The National Weather Service is forecasting a warm, wet weekend for the Aleutians, Southcentral and Interior Alaska. Lead forecaster Bill Ludwig says a storm pulling air from the tropics is responsible.
“The reason it’s interesting is because of the long fetch of moisture coming up from the south and pushing into Alaska, so it’s pushing up very moist and warm air from very far south. And that’s a little bit unusual at this year time of year to get that kind of weather.”
The long-planned paving of Ballyhoo Road could start as soon as this summer. Tuesday night, city council approved a $380,000 contract with PND Engineering for design of the project. As city manager Chris Hladick told council, the design will replace an earlier one by the state of Alaska that city staff determined was too complex.
"We’re just trying to get this thing paved. It's long overdue,” Hladick said.
Two separate federal agencies announced Tuesday that they will be launching investigations into Shell’s Arctic drilling operations. Coast Guard Rear Admiral Thomas Ostebo said his agency would be conducting a full marine casualty investigation into the recent grounding of the Kulluk, looking for answers to questions about why the rig was being moved, and why the tug towing it lost power, among other things.
There will be no refund for vessel owners who tied up at city docks during the last six months. At city council’s last meeting in December, ports director Peggy McLaughlin pointed out that the published schedule of fees for the city’s harbors was inaccurate, and in some cases lower than what boat owners were actually being charged.
The city sought a legal opinion to determine whether the published schedule had actually been adopted by Council. In a memo, city attorney Brooks Chandler concluded that it hadn’t been voted on, and therefore was not legally binding. McLaughlin says any refunds would be have been extremely small anyways -- the differences between published moorage rates and actual billing was only a few cents in most cases.
The anchor-handling vessel, the Aiviq, tows the Kulluk to a safe harbor location in Kiliuda Bay, Alaska on Jan. 7, 2013/ U.S. Coast Guard officer Jonathan Klingenberg
The Royal Dutch Shell drilling rig Kulluk is now safely anchored in Kiliuda Bay. A flotilla of eight vessels escorted the round, 266-foot oil rig during a pre-dawn voyage from Sitkalidak Island, where it has sat, grounded, for a week.
The Kulluk was pulled from the beach at 10:10 p.m. last night and towed at speeds up to 5 knots by the 360-foot tug Aiviq the 45 miles to its temporary place of refuge.
A five-person assessment team spent about three hours aboard the grounded Shell drilling rig Kulluk Wednesday afternoon. Weather conditions around Sitkalidak Island improved enough that a Coast Guard helicopter was able to lower the men and an emergency towing package by hoist to the deck of the rig.
Shell’s Alaska Venture Operations Manager Sean Churchfield said the preliminary report from the crew showed a mostly intact interior.
As of early this morning the grounded Shell Exploration drilling rig Kulluk is reported as remaining stable with no oil spill pollution observed. That word from the Unified Command office at 6:50 this morning. It echoes the latest situation reports from the Command, made up of industry, state, federal and local agencies. The Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation’s situation report concurs.
Violent weather is preventing rescue teams from reachingShell's Kulluk drill rig, which ran aground south of Kodiak Island on Monday.
Heavy waves and high winds are making it hard to monitor the vessel, even from the air. But as of this morning, responders confirmed that the Kulluk hadn't spilled any oil near the grounding site on Sitkalidak Island.
