The city will go back to the drawing board on new regulations for subdivisions and construction camps after council voted down a set of proposed changes last night.
The vote was five to zero against revisions to city zoning code that have been in the works for months.
The ordinance covered five separate parts of Title 8 – but councilors and citizens who testified focused on two: new rules for subdivisions, and construction camps.
Planning staff say the new subdivision rules would reinforce existing laws, making sure future lease lots are up to code.
There's still fish in the water, but seiners are done harvesting herring in the Aleutian Islands.
The purse seine fleet picked up their last load of herring on Saturday night north of Akutan. Fish & Game biologist Nathaniel Nichols says that leaves about 160 tons of herring on the table out of the 1,805 tons up for harvest this season.
"The processors decided they had enough before we got to the allocation, so they quit fishing," says Nichols.
City council will take another look at new rules for construction camps when they meet tonight.
For months, the city has been considering a set of changes to the zoning code, or Title 8. The proposed revisions include new regulations for how and where to build construction camps in town.
At council's last meeting, councilor Dennis Robinson said he was concerned the changes would make it too easy for camps to become long-term installations. He said he’d rather see the city focus on encouraging permanent housing.
The old historic preservation commission helped restore the city-owned Henry Swanson house in downtown Unalaska. (Annie Ropeik/KUCB)
After letting its historic preservation commission lapse six years ago, Unalaska is trying something new. City council voted recently to merge the preservation commission with the planning and zoning board.
It puts development and cultural conservation in the hands of one group that includes city staff. And as KUCB’s Annie Ropeik reports, that’s raised concerns about a conflict of interest.
City workers prepare to haul the pickup truck off the beach next to Summer Bay Road on Friday. (Annie Ropeik/KUCB)
A local man was arrested on charges of driving under the influence after police say he crashed a company truck near Memorial Park in Unalaska on Friday.
Thirty-year-old Kyle Eby was driving a Ford pickup down Summer Bay Road toward the landfill Friday afternoon when he swerved off the road and rolled over into the water.
Arnold Betancourt says he witnessed the crash as leaving the landfill.
The Aleutian Islands herring fishery is off to a slow start.
Nathaniel Nichols is a biologist monitoring the harvest for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. In a good year, he says, the entire 1,805-ton allocation can be taken in three days.
The season officially opened on Tuesday.
"So far, I think we’ve got around 500 tons already caught," Nichols says. "So we’re chugging along."
Two local business owners accused of running a large drug operation out of their store and home have pleaded not guilty.
Tam Nguyen, age 46, and Thu McConnell, 45, operated the Dutch Harbor Asia shop for several years. They were arrested in May after police traced an alleged heroin sale to the store.
An Anchorage grand jury indicted Nguyen and McConnell on July 9. Nguyen is facing a dozen felony charges for allegedly using the business -- and the house he shared with McConnell on Biorka Drive -- to sell cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin, and Oxycodone.
The bulk carrier Amakusa Island in Vancouver in 2010. (Courtesy: Gary McLeod/MarineTraffic.com)
A 750-foot bulk carrier ran aground outside Prince Rupert in British Columbia Monday. It didn’t cause a fuel spill, but critics of a proposed pipeline in the region say it underscores the risks of increasing tanker traffic.
The Japanese-flagged ‘Amakusa Island’ was moving from its berth at a coal terminal to Prince Rupert’s outer harbor Monday. It scraped the ocean bottom, ripping its hull and flooding two ballast tanks, according to The Vancouver Sun.
Researchers collect water samples in the Chukchi Sea. (Courtesy of Amanda Kowalski/ArcticSpring.org)
They’re not recognizable like polar bears or whales. But phytoplankton are a key part of life in the Arctic -- and now, they're at the center of a new research effort to predict how the region will respond to climate change.
Almost every animal in the Arctic eats -- or eats something that consumes -- phytoplankton.
They’re tiny specks of algae that usually blossom into big clouds out in the ocean in the springtime.
