APRN Alaska News

In a late-night vote on Monday, the Alaska House passed legislation meant to advance the construction of a small-diameter pipeline. It would transport natural gas from the North Slope to Southcentral for Alaskan consumption and, potentially, for export.

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The thing is complicated. It would make the Alaska Gasline Development Corporation its own separate entity, and position it to receive $250 million in state funds this year for design and permitting work, with at least another $150 million to come down the road. The hope is to eventually hand things off to private firms for construction of a 700-mile line capable moving 500 million cubic feet of gas a day. That would cover urban Alaska’s energy needs, and still leave some available for export.

Passage of the bill was a coup for Speaker Mike Chenault, a Nikiski Republican who had failed to advance similar legislation in the past. Wearing an Alaska bolo tie and Johnny Cash-style black suit, he handed over his gavel, stepped down from his podium, and gave a rare speech to the House.

“We’re all wanting the same thing, Mr. Speaker,” Chenault said. “We all want the cheapest gas – or the cheapest energy – that we can get to all Alaskans.”

Not everyone is happy with the bill. Democrats have concerns that it doesn’t do enough in the way of public oversight or consumer protection. They made multiple attempts to tweak the document. One amendment would have put into statute language prioritizing the Alaska market over foreign demand in the event of a gas shortage. Another would have given the legislature final approval of a pipeline plan before construction. As written, control of project implementation falls to AGDC and industry. Rep. Les Gara, of Anchorage, said the amendment was needed to give the public a say on whether the project should be built depending on how much it would bring down utility rates.

“The bill is written to say, by passing this bill, this is final legislative approval,” Gara said. “The public can talk all it wants in the future about how high the price of gas might be under this project, but nobody will be there to listen.”

He also argued that since the state was putting hundreds of millions of dollars into project development, the legislature should have some say on if the pipeline is worth the money before ground is broken.

Rep. Mike Hawker, an architect of the bill, responded that any pipeline construction and utility rate agreements would be reviewed by the Regulatory Commission of Alaska and an AGDC board made up of the governor’s appointees. He said that with the way the bill is written, North Slope producers, pipeline operators, and utility companies would all have to negotiate with each other and have incentive to agree on the best possible rate, which, in turn would get passed on to the consumer.

The Anchorage Republican’s opposition to the amendment also had a philosophical basis. The key principle for Hawker in drafting the bill was market efficiency.

“Why in the world would we want the legislature to interfere in a private sector transaction that actually moves a pipeline project forward?,” Hawker said. “I don’t think we ought to be there.”

All eight of the Democrats’ amendments failed, though a pair of measures concerning local hire received some Republican support. The gasline bill ultimately passed 30-9, with four representatives splitting from their caucuses on the vote. Democrats Max Gruenberg, of Anchorage, and Scott Kawasaki, of Fairbanks, voted yes on the bill. Neal Foster of Nome broke with the majority, along with Eric Feige, a Chickaloon Republican who also represents Valdez. The City of Valdez has been an advocate for a bigger pipeline, and it was behind a million-dollar advertising campaign against the bill because of how it could indefinitely sideline the AGIA project.

With less than two weeks left to the legislative session, the bill has been sent over to the Senate, where two committees will review the measure.

High school hazing would be outlawed under a bill introduced by state Rep. Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins, D-Sitka.

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House Bill 189 (PDF: Full text) defines hazing as subjecting a student to the risk of physical injury for the purpose of initiation or affiliation with an organization. It applies to students from elementary school up through college.

The Sitka Democrat’s bill would make hazing a misdemeanor, unless it results in death or serious physical injury, in which case it would be a felony.

It also requires school districts to adopt policies against hazing and to file an annual report on any hazing incidents that result in suspension or expulsion. Districts already report similar cases of bullying and harassment.

Kreiss-Tomkins, a 2008 graduate of Sitka High School, says his bill is designed to clarify existing laws protecting students, and to bring more awareness to the issue of hazing.

“It’s unconscionable to me,” he said in a phone interview. “Both when I was an underclassman and watching it happen to my classmates, and to a certain extent myself, and as an upperclassman, when I watched my classmates who were once on the receiving end of it, perpetrate it. It’s just one of these cycles that has no place in schools.”

Kreiss-Tomkins says when he participated in high school sports, he witnessed hazing first-hand, although nothing as bad as what his bill would cover.

“Actually, I had well-developed evasive instincts,” Kreiss-Tomkins said. “I’m not sure you could ever say I was in the receiving end of it. But my friends were, and I certainly felt intimidated by it, because it was happening to people all around me, and myself. And it would have happened to myself, too, if I wasn’t good at being not in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

The measure also protects people who report incidents of hazing. House Bill 189 now sits in the House Education Committee, awaiting action.

The Matanska Susitna Borough’s School District is anticipating staff reductions in the coming school year. District teacher contracts are in negotiation, and no proposals have been submitted yet, but the school district’s current financial outlook could result in 45 positions being eliminated.

