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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...
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... Full story
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... Full story
A designated wilderness area in the Tongass National Forest, the largest U.S. national forest, is now a little bit bigger, after a land purchase and transfer arranged by two conservation organizations. ‘ Five acres of land that was formerly privately owned has been added to the forest’s Kootznoowoo Wilderness area on Admiralty Island, one of the organizations, The Wilderness Land Trust, said in a news release issued on April 11. The project, a partnership with the Juneau-based Southeast Alaska Land Trust, is the latest in a series of land pur... Full story
Lucy Pitka McCormick's relatives cooked salmon, moose, beaver and muskrat over an earthen firepit on the banks of the Chena River, just outside Fairbanks, as they honored her life. They whipped whitefish, blueberries and lard into a traditional Alaska Native dessert, and dolloped servings onto a paper plate, setting it in the flames to feed her spirit. The family prayed as McCormick's great-grandson built a small plywood coffin that was filled with gifts and necessities for the next world, such...
“Let me take you to one of my favorite places in Alaska that you’ve probably never heard of,” Danielle Marie Lister says in a recent Instagram video. Lister wears black bibs, a purple down jacket and thick white boots as she skips along the Haines Highway below a snow-covered mountain along with soft guitar music. The one-minute video includes shots of bald eagles on the Chilkat River, the slow waves of Portage Cove, and steam rising from a hot tub outside a yurt pressed against the Takshanuk Mountains. “I always love the contrast of the sma...
A group of Republican-led states, including Alaska, is suing the Biden administration to block a new student loan repayment plan that provides a faster path to cancellation and lower monthly payments for millions of borrowers. In a federal lawsuit filed March 28, 11 states led by Kansas argue that President Joe Biden overstepped his authority in creating the SAVE Plan, which was made available to borrowers last year and has already canceled loans for more than 150,000. It argues that the new plan is no different from Biden’s first attempt at s...
The fishing fleet in the Southwest Alaska town of King Cove would have been harvesting Pacific cod this winter. But they didn't: Skippers had nowhere to sell their catch. The enormous plant that usually buys and processes their fish never opened for the winter season. The company that runs the plant, Peter Pan Seafoods, is facing six-figure legal claims from fishermen who say they haven't been paid for catches they delivered months ago. King Cove's city administrator says the company is behind... Full story
A troubled, state-backed seafood processing company, Peter Pan Seafoods, has announced that it’s pursuing a deal to sell its plants to another business. But the news still leaves a key asset, the massive plant in the Alaska Peninsula village of King Cove, in limbo for the summer salmon season. Peter Pan also announced April 4 that it would lease two of its plants, in the Bristol Bay hub town of Dillingham and the remote Alaska Peninsula outpost of Port Moller, to Silver Bay Seafoods to operate for the summer. The fate of all of Peter Pan’s pla... Full story
The state ferry Tustumena is preparing for its 60th birthday party this summer. Over the years, the vessel has become a familiar and important part of life in communities between Homer and Dutch Harbor. But after years in rough waters, the cost of keeping the Tustumena running is ballooning. "This ship is a floating museum piece," said John Mayer, who has captained the ship for years. The Tustumena exemplifies the storms that the Alaska Marine Highway System has weathered. In March, Seward...
In the language of the Gwich’in people of northeastern Alaska, the word for month known in English as July is Łuk choo zhrii, meaning “the month of king salmon,” said Rochelle Adams, an Indigenous advocate who grew up in Beaver and Fort Yukon. With Yukon River king salmon runs diminished to the point where harvests of the species were not even allowed, that name now poses a dilemma, Adams said. “If we can’t fish in the month of king salmon, what are we living in?” Adams said at a conference in mid-March. “How we navigate the world is in ou... Full story
Alaska Republican U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski has made headlines again with comments on her unwillingness to vote for former president Donald Trump, which puts her in an ever-shrinking group of GOP members opposing the party’s presumptive nominee for president. “I wish that as Republicans, we had a nominee that I could get behind,” Murkowski told a CNN journalist in a brief hallway interview posted online on March 24. “I certainly can’t get behind Trump,” Murkowski added. Her comments triggered stories on a number of national news sites. On March...
