The Saab 2000 was designed to fit up to 58 passengers. In Unalaska, it will carry about 45. (Courtesy of PenAir)

Unalaska’s passenger air service is scheduled for an upgrade. PenAir is leasing three Saab 2000 aircraft to fly to the island.

Shishaldin lets off steam on day one of its eruption in January 2014, and again in early December. (Credit: Janet Schaefer/Levi Musselwhite, AVO)

If you’ve taken a PenAir flight between Unalaska and Anchorage in the past year, you’ve been traveling over an erupting volcano.

Wednesday marks one year since Shishaldin Volcano woke up on the Alaska Peninsula in January 2014, and didn’t go back to sleep.

Dave Schneider is a geophysicist at the Alaska Volcano Observatory. He says Shishaldin hasn’t appeared to do much over the course of this eruption, because its summit crater is so deep. 

The grant for the Iliuliuk River requires revegetation and stairway installation along areas like this. (Annie Ropeik/KUCB)

City council and neighbors from around Unalaska Lake got a reality check Tuesday night about just how far they can stretch $1 million in grant money for watershed restoration projects.

Consultants from PND Engineers spent much of Tuesday's council meeting presenting their recommendations for how to use the grants at the lake and Iliuliuk River.

Engineer Paul Kendall says some of the river grant was based on conditions that seem to have changed in the past several years, since the city first received the money.

(Courtesy of NOAA FishWatch)

After several years of poor salmon returns along the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers, federal managers are considering new ways to cut back on salmon bycatch in the commercial pollock fishery.

The North Pacific Fishery Management Council will hold a statewide teleconference on Thursday to discuss their options for reducing bycatch in the Bering Sea.

"We’re hosting this teleconference to allow people the opportunity to hear about the alternatives that are being considered,” says NPFMC staff member Steve MacLean. “To learn something about the council process and how they can become involved in that council process, and then to voice questions and concerns they might have about the action currently being evaluated.”

Credit: Kathy Kulez/FIT

The Interior Department is preparing to withdraw areas of the Beaufort and Chukchi seas from future oil and gas lease sales.

Almost 10 million acres would be off-limits under the draft five-year plan that Interior released today.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski described the decision as a gut punch to Alaska’s economy. But Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said the withdrawals aren't drastic. 

"[Most] already were deferred from oil and gas leasing," Jewell says. "And I don’t think anybody who looks at those maps would say that that is an unreasonable amount."

Along with a work session on restoration projects for the Unalaska Lake watershed, city council will set their own city-wide goals for 2016 when they meet tonight.

They'll focus on keeping budgets tight until major capital projects, like the wastewater treatment plant, are out of the way.

Murky water in Unalaska Lake is evidence of a runoff problem that may be harming salmon. (Annie Ropeik/KUCB)

Unalaska Lake and the Iliuliuk River run through the heart of Unalaska. The watershed used to be habitat for thousands of salmon. But after decades of development and little consideration for containing runoff, that fish population seems to be on the decline.

On Tuesday, after months of public debate, city council is voting on taking its first look at a million dollars of mitigation projects. As KUCB’s Annie Ropeik reports, residents hope it’s the first step down a path to recovery.

NOAA suggested that a "smaller area or a network of smaller areas" in southwest Alaska could be a better candidate for protection. (Courtesy of Rick Steiner/PEER)

The federal government has turned down a request to create a vast marine reserve around the Aleutian Islands. 

On Friday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced that the Aleutians won’t advance in the process to become a national marine sanctuary -- mostly due to a lack of local support.

Adak, King Cove, Akutan, and the Aleutians East Borough all came out against the nomination. Environmentalists and research groups had been seeking permanent limits on oil and gas leasing and commercial fishing in federal waters around the Chain.

(Credit: Austin Roof/KSDP)

Two Sand Point men are facing federal charges after allegedly breaking into the town’s post office in late December.

Sheldon Shuravloff, 21, and Keith Lee Wilson, Jr., 18, were indicted Thursday on charges of burglary with intent to commit larceny, and conspiracy to commit burglary.

An unnamed 17-year-old is also facing juvenile charges in connection with the alleged break-in. The state is handling that part of the case.