effect on state finances, but continued losses over multiple years would reduce the amount of money available each year for state services and the Permanent Fund dividend. B...