For the second time in the past month, the Coast Guard helicopter forward deployed to St. Paul Island was called out for a medevac. Shortly after midnight Wednesday, a 44-year old crewmember aboard the catcher-processor Starbound started experiencing heart-attack symptoms. Petty Officer Sara Francis says given the severity of the situation, it was critical to get him to care immediately.
“They went out and hoisted him from the fishing vessel Starbound, a 240-foot Seattle-based catcher-processer, about 69 miles southeast of St. Paul. The weather on scene was 23 mile per hour winds, with 4 foot seas, and they brought him safely back to the clinic in St. Paul for further treatment.”
Update 02/13: The Unified Command has released additional information about the Kulluk's tow plan. You can find it here.
In the latest setback to Shell’s Arctic drilling plans for this summer, the company says it’s sending both of its drilling rigs to Asia for dry dock repairs. The Noble Discoverer needs an engine overhaul and the Kulluk needs major repairs to its internal electrical systems and hull after running aground near Kodiak on New Year’s Eve. Shell spokesperson Curtis Smith says the Kulluk was damaged inside when seawater came through open hatches, and that the hull was “compromised” in some areas.
Red Tree Coral/Courtesy of Alaska Fisheries Science Center
A petition for the federal government to list several dozen species of Alaska cold water corals as endangered has stalled after an initial review.
Biologist Kiersten Lippmann submitted the petition on behalf of the Center for Biological Diversity. She says the corals need better protections because they are often the only structures on the ocean floor.
“They’re kind of like trees would be in a terrestrial environment, in that they provide that sheltered habit and a place to rest and feed from for a whole host of species.”
The Unalaska Raiders basketball teams played against Sand Point this weekend, with the girls at home and the boys away. Coach Kevin Ley says playing against the less experienced Sand Point teams was a good opportunity for the junior varsity teams and some of the younger varsity players to shine.
“We were just trying to make good games, and get some of our younger kids as much experience as possible.”
Road raveling at the intersection of Airport Beach Road and Broadway
Last summer, Unalaska residents endured lengthy construction delays during the repaving of Airport Beach Road and Broadway, and they can expect more of the same this summer. Despite the amount of time Granite Construction spent on the project, the surface isn’t holding up.
“You can see that the rocks are beginning to pop out of the pavement, which isn’t supposed to happen,” city manager Chris Hladick says. “So, we’re in a dispute with the contractor. We’d like them to fix that, and the other places that are raveling. And there are also some other places where they didn’t get the right slope of the road. You can see, like in front of ITC, that there’s water standing on the road. That’s not supposed to happen.”
For now, the deterioration of the roadway isn’t a huge problem, but Hladick says in a few years, it will be.
After the grounding of Shell’s Kulluk drill rig in January, reports circulated that the company had been moving it from Unalaska to Seattle in order to avoid Alaska’s oil and gas property tax. But this week, as the Kodiak Daily Mirror first reported, the state decided that tax doesn’t actually apply to the offshore rig.
That’s despite the Kulluk being grounded in Alaskan waters on January 1, when the tax rolls were drafted. Assessor Jim Greeley says the rig is exempt because statute defines taxable property as:
“Property that’s use is in the exploration, production or transportation of unrefined oil or gas," Greeley says. "But it also states that that activity needs to be in the state.”
In isolated spots in the Bering Sea, there are fields of so-called ‘mermaids’ purses.’ Any beachcomber would recognize them -- small rectangular pods with pointy corners. They’re the protective casing that surrounds the fertilized eggs of skates, and in some underwater nurseries there are hundreds of thousands of them.
Skates have healthy population levels in the Bering Sea, but their unusual breeding habits could make them susceptible to human disruption. That’s why at this week’s North Pacific Fishery Management Council in Portland, the body decided to designate six of the nurseries in the Eastern Bering Sea as ‘Habitat Areas of Particular Concern.’
Local chocolatier Sharon Svarny-Livingston is well-known in Unalaska for her handmade truffles. In this segment of The Exchange, Svarny-Livingston shares secrets of the trade.
For two terms, Representative Bob Herron served Bethel and many rural villages along the Kuskokwim River, but this year he’s back to being a freshman all over again because of redistricting.
He is now legislating on behalf of a new district, which includes Bethel, the Aleutians and the Pribilofs.
In this segment of The Exchange, Representative Herron talks about getting to know his new communities, balancing the needs of subsistence and commercial fishermen, and education reform for rural Alaska.
