City council is set to award a $3.9 million contract for the final phase of the landfill expansion at their meeting tonight.

City staff say they received three bids for the project, and the lowest came from Northern Alaska Contractors, LLC. The group is run by the same people as Northern Mechanical, a local construction company.

Their bid is about a million dollars lower than the city’s estimate for the project.

Over the past seven years, Unalaska has been trying to modernize its outdated public utilities.

Nancy Peterson had the job of overseeing all that development.

She left her post as the director of public works last week, heading off to retirement in Washington State.

Since Peterson started work in Unalaska in February of 2007, she’s had a pretty consistently full plate.

The state Senate Resources Committee got an overview Wednesday of how Alaska is dealing with potential impacts of radiation from the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster and tsunami in Japan.

Environmental Conservation commissioner Larry Hartig told committee members that his department is monitoring marine debris washing ashore in Southeast Alaska and the Prince William Sound.

"For now, we have a lot more debris than we used to have that came in from Japan, and Alaska got more than its share of it," he said. "Most of it’s been just solid waste -- it hasn’t been anything that’s what we would deem as hazardous waste."

A federal appeals court has ruled that the environmental assessment behind a massive oil lease sale off Alaska’s northern coast is faulty.

The ruling from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals applies to a Chukchi Sea lease sale from 2008. But it’s cast a pall on the future of Arctic oil exploration.

Erik Grafe is an attorney for EarthJustice. He’s argued the case through several rounds of appeals on behalf of environmental groups, and the Alaska Native communities of Point Hope and the North Slope.

The Department of Public Safety was called to help two injured crew members aboard fishing vessels in Unalaska on Sunday.

A crew member aboard the fishing vessel Starbound was injured after the boat’s crane broke loose from its base and fell off the bow early Sunday morning.

Fire Chief Abner Hoage says the Starbound was offloading fish at the North Pacific Fuel dock when the crane fell.

A crew member was injured during that incident. 

The Bering Sea’s largest fishery has started up again. As of noon on Monday, 1.267 million metric tons of pollock are up for grabs.

Traffic backed up in the snowy weather outside the Department of Public Safety after a collision Thursday. /Credit: Zac Schasteen, UDPS

Update, 10 a.m. Monday: A Category 1 travel advisory is still in effect today in Unalaska amid snowy weather.

The Department of Public Safety also says trucks may continue to use chains on their tires.

Drivers should use caution and keep their headlights on at all times. Public Safety says blowing snow and snow accumulation are making roadways slippery and causing intermittent whiteout conditions. 

A crew member aboard a factory processor has been arrested in Unalaska and accused of stealing another man’s identity to get his commercial fishing license. 

Traffic backed up in the snowy weather outside the Department of Public Safety after a collision Thursday. /Credit: Zac Schasteen, UDPS

Update, 6 p.m. Thursday: A blizzard warning is in effect for the Eastern Aleutians until tomorrow, and a Category 1 travel advisory remains in place in Unalaska.

The winter weather is making for some treacherous driving conditions in town.

A two-vehicle collision took place on the roadway below the Department of Public Safety this afternoon. Public Safety couldn't release any further details on that crash on Thursday.