Sea ice is moving south - rapidly. That’s a concern for boats heading out to catch snow crab.
Although the snow crab season opened back in October, it’s only really getting underway now. As of Tuesday, 22 boats were out fishing and other 61 have pre-registered to fish. That total is slightly down from last year despite a doubling of the snow crab quota. The harvest is set at 88.9 million pounds compared to 48.9 54.3 million last year.
The Department of Homeland Security has waived the Jones Act for the ice-class Russian tanker that will be carrying fuel to Nome in the new year.
The Jones Act prohibits foreign flagged vessels from carrying cargo between US ports. The tanker Renda needed the waiver to be able to pick up several hundred thousand gallons of gasoline in Unalaska for delivery to ice-bound Nome. Without the delivery by sea, fuel would have to be flown into the community at substantially higher cost.
Scientists have downgraded the aviation alert level for Cleveland Volcano from orange to yellow.
The volcano lies on a major international flight path and on December 29, it put up a 15,000 foot ash cloud. That prompted the Alaska Volcano Observatory to increase the warning level, even though the plume wasn’t expected to interfere with aviation.
Scientist-in-charge John Power says they’ve lowered the alert because the ash cloud has dissipated. He says they still don’t know exactly what happened to the lava dome that’s been forming in the crater since early July.
Fox trapping is commonplace and legal in Unalaska, but recently it’s been causing a bit of a stir.
In the last month State Wildlife Troopers have responded to three separate incidences of foxes dragging traps through the Valley. Trooper Jason Ball says it’s probably the result of someone improperly staking their traps.
“I would suspect that it’s someone fairly new to it, someone inexperienced.”
This New Year’s Eve chrysanthemums, brocade crowns, weeping willows and maybe even some dancing monkeys will light up the night sky at one minute to midnight.
Volunteers have been working hard all week over at Public Works to get the annual fireworks show set up. There are hundreds of shells and mortars involved and they all have to be perfectly wired to fire at the right moment.
That said, it’s a pretty simple set-up: thick tubes ranging from 3 to 12 inches in diameter mounted in wooden racks and stacked on a giant flatbed. Inside each of the tubes is a brown-paper wrapped ball that when triggered will shoot into the sky and explode.
An Aleutian volcano that lies on a major international flight path has erupted. Cleveland volcano sent up a 15,000 foot ash cloud early this morning. The Alaska Volcano Observatory has been keeping tabs on Cleveland since July, when a lava dome in its crater started to grow. Geophysicist Sheryl Searcy says this is a relatively minor explosion that shouldn’t affect air travel.
“Right now it looks like it was a pretty small, isolated event.”
The Clean Water Act settlement between Trident Seafoods and the Environmental Protection agency might not be quite settled. St. Paul’s tribe, Native corporation, and fishing association are pushing the federal government to reconsider terms that they say could lead to the closure of their only year-round processing plant.
It’s the season for steaming hot bowls of clam chowder and oysters on the half-shell with champagne. But if you harvested those shellfish yourself in the Aleutians, be aware they might contain high levels of the shellfish toxin PSP.
While PSP outbreaks mostly happen during the summer, Aleutian Pribilof Island Community Development Association biologist Bruce Wright says in recent years wintertime outbreaks have been detected in the Aleutians as well. Wright and another scientist were doing year-round monitoring of PSP through an Environmental Protection Agency grant for the last two years, but that funding ran out in October.
Water was the big issue at last night’s Council meeting. Public Works Director Dan Winters and City Engineer Tyler Zimmerman testified that the city has chronic water shortages during peak fish processing season and that existing infrastructure can’t handle the demand.
A 2010 water supply study recommended the city double its available water capacity and increase its backup storage eight-fold. The resolution on last night’s agenda started that development process by contracting a firm to figure out where new water wells could be drilled.
