This week last year, the Russian fuel tanker Renda and the icebreaker Healy had just made the first-ever wintertime fuel delivery to the U.S. Arctic. The saga made headlines in the national and international press, and brought attention to the challenges of operating in the far north.
When the Healy was in Unalaska this fall, KUCB's Stephanie Joyce sat down with Captain Beverly Havlik to look back on the unique journey and the lessons learned. This is an excerpt from that interview.
Voters in Adak approved the first raw fish tax in the city's history just before the end of last year. City manager Layton Lockett says the new, 2 percent tax will bring the city in line with the rest of the region.
“We want to create an environment where operating in Adak is the same as operating in Unalaska, and Sand Point, and Kodiak, and Southeast, where you have a raw seafood or a fish tax, and this is how it’s administered, this is how it’s collected, you have a rate for it, and boom, done.”
Previously, Adak taxed seafood at 4 percent -- the same rate as other goods bought and sold within the city.
The City of Atka was the primary contractor for the 12.5-foot concrete dam and 952-foot penstock/Image credit: City of Atka
When Atka’s hydroelectric power plant came online at the end of last month, it was the culmination of decades of planning, according to city administrator Julie Dirks.
“We started off with some reconnaissance studies, which were done back in the mid-80s, but back at that time, fuel was very inexpensive. They found that the cost benefit ratio was 1:1, so at that time it just didn’t make any sense.”
That's not the case anymore. Dirks says today, electricity from the community’s diesel generators costs 76 cents a kilowatt hour, compared to 27 cents a kilowatt hour for hydroelectric power. For a facility like the school, which uses up to 4,000 kilowatt hours a month, that’s more than a thousand dollars a month in savings.
The hovercraft that connects Akutan and its new airport has been operating for three months now, and the craft has proved more reliable than many of its critics predicted – but it’s still only able to run about half the time. KUCB’s Stephanie Joyce rode the hovercraft and spoke to its operators about some of the challenges facing the vessel.
Violent weather is preventing rescue teams from reachingShell's Kulluk drill rig, which ran aground south of Kodiak Island on Monday.
Heavy waves and high winds are making it hard to monitor the vessel, even from the air. But as of this morning, responders confirmed that the Kulluk hadn't spilled any oil near the grounding site on Sitkalidak Island.
A provision in the recently passed Coast Guard Reauthorization Bill hones in on the strategic importance of the Pribilof island of St. George. The community’s harbor is the only one in the Bering Sea that’s ice-free year-round, and with vessel traffic increasing in the Arctic, Mayor Pat Pletnikoff says the community needs to be ready for the possibility of maritime disasters.
Starting next year, harbor workers will only need to make one in-person visit to get a Transportation Worker Identification Credential, or TWIC card. Previously, first-time TWIC enrollees have had to stop into one of seven TWIC offices in the state of Alaska to register for the card -- and then come back again, weeks later, to pick up the printed security badge.
Congress relaxed the requirement as part of the Coast Guard reauthorization bill, which is about to be signed into law.
St. George Island is getting a new, blue fire truck. The Sitka Sentinel reports that the community has been without a fire engine for more than five years, so when Sitka announced it was trying to get rid of the aging engine “Smokey Blue,” St. George stepped up. The city bought the truck for $1, but will pay to have it shipped out to the Pribilofs. It left Sitka on Wednesday and should arrive in Unalaska later this month. From here it will continue on to St. George.
