Overhauling the city’s water supply is on the agenda for Tuesday's council meeting. Unalaska occasionally runs out of fresh water during peak processing season, and previous studies have shown the city needs an additional two to four million gallons a day of capacity in order to fully meet demand during those periods.
Council has previously considered several options for increasing the amount of available water: building new wells, raising the penstock on Icy Lake, and refurbishing existing wells. At a December meeting, the penstock and new well proposals drew criticism from council because of their expense, and in the case of new wells, their potential impact on subsistence salmon stocks.
Ocean current data was collected at two locations in Isanotski Strait. (Courtesy of Bruce Wright)
Fishermen and scientists have known for years about the extremely strong ocean currents that rush past the Aleutian town of False Pass. A recent study shows it might be viable as a power source for the town, but there's still plenty of work to be done.
On its way to the Arctic, frigid water from the Alaska Coastal Current cuts north through Isanotski Strait -- the pass that gives "False Pass" its name. Bruce Wright is a scientist with the Aleutian Pribilof Islands Association, and led the team studying the power potential of the strait. They knew the currents would be strong there, but what they found was even better than expected.
Facing further delays in shipyard, the state has canceled the Tustumena’s sailings for the rest of the summer. Department of Transportation spokesperson Jeremy Woodrow says welding work on the ship’s hull once again failed a Coast Guard inspection.
“Because those welds haven’t met the standards, the Coast Guard has said ‘you need to redo this larger area,’ so that it meets their requirements.”
There’s no timeline for how long it might take to complete that work, so DOT has canceled the Tustumena’s sailings. The Aleutians won’t be left completely without ferry service though. Woodrow says the Kennicott will make at least one run out to the Chain in September.
The Oshoro Maru in port on July 23, 2013. (Audrey Carlsen/KUCB)
The R/V Oshoro Maru stopped by Unalaska to refuel on Tuesday after spending three weeks in the Arctic. While they were in port, several of the onboard scientists hopped off to talk about their research.
The 239-foot ship is a regular visitor to Unalaska because of its affiliation with UniSea’s Japanese parent company. The ship is owned by Hokkaido University, where many of the 45 scientists aboard work. This summer, they were in the Bering and Chukchi Seas researching a variety of topics, including plankton and seabird migration, and testing a new underwater remote-operated vehicle.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld restrictions on fishing in the western Aleutians to protect an endangered stock of Steller sea lions.
Environmental groups hope the ruling will convince the federal government to change their management strategies, while industry is concerned that it doesn't bode well for the future. KUCB’s Stephanie Joyce reports.
Shell Oil is still doing work in the Alaskan Arctic this summer, despite cancelling its drilling season in the wake of disasters that left both its rigs inoperable.
As KTUU-TV first reported, the company is mapping the Chukchi seafloor for ice gouges -- distinctive markings left by massive chunks of ice scraping across the bottom of the ocean. Knowing the location of ice gouges and their depth is important if Shell ever wants to build a pipeline from its oil prospects to shore.
It’s shaping up to be a busy year for Arctic shipping. The Russian government has already granted 218 vessels permission to transit the Northern Sea Route this summer -- four times as many as made the trip last year.
While some of the vessels are resupplying the Russian far north, others are doing the full passage from Europe to Asia, or vice versa. None of them is expected to stop in the Aleutians, but the potential for ships to do so in the future is on people’s mind.
Doctor Ann Nora Ehret will be replacing Doctor Rebecca Stroklund as medical director of the Iliuliuk Family and Health Services clinic.
Ehret won’t be an entirely new face around town. She was a doctor at the clinic between 2007 and 2011, when she left to take care of an ailing family member. But she says the plan was always to come back and join her partner, a Bering Sea crab captain.
"I always was going to return to Alaska as soon as that was possible," says Ehret. "We see this as a long-term working commitment."
Power problems continued Thursday night, with at least two additional outages taking out part of the grid. Assistant City Manager Patrick Jordan says the city knows the outages are related to large industrial users, but is still trying to figure out who exactly is causing the problem.
“We haven’t pinpointed that," Jordan says. "We don’t have the ability to pinpoint that with the system that we now have. But we are in communication with all of our industries, all of our peak users, trying to get them to ramp up slower and shut down slower so there aren’t any shocks to the system. And watch their use, just try to moderate their use.”
