Photo of the Month Ketchikan: Joplin pleads not guilty to murder, theft by Leila Kheiry, KRBD - A 32-year-old Washington State man pleaded not guilty Monday to first- and second-degree murder charges related to the March 16 death of Ketchikan surgeon Dr. Eric Garcia. - Listen or read this KRBD article... www.krbd.org Ketchikan: 2017 Cruise Ship Calendar (PDF) - Calendar Courtesy Cruise Line Agencies of Alaska Ketchikan: Public Meetings Ketchikan: Upcoming Events Historical Ketchikan June Allen Dave Kiffer Louise B. Harrington Ketchikan Weather Ketchikan's Forecast Ketchikan's Historic Weather Nat Weather Service KTN Ketchikan Tides & Currents Search the News Ketchikan Alaska Sitnews   RSS widget

Southeast Alaska: Forest Service purchases land in Cube Cove returning it to Wilderness - Today marks the completion of the purchase of four additional segments of a multi-segment land acquisition in and around Cube Cove on Admiralty Island using congressionally appropriated funds.

In July of 2016, a landmark purchase agreement was signed between the Forest Service and Shee Atiká, Incorporated to return over 22,000 acres of land back into Wilderness within the million-acre Admiralty Island National Monument. Due to the size of the property, the purchase agreement established a method to acquire the property in segments. Today’s purchase of four segments, comprising 7,570.21 acres, together with the 2016 acquisition segments of 4,463.45 acres, combines for a total of 12,033.66 acres purchased to date. The segments purchased so far represent 52.6 percent of the Cube Cove property with 10,856.61 acres remaining.

When this purchase is completed it will be the largest transfer of lands from a private inholding back into Forest Service-managed Wilderness in the history of the agency. Admiralty Island is located within the Tongass National Forest, which is the largest intact temperate rainforest in the world, home to large populations of brown bears and other wildlife and also critical watersheds for salmon and fish stocks. - More...
Tuesday PM - July 25, 2017

Southeast Alaska: Draft Record of Decision issued for Wrangell Island Project - The draft Record of Decision and Final Environmental Impact Statement for the Wrangell Island Project were recently released for public review.  The scope of the project is to develop/implement a multi-year project involving a variety of timber harvests and road construction.

Earl Stewart, Forest Supervisor for the Tongass National Forest, selected Alternative 2 in the draft ROD. The Selected Alternative would harvest about 56 million board feet of timber with associated road construction. The Selected Alterative includes public access management which was developed in cooperation with the public and City and Borough of Wrangell. The Selected Alternative also provides public access for subsistence firewood collection. - More...
Tuesday PM - July 25, 2017

Southeast Alaska: UA Board of Regents approves joint UAS-UAF Fisheries degree - Students at the University of Alaska Southeast (UAS) in Juneau will now be able to earn a Bachelor of Science (B.S.) degree in Fisheries and Ocean Sciences in light of action by the UA Board of Regents in June 2017. 

The new degree is expected to increase the number of Southeast Alaska students who earn an undergraduate fisheries degree and are prepared to work in fisheries development, management, and research. - More...
Tuesday PM - July 25, 2017

Alaska: Governor Signs Legislation to Increase Opioid Awareness, Education, and Monitoring - Governor Bill Walker today signed major opioid reforms into law in what is called a critical next step in Building a Safer Alaska.

HB 159 allows patients to execute a Voluntary Nonopioid Directive, making it clear that they do not desire to be administered an opioid. The confidential information would be provided to an individual’s healthcare provider or hospital, and is revocable at any time.

Alaskans will also be able to request partial fills of opioid prescriptions from pharmacists, without voiding the remainder of the prescription. Additionally, the legislation limits first-time opioid prescriptions to no more than a 7-day supply with exceptions, strengthens reporting and education requirements for pharmacists and healthcare providers, and requires the controlled substance prescription database to be updated daily starting July 1, 2018, instead of weekly, to increase communication among providers and transparency. - More...
Tuesday PM - July 25, 2017

Alaska: Door-to-door paving scam prompts statewide warning - A new scam is coming right to Alaskans front door and Representative Tammie Wilson (R-North Pole) is encouraging people to be aware so they do not fall victim. Rep. Wilson took charge of the issue by calling state agencies who protect consumers after she received numerous calls from people in her district sharing their experience with scammers.

The Alaska Attorney General’s Office is warning Alaskans that individuals or companies are going door-to-door offering paving services that mislead consumers by violating the Door-To-Door Sales provision and the Unfair Trade Practices and Consumer Protection Act.