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New research shows some significant changes in the makeup of the labor force in Alaska. The research also sheds some light on who chooses to work.

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A brand new fishing vessel headed for Alaska to join the Kodiak fleet in 1972 never reached its destination, and its fate has been a mystery for over 40 years. That is, until it was discovered sitting on the sea floor under 9,000 feet of water in the Gulf of Mexico.

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The fishing vessel Katmai was found by a Schmidt Ocean Institute oil and gas survey ship in December. Having no record of a shipwreck in the spot, 200-miles from Mobile, Alabama, a remotely operated submersible was sent down to investigate a strong sonar return.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, which occasionally runs across shipwrecks, alerted the U.S. Coast Guard, according to Lieutenant Commander Theresa Hatfield in New Orleans.

The owner was Oskar Joos. The Coast Guard did not have the name of his wife or daughter. The deckhand was Clinton Hollevoet. KMXT has contacted several people who knew the Joos’ family, but have not heard back from them as of this morning.

Hatfield said she checked historic weather records from the time to see if it offers any clues to the Katmai’s sinking, but there were no reports of foul weather at the time.
In the photographs, the Katmai can be seen sitting upright on the bottom and it’s not possible to determine if there was any damage to the hull.

Hatfield doubts any further effort will be made to determine the condition of the Katmai or to salvage it.

An airplane that crashed 44 years ago near Fairbanks may fly again.  The B-25 bomber was being used for firefighting when it belly landed on a Tanana River sandbar in June 1969.  No one died in the crash, but the hulk of the World War 2 bomber was damaged and never removed.  As KUAC’s Dan Bross reports, a pair of aircraft mechanics from Michigan are planning a rescue attempt.

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Nearly a billion pounds of cargo landed at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport in 2012. That’s the equivalent to about 500 thousand Volkswagen beetles. And the guy who manages it all?

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“My name is John Parrott. I am the airport manager at the Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport.”

Currently, Anchorage International Airport is the fourth busiest cargo airport in the world. The airport was the third busiest in the world until the 2008 world financial crisis. The crisis affected supply and demand in the US and Europe. The reduced demand for consumer goods from Asia caused a drop in cargo flights through Anchorage. A majority of the cargo flights come from China, Korea, Japan, Taiwan and Hong Kong.

Even with the reduced cargo flights, Anchorage is still an important refueling stop for cargo planes, with 500 wide bodied cargo planes landing at the airport every week:

“Now as a comparison the city and business community of Portland a few years ago came up with a fairly nice financial incentive program. They were very happy to once again reestablish international cargo traffic out of the Portland airport with three flights a week. Uh, that was a success to them. We currently enjoy about 500 flights a week,”Parrott said.

That translates into about 72 cargo planes landing every twenty-four hours.

The majority of the transport cargo comes from Asian countries. Parrott says Anchorage is strategically located between Asia and the lower 48. Most wide-body cargo planes carry only enough fuel to travel 4,000 miles. For Asian products to reach the east coast, cargo planes have to travel twice that distance.

“…but Alaska exists in-between. So, to effectively utilize these aircraft all over the world in all markets, you need an airplane that will go about 4,000 miles and works all over the globe as long as we are here as a fueling stop,” Parrott said.

Parrott is excited about the cargo growth opportunities in Anchorage for a process called cargo-transfer. That allows foreign carriers to exchange cargo among their own fleet or to transfer cargo among different carriers while on US soil. Until 2004, it was illegal in the U-S, but that year an amendment sponsored by Senator Ted Stevens allowed for cargo transfer in Hawaii and Alaska.

“Cabotage is where a foreign carrier carries cargo between two cities in another country. Normally a foreign carrier could not load cargo say in Seattle and fly it to New York.  Those rights are preserved for a US flag carrier,” Parrott said.

With only two U-S states using this unique process, Parrott says it is difficult to convince multiple carriers to share their profits. But he believes cargo-transfer will eventually help Ted Stevens expand its cargo development.

Carman Bria restoring one of the donated Eustace Ziegler paintings with a q-tip and chemicals.
Photo by Alexander Duerre.

The Atwood Foundation is in the process of donating two original Eustace Ziegler Alaskan paintings and two original Sydney Laurence paintings to the Anchorage Museum. The foundation will also contribute an original Nunivak mask.

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Monica Shah, the Museum’s Director of Collections and Chief Conservator, ­­says the Museum only accepts original art that meets the mission of Museum which is to illustrate the Circumpolar North. Shah says the Museum has had a long-term relationship with the Atwood Foundation. Shah explains the foundation decided it was time to donate more art to the Museum.

“They let us choose some pieces that are within the collection of the Foundation and so we went over and selected these pieces,” Shah said. “And we picked these particular pieces because of the quality of the work.”

“They fill gaps in our collection that we don’t have this particular subject matter, they don’t duplicate.”

Eustace Ziegler’s painting of two prospectors exploring Alaska with MT. McKinley in the foreground. Photo by Alexander Duerre.

