Alaska primary voters have rejected a controversial plan that would have reinstated a coastal zone management plan. But if Unalaska voters had their way, the measure would have passed.
In Unalaska, 68% of voters approved the coastal zone management program. 57% of Unalaska voters backed Measure 1, which offered property tax breaks. That measure failed by a slim margin at the state level.
If you go to vote in today’s primaries, you’ll see signs that say “Bumoto Dito” plastered on the doors of city hall. That’s not the name of a candidate running for elected office. It means “Vote Here” in Tagalog.
For the first time, the city has an official Tagalog interpreter on hand with the rest of the volunteer election crew. City Clerk Elizabeth Masoni says that the interpreter is there to help the Unalaska’s large Filipino population.
The blanket of sea ice atop the Arctic is at its smallest size in recorded history. The 2007 record was broken on Sunday when satellites determined that the ice extent was at 1.58 million square miles. While that may sound like a lot, it’s about a million square miles less than the average minimum cover in the 1980s and 1990s.
The immediate cause for the break-up was a large storm and the strong waves it created. But scientists say that a single weather event couldn’t have triggered such a major decline in sea ice without warmer climate conditions in the region.
After weeks of delays and public mishaps, Shell is making some progress on its Arctic drilling expedition — and they’re asking the federal government to meet them halfway.
In the last week, both of Shell’s drill ships departed Unalaska for the Arctic. The Noble Discoverer drill rig, which made headlines when it dragged anchor and almost came aground on Airport Beach in June, left on Saturday morning. It’s bound for the Chukchi Sea. The Kulluk drill ship is now halfway to the Beaufort Sea.
But the drilling season is already almost over: There’s only a month left to drill in the Chukchi, and two months left in the Beaufort. That’s why Shell is asking the government for more time.
Earlier this summer, American Seafoods had to pay out $700,000 for Clean Air Act violations in the Bering Sea. Now, the fishing giant faces another big penalty. The company is currently defending itself against charges of fish fraud.
The Coast Guard performed back-to-back medevacs of two heart attack patients aboard separate cargo vessels in western Alaska.
The first call came Tuesday morning, when the Netherlands-flagged ship BBC Denmark reported that a 48-year-old mariner was showing signs of a heart attack. The vessel was nearly 600 miles southwest of Unalaska at the time, and made way toward Adak in an effort to meet a Coast Guard helicopter crew off the cutter Munro. The helicopter made contact with the BBC Denmark on Wednesday morning, and the patient was successfully transported to Adak and then on to Anchorage for further care.
A 39-year-old man died last Thursday of natural causes on a Coast Guard medevac bound for Unalaska. Riche J. Tonato, from the Philippines, was the head cook on the cargo ship Matsura. That vessel had recently left Canada, and was on its way to Nagasaki, Japan.
Tonato had severe asthma and hypertension. He started complaining of shortness of breath on the morning of August 16th. Tonato barely had a pulse when the Coast Guard picked him up, and they tried to resuscitate him for almost an hour during his medevac. Unalaska EMTs also tried to perform CPR when the plane landed, but they were unsuccessful.
It used to be that if you wanted to work in a secure area of a dock facility, you had to fly to Anchorage, apply for a Transportation Workers Identification Credential – or TWIC – card, wait about a month and a half, and then go back to the Anchorage all over again to pick it up and activate it. That meant that a $130 ID ended up costing a lot more.
“The TWIC card for us costs $3,000 because of the two trips,” says Mayor Shirley Marquardt.
For the past year, the city planning department has been trying to find ways to encourage development. They came up with a plan that would lower minimum lot sizes, so more people could subdivide land they already own. But the city also wanted to make sure they left room for utilities — power and cable lines, sewer runoff, drainage.
Unalaska already requires that landowners set aside a piece of their plots for utilities. That portion of land is called an easement. It can’t be built upon, and the city can access it as needed. The planning department always negotiates the exact size and location of the easements with landowners.
