Unalaska's mercury monitoring center. / Courtesy of ADEC
For five years, a group of scientists from all across the country has been quietly monitoring Unalaska to find out how much mercury travels here from Asia across the Pacific Ocean.
But now that program has stalled for lack of a local volunteer.
Anna Breuninger is an air quality specialist with the state of Alaska, and part of the National Atmospheric Deposition Program. Breuninger says their goal is to protect seafood from mercury contamination.
Walleye pollock is the Bering Sea’s biggest and most valuable fishery. But that doesn’t mean that the trawl fleet was ready and raring to go when the harvest opened in late January.
Businesses and factories that get their power from the city won’t be seeing changes to their electrical bills anytime soon.
At their meeting last night, City Council went over the current rates, who’s using power and how much the city is earning on it. They had some concerns -- like about the big differences in how much revenue is supposed to come from each group of users, particularly industrial ones.
City Council is set to ask the state to tear down the derelict torpedo building and allow the trooper vessel Stimson to stay in Unalaska at their meeting tonight.
The first resolution up for a vote shows support for keeping the Stimson homeported here.
The state is considering moving the patrol vessel to Kodiak, where it would still enforce fisheries in Western Alaska.
The United States is gathering support for an international moratorium on commercial fishing in the Arctic Ocean.
The Globe and Mail reports that Denmark and Canada are prepared to back the ban at a meeting of Arctic states in Greenland this week. The other nations -- Russia and Norway -- are not currently on board.
A Coast Guard helicopter crew conducted their fourth Bering Sea medevac of the past two weeks Monday.
The Jayhawk helicopter was sent from Kodiak to the 272-foot fishing vessel American Dynasty. The Seattle-based boat was about 95 miles northwest of Cold Bay.
The helicopter crew medevacked a 48-year-old Dynasty crew member reportedly suffering from severe abdominal pain. The Coast Guard reports that the unidentified man was taken to the Cold Bay Clinic and then on to Anchorage for treatment.
Several Delta Western employees and ILWU members picketed on Sunday. / Credit: Pipa Escalante
After a visit from the company’s president, a handful of Delta Western fuel supply employees are pressing ahead with an effort to unionize.
It’s the same group that staged a walkout on February 16 to protest alleged mistreatment by managers. They want to join the Inlandboatmen’s Union -- the marine division of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union.
Kirk Payne is the president of Delta Western. He flew in from Anchorage this week to visit the Unalaska office. In an interview with KUCB, Payne said he had spoken with employees about alleged mistreatment.
A labor dispute is brewing in Unalaska between a fuel distributor and its staff.
Seven Delta Western workers walked off the job early Sunday morning, and onto a picket line. They were joined by members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union.
The Delta Western employees want to join the ILWU. But they allege that the company has been trying to discourage them.
