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Saturday
March 08, 2014
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Northern Lights
South of Ketchikan recently in the Mountain Point area.
Front Page Photograph By CARL THOMPSON ©2014
(Please respect the rights of photographers, never republish or copy
without permission and/or payment of required fees.)
Southeast Alaska: Inter-Island Ferry Generates Significant Economic Activity in Southern Southeast Alaska; IFA Related Spending in Ketchikan is at least $11 Million Annually - The Hollis-based Inter-Island Ferry Authority (IFA) - a public ferry system providing daily service between Ketchikan and Prince of Wales Island - released a study Friday showing that the ferry system is responsible for significant economic activity in southern Southeast Alaska. The 12-page publication, compiled by Sheinberg Associates, shows that the IFA provides a high rate of return on investment. In FY2013, the system generated $16 in revenue for each dollar of State investment. Compared to other public passenger-vehicle ferries, the IFA is run very cost effectively. On average for these systems, farebox revenue covers 49% of operational costs; however the IFA has a farebox recovery rate of 77%.
“We have always known that the IFA plays a significant socio-economic role in southern Southeast Alaska,” explains Dennis Watson, General Manager of the Inter-Island Ferry Authority. “However, it has not always been easy to convey this message. This publication concisely describes and calculates the economic and social impacts of daily ferry service between Prince of Wales Island and Ketchikan.”
Some other highlights of the study include the following: - More...
Saturday PM - March 08, 2014
Fish Factor: Seafood enjoys a surge of interest during Lent By LAINE WELCH - Last Wednesday marked the start of Lent, a time of fasting, soul searching and repentance for hundreds of millions of Christians around the world. And what the burst in the holiday sales season from Thanksgiving to Christmas means to retailers, Lent means the same to the seafood industry.
The 40-day Lenten season, which this year runs from March 5th to Easter Sunday on April 20th, dates back to the 4th century, and it has been customary to forego meat ever since. While nearly all seafood enjoys a surge of interest during Lent, the most traditional items served are the so called “whitefish” species, such as cod, pollock, flounders, and halibut.
Food Services of America reports that Ash Wednesday is the busiest day of the year for frozen seafood sales, and the six weeks following is the top selling season for the entire year. (Ash Wednesday is so called from the ritual of placing ashes from burned palm branches on the forehead to symbolize “that you are dust, and unto dust you shall return.")
Overall, Americans ate more seafood during Lent in 2013 than in previous years, according to Nation’s Restaurant News. GrubHub, the nation's top online and mobile food-ordering company which works with nearly 30,000 restaurants in 600 cities, said the number of people eating fish on Fridays increased by 20 percent during Lent last year since 2011.
The Filet-O-Fish sandwich, which was launched by McDonald’s on Good Friday, is made with Alaska pollock and sales top 300 million a year. Nearly 25 percent of the fish sandwiches are sold during Lent.
No matter what the seafood favorite, the long Lenten season is good news for Alaska, which provides nearly 60% of the wild caught seafood to U.S. restaurants and grocery stores. - More...
Saturday PM - March 08, 2014
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Alaska Science: Mystery of South Fork wolf's death solved By NED ROZELL - The wolf lies on a metal table, its white legs and massive paws hanging over the edge. Kimberlee Beckmen, wildlife veterinarian, wears a white lab coat and purple gloves. Scalpel in hand, she positions herself at the wolf’s belly.
Wildlife veterinarian Kimberlee Beckmen of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game performs a necropsy on a wolf found dead near Fairbanks while Jesse Dunshie looks on.
Photograph by Ned Rozell
Beckmen, who just finished a necropsy on an arctic fox that had been hit by a truck on the Dalton Highway, leans in on a wolf found dead on a trail east of Fairbanks. She checked her database this morning, she says. More than 250 wolves have been on her table in the 12 years she has worked for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.
Many of those wolves had been trapped or shot. The cream-colored wolf now before Beckmen died of an unknown cause. Biologists Tom Paragi and Mike Taras sledded in the frozen wolf a few miles from where it had dropped on a snowmachine trail and lay until a dog musher discovered it.
A hint of wet-dog smell fills the room. Before she begins cutting, Beckmen says this wolf is a female, about five years old, with good teeth. She measures the skull with calipers and then cuts into the animal’s neck.
Within 10 minutes of placing the animal on the table, she solves the mystery of how it died.
“It’s definitely a wolf attack,” she says while pulling skin from the neck. “The tears in the muscle right there, looks like hamburger meat.”
Before Beckmen cut, the wolf’s neck showed no clues of the damage beneath.
