The Ounalashka Corporation is hoping to rezone Lot 24 for residential use. Credit: City of Unalaska
The Ounalashka Corporation is getting ready to start construction on a new apartment complex. The 8-unit building is one of the largest housing project undertaken in Unalaska in recent years, and it may be the beginning of many more.
The proposed site for the apartment building is on Biorka Drive, in a warehouse that Ounalaskha Corporation CEO Rick Miller says hasn’t been getting much use recently.
“[We're] basically [going to] strip the interior. We're going to hopefully use the exterior framing, rafters, roof, stuff like that, but everything else is going to be replaced, new.”
Crushed scrap sits next to Ron Moore's metal compactor. (Audrey Carlsen/KUCB)
Over the past year, a Virginia-based company has been helping Unalaska get rid of millions of pounds of scrap metal. They’re finally nearing the finish line, and now, they’re looking to expand to nearby islands.
It’s a problem that Unalaska has been dealing with for years – how to get rid of the huge volumes of unwanted scrap metal that pile up around the city. Shipping anything off of the island is expensive, and given the low price of scrap metal, it’s been hard to find a company that thinks it’s worth it.
Jack Wiegand in Unalaska on June 25, 2013. Credit: Stephanie Joyce
Over the weekend, 21-year-old Jack Wiegand became the youngest person to ever fly solo around the world. Before making it back to California though, he stopped in Unalaska, where KUCB’s Stephanie Joyce caught up with him.
Two fishermen are facing multiple assault charges for allegedly beating up and stabbing a coworker at the Grand Aleutian hotel on Thursday. Erik Najera, 34, and Sergio Gomez, 32, are both crew aboard the F/V Sea Fisher.
The charging documents allege that the pair attacked the victim in his hotel room at the Grand, hitting him with bottles and beating him before stabbing him with a fishing knife. The alleged victim suffered multiple injuries, including a broken nose and leg.
Last week, the City of Adak and the Adak Community Development Corporation bought $2 million worth of fish processing equipment at auction. Now, they’re looking for someone to operate it.
The equipment was up for sale because Icicle Seafoods pulled out of Adak earlier this year. City Manager Layton Lockett says in an ideal world, another seafood processor would have swooped in and bought it up. Instead, the apparent high bid was from a scrapper that wanted the equipment for parts, so Lockett stepped in.
The Polar Star in port on June 27, 2013. (Audrey Carlsen/KUCB)
The United States’ only heavy icebreaker will soon be back in service after a four-year, $90 million renovation. The USCGC Polar Star left Unalaska Friday to undergo several weeks of ice trials in the Arctic.
The 399-foot-long ship is painted bright red. Its decks are clean and shiny, and brand-new anchors rest in neatly coiled piles of chain on the prow. Ensign Paul Garcia explains that this is all the result of a massive overhaul of the ship that wrapped up in 2012. “The engines were getting replaced, the main gas turbines were getting replaced, all of our cranes ... those are all brand new," he says.
The eruption at Pavlof Volcano, on the Alaska Peninsula, has picked up again. The volcano is spewing ash to 28,000-feet, the highest it’s reached since the unrest started in early May.
That’s not high enough to interfere with international air traffic, but it does have communities in the region on alert.
In the village of King Cove, there were reports of ash fall this morning, but resident Pam Mitchell says it wasn’t particularly noticeable.
Pavlof Volcano, on the Alaska Peninsula, spewed a 26,000-foot ash cloud early Tuesday morning. That’s the largest plume the volcano has put up since it started erupting in early May.At that elevation, it isn't interfering with international air traffic passing over the region, but it is proving problematic for regional air service.
According to the terminal agent in Cold Bay, PenAir turned around a cargo run to the community this morning, and canceled its passenger flight as well. Unalaska's passenger flights are running as scheduled, according to station manager Lowell Crezee, and shouldn't be impacted by the eruption.
Flights to and from Atka have been cancelled for more than two weeks, and some passengers are starting to lose patience with Grant Aviation.
Although flights to the western Aleutian community are often delayed because of bad weather, the current hold-up is related to mechanical problems with the aircraft Grant Aviation uses to fly to Atka.
Resident Crystal Dushkin says it’s unacceptable that they haven’t brought in a replacement.