Vandalism directed at a church or other property used by a religious organization would become a felony in Alaska if legislation passed by the state House of Representatives becomes law. The House voted 35-5 on March 20 to approve House Bill 238, from Anchorage Rep. Andy Josephson, sending the bill to the Senate for further debate. “I think it’s rational to say that when you commit harm to a house of worship, it should be more serious” than a misdemeanor, Josephson said. He said the defacement of a church draws “community-wide reaction and res... Full story
Under legislation passed March 21 by the Alaska House of Representatives, police searching for a lost hiker could obtain cell phone and satellite phone location data without a warrant. The House approved House Bill 316 by a 38-1 margin after moving it forward with unusual speed. The Senate has referred the bill to committee for discussion. The Legislature faces a mid-May adjournment deadline. The measure is modeled after similar laws in other states and is known as the “Kelsey Smith Act.” Smith was an 18-year-old who was abducted and mur... Full story
Teacher salaries in Alaska are not competitive when compared to much of the Lower 48, according to new research from the University of Alaska Anchorage’s Institute of Social and Economic Research. Alaska teachers are paid below the national average once their salaries are adjusted for the high cost of living in Alaska, said Matthew Berman, a professor of Economics at UAA and one of two authors of the study published last month. The topic of public school funding and teacher pay has been a main focus in the Alaska Legislature this session and o...
A new legal opinion by the top attorney at the U.S. Department of the Interior has extended the land jurisdiction of Alaska tribes, upending decades of precedent and offering new opportunities for the state’s 228 federally recognized tribal governments. The opinion, issued Feb. 1 by Interior Department Solicitor Robert Anderson, says tribal authority applies on land allotments given to individual Alaska Natives, unless those parcels of land are owned by a non-tribal member or are “geographically removed from the tribal community.” “That... Full story
Teacher salaries in Alaska are not competitive when compared to much of the Lower 48, according to new research from the University of Alaska Anchorage’s Institute of Social and Economic Research. Alaska teachers are paid below the national average once their salaries are adjusted for the high cost of living in Alaska, said Matthew Berman, a professor of Economics at UAA and one of two authors of the study published last month. The topic of public school funding and teacher pay has been a main focus in the Alaska Legislature this session and o...
The Alaska Longline Fisherman’s Association says the $514,000 federal grant it received for a feasibility study could lead to lower costs for the fishing fleet and a path to decarbonization of the industry. “This will inform our efforts to decarbonize the fleet and implement hybrid boats while we work with the rest of the maritime industry to identify and develop next-generation carbon-free fuels,” executive director Linda Behnken said. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, ranking Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee, announced the funding for t...
Opponents of Gov. Mike Dunleavey’s proposal to criminalize unpermitted street protests and other activities that block passage through public places said it is unconstitutional, too vague and too broad to become law. If Senate Bill 255 or its companion, House Bill 386, is passed into law, certain types of protest could be counted among the state’s most serious crimes. Dunleavy has said the bill is aimed at increasing public safety. It would impose penalties for blocking highways, airport runways and other public places if it causes sig... Full story
Alaska Power & Telephone Co. has announced it is designating its offices in Ketchikan as its new corporate headquarters — moving the nameplate from Washington state — the first time it will be headquartered in Alaska. AP&T's current headquarters are in Port Townsend, Washington. "We're not picking up jobs and moving them out of state (out of Washington) at this time," AP&T spokesman Jason Custer said March 19. "We're mostly just designating Ketchikan as our new headquarters. We'll eventually be selling the building in Washington. ... We don't h...
Trident Seafoods has announced the sale of its Ketchikan processing facilities to Silver Bay Seafoods, and the sale of its Petersburg operation to E.C. Phillips & Son. Trident has not announced buyers for two other Alaska plants it has put on the market in Kodiak, the company’s largest operation in the state, and False Pass, in the Aleutian Islands. Seattle-based Trident is scaling back its Alaska operations amid weak seafood markets, low prices and changing consumer buying habits. The company has called it “a comprehensive, strategic res...
South Anchorage high school teacher Logan Pitney said his colleagues are making exit strategies to flee their bad financial prospects in Alaska. He called Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s teacher retention bonus plan a “Band-Aid on an arterial bleed.” Juneau Superintendent Franks Hauser called the governor’s charter school policy change proposal a “statewide solution without a statewide problem.” They were among dozens of teachers and school administrators who rejected Dunleavy’s education policy proposals at recent legislative hearings in Juneau. There’s... Full story
Alaska lawmakers on March 12 narrowly overturned an executive order from Gov. Mike Dunleavy that would have given him the sole authority to appoint members to the Alaska Marine Highway Operations Board. The final vote was 33-26 to reject the governor’s move. Representatives and senators met in a joint session to consider overturning a dozen executive orders issued by the governor earlier this year that would have eliminated state advisory boards or consolidated their oversight within the executive branch. Lawmakers voted separately on each reso...
The federal government should pay Alaska more than $700 billion in compensation for the 2023 Environmental Protection Agency action that blocked development of the massive and controversial Pebble Mine in Southwest Alaska, Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s administration claims in a lawsuit filed in a federal court. The lawsuit, filed March 14 in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in the District of Columbia, is part of a flurry of legal actions by the state and the mine’s would-be developer that seek to revive the massive copper and gold project in a sal... Full story
