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Alaska state legislators have failed to block a 67% pay raise for themselves and a roughly 20% salary increase for the governor and his cabinet. Under state law, legislators had until May 15 to pass a bill to block the pay raises — but never took a final vote by the deadline. The pay raises are set to go into effect July 1 for the governor and his cabinet, and in January for the Legislature. Back in March, the state’s independent salary commission held a 15-minute meeting at which all five members agreed to the substantial pay boosts. All of...
The Alaska Legislature has voted to criminalize the harassment of 911 dispatchers and threats against them. The Alaska House voted 37-1 on May 11 to approve Senate Bill 38, a measure passed 19-0 by the state Senate on March 17. The bill was written by Wasilla Sen. David Wilson and advances to the desk of Gov. Mike Dunleavy for signature into law after failing to pass through the Legislature last year. The measure was at least partially inspired by an instance when a caller repeatedly dialed 911 to protest Fourth of July fireworks. If Dunleavy...
The Alaska Legislature has approved a measure that would set up a system for leasing state forested lands to businesses and investors that could profit by preserving the land and selling “credits” to others who need or want to offset their direct or indirect carbon emissions. The carbon-offset credits bill would allow leases of up to 55 years, with payments made to the state by businesses and other entities seeking to preserve tracts of land for their capacity to absorb atmospheric carbon dioxide. The measure, Senate Bill 48, passed the Sen...
MARYSVILLE, Calif. (AP) - California officials on May 16 said they will spend about $60 million to build a channel along the Yuba River so that salmon and other threatened fish species can get around a Gold Rush-era dam that for more than a century has cut off their migration along the chilly waters of Sierra Nevada streams. The project is the latest example of state and federal officials trying to reverse the environmental harms caused by the century-old infrastructure along California’s major rivers and streams. Those dams and canals a...
TACOMA, Wash. (AP) - A company that operates a more than century-old hydroelectric dam near Mount Rainier National Park in Washington state will pay $1 million after synthetic field turf and its tiny rubber particles spilled into the salmon-rearing Puyallup River in 2020. Pierce County Superior Court Judge Philip Sorensen approved the amount in fines and restitution, with most to go toward restoring salmon habitat, the Washington state attorney general's office said in a statement on May 8. The office said $745,000 in restitution will be paid...
In southwestern Alaska’s Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, which has some of the nation’s worst water and sanitation service and most overcrowded housing, vaccines proved to be valuable safeguards against the worst ravages of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new study. The study, by experts from the Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corp. and the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, tracked COVID cases, hospitalizations and vaccination status of the region’s mostly Yupik residents throughout 2021. It found that vaccination was 92% effec...
The Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska, based in Juneau and representing more than 35,000 tribal citizens, and the Tanana Chiefs Conference, based in Fairbanks and representing 42 villages, announced they are leaving the state’s largest Native organization. In earlier decisions, three of the state’s 12 regional Native corporations have also left the politically powerful Alaska Federation of Natives in recent years. AFN continues to represent more than 200 federally recognized tribes, 184 Native village cor...
A state judge has ruled that Southeast Traditional Tribal Values posters may hang throughout the Ketchikan School District, rejecting a lawsuit that sought to ban the posters. The judge’s ruling also allows the schools to continue using the tribal values in programs about expected behaviors. Ketchikan Superior Court Judge Katherine H. Lybrand’s order, which was announced on May 8, rejected a lawsuit that Justin Breese and Rebecca King filed last year against the Ketchikan School District and Ketchikan Charter School over posters titled “So...
Alaskans would be able to more easily get subscription-style health care from their doctor or dentist if a bill passed by the Alaska Senate last week moves through the House next year and becomes law. Under a “direct health care agreement,” also called “concierge care,” a customer agrees to buy a subscription to a doctor’s office. The doctor charges a monthly fee and in exchange the customer gets access to regular checkups or other services. The Senate voted 18-2 to approve Senate Bill 45 from Wasilla Sen. David Wilson, sending the measure t...
Senior citizens and people with disabilities who need extra care would be able to get help at home under a bill passed by the Alaska Legislature and on its way to the governor for signature into law. The state House voted 39-1 to approve Senate Bill 57 on May 8, followed by unanimous Senate concurrence on May 10 with the House changes. The legislation would allow the state to license individual homes as the equivalent of assisted-living centers. A home would be permitted for up to two residents under normal circumstances, three with special...
Newly arrived residents and newly licensed drivers would have an easier way to get a commercial license under a bill passed by the Alaska Legislature. In a 40-0 vote last Friday, the Alaska House approved Senate Bill 123, which would repeal the requirement that someone hold an Alaska driver’s license for one year before getting a commercial driver’s license. CDL recipients still have to go through the normal application process, which includes a written test, road test and physical exam. The bill passed the state Senate 20-0 on May 3 and now...
Low-power electric bicycles would be exempt from state regulation under a bill passed by the Alaska Legislature and on its way to the governor for signature into law. The state Senate and House each approved the measure by wide margins, with only two no votes among the 60 legislators. Final legislative approval came May 11 for House Bill 8, sponsored by Fairbanks first-term Rep. Ashley Carrick. If the governor signs the measure, the new law will clarify that bicycles with electric motors generating less than 750 watts of power are not...
