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The Alaska Volcano Observatory is planning to install a series of seismic instruments on Mount Edgecumbe near Sitka after preliminary measurements showed magma moving deep below the Mount Fuji-shaped volcano. The movement doesn't mean an eruption will happen soon - or even at all - from Southeast Alaska's most prominent volcano, but it's significant enough that the observatory has raised the volcano's threat level. "Internally, how we think about Edgecumbe has changed. It definitely has moved...
State funding is being directed to help stock Alaska food pantries — including those serving rural communities — as part of a broader effort to address a monthslong state backlog in processing food stamp benefit applications. Major delays in processing applications for the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program have stressed thousands of Alaskans who depend on the monthly benefits to feed their families, and strained food bank resources across the state. State officials have attributed the processing delays to staffing sho...
Nearly six months after Gov. Mike Dunleavy vetoed a bill aimed at reducing youth use of electronic cigarettes, its primary sponsor is trying again to pass similar legislation. Senate President Gary Stevens on March 1 introduced Senate Bill 89, which seeks to impose the first-ever statewide tax on e-cigarette products. The bill would also raise the legal age in state law for purchasing, selling or distributing the products to 21, aligning with federal law. Currently, the legal age in Alaska is 19. Stevens said the bill is needed to counter a tre...
State regulators say that taking over what are known as Clean Water Act Section 404 permits will allow more flexibility to benefit businesses and the environment in “Alaska’s unique conditions.” Most construction, resource and community development projects require such permits, and regulators hope the state could take over up to 75% of them beginning in 2024. But since almost every other state is opting against such control, the question is if Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s administration is pitching only the positive aspects while ignoring the drawback...
WASHINGTON - Tlingit leaders dedicated a storied totem pole in Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski's office on Feb. 28. The 10-foot tall, 900-pound totem pole, which is on loan from the Sealaska Heritage Institute, has a long history on Capitol Hill. The totem pole once stood in the late Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens' office. When Stevens left Congress, the totem pole journeyed to Alaska Rep. Don Young's office. When Young died last year, the totem pole traversed Capitol grounds back to Stevens' old office, no...
The Sitka-based Northern Southeast Regional Aquaculture Association board voted March 1 to provide up to $75,000 toward legal expenses to help fight a lawsuit that threatens to shut down the Southeast commercial troll fisheries. The 22 members at the board meeting gave unanimous approval to the contribution to the Alaska Trollers Association, said association general manager Scott Wagner. The aquaculture association manages hatcheries and salmon run enhancement projects as far north in Southeast as Haines. The Wild Fish Conservancy, a...
WASHINGTON — Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski testified in support of the Equal Rights Amendment at a Senate hearing this week, opposite a fellow Republican senator who opposes it. The Equal Rights Amendment, which was proposed in Congress in 1972, would codify equal rights for women in the U.S. Constitution and ban discrimination based on sex. Along with Sen. Ben Cardin, a Maryland Democrat, Murkowski sponsored legislation in the Senate in January that would remove the deadline to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment and recognizes that t...
At its two meetings last month, members of the Alaska Marine Highway Operations Board expressed frustration over the state Department of Transportation’s communication with the board on significant decisions, including the state ferry system’s summer schedule, job vacancies, and short- and long-term planning. In phone interviews last week with the Ketchikan Daily News, several board members elaborated on those concerns, saying the department occasionally struggles to meet one of its only obligations to the board listed in state statute: “Th...
A proposed overhaul of Alaska’s public employees retirement system would provide a new pension plan for state and municipal workers, intended by supporters to address the ongoing inability to recruit and retain enough employees. Half of the 20-member state Senate have signed onto the bill, sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Cathy Giessel, an Anchorage Republican. The measure was outlined in a news conference March 1 by members of the bipartisan coalition that controls the Senate. Coalition members said the 2006 legislation that moved Alaska f...
Alaska’s 401(k)-style retirement system for new employees is providing significantly smaller benefits than the pension-style retirement system discontinued for new hires in 2006, according to an analysis from the state Division of Retirement and Benefits. The analysis, presented Feb. 23 to the Senate Finance Committee, comes as legislators are considering whether to revive a pension system for new employees as a way to encourage hiring. Almost one in six state government jobs were vacant in December, according to the governor’s Office of Man...
Bills under consideration in the Legislature to cap state spending are not addressing the main challenges Alaska is facing, said Sitka Sen. Bert Stedman, co-chair of the Senate Finance Committee. “We don’t have a spending-side problem; we have a revenue-side problem,” said Stedman, who also represents Wrangell and the rest of Southeast except for Juneau, Haines, Skagway and Gustavus. He is in his 20th year in the Legislature. The senator pointed out that the latest spending-cap proposal advanced by an Anchorage Republican would exclude the P...
The state is shutting down most summer king salmon sportfishing around Cook Inlet amid continued declines in the strong, hard-running fish that not that long ago filled freezers and fueled tourism in the state’s most populated region. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game last Thursday announced an unprecedented array of restrictions and closures on sport and personal-use fishing from the Kenai Peninsula to the Matanuska-Susitna Borough, a sweeping series of emergency regulations that illustrates the severity of king salmon population c...
In her annual address to the Alaska Legislature, U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski urged state lawmakers to avoid spending too much time on the amount of this year’s Permanent Fund dividend and to focus on problems causing people to move out of the state. For a decade, the number of people moving out of the state has exceeded the number of people moving into Alaska. Only the addition of new births has caused the state’s population to plateau, rather than continue to fall. “They’re counting on us to have a vision and to push that vision, whether for res...
