Council meeting tonight will open with the swearing in of new Council member Zoya Johnson and the re-swearing of incumbent Dennis Robinson.
The main items of business for the rest of the meeting are setting rental rates for the City’s new 8-plex and a fee schedule for the Carl E. Moses Small Boat Harbor.
The City’s newly constructed housing unit opens to residents on December 1st. Council will set rental rates and policies for the eight apartments, four of which are reserved for teachers and two for public safety personnel. The proposed rental rates are $1,300 per month for the 2-bedroom units and $1,600 for the 3-bedroom units.
When Peninsula Airways apologized to customers last week for recent flight delays and cancellations by offering $49 companion fares to affected communities, Unalaska was conspicuously absent from their list.
That’s because Alaska Airlines and PenAir have what’s called a “capacity purchase agreement” in place for flights between Anchorage and Unalaska. Basically what that means is that Alaska buys every seat on those PenAir and then re-sells them. So really it’s an Alaska Airlines flight. Here’s PenAir CEO Danny Seybert.
Public Safety responded to reports of an ammonia leak at Bering Fisheries on Saturday night around 10 o’clock.
The plant was evacuated and firefighters vented the building to dissipate the chemical. Ammonia is used in refrigeration systems and can cause serious burns at high concentrations.
The Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation says initial estimates put the spill at roughly nine gallons.* Environmental Programs Specialist Mark Sielaff (ZEE-loff) says that’s a relatively small leak.
Getting undercharged for electricity doesn’t sound too bad - until the bill catches up with you.
Some residents of Nirvana Hill and the Valley got an unpleasant surprise on their September utility bills.
“I was just kind of scanning down, looking at the bill and just about had a heart attack,” says resident Shawn Rudio. “I saw that my bill the month before was $80 and then all of sudden it was $397 the next month. So I was pretty shocked, but I just assumed that was a mistake.”
With increased shipping traffic in Alaska waters, there’s a greater chance of accidents and oil spills happening. The emergency towing system was developed in order to respond to distress cargo vessels in bad weather, and now a partnership between the state, the Coast Guard, and local governments is trying to figure out how to best use it on fishing vessels.
This season, some red king crab could be worth over $30 a pound. That is, if they’re wrapped in pink or green string and seem to have some sort of capsule attached to them.
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game, the National Marine Fisheries Service, and the Marine Conservation Alliance are once again teaming up to collect archival tags on harvested crab. Those tags contain information – like water temperature and depth – that provide a better understanding of crab migration.
The investigation into the sinking of the F/V Katmai is officially over.
The National Transportation Safety Board released their report on the
disaster, and it concluded that the boat had a number of stability
problems that made it unable to withstand extreme storm conditions in
the Bering Sea. As a result, seven lives were lost when the
head-and-gut vessel flooded in 2008.
Kimberly Klein loves her job. She’s a biologist with the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, and she focuses on endangered species in the Aleutian region.
KUCB's Alexandra Gutierrez talked to her about sea otters and other at-risk species in Southwest Alaska.