Alaska high school students would be required to complete a civics education course or receive a passing score on a civics assessment exam to graduate if the state House next year accepts legislation approved by the Senate. Senators unanimously approved the bill on May 5, and the House could take up the measure next year. The legislation comes as recent national data shows the first-ever decline in U.S. eighth grade students’ history and civics test scores, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, which released the data Ma...
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Agriculture is planning to develop outdoor recreation opportunities near national forests and grasslands, part of a broader Biden administration push to help communities reap economic rewards from the growing recreation sector. Three USDA agencies — the Forest Service, the National Institute of Food and Agriculture and the Office of Rural Development — signed a memorandum of understanding last fall pledging to collaborate on plans to develop outdoor recreation economies in “gateway communities” near nati...
Forty people spread across the estuarine beach of northwest Tamgas Harbor to study the invasive European green crab that's been moving into the large bight on the southern shore of Annette Island since at least July 2022. For two days the last week of April, a cohort of scientists, resource managers and community members who want to quash the spread of the insidious green crab gathered in Ketchikan and visited Annette Island Reserve to share information about the crab's recent invasion in...
Alaska's top health official discussed the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic, the lessons learned and the need for Alaska to be ready for future public health emergencies. Dr. Anne Zink, chief medical officer for the Alaska Department of Health, was the speaker at the Beyond COVID: Pandemic Preparedness in the Circumpolar North conference on April 27 at the Sheet'ka Kwaan Naa Kahidi community house in Sitka. Zink, an emergency health physician in Palmer, became the state's chief medical offi...
The salmon crisis in Western Alaska is prompting new discussions in the U.S. and Canada about an idea that would have been a non-starter a decade ago: Maybe it’s time to build hatcheries to stem the steep fish declines on the Yukon River. Indigenous culture along the Yukon, in both the U.S. and Canada, is centered on wild salmon runs. Historically, those runs supported both commercial fisheries that rural residents depended on for cash income, and subsistence fisheries that kept freezers and dinner plates full through the winter in a r...
A Palmer woman has been indicted on murder, manslaughter and assault charges for an alleged hit-and-run in Metlakatla that resulted in the deaths of her 3-year-old son and her brother, as well as injuring the child’s father. Alecia A. Henderson, 27, was taken into custody on a court-ordered warrant May 2; the indictments were issued May 4. Ketchikan District Court Judge Kristian Pickrell set Henderson's bail at a $500,000 appearance bond, with 10% cash requirement. Pickrell also stipulated that Henderson could not be released from custody u...
WASHINGTON — Alaska Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan were among a bipartisan group of 13 senators who jointly signed letters to five U.S. museums and universities, urging them to repatriate Indigenous remains in their collections. The letters call on the University of California Berkeley, Harvard University, Illinois State Museum, Indiana University and the Ohio History Connection to comply with the Native American Graves and Repatriation Act. The 1990 federal law mandates that museums receiving federal money must return human remains, f...
Shoreline Wild Salmon co-founder Marie Rose is feeling like a small fish in a big pond after the Southeast Alaska-based company was recently listed in Good Housekeeping magazine’s 10 Best Seafood Delivery Services & Subscriptions of 2023. “A lot of the companies on the Top 10 list are really big companies, we’re quite small in comparison, so to know that our products are making the ranks with theirs is really exciting,” Rose said. “It feels really great to have been included, we’ve worked really hard over the years to try to establish t...
One of the world’s largest sea stars is on track to receive Endangered Species Act protections. Federal regulators are proposing a threatened listing for the sunflower sea star, a creature that has been killed off in much of its Pacific habitat by disease. While the effect of a listing on Alaska and its fisheries is not certain, scientists say they don’t expect significant changes in the state in the near term. The public comment period has ended on the proposal for the threatened listing published by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Adm...
Alaska is the home of the world's biggest piedmont glacier - meaning it falls from a mountain into a flat plain. But a new study has revealed that the Malaspina Glacier is not quite as big as previously believed, and that its low elevation makes it more highly susceptible to melting that would affect the rise in global sea levels. The glacier spills out of the St. Elias Mountains into a wide circular lobe atop a broad plain that stops short of the sea. At its widest, the glacier spans 40 miles...
With a week remaining in Alaska’s regular legislative session, leading lawmakers say they still haven’t reached agreement on a deal to finish the state budget and end the session on time. “We are meeting daily with the Senate … just working on finding some way to come together to put this kind of ‘endgame’ package together, which I can tell you right now, we don’t have the details as of yet,” House Speaker Cathy Tilton, R-Wasilla, said last Friday. Since 2015, odd-numbered years have brought tortuously long arguments over the budget as lawma...
State Sen. Click Bishop remembers his first paycheck as a teenager in Fairbanks in the early 1970s. His boss explained the $10 deduction for the state’s so-called school head tax. “That pays for your education,” the boss told his young employee. “I’ve never forgotten that,” said Bishop. The Legislature in 1980 abolished the small education tax, along with Alaska’s personal income tax and a tax on business gross receipts. The state was getting rich from oil and a majority of lawmakers saw little need for taxes. Bishop, now in his 11th year in...
An Anchorage legislator has added another idea to the growing list of tax proposals before lawmakers who are struggling to cover the state’s revenue needs. Rep. Zack Fields has proposed a personal income tax limited to no more than the amount of each year’s Permanent Fund dividend. “It’s a net-zero tax on Alaskans,” he said last week. No matter how much an individual earns, the annual tax would not exceed the amount of the PFD. In addition, anyone earning less than $75,000 a year would be exempt from the tax. The second-term Democrat described...