No invasive green crabs have been found outside the area on Annette Island where they were discovered last summer, though experts are working against a potential population explosion in Southeast Alaska. Barb Lake, with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Juneau, gave a presentation in Ketchikan last Friday about the invasive crab species that a team of scientists with the Metlakatla Indian Community first identified on Annette Island in July. It’s the only place that the crab has been captured in Alaska waters. Lake said t...
JUNEAU (AP) - An Alaska lawmaker with a history of incendiary remarks was censured by the state House on Feb. 22 after he said it has been argued that cases of fatal child abuse can be a "cost savings" because the child would not need related government services. The House voted 35-1 to censure Republican Rep. David Eastman of Wasilla, with only Eastman voting against the censure. The House action has no formal consequences other than putting a statement on the record. Eastman was censured in...
On May 1, the Alaska Court System will remove the marijuana possession convictions of about 750 Alaskans from Courtview, the state’s online database of court cases. The Alaska Supreme Court announced the move in an order signed Jan. 31 by the court’s five justices. The action, first reported Feb. 19 by the Alaska Landmine website, follows years of similar, unsuccessful, legislative efforts to join a nationwide trend. “I’m glad that the Supreme Court has ordered this,” said Fairbanks Sen. Scott Kawasaki. The records will still be available for i...
A multimillion-dollar share of the Alaska grocery store chain Three Bears is one of the latest additions to the Alaska Permanent Fund Corp.’s $200 million in-state investment program — a small slice of the $76 billion state savings account. The program, ordered by the board in 2018, has almost finished making its investments. The corporation’s board of trustees received an update on the program at a quarterly meeting this month. In addition to Three Bears, the new in-state investments include millions spent on a company that operates aviat...
It was a week of change for a 100-year-old Petersburg institution: The Trading Union was officially renamed Petersburg IGA on Feb. 20, as new owners Mike Ward, his daughter Caroline Bangs and her husband Travis Bangs took over the grocery store. “I got crew over from Wrangell, crew over from Haines, and we’re power-stocking this place,” Ward said last week. The family also owns Wrangell IGA and Ward is the majority owner of Howsers IGA in Haines. Ward, who is in his 44th year actively managing grocery stores, was born in Haines and as a young...
Alaska oil production and prices are below last year’s estimates, and the state could run out of money before the end of the fiscal year in June, members of the Senate Finance Committee were told Feb. 21. “It’s a bit of a nail-biter,” said Neil Steininger, director of the Office of Management and Budget. While the prospect may sound alarming, it’s not as bad as it sounds, said Sitka Sen. Bert Stedman, co-chair of the Finance Committee. “There’s nothing to worry about,” Stedman said. The state’s fiscal year doesn’t end until June 30, and legisl...
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Weeks after powerful storms dumped 32 trillion gallons of rain and snow on California, state officials and environmental groups in the drought-ravaged state are grappling with what to do with all of that water. State rules say when it rains and snows a lot in California, much of that water must go into the rivers to act as a conveyor belt to carry tens of thousands of endangered baby salmon into the Pacific Ocean. But last week, California Gov. Gavin Newsom asked state regulators to temporarily change those rules. H...
The Organized Village of Kake is looking into using a U.S. Forest Service facility at Portage Bay, on the north end of Kupreanof Island, as a cultural healing and rehabilitation center. The goal of the program would be to reconnect people with their cultural identity, improve their mental health, and counsel those recovering from alcohol and substance abuse and other issues. The cultural healing center has been a dream of Joel Jackson, the village president, for years. “What I had in mind was getting people to teach them who they are, b...
Alaskans will no longer need college degrees for most state jobs, under an administrative order issued Feb. 14 by Gov. Mike Dunleavy. The action is needed because of the labor shortage that affects Alaska and the nation, Dunleavy said in a statement. “Today people can gain knowledge, skills and abilities through on-the-job experience. If we’re going to address our labor shortage, we have to recognize the value that apprenticeships, on-the-job training, military training, trade schools and other experience provides applicants. If a person can...
Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom on Feb. 15 appointed a longtime state employee and Republican Party supporter to lead the Alaska Division of Elections. Carol Beecher, who led the state's child support enforcement division for the past nine years, will now administer Alaska's elections. Her first day was Feb. 15. Beecher grew up at a logging camp on Zarembo Island and graduated from Wrangell High School in 1980, according to the lieutenant governor's office. She succeeds Gail Fenumiai, the division's...
Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s amended budget unveiled Feb. 15 attempts to address crisis areas in state public services, with the additional spending driving the anticipated budget deficit past $400 million. The proposed budget for the next fiscal year is updated from his initial proposed budget announced in December. At that time, Dunleavy’s largely flat spending proposal for services had a $322 million deficit. The largest single expense in the governor’s proposed budget is $2.5 billion for a Permanent Fund dividend at roughly $3,900 per person this...
Alaska state lawmakers have begun examining a plan to set regulations and fees for companies that collect carbon dioxide and inject it deep underground. The governor has touted the potential for the state to make hundreds of millions of dollars over the years by leasing state lands to hold carbon deep underground and out of the atmosphere where it is blamed for worsening climate change. Members of the House Resources Committee held their first hearing on the proposal from Gov. Mike Dunleavy on Feb. 10. A leading member of the House’s m...