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SitNews - Stories In The News - Ketchikan, Alaska
Wednesday
August 24, 2011

Front Page Photo by ANDREA WICK

How high's the water??
After the recent rains, Ketchikan resident Evan Wick poses for the camera while standing on a picnic table in the Ward Lake area.
Front Page Ph
oto by ANDREA WICK

Ketchikan

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Ketchikan:
Paralytic Shellfish Poisoning Presentation: The Alaskan Problem –A presentation on Paralytic shellfish toxin (PSP) will be given on August 25, 2011 at 6:30 PM at the Discovery Center by Raymond RaLonde.

With over 15 years of experience with PSP, RaLonde is a Professor of Fisheries for the University of Alaska Fairbanks School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences and aquaculture specialist for the University of Alaska Sea Grant Marine Advisory Program.

PSP is a pervasive problem in Alaska affecting human health and the marine environment and inflicting economic consequences on recreational, subsistence, commercial fisheries, and aquaculture development. Personal use and subsistent shellfish harvests account for 191 confirmed PSP illnesses from 1973 to 2011 in Alaska. - More...
Wednesday - August 24, 2011

Southeast Alaska: Job Creation and Southeast Revitalization Opportunities Discussed – Agriculture Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment Harris Sherman, joined by USDA's Rural Utilities Service Administrator Jonathon Adelstein and other officials, recently met with business owners, including timber, tourism, and fishing industries, to discuss ways federal, state and local officials can work together to improve economic conditions and create jobs. The meetings were part of a series of rural roundtables that are being held across the country this summer with senior Obama Administration officials on behalf of the White House Rural Council.

On Saturday Sherman met with the Juneau Economic Development Council, and then traveled to Sitka on Sunday to hear from business and community leaders about the future of the Tongass National Forest.

"The vitality of rural America is critical to the well being of this country," said Sherman. "Alaska's economy is a critical element in the economic health of this nation. Sustaining rural communities and helping the economy grow is vital not only here in Alaska, but across the country."- More...
Wednesday - August 24, 2011

Alaska: Alaska Fish Habitat Benefits from Half a Million Dollars in Funding –The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will provide more than $3.4 million to support 84 fish habitat projects in 38 states across the nation under the National Fish Habitat Action Plan (NFHAP). An additional $9.8 million in partner contributions, bringing the total to more than $13.2 million, will go toward restoring and enhancing stream, lake, and coastal habitat; as well as improving recreational fishing and helping endangered species.

Here in Alaska, 16 projects will be supported by more than half a million dollars in U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service funding and more than $1.4 million in matching funds. The projects focus on various aspects of fish habitat protection and restoration. For example, the Matanuska Susitna Basin Salmon Habitat Partnership will be able to use $50,000 in Service funds and $50,000 in partner funds to replace a perched culvert and reopen 2 miles of water to juvenile salmon on Coyote Creek. - More...
Wednesday - August 24, 2011


Alaska Science: The experiment that never ends By NED ROZELL - Some experiments never end. Especially ones involving plastic objects released in the far north.

The experiment that never ends

A plastic disc from an experiment 30 years ago, found by Paul Boots on Alaska’s North Slope in late July 2011.
Photo by Paul Boots

In late July 2011, Paul Boots, a supervisor at an oilfield on Alaska’s North Slope, found a small, yellow plastic disc on a creekbed. Scientists 30 years ago tossed the disc into the sea as part of a study on arctic oil spills.

Boots, who works at the large gravel pad that hosts the Badami oil field, was with his coworkers on an annual cleanup day along a nameless creek just west of the gravel pad.

“I was enjoying a beautiful day and strayed a bit farther than most in my search for ‘fugitive emissions’ (everything we pick up has been blown off of our pad),” he wrote in an email. “I found the disc about 50 yards from the saltwater.”

Boots at first thought the saucer was part of a weather balloon. Then he saw a typewritten message: “One Dollar Reward on Return of Serial Number With Date Found, Location, Your Name and Address to Geophysics Institute, Univ. of Alaska, Fairbanks.”

More interested in finding the history of the disc than making a buck, Boots sent a to-whom-it-may-concern message to Blake Moore at the Alaska Climate Research Center at the Geophysical Institute. Knowing I’ve been around here for many moons, Blake forwarded the message to me. - More...
Wednesday - August 24, 2011


Columns - Commentary

jpg Dave KifferDAVE KIFFER: The Great Flood of 2011!!!!!! - “Global warming” or “Climate change” or whatever you want to call it is having a significant effect on Our Fair Salmon City!

No, the temps are certainly not warmer and the water levels are not rising very much.

Actually, the sad thing about all the global warming predictions is that we are in the middle of the one part of the world where all the climate change models show that things will get colder and wetter. You knew that was coming.