The way the scam typically works is individuals claim they have leftover paving materials and are able to pave driveways or sidewalks for a discounted rate. The actual work done by the pavement scammers is shoddy and below all paving standards. Additionally, when the work is done, a homeowner is told the job will cost much more than promised, in some cases double. Scammers sometimes try to represent themselves as a local business by using a vacant lot for their business address or by sporting a work vehicle with Alaskan license plates.  - More...
Tuesday PM - July 25, 2017

Alaska: Study Finds Toxic Mercury is Accumulating in the Arctic Tundra - Vast amounts of toxic mercury are accumulating in the Arctic tundra, threatening the health and well-being of people, wildlife and waterways, according to a UMass Lowell scientist investigating the source of the pollution. 

A research team led by Prof. Daniel Obrist, chairman of UMass Lowell’s Department of Environmental, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, found that airborne mercury is gathering in the Arctic tundra, where it gets deposited in the soil and ultimately runs off into waters. Scientists have long reported high levels of mercury pollution in the Arctic. The new research identifies gaseous mercury as its major source and sheds light on how the element gets there. 

“Now we understand how such a remote site is so exposed to mercury,” Obrist said. Although the study did not examine the potential impact of global warming, if climate change continues unchecked, it could destabilize these mercury deposits in tundra soils and allow large amounts of the element to find its way into Arctic waters, he added. 

Obrist recently completed two years of field research in the tundra, tracking the origin and path of mercury pollution. Working from an observation site in Alaska north of Brooks Range, he and an international group of scientists identified that gaseous mercury in the atmosphere is the source of 70 percent of the pollutant that finds its way into the tundra soil. In contrast, airborne mercury that is deposited on the ground through rain or snow – a more frequent focus of other studies – accounts for just 2 percent of the mercury deposits in the region, Obrist’s team found. 

The new research is the most comprehensive investigation on how mercury is deposited in the Arctic. The full results of the study, which was supported by the National Science Foundation, appear in the July 13 edition of the prestigious academic journal Nature. 

Mercury is a harmful pollutant, threatening fish, birds and mammals across the globe. The dominant source of mercury pollution in the atmosphere is hundreds of tons of the element that are emitted each year through the burning of coal, mining and other industrial processes across the globe.  - More...
Tuesday PM - July 25, 2017

Health Care: Senate GOP opens health care debate. Now what? By JEFFERY LAZARUS, DAVID MCLENNAN, AND RACHEL CAUFIEFL - On July 25, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell narrowly managed to keep a Republican effort to reform health care alive. We asked our experts to consider the importance of this procedural vote and what happens next.

Which bill will it be? By Jeffrey Lazarus, Georgia State University

Senate Republicans have voted to start debate on a health care bill. The “motion to proceed” – which marks the start of debate on bills in the Senate – reached a majority on the strength of “yes” votes from senators who previously voted “no,” including Rand Paul, Dean Heller and Shelley Moore Capito; John McCain’s quick return to Washington after a brain cancer diagnosis; and a rare tie-breaking vote from Vice President Pence.

While this is a major step in the legislative process in the Senate, it’s important to remember that today’s vote is procedural, not substantive. No bill has passed. All that has happened is that the Senate will begin formal debate.

Majority Leader Mitch McConnell depended on a couple of factors to help get the motion passed. First, members are more likely to support their parties on procedural votes than votes directly attached to whether a bill should pass. Second, this particular procedural vote has almost no substance; nobody knows what the Senate bill will look like, so it’s unclear what exactly the Senate just agreed to debate. Since the health care bill is massively unpopular, this lack of substance probably helped get marginal senators on board. - More...
Tuesday PM - July 25, 2017

Health Care Debate Alaska: Senate Votes 51-50 to Proceed With Health-Care Debate - The U.S. Senate voted today 51-50 to beign debating a replacement for the Affordable Care Act. Vice President Mike Pence casted the tie breaking vote to advance the health care bill to the floor. Alaska's senators were split with U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan (R-AK) voting yes to proceed with the health-care debate and U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) voting no.

Governor Bill Walker reacted to the U.S. Senate’s approval of a Motion to Proceed to debate on repealing the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Walker said, “As I have said before, I will not support any healthcare bill that hurts Alaskans or their access to care. Alaskans deserve a fair and transparent process so they can understand how this legislation will impact their lives and families; thus far, that has not been the case."

Senator Murkowski said in a prepared statement, “I voted ‘no’ today to give the Senate another chance to take this to the committee process."

Murkowski said, “I have repeatedly said that healthcare reform, and especially major entitlement reform, should go through the committee process where stakeholders can weigh in and ideas can be vetted in a bipartisan forum." - More...
Tuesday PM - July 25, 2017