Unalaska, AK – The National Marine Fisheries Service is accepting public comments on the new rules regarding Chinook salmon bycatch by the Bering Sea pollock fishery. The North Pacific Fishery Management Council approved the regulation during their April meeting last year. The new regulation limits bycatch to 60,000 salmon but includes incentives to keep the bycatch rate under 47,591. The public can comment until May 7, 2010.

Unalaska, AK – Funding for twice monthly ferry runs passed the State House of Representatives Monday morning. House Bill 326 provides funding for the Alaska Marine Highway System to bring the ferry out the Aleutian chain and to Unalaska twice a month from May 2010 until October 2010 and twice again in May and June of 2011. The state legislature cannot make funding decisions for fiscal year 2012, which starts July 1, 2011. That means they cannot guarantee two runs per month for the entire summer of 2011. The bill appropriates another $650,000 for the extra runs in May and June and $3.6 million for the extra runs the other six months. The supplemental budget bill passed unanimously 40 to 0 and will now go to the Senate.

Unalaska, AK – Researchers are trying to figure out how Stellar Sea Lions react to changes in their diets. The information might help scientists understand the population decline in the wild. KUCB's Anne Hillman spoke with one of the lead researchers.

Unalaska, AK – The cold waters and currents of the North Pacific Ocean make the ecosystems around the Aleutians more susceptible to ocean acidification. Brad Warren with the Sustainable Fisheries Partnership spoke about the issue at the Western Alaska Interdisciplinary Science Conference Thursday.

"It's a cross cutting threat to food webs that support fisheries. It affects the physiologies of many species in the marine system - gill function, reproduction, growth rates, blood chemistry, heart functions. The primary cause of death for fish exposed to high CO2 is heart attacks. It's really a wide band of effectors of harm."

Unalaska, AK – The Ounalashka Corporation is the new official owner of Hog Island. O.C.'s CEO Wendy Svarny-Hawthorn said the price of the property dropped significantly in the past eight years making it affordable for the organization, but she could not say exactly what they paid.

"And one of the most important things, I think, is that it was kind of an emotional purchase for the board because it's just nice to have that back into the fold of native-owned land," Hawthorn said.

Unalaska, AK – The third annual Western Alaska Interdisciplinary Science Conference opened in Unalaska this week with a poster session and a reception. Posters ranged in topic from growing potatoes in rural Alaska, researching contaminants in bird eggs, and sampling nuclear test sites on Amchitka.

One of the posters from the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge focused on the effects of the 2008 Kasatochi eruption, which covered the entire island with a thick layer of ash and completely changed its topography. Biologist Jeff Williams joined a team of scientists to look at all aspects of that change, from soil to geology and insects to marine mammals. Biologists had a summer field camp on the island for 13 years before the eruption, so they knew approximately how many birds and marine mammals were affected by it.

Unalaska, AK – Unalaska experienced an hours-long, community-wide power outage Wednesday. It started at about 11:20 am. Public utilities director Dan Winters explained that the power house is fed energy through it's own house power source. Without that source the cooling water pumps and fans don't work, so you can't run the power house. Winters said the breaker to that source shorted out and melted. The power house crew had to locate another breaker to replace the damaged one. The breaker they found wasn't quite the same, so they needed to modify it to get power running through the system again.

Unalaska, AK – In the next few weeks, the Department of Public Safety will start enforcing existing state laws on proper pot truck loading. First Sgt. Matt Betzen said the move will catch Unalaska up with the rest of the state in terms of compliance and keep the roads safer.

"Pot trucks continue to transport pots in such a way that they swing back and forth and to and fro. That's not safe. It's not safe for the stability of the vehicle. It's not a safe way to move pots. It's actually against state law. So we are once again moving the bar up. And when we do move the bar up we make an effort to get educate everybody involved and get voluntary compliance, and that's what we're do right now."

Unalaska, AK – Shell Oil's drilling plans for this summer in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas are not yet fully approved, so it's not certain that they will be bringing vessels and business to Unalaska. Shell Oil spokesperson Curtis Smith said the company is still awaiting air permits and action by the Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia.

Shell purchased the leases for drilling in the Chukchi Sea under the Bush administration's five-year lease sale plan. The legality of that plan is still under consideration by the court, which is awaiting more scientific information from the Department of the Interior. Smith said the court should get the information on March 29, but even after they get the information it is unclear if Shell will be able to proceed.