"When they bite on a soft part (that can give), their teeth don’t actually make holes in the skin, because the skin gives,” she says before adding that the wolf’s larynx is also fractured.
Damage to the throat along with the ripped hide on the wolf’s loin is something Beckmen has seen before, the result of when many wolves attack a single wolf.
“They’ll just shred ‘em,” she says.
As she continues cutting away hide with the smooth, quick motions of an artist dabbing paint on a canvas, Beckmen finds what she thinks was the coup de gras — a bite to the chest that collapsed a lung. - More...
Saturday PM - March 08, 2014 |
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Southeast Alaska: 2014 CHARTER AND COMMERCIAL HALIBUT MANAGEMENT MEASURES ANNOUNCED - NOAA Fisheries provided notice Friday of the immediate effect of regulations of the International Pacific Halibut Commission (IPHC). The commercial IFQ halibut season opened at noon local time today in Alaska.
Sport caught halibut
Photo by Josh Keaton
At its annual meeting in January, the IPHC recommended to the governments of Canada and the United States catch limits for 2014 totaling 27,515,000 pounds. The IPHC adopted area-specific catch limits for 2014 that were lower than 2013 in all of its management areas except Area 2C (Southeast Alaska), Quoting NOAA's news release, the halibut stock has been declining due to reduced recruitment, lower growth rates, and higher than target harvest rates, and is at risk of further declines. Conservation of the halibut resource will best serve the economic interests of both the charter and commercial fisheries over the long term said NOAA. - More...
Saturday PM - March 08, 2014
Columns - Commentary
 DAVE KIFFER: I Want My Lost Hour of Sleep Back!!! - Our little household is decidedly split on the “benefits” of “Spring Forward.”
For example, my wife and son and I are not, repeat not, excited about losing an hour of sleep. I read recently that the average human being functions better with 8-9 hours of sleep.
Wow, I am lucky to get that each week, not day.
Okay, that is a slight exaggeration. I usually get 10-15 hours of sleep a week.
You see, I may have the whip smart brain of a 19 year old, but most days I also have the super efficient waste processing system of a 91 year old. In other words, if I can get by with less than three trips to the bathroom between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m., I am either having an unusually restful evening or am in a coma.
And since I have morphed into my father, I have learned that while it is incredible easy to doze off and go to sleep on the couch any time after 6 pm, it’s is virtually impossible to get back to sleep when you are woken up after midnight.
Once upon a time, I used to never go to bed before midnight. Now I can never go back to bed after midnight. What goes around (literally!), comes around. Even when I am finished with whatever business I had to attend to, my body is just not, not, not ready to go back to sleep. After all, there is Facebook.
To add to that challenge is the fact that we have three cats. And they have set up a schedule in which beginning at 3 a.m. at least one of them is on parent duty. In other words, one cat is tasked with walking up and down on the nearest prone parental form in order to wake that parent up, causing said parent to realize it is time to go to the bathroom, and, oh by the way, FEED THE CATS.
- More...
Saturday PM - March 08, 2014 |
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Questions, please contact
the editor at editor@sitnews.us or call 617-9696
Sitnews reserves the right to edit.
 Re: Ketchikan Government Parties By Dave Kiffer - Unfortunately, Lt. Dial takes a reasonable political argument and blunts its relevance by not getting some of the facts straight. - More...
Wednesday PM - March 05, 2014
40 Days For Life By Rob Holston -
The 40 Days For Life spring campaign begins March 5th and continues through April 13. This is part of a global effort to bring awareness to the issue of abortion. One aspect of the campaign is to provide an opportunity for those interested in ending or diminishing abortions, increasing adoption &/or becoming a voice for the innocent pre-born among our community; to demonstrate their concern on a public street corner. This year's vigil site is near the corner of Jefferson and Tongass in the vicinity of Key Bank. - More...
Wednesday PM - March 05, 2014
Ketchikan Government Parties Down By Rodney Dial -
The average low wage worker in Ketchikan brings home about $6.20 per hour after taxes and various deductions are taken out. With the recent sales tax increase that will soon take effect, low income citizens will work over an hour to pay their sales tax for every $100 they spend. Spend $100 in groceries… work an hour for the local government. Spend $1000 in rent… work six hours for the government… and so on. How many people realize that sales tax is factored into the gas you buy? If a retailer sells gas for $4 a gallon, your price at the pump will soon be $4.26. Our city sales tax rate is going to 6.5%, the second highest in the state out of over 300 communities. The city sales tax is increasing because the Ketchikan City Government claims it is flat broke… out of money… running on reserves and would have to cut services if they didn’t raise taxes. - More...
