A complex legal battle has been brewing between a popular medevac insurance provider and the state’s largest medevac company for the past year. While Guardian Flight won’t talk about the case, the insurer, Apollo MT, says it can’t afford to keep quiet.
Apollo MT took an unusual step this summer to tell its customers just how much money this private dispute could cost them. In June, some 2,400 Unalaska residents with Apollo MT insurance got a letter in their mailboxes. The letter was from the insurer, and it asked customers to, “please request all other carriers prior to Guardian Flight being utilized."
For months, community leaders have been trying to get information about whether Unalaska’s child welfare office will reopen. Now, the Office of Children’s Services says it is working on a possible solution.
Technically, OCS has an office in Unalaska - there’s a sign on the door and a number in the local phone book - but the office has been empty since 2009. In 2010, the state stopped looking for someone to fill the vacancy. All reports of child abuse and neglect in the Aleutian and Pribilof Islands are sent to social workers in Homer and Wasilla.
The building that houses Unalaskans Against Sexual Assault and Family Violence is about to grow.
USAFV executive director M. Lynn Crane presented a plan to build an addition at a city council meeting Tuesday night. Council approved her request to use $50,000 in leftover city grants to help pay for the project.
“We want to build off the back of the building as far as we can and still meet code for setbacks and all of those things," Crane says. "That will become the new living room and dining room area along with a new and much more functional utility room.”
The city planning commission approved an update to city code at a meeting Thursday night. The new rules would clarify the requirement for no-cost utility easements, and cut minimum property lot sizes.
A small but vocal group of residents spoke out against the changes. They raised concerns about a proposed 10-foot easement requirement for utilities and drainage. Some said the requirement could lower property values by cutting into yard space. Others argued that the easements could cancel out any benefits developers might see from the city’s proposal to lower minimum lot sizes.
The board of the Iliuliuk Family and Health Services clinic voted to reject a $525,000 federal grant at a meeting Wednesday night.
The grant is part of a Health Resources and Services Administration program designed to increase rural access to healthcare. In 2011, the IFHS clinic requested money for a mobile exam room, to be installed in a van. The van would have traveled to processors and harbors to cut wait times at the clinic’s main site during fishing seasons.
The Fourth of July in Alaska is all barbecues, parades, and -- depending on how south you are -- fireworks. But for one man in Unalaska, Independence Day came a week later. Koang Deng, a South Sudanese refugee, observed the first anniversary of his homeland’s independence by celebrating vicariously through relatives half a world away.
Sockeye salmon are almost done spawning at Cape Wislow, but the Alaska Department of Fish and Game has just started counting the run.
It wasn’t a lack of funding, but rather, personnel problems that kept Fish and Game from opening their weir last month. They rushed to make two new hires, and sent them to track the run from Reese Bay to McLees Lake this Monday.
Though the season count will be far from complete, Fish and Game employee Matt Keyse says some data is better than none.
An ammonia leak on board the processing vessel Excellence has finally stopped. The leak started Friday afternoon while the ship was tied up at the Kloosterboer cold storage dock. The Excellence was towed to Wide Bay this weekend, and a Hazmat team has been monitoring the spill and venting the ammonia fumes since then. Coast Guard Lt. Jim Fothergill says the ship could be free of ammonia in the next 48 hours. At that point, a tug will tow the Excellence back to the Kloosterboer dock for repairs. The Coast Guard is still investigating the cause of the leak.
Update: 7:30 p.m. The M/V Excellence is being moved from the Kloosterboer dock to Wide Bay.
Two Magone Marine tugboats were set to move the ship at 7 p.m., says Coast Guard Lieutenant James Fothergill. The Excellence is being manned by a skeleton crew of the Excellence’s captain and two of his crew members, all outfitted with protective gear.
The City has issued a temporary road closure advisory for Ballyhoo Road.
It’s not clear how long it will take for the Excellence to arrive at Wide Bay, or how long it will stay there. Fothergill says a team of three Hazmat-certified technicians will check the ship’s ammonia levels twice a day. The Excellence can’t leave Wide Bay until it’s safe for people to enter the ship without protective equipment, Fothergill says. ...
