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Ketchikan: Deadly plane crash led to creation of Ketchikan Volunteer Rescue Squad; 1947 Pan Am crash on Tamgas Mountain killed 18 By DAVE KIFFER - Seventy years ago this week (Thursday), the worst Alaskan aviation accident up to that time occurred on Annette Island when a Pan American Airways DC-4 slammed into the top of Tamgas Mountain killing all 18 passengers and crew.

Up until recently, people climbing the mountain could still find pieces of the wreckage and metal from the flight, but the crash had another legacy to the Southern Southeast region. It led to the creation of the Ketchikan Volunteer Rescue Squad, an organization that has saved hundreds of people in the decades since.

Like many early aviation accidents in Alaska, authorities were never able to pinpoint a specific cause to the crash of Pan Am flight #923 from Seattle to Alaska. But it was clear that weather played a significant role as the last communications with the plane indicated that pilot Alf Monsen, one of the most experienced pilots in the state, was fighting to control the plane in severe turbulence.

Ironically, Monsen was Pan Am's "weather guru" and had actually written manuals explaining how to deal with the challenges of flying in Alaska weather. He was also on his final flight before retiring to join his wife Helen in Juneau. Helen Troy Monsen was the daughter of the former territorial governor John Troy. She was also the owner/publisher of the Alaska Daily Empire in Juneau. Alf Monsen – who had been one of Alaska’s pioneer bush pilots in the late 1920s – planned to take over the Alaska Coastal Airlines company when he retired from Pan Am.

Not long before the crash, Monsen had written his wife several letters indicating he was unhappy with Pan Am, particularly in how the company often sent flights and pilots into unsafe situations with a lack of up to date weather info. Monsen's letters and other Troy family material fill up several boxes in the Alaska State Archives in Juneau.

Flight 923 from Seattle to Juneau was a route that Monsen had flown dozens of times. He and his first officer Laurance Foster were very experienced with the run and the plane, a Douglas DC-4, nicknamed the Clipper Talisman. Monson was approaching 13,600 hours of flight time, with more than 500 in DC-4s. Foster – who was normally a captain but had been downgraded to first officer because of  Pan Am budget cuts -  had 12,400 flight hours with 359 in DC-4s. Both pilots had been trained on DC-4s seven months before when the DC 4s had been put into service by the airline.

The plane, with five crewmembers and 12 passengers (plus an infant), lifted off from Boeing Field at 10:30 am. It soon reached its cruising altitude.

"About an hour into the flight, the view was lost when thick clouds engulfed the aircraft, obscuring all outside references," Aviation historian Gregory Liefer wrote in his 2014 book "Broken Wings: Aviation Disasters in Alaska." "Light icing and turbulence were encountered soon after, bouncing the plane with jolts strong enough to prevent the passengers from sleeping. Those passengers inexperienced with flying remained on edge, but the crew considered the conditions fairly routine."

The last weather report the crew received before leaving Seattle indicated normal weather for late October in Southeast Alaska. - More...
Tuesday PM - October 24, 2017

Southeast Alaska: GAO: 2016 Tongass Plan Amendment is a "Rule" & Subject to Congressional Review By MARY KAUFFMAN - The U.S. Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) has determined that the U.S. Forest Service’s 2016 Amendment to the Tongass Land Management Plan (TLMP Amendment) is a “rule” which requires that it be submitted to Congress for review. As a rule, the 2016 Tongass Plan Amendment is subject to the Congressional Review Act (CRA) which became law in 1996. The Congressional Review Act helps maintain the balance of power between the branches of government by allowing Congress to pass a joint resolution of disapproval to overturn executive branch regulations.

Following the Government Accountability Office’s release of this determination, the Congressional Review Act provides for 60 legislative days to file a resolution of disapproval that would nullify the 2016 TLMP Amendment.

Chairman of the U.S.Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) today welcomed the Government Accountability Office’s determination. Earlier this year, Murkowski asked GAO to determine whether the TLMP Amendment met the definition of a “rule”, and GAO announced yesterday that it does. 

“I welcome GAO’s determination that the 2016 TLMP Amendment is a rule and subject to congressional review,” Murkowski said. “Every sector of the Southeast Alaska economy needs greater access to the Tongass, but this rule failed to provide it. Most concerning was the Forest Service’s decision to accelerate a transition to young-growth timber harvesting, even though it never completed an inventory to ensure it would be carried out successfully. While this rule can be improved administratively or legislatively, disapproving it entirely is now another option that we will consider in the days ahead.”

Since inception, the Tongass timber program has been based on harvesting old-growth trees-in the context of the Tongass, generally meaning trees more than 150 years old-that can be a source of high-quality lumber.  The Forest Service began offering timber sales on the Tongass in the early 1900s.  Although timber harvest increased substantially in the 1950s through 1970s, harvest has since declined significantly.

