Carl E. Moses Boat Harbor/Credit: Lauren Rosenthal
It’s been just over a year since the Carl E. Moses small boat harbor opened, and it’s hard to find anyone who’s not thrilled with the facility. But the city is still trying to figure out how to turn that enthusiasm into long-term commitments.
The city has permanent commitments for only about half of the harbor's 56 slips. Other vessels tie up as 'transients' and only pay rent when they’re in port.
Ports Director Peggy McLaughlin says that in the long run, she would like to see more of money coming from moorage, as opposed to utilities and other fees.
A Coast Guard Jayhawk MH-60 helicopter medevaced a 23-year-old fisherman from crab grounds 60 miles southwest of St. Paul yesterday. The man was working on the crab vessel North Sea when he started to feel ill.
Petty Officer Third Class Jonathan Klingenberg says that by the time the crew radioed for help at 2 pm, the man took a turn for the worse.
"At first, he was reportedly suffering from seasick-like symptoms," Klingenberg says. "Then, he started having seizures."
Unalaska’s emergency responders had their hands full Monday afternoon when two fishing vessels at opposite sides of the island reported injuries.
Fire chief Abner Hoage says the F/V American Dynasty was pulling into port at the Kloosterboer cold storage dock around 3 pm when the boat suddenly listed to the side. A few crew members lost their footing and fell. Hoage says the vessel's medical staff called Unalaska EMS to pick up one crew member.
Winter has brought another outbreak of flu to Unalaska. Eileen Conlon Scott is the director of the Iliuliuk Family and Health Services Clinic. She says her staff have seen plenty of flu patients over the past few months.
Now that A-season is underway, Scott says the bug is spreading in the bunkhouses at the processing plants.
"I mean, people are coming in vanloads," Scott says.
The National Marine Mammal Laboratory travels to the Pribilofs every two years to count new Northern fur seal pups. Since 1998, the overall production of pups has dropped by 45 percent. But according to the latest count, just out this month, the Pribilof fur seals bucked the downward trend for the first time in 15 years.
Rod Towell, a statistician from the mammal lab, says pup production increased a tiny amount in 2012 -- just 0.5 percent. While it’s not statistically significant, Towell says that the data is promising.
The wild winter weather isn’t over yet. Chris Burling is a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Anchorage. He says while the worst has past, the storm system that dropped several feet of snow on Unalaska over the weekend will continue through Wednesday.
“Temperatures are going to continue to warm as that front moves northward, so you’re going to start seeing more rain mixing in the with the snow as we go through the afternoon," says Burling. "But you could still see a couple more inches before it’s all said and done.”
The center of the storm registered around 970 millibars, which isn’t too far out of the ordinary for the Aleutians at this time of year, but Burling says the storm’s behavior was what caused the huge snowfall.
This week, McDonald’s doubled down on its commitment to Alaskan pollock. The chain announced that it will stop using other fish and switch to 100 percent Alaskan pollock in all 14,000 of its United States restaurants.
The pollock is served in Filet 'o' Fish sandwiches, and in a new menu item called Fish McBites.
McDonald’s also unveiled new packaging for those products, featuring the Marine Stewardship Council’s ecolabel. The label says McDonald’s fish is verified as sustainable, "wild-caught Alaskan Pollock."
More than thirty people packed into the conference room at the Unalaska Public Library Thursday night to weigh in on a proposed trawl ban in Unalaska Bay.
Although the fate of the proposal will ultimately be decided by the state Board of Fisheries, the Unalaska Fish and Game advisory committee was tasked with adding their two cents at the meeting.
The committee ultimately voted 5-2 in favor of supporting the ban, but not before considerable public testimony and discussion.