Monday PM - March 03, 2014
Alaska: State of Confusion By Tara Jollie -
The Education Session, the Gasline Project, the Fiscal Cliff, which is it? Can legislators pick one and get something done during this legislative session? Alaska’s future depends on it. - More...
Monday PM - March 03, 2014
No to Chloramine! By Chevell Lamar - I’m a freshman at Ketchikan High School, and I’d like to talk to you about the dramatic effects of Chloramine. Did you know that chlorinates are derivatives of ammonia by substitution of one, two or three hydrogen atoms with chlorine atoms? I’m reasonably sure that you all know what chlorine is, and if you don’t it is the stuff we use to chemically balance pools, but you wouldn't want to drink the pool water would you? - More...
Monday PM - March 03, 2014
We are getting soaked and poisoned By Ed Plute -
There will be a meeting at the Ted Ferry Civic Center at 6:00 pm on the 5th of March concerning our water problems and what we can do. Bob Bowcock will be there. He is a lead researcher for the Erin Brockovich team. - More...
Monday PM - March 03, 2014
Power demand By A. M. Johnson - Regarding area power demand solution: Here we go again! Today's (3/1/14) Ketchikan Daily News carries the various reports of the community elected official group priority "Community Needs" trip to the legislature. It was interesting to read that the Governor is aware of the hydro issues and requirements with farsightedness to encourage the Ketchikan contingency to get its act together including looking outside the box. - More...
Monday PM - March 03, 2014
Postal Woes By Kathy Fitzgerald -
I'm not so sure that Senator Begich has earned the thanks of the Ketchikan community yet. - More...
Monday PM - March 03, 2014
Chloramine By Michelle Anderson -
Please do not subject Ketchikan's citizens to chloramine in their tap water. I will never forget my six-year-old son grabbing his stomach and screaming. I will also never forget having the shower water hit my forehead and feel like hot burning acid. My gut swelled to twice its normal size. I later discovered it was the chloraminated tap water making us both sick. After we stopped drinking our tap water, and after I stopped using it on my face, we both got better. - More...
Monday PM - March 03, 2014
RE: Explanation please! By Kasia Polanska Thank you Gina Palmer for taking the time to read my letter regarding the firing of the KTB artistic director and for responding to it. I agree that the KTB is a wonderful organization and I feel fortunate that we have the ballet school in our community. However, I respectfully disagree that the actions taken by its Board are above all criticism. I feel that parents like me, who support KTB by getting their children involved in ballet, paying tuition, and voting for the board members, have a right to know the reasons for its decisions. As a matter of fact, I am assuming that you were not given the reason either and do not know what happened behind the closed doors. - More...
Monday PM - March 03, 2014
More Bigfoot sightings than Dan Sullivan sightings in Ketchikan By Tom Schulz -
I call Ketchikan home. I have for years. And former Department of Natural Resources Commissioner Dan Sullivan’s recent trip here tells me a lot about someone who wants our vote. - More...
Monday PM - March 03, 2014
RE: The Fair Tax INCREASES WELFARE By Wiley Brooks -
Mr. Eldridge standard introductory remarks are very telling: “I am a retired lifetime tax consulting professional (JD, LLM in Taxation, CPA, co-author of a 3 volume tax treatise, lecturer), with no financial stake in ANY tax system.” His credentials are very impressive. But, there are professionals with equally impressive experience and credentials in taxation matters who believe strongly it is time to abandon a tax on income and the FairTax legislation offers the best answer. Many of the nation’s leading university, business and law-focused economists, including Nobel Laureate Vernon L. Smith discredit Mr. Eldridge arguments. If you want the most thoroughly researched truth on the Fair Tax I suggest a visit to www.FairTax.org. - More...
Monday PM - March 03, 2014
RE: The Fair Tax INCREASES WELFARE By David Boone -
For some reason Stephen Eldridge has taken it upon himself to be a one man wrecking crew whenever he gets a Google Alert that someone has said something in print favorable to the FairTax. - More...
Monday PM - March 03, 2014
Every citizen should fear the IRS By Roy Newsom - When Marx and Engels wrote the Communist Manifesto in 1848, they presented ten steps necessary to destroy any free enterprise system and replace it with Communism. Step number two is to establish a heavy progressive or graduated income tax. At that time, this country did not have an income tax. It took 65 years for the progressives to sell it to the American people. Back then, it was hard to realize the dangers it brought to this nation. Today, we can see why Marxism considers it a necessary tool to bring down any productive nation and turn it into a Socialist State. - More...
Monday PM - March 03, 2014
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