Spanning a total of 16.7 million acres, the Tongass covers most of Southeast Alaska and is the largest national forest in the United States. Despite its expansive size, the U.S. Forest Service has increasingly restricted access for timber, mining, transportation, renewable energy, and even recreation. Those restrictions increased when the Obama administration finalized the TLMP Amendment on its way out of office in December 2016. The Obama administration finalized the TLMP Amendment without completing a comprehensive inventory of young growth, a key recommendation of the Tongass Advisory Committee, and largely dismissed more than 1,000 objections.

The final 2016 Tongass Land Management Amended Plan scheduled an overall decrease in old-growth clearcut logging over a 15-year time period, prohibited old-growth logging in conservation priority watersheds, and protected roadless areas. The Amended Plan also opened long-standing conservation areas to young-growth timber harvest. - More...
Tuesday PM - October 24, 2017

Alaska: Salmon could win and lose in changing climate By SONNARY CAMPBELL - Pacific salmon face an uncertain future due to accelerated climate and landscape change, according to a synthesis paper published in the October 2017 edition of the journal Fisheries.

Researchers from the University of Alaska Fairbanks Institute of Arctic Biology, University of Alaska Anchorage, University of Alaska Southeast, U.S. Geological Survey and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service examined patterns of climate, landscapes and fisheries in the past 70 years to help understand where salmon ecosystems may be headed. They focused on the Kenai River in Southcentral Alaska.

Climate and landscape change pose threats to Pacific salmon, especially in lowland streams that can be particularly sensitive to warming and drying, and exposed to concentrated human development. But the future is not all doom and gloom. Other trends are likely to benefit certain salmon populations, such as longer ice-free growing seasons and new lakes that are forming as glaciers retreat.

“Salmon are incredibly adaptable, and right now they are facing serious challenges and new opportunities all at the same time. We should expect some surprises in how they respond,” said report lead author Erik R. Schoen, with the Alaska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit at IAB in Fairbanks. “Some of the salmon runs that Alaskans have relied on for generations are probably going to decline, but other runs may become more productive. We can’t predict the future, but we can take action now to help mitigate any losses and take advantage of new opportunities.”

World-class salmon

Alaska salmon support over $1 billion in annual economic output from commercial and recreational fisheries combined. River ecosystems feeding the Gulf of Alaska produce one-third of the world’s wild salmon. Salmon populations and commercial harvests overall are near historic high levels in this region. Salmon provide food, employment, and cultural significance to Alaskans and visitors. The Kenai River embodies the high social value of wild salmon.

Changing climate, changing landscapes

Alaska has warmed at more than twice the rate of the rest of the United States during the past 60 years. The study region is warming rapidly and experiencing drier summers and wetter falls. Habitats are changing from melting glaciers, drying wetlands, more frequent and intense fires, and increasing human development. In sharp contrast to lowland habitat loss, retreating glaciers are allowing salmon to expand to new habitats in some places. - More...
Tuesday PM - October 24, 2017

Joe GUZZARDI: More Border Patrol Agents Needed to Curb Opioid Crisis - The United States is in the grip of its worst heroin and opioid epidemic since the post-World War II era more than 60 years ago, according to the State Department's International Narcotics Control Report. In 2015, more than 52,000 U.S. deaths were directly related to drug overdoses, with the majority of those involving a prescription or illicit opioid. 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that since 1999, the number of overdose deaths involving opioids, including prescription opioids and heroin, has quadrupled. From 2000 to 2015 more than half a million people died from drug overdoses. Particularly vulnerable are residents in high poverty areas like West Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky and Los Angeles County. New Jersey governor Chris Christie bleakly compared opioid-overdose fatalities to terrorist attacks, saying, "We have a 9/11-scale loss every three weeks."

The Assistant Secretary for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, Ambassador William Brownfield, told reporters that domestic demand for the narcotics is insatiable, and that the majority of synthetic drugs and 100 percent of all heroin are imports. Brownfield estimates that Mexico accounts for 90 to 94 percent of the heroin smuggled into the U.S. And indirectly, Mexico is responsible for helping to get highly addictive fentanyl, a synthetic opioid analgesic similar to morphine but 50 to 100 times more potent, into wide swaths of the country. China processes raw fentanyl and then ships it to Mexico where it's processed and trafficked north.

Brownfield praised China for its cooperation with the U.S. to control fentanyl and 130 other new synthetic drugs, but said little about Mexico's willingness, if indeed it has any, to slow drug traffic.

The ease with which drug smugglers cross the border to enter the U.S., and the most effective way to stop them, should be a top congressional immigration agenda priority. Expert witnesses have brought the crisis to the Department of Homeland Security often enough to raise ongoing red flags. And some progress has been made, but far from enough. U.S. Border and Customs Patrol's duties take them from the Southwest border to New York's John F. Kennedy airport, a vast expanse for agents to combat resourceful, well-funded smugglers.

Some argue that President Donald Trump's proposed border wall would be the most efficient way to slow the flow of drugs. Since, according to the American Public Health Association, the opioid drug epidemic has cost U.S. taxpayers about $78.5 billion directly and indirectly, even a modest drop in drug traffic would help pay for the wall. Tax dollars not subsidizing drug rehab could be applied to the wall's construction. - More...
Tuesday PM - October 24, 2017