The lawsuit over Unalaska’s wastewater treatment is officially over. The Department of Justice and the Environmental Protection Agency signed off today on an agreement that requires the City to upgrade its treatment facilities and pay a $340,000 fine.

When the EPA filed the lawsuit last June, it was asking for a $150 million fine. The agency said the City had violated the Clean Water Act thousands of times during the previous six years, discharging harmful levels of heavy metals and fecal coliform bacteria into Unalaska Bay. The City disputes those facts, saying today in a written statement, "There is no evidence of actual damage to the environment or diminishment of any threatened species by our current waste water [sic] treatment system."

A week after a court magistrate described him as a danger to the community, Brandon Rosa has been released from jail as he awaits court action in a recent assault case.

In April, Rosa was arrested for allegedly attacking a local high school student in a fit of road rage. As the Dutch Harbor Telegraph initially reported, Rosa allegedly became violent with Killian Baker after Baker passed him while driving and gave him a “funny look.”  Baker was medevaced to Anchorage as a result of the beating, and Rosa was charged with assault in the second degree – a felony.

In a surprising turnaround, City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to provide grant funding to the Aleutian Pribilof Islands Association for a conference the group is holding in Unalaska in September. When the initial request for $75,000 was presented in February, councilors were divided on whether it was appropriate for the City to donate money to the event.

Then-councilor Dick Peck said at that meeting, “I don’t recall in my tenure of eight years on the island that we’ve ever funded any activities of this nature.”

The tidelands outlined in blue are being rezoned as developable

Discussion of how to handle development in Unalaska’s Captain’s Bay dominated Tuesday night’s City Council meeting. City staff brought forward a proposal to rezone a section of tidelands in the bay from subsistence to developable. Changing the zoning would allow for further industrial build-up in the area extending west from Offshore Service Inc.

Council ultimately voted 6-0 to make the change, but not before hearing considerable public comment, both for and against the proposal.

Unalaska resident Vince Tutiakoff said he’s worried about what development could mean for the bay’s fragile ecosystem.

News of three fatal explosions involving refrigerated shipping containers briefly shut down the Horizon Lines cargo dock in Unalaska last year. Now, Russian authorities say they’ve seized a shipment of contaminated coolant they believe is responsible for the exploding “reefers.”

Refrigeration trade publication ACR says customs officers in St. Petersburg found more than a thousand cylinders of coolant marked as Freon that in fact contained the highly flammable and explosive gas methyl chloride.

The shipment originated in China and passed through Poland on its way to Russia. ACR reports that an investigation is ongoing.

The question of where Unalaska will concentrate future development is at the top of tonight’s City Council agenda. With oil and gas exploration in the Arctic expected to bring more commercial activity to the community, Council will take up two proposals that would allocate additional lands to development.

The first proposal involves rezoning a portion of Captain’s Bay tidelands from subsistence to developable. If the change is made, companies could then lease the tidelands from the City for constructing buildings, docks and wharves. The area up for rezoning is located between OSI and the Crowley pot yard.

For the first time ever, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game has extended the snow crab season. ADF&G announced Tuesday morning that it would keep some fishing grounds scheduled to close on May 15 open for an extra two weeks.

The Bering Sea has been covered in record-setting ice since crab season got underway in January and with just a few weeks left, fishermen still have almost 20 million pounds of snow crab to catch.

Fish and Game biologist Britta Baechler says the area that will remain open is where most of the crab already harvested this season was caught.

A Washington man accused of vandalizing the Russian Orthodox Church was arrested this weekend over an unrelated assault.

Christopher Hadsell, 23, faces a slew of charges related crimes committed Unalaska over the past two years. His troubles began in 2010, when he was working as a deckhand on the F/V Caitlin Ann and allegedly tried cashing a voided check for $3,488 from the boat’s account. Hadsell moved to Washington shortly after the incident, but returned to Unalaska this March to “make things right” and face the felony theft charge, as he wrote in a note to the court.

Ten people have been charged in association with the fire that destroyed a warehouse in St. Paul earlier this year, according to the Dutch Harbor Fisherman.

The Fisherman reports that the charges range from criminal mischief to arson and that the individuals involved are both juveniles and adults.

The warehouse belonged to the Native corporation TDX and was leased by Trident Seafoods for storage. No one was injured in the blaze, although the school did have to shut down briefly because of the smoke.