Beltran was working aboard the F/V Blue Ballard, pictured in Unalaska in 2013. /Credit: Ray Call
State troopers arrested a man in Unalaska this week for impersonating his brother in order to obtain a commercial fishing license -- and police wound up charging him with drug possession, too.
Thirty-eight-year-old Walter Beltran is from El Salvador. Troopers have been on the lookout for him since last year, when they got a tip from immigration officers in Las Vegas.
An alleged cover-up involving air pollution at the Westward Seafoods plant in Unalaska has landed two former employees in jail.
James Hampton, 45, has been sentenced to 70 days in prison. Hampton was the engineer who used to oversee Westward’s powerhouse -- and a system for reducing nitrogen dioxide emissions from it. But a federal investigation revealed that equipment was hardly ever used between 2009 and 2011 on Hampton’s watch.
Two boat captains were in Unalaska District Court on Thursday after being caught with undersized red king crab.
Thirty-two-year-old Elliot Neese is the captain of the F/V Saga. The vessel was cited during a delivery of red kings last week. Dockside samplers found that 3.3 percent of the crab on board was illegal -- either too small, or female.
Neese called into court from his vessel Thursday. And so did Peter Liske, the 66-year-old captain of the F/V Valiant. He was found with a catch that was 2.7 percent undersized in late October.
Eruptive activity at Pavlof, seen in Cold Bay on Nov. 12, 2014. /Credit: Carol Damberg
Pavlof Volcano is awake again on the Alaska Peninsula.
Pilots and residents in Cold Bay started seeing ash rising from the volcano on Wednesday. Now, the Alaska Volcano Observatory has confirmed that Pavlof is erupting.
"There is a minor amount of ash being thrown out, as high as possibly 9,000 feet," says lead scientist John Power. "And our satellite imagery indicates ... lava fountaining taking place at the summit of the volcano."
An appeals court has tossed out a request by Shell Oil to block future challenges from environmental groups against Arctic drilling operations.
Shell filed the lawsuit against 13 environmental and tribal organizations back in 2012. The oil company wanted a formal declaration that its government-approved spill response plans were legal. They hoped it would help them block hypothetical lawsuits down the road.
Unalaska made it through a stormy weekend with the lights on, only to lose power Monday morning after a mechanical failure at the powerhouse.
The outage began around 10:30 a.m. and lasted about 10 minutes. Public utilities director Dan Winters says it's the first unplanned, island-wide the city's had in three years.
"We were swapping engines at the powerhouse, taking down one of our big ones, and ... then everything went black," he said Monday night. "There was a bug in there somewhere."
Horizon Lines has operated from the Unalaska Marine Center for more than 20 years. (Annie Ngo/KUCB)
After years of financial trouble, Horizon Lines has announced plans to sell off its routes in Alaska and Hawaii.
Horizon has accrued more than half a billion dollars' worth of debt. Chief financial officer Michael Avara says they tried refinancing and restructing, but it just wasn’t sustainable.
A patch of black ice claimed a truck on Airport Beach Road Tuesday morning, without seriously hurting its driver.
The man was heading toward the airport when the car in front of him started to turn into the LFS parking lot. The driver of the green Chevy 4x4 tried to slow down, but he lost control on the slick roads.
"He slid into the ditch, hit and rolled," says police sergeant Bill Simms.
While the driver did have some injuries to his face, Simms said the man decided to take himself to the clinic for treatment.