But as usual, I digress.

No, there has been a rapid increase in one thing.

Dire weather predictions!

In the past, the National Weather service has been pretty low key about predicting local weather. Occasionally, there would be a storm warning or two. Sometimes, they would caution us to be wary of high winds in “exposed areas” (as if any long-time resident would be caught dead “exposing” their areas in this climate).

But other than suggesting we check on our boats to make sure they don’t sink at the dock, there was little differentiation between a storm bringing two inches or eight inches of rain. Little concern unless sustained winds of 70 plus are expected. Then they warned people to secure their backyard trampolines.

Occasionally, there was a winter storm warning where they talked about a bit of snow and whiteout, but – don’t be alarmed – it’s not like we live in Shaktoolik or some such place. All snow washes away here, more sooner than later.

Now, already this year, we have had two “dire” storm warnings.

Let’s roll tape and see how they turned out!

First, it was the “Three Day Snow Storm of January 2011.”

You remember it.

The National Weather Service was predicting anywhere 6-12-18-36 inches of snow over a weekend in January. They weren’t sure because there was a chance the “slow moving” storm would just camp out over top of Ketchikan and let loose an aerial avalanche. - More...
Wednesday - August 24, 2011

 

      

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Questions, please contact the editor at editor@sitnews.us or call 617-9696

letter RE: What Could Go Wrong? By Ken Leland - Spot on, Mr. Johnson! The best example was the disaster on Fishery Management prior to statehood, which was spiraling into disaster. With statehood Alaska assumed control of fisheries and the industry ( which is one of the cornerstones of Alaska's economy) that has not only recovered, but expanded. - More...
Monday - August 24, 2011

letter What could go wrong? By A. M. Johnson - Returning from an out of town trip and reading the Ketchikan Daily News issues during that absence, a sequence of items regarding Federal intrusion raise continued concern with the Federal Government agencies over-riding States Rights. - More...
Monday - August 22, 2011

letter Southeast Alaska Wolves By Butch Olmstead - The recent article in Sitnews about some of our environmental groups again attempting to classify our wolves here in Southeast Alaska as endangered is of concern to me. We all know that these wolves are here as a result of the availability of food. I have seen them swimming from the mainland of Alaska to our islands in search of food and new territory. If there is any difference at all in the specie it's because these wolves are hybrids, having bred with our domestic dogs on occasion. Our Alaskan Malamute and Siberian Husky dogs and others are very capable of survival in the wild and have inbred with these so called phony hybrid Alexander Archipelago wolves, rare indeed, what a crock. - More...
Friday - August 19, 2011

letter Economy, taxes By Angelo Martin - What are you folks surprised about? When the pulp mill announced they were closing, I was a borough Assembly member. They said utilities, rent taxes would go up. Your town is run by the city manager, the council is advised by him and the council abides by his advice. - More...
Friday - August 19, 2011

letter MV Wickersham By Jack Kinney - The Wickersham was a Beautiful Lady of the Sea. I enjoyed being on the bridge and conversing with Captain Ken Florian. - More...
Friday - August 19, 2011

letter TSA By Louise Clark - Yes, Patricia Burkman I realize we have wars going in several countries which by the way were never declared by Congress. As I understand our constitution gives only Congress the power to officially declare wars but just who is paying attention to our constitution any more? - More...
Friday - August 19, 2011

letter Thanks By Marlene Steiner - I would like to say thank you to Chris Elliott for the comment on the Deer Mtn. Apts. Yes the Bawden Street will get painted. - More...
Friday - August 19, 2011

letter RE: Question By Rosemary Nelson - Regarding to Chris Elliott's question, my understanding of why the fire truck will accompany the ambulance is so that there is extra personnel to help if need be. - More...
Friday - August 19, 2011

letter Spending and Taxes By Samuel Bergeron - Chas Edwardson is right about our debt load; it's too high. We as a community need to keep in mind what we are doing as a whole; spending and borrowing at an alarming rate. We are losing population and yet we are building a fire station that is the same size as Fairbanks, Alaska, a city with 5 times the population as Ketchikan. We are putting a $700,000 piling and grade beam foundation under the new library because the site is not suitable for a conventional concrete footing foundation as planned. We are building a pool that is slated to cost 23 million dollars. All the while the City is contending because of our spending spree they want to increase our taxes to cover the cost of our debt load. We are facing increases in our water and electrical rates to boot. - More...
Tuesday - August 16, 2011

letter Fire Response Time By Chris Elliott - Dawn Luna says the reason she got most often for putting the fire station in the middle of town was to increase response time. I can only say, this isn't Chicago. This isn't even Juneau. I kid my friends who live on S. Point Higgins that it's like a trip to Peru for me to drive from my home near the high school. I have to pack snacks, schedule rest stops, etc. In reality, it takes me about 15-20 minutes to drive to S. Point Higgins. - More...
Tuesday - August 16, 2011

