State officials are hoping the ferry Tustumena’s replacement will be bigger, faster and more efficient.
But they also say the current ferry doesn’t need to be retired just yet.
Captain John Falvey is the general manager of the Alaska Marine Highway System. He gave the House Transportation Committee an update Tuesday on preliminary designs for the ferry that will replace the aging Tustumena.
The service was held on Coast Guard Island in Alameda. / Credit: Alex Emslie
On Thursday, the Coast Guard mourned the loss of a service member who was critically injured on duty in Alaska.
Petty Officer Travis Obendorf, of the cutter Waesche, was hurt while rescuing a fishing crew near Cold Bay. More than 700 of his shipmates, friends and family gathered to pay their respects at a service in Alameda, California.
The state Senate Resources Committee got an overview Wednesday of how Alaska is dealing with potential impacts of radiation from the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster and tsunami in Japan.
Environmental Conservation commissioner Larry Hartig told committee members that his department is monitoring marine debris washing ashore in Southeast Alaska and the Prince William Sound.
"For now, we have a lot more debris than we used to have that came in from Japan, and Alaska got more than its share of it," he said. "Most of it’s been just solid waste -- it hasn’t been anything that’s what we would deem as hazardous waste."
The Coast Guard medevacked a fisherman with an eye injury to St. Paul on Friday.
The injured man was aboard the 109-foot fishing vessel Prowler. The ship’s crew called the nearby Coast Guard Cutter Munro to report the injury Friday afternoon. The Prowler was 74 miles southwest of St. Paul at the time.
Coast Guard public affairs officer Shawn Eggert says the injured man reported a piece of jellyfish was stuck between his contact lens and his eye. But Eggert says they're not sure what exactly happened.
Coast Guard crews airlifted three mariners with unusual injuries near Cold Bay last night.
Petty Officer Shawn Eggert says a distress call came in from the fishing vessel Pavlof around 11 p.m. A 50-year-old man had gotten sick aboard the crab boat.
"He was reported to have a staph infection and his vital signs were decreasing," Eggert says.
An MH-65 Dolphin helicopter attached to the patrol cutter Munro picked up the sick man about 50 miles outside Cold Bay. Eggert says they took him to Cold Bay’s clinic, and then transferred him to a LifeMed flight bound for Anchorage.
A state board has fined Greenpeace $15,000 for traveling through Alaskan waters without a marine pilot.
The violation occurred during Greenpeace’s “Save the Arctic” tour to protest Shell’s oil exploration in July 2012.
Greenpeace had sent the Esperanza, their 237-foot, Dutch-flagged research vessel. The Esperanza were supposed to study corals and sealife in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas.
The Aleutians East Borough is retiring the hovercraft in February. /Credit: Stephanie Joyce
For more than a year, getting in and out of Akutan has meant taking a hovercraft. The vessel ferries passengers to and from the island’s airport.
But high costs and inconsistent service have sent the Aleutians East Borough looking for a better solution. Now, KUCB’s Annie Ropeik reports they think they've found one.
Representative Bob Herron is being cited for ethics violations, dating back to when he was first elected to the Legislature in 2009.
The House ethics committee found that Herron knowingly withheld "sufficient detail" on his business ventures with another legislator -- senator Lyman Hoffman.
Herron and Hoffman both represent western Alaska, and they co-own a school bus company in the Bethel area. Golden Eagle Unlimited has a $930,000 contract with the Lower Kuskokwim School District to transport students.
Seward Ship's Drydock was only supposed to spend a few months fixing up the Tustumena ferry. Instead, it took them a year to finish extensive repairs on the 50-year-old vessel. Now, the shipyard is now seeking millions of dollars in extra payment from the state of Alaska.
