Unalaska, AK – The National Marine Fisheries Service has released its draft assessment of the eastern Bering Sea walleye pollock stock. Abundance of the fish has increased, with the acceptable biological catch being placed at approximately 1.3 million metric tons.
The acceptable biological catch and the total allowable catch that can be harvested by fishermen are often one and the same: Last year, both were set at 813,000 tons. Jim Ianelli is a research biologist with NMFS, and he headed the work on the draft assessment.

Unalaska, AK – Yesterday afternoon, a Coast Guard helicopter medevaced a fisherman from the vessel Cape Reliant. Tom Webster, 26, reportedly suffered a head injury at around 1:25pm, while the vessel was 55 miles northeast of Dutch Harbor.

Crew members from the nearby Coast Guard cutter Alex Haley promptly attended to the vessel, providing medical assistance until the Jayhawk rescue helicopter was able to medevac Webster at 4:20.

Unalaska, AK – The new power plant is nearing completion -- and on Friday, all Unalaskans will be aware of its progress. The Department of Public Utilities will be testing two new generators and bringing them online, which could cause power outages in the community.

Public Utilities tried a dry run and turned on both W rtsil engines yesterday and today without connecting them to the grid. There total output will be over 10 megawatts of energy.

Unalaska, AK – Tonight, city council will meet to consider zoning rules and the Horizon Preferential Use Agreement.

The work session will open with a discussion of the Fiscal Year 2012 budget and the Capital and Major Maintenance Plan calendar.

On the consent agenda, there is a resolution that would appoint Teresa Hennings as student representative to the Park Culture & Recreation advisory committee.

Unalaska, AK – Last week, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced that it was seeking to promote "catch share" programs as a way of making America's fisheries more sustainable.

These programs move fisheries away from derby style management and instead assign individual allocations to boats, which they can then fish, lease, or sell. NOAA promotes catch share programs as a way of ending the race for fish. Glenn Merrill works for NOAA Fisheries, and he says that moving to catch share programs makes it easier to control the total harvest by the fleet and improves safety. While the total allowable catch may be the same, the fishery itself is more manageable.

Unalaska, AK – This week, about 40 public safety officials from across the Aleutian chain to Kodiak gathered in Unalaska for a tsunami operations workshop. The goal of this conference is to prepare at-risk communities for what to do if disaster strikes. KUCB's Alexandra Gutierrez has more.

Unalaska, AK – A small earthquake hit the Rat Islands early Friday morning.

The quake occurred approximately 7 miles away from Amchitka, and it had a magnitude of 4.5. According to the Alaska Earthquake Information Center, the earthquake struck at 3:15.

There have been no felt reports or damage reports.

Unalaska, AK – The City of Akutan continues to make progress on its geothermal energy project. For over a year, the city has been working to turn the island's hot springs into a renewable energy resource. This summer, two exploratory wells have been drilled 1,500 feet into the earth, at a site about three miles away from the town in Hot Spring Valley Bay. According to program manager Ray Mann, the results have been promising. Geologists have measured temperatures of about 360 degrees in the wells - hot enough to move forward with the project.

Unalaska, AK – This week, public safety officials from across the Aleutian chain up to Kodiak are gathering at the Grand Aleutian Hotel for a tsunami operations workshop. The goal of this convention is to prepare tsunami-prone communities for what to do if disaster strikes.

The workshop started yesterday and it will continue through tomorrow. It's being put on by the Alaska Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, and presenters include representatives for the Alaska Tsunami Warning Center, the National Weather Service Anchorage Forecast Office, and our own Unalaska department of public safety.