letter TSA By Patricia Burkman - Every time I hear a complaint about TSA, these people don't realize we are at war! You and I feel we should be exempt from being searched or be allowed that bottle of water because we know we would never harm anyone -- but how are the TSA to know? How are they? Our enemies will use any means to kill us and we can tell them how very easily by saying: We exempt people who are ___ (fill in the blank). How easy it would be for our enemies to send in a bomb or worse yet a chemical that will travel throughout the US by insuring that it is on a person that fit the exemption. And while it is unfortunate that millions of innocent people are inconvienced and sometimes embarassed we do it because that's what you have to do when war has been declared. And war was declared on us. - More...
Tuesday - August 16, 2011

letter Ketchikan Roads By Harry Howard - I would like to express my extreme displeasure and disappointment in which ever government entity should be using our tax dollars to maintain the roadways on this island. I have lived in Ketchikan for only 3 years, but I have seen some roads get completely ignored and some get paved, repaved, and repaved again. I really can't make heads or tails of how the road maintenance is ranked with importance. I originally thought it was tourist based, but looking at what gets paved, that is wrong. - More...
Monday - August 15, 2011

letter What a surprise" Let's raise taxes! By Charles Edwardson- A public library that was running into cost overruns even before the voters decided we needed one, a fire station with a blank check, a pool, a recreation center roof vetoed in the capital budget but tore the roof off any way, deferred maintenance year after year of our basic infrastructure (actually should be the priority of a city government) to enable us to pay the bond issue debt load -- it goes on and on. The reckless fiscal decisions the City of Ketchikan has made is now catching up with us. And the only thing our city manager - who lead us into many of these ill advised financial decisions - can come up with is (golly ge wiz ) I think you all might have to raise taxes. The others who sit on the council supposedly guiding our city, can only come up with... hey let's sell the only profitable thing we got going (phone division). - More...
Monday - August 15, 2011

letter New City of Ketchikan Fire Station By Dawn Luna - I to had wondered why they chose to put the new Ketchikan fire station there. I wondered why they hadn't decided to put the new library there instead and the new fire station up on the hill. The response I got the most was, response time to an emergency call, especially in the winter time. So I sit and ponder Chris Elliott's letter and think to myself, how will the response time be during tourist season? I get a picture in my mind of complete chaos, tourist running everywhere, cars backed up, tourist vehicles trying to find room to pull over to let the emergency response vehicles by (especially the Amphibious Duck Tour Vehicles), and the firetrucks still trying to fight their way through the tourist season traffic. - More...
Monday - August 15, 2011

letter Blame? By Joey Garcia - I have expressed and admired KPU's Technician group. These people have relentlessly serviced callers even in the rain and late in the evenings. I fully admire their job performance. - More...
Monday - August 15, 2011

letter Fiscal guide By A.M. Johnson - With the recent Congressional vote to increase our National Debt Limit and the appointment of a "Super Committee" consisting of six Senators and six Representatives to address a trifling cut of one and half Trillion dollars from a now, 17 Trillion debt limit, the following five sentences, sent to each of our Alaska Congressional representatives, have a profound impact. - More...
Thursday - August 11, 2011

letter Boat dead in the water! By Kenneth G. Reese - On August 9th a friend & I had a trip to Yes Bay planned to subsistence fish for sockeye salmon. We prepared the day before. We had all our gear ready toped off the fuel tank and planed to leave Knudsen Cove by 9:30 am. We got off to a good start beautiful day, but by the time we reached southern Neets Bay the motor died?? WE soon found out that our gas was siphoned the night before!! So here we are sitting drifting. What to do?? - More...
Thursday - August 11, 2011

letter Deer Mt. Apts. By Chris Elliott - Kudos to the owners of the Deer Mountain Apartments for the paint job. Just finish up the Bawden Street side, and your building will be beautiful. - More...
Thursday - August 11, 2011

letter Customer Service By Robert Fruehan - Over the years it seems that i have had my fair share of situations in which I felt I or a member of my family was treated with less than professional courtesy by Alaska Airlines' representatives whether they be Stewardesses or people at the gate. With that being said, there are many of them who are super great but the fact is, you remember the ones who treat you poorly far easier than the latter. - More...
Thursday - August 11, 2011

letter Art Bailly's Letter on TSA By Charlotee Tanner - I agree with everything Mr. Bailly has to say, and also would like to point out to Mr. Bailly that TSA's authority extends to Ferry systems, Railways, and the Highway system. I read recently they were discussing exercising this authority in those areas in the near future. - More...
Thursday - August 11, 2011

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