The four paintings depict Alaska’s environment. One of Ziegler’s larger painting portrays a train of horses traveling with supplies on their back with the Mt. McKinley in the foreground. Shah describes another Ziegler painting.

“One by Eustace Ziegler and that is another one that is got two I guess sort of explorers prospectors sitting on a rock with Mt. McKinley in the background and you know sort of a stereotypical sort of an Alaskan scene but really you know very unique to your collection and in a sense by Ziegler we don’t have this particular image and but also very well done,” Shah said.

Shah says the Nunivak mask is from the mid-twentieth century. The mask depicts a bird with unusual green rimmed-eyes with several delicate feather appendages.

The mid-twentieth century Nunivak Mask. A masking depicting an owl with a fish in it’s mouth.
Photo by Alexander Duerre.

“The Nunivak style mask is not signed so we don’t know exactly who made it  but it has an owl face and its lovely. It has these little green in the rims of the eyes, we don’t see that very often and in its beak its holding a fish that’s slightly bent. It’s very delicate and really wonderful,” Shah said.

Before the Museum displays the donated paintings, an art conservator is working to restore them.

Carman Bria has been a painting conservator for over thirty years and has worked on several pieces of art for the Museum. He stands next to one of the Ziegler paintings.

“You can see a very yellow discolored a natural resin varnish on it. So a lot of times, although not always possible you can remove those old varnishes and get that yellow off of there like you notice in the sky there where it is yellow, where it’s still yellow um, it looks kind of green. A blue sky with yellow on it looks kind of greenish you take the yellow off and it starts to look more blue like a sky should,” Bria said.

Bria was using a q-tip and chemicals to remove the old varnish off of the Ziegler painting.

According to Shah, the art work will  go on display in June.

In a literal eleventh hour vote on Monday night, the Alaska House passed legislation meant to advance the construction of a small-diameter pipeline. The line would transport natural gas from the North Slope to Southcentral for Alaskan consumption and, potentially, for export.

While the bill had been moving at a sluggish pace in the House, Republican leadership put it on the fast track with just two weeks left to the legislative session. The 20,000-word bill would make the Alaska Gasline Development Corporation its own separate entity, and position it to receive $225 million in state funds this year. Bill sponsors had hoped to secure $400 million for design and permitting work need before the project can go to an open season. After that, the plan is to let the private sector take over construction.

Support for the bill was largely split on caucus lines, with Democrats making multiple attempts to amend the document. One amendment would have put into statute language prioritizing the Alaska market over foreign demand in the event of a gas shortage. Another would have given the legislature final approval of a pipeline plan before construction. As written, control of project implementation falls to AGDC and private firms. Rep. Les Gara, of Anchorage, called the amendment a matter of public oversight.

“The bill is written to say [that] by passing this bill, this is final legislative approval,” said Gara. 
”The public can talk all it wants in the future about how high the price of gas might be under this project, but nobody will be there to listen.”

Rep. Mike Hawker, an architect of the bill, responded that any pipeline would be reviewed by the Regulatory Commission of Alaska and an AGDC board made up of the governor’s appointees.

The Anchorage Republican’s opposition to the amendment also had a philosophical basis. The key principle for him in drafting the bill was market efficiency.

“Why in the world would we want the legislature to interfere in a private sector transaction that actually moves a pipeline project forward?” asked Hawker. “I don’t think we ought to be there.”

All eight of the Democrats’ amendments failed, though a pair of measures concerning local hire received some Republican support. The gasline bill ultimately passed 30 to 9, with four representatives splitting from their caucuses on the vote. Democrats Max Gruenberg, of Anchorage, and Scott Kawasaki, of Fairbanks, voted yes on the bill. Neal Foster of Nome broke with the majority, along with Eric Feige, a Chickaloon Republican who also represents Valdez. The City of Valdez has been an advocate for a bigger pipeline, and it was behind a million-dollar advertising campaign against the bill because of how it might sideline AGIA.

A similar gasline bill died in the previous legislature.

The bill will now be sent over to the Senate, where it is tentatively scheduled for hearings in the resources and finance committees.

Joe Masters (center), Keith Mallard (Left), Gary Folger (Right). Photo by Ellen Lockyer, KSKA – Anchorage

In a somber and sometimes emotional press conference Monday in Anchorage, Public Safety Commissioner Joe Masters said that Helo 1′s pilot, Mel Nading, 55, Trooper Tage Toll, 40, of the Talkeetna post, and a body believed to be that of snowmachiner Karl Ober were aboard the downed craft.  Masters said the rescue call came in late Saturday night, and at about 10 pm, the helicopter crew radioed that they had located the missing snowmachiner.

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“At approximately 2200 hours, radio communication with Helo 1 indicated that they had located the injured snowmachiner, tentatively identified as Talkeetna resident Carl Ober. It was requested that a ground ambulance be waiting at the Sunshine Tesoro in Talkeetna to meet up with Helo 1 to transport Mr. Ober to a hospital for treatment. Helo 1 did not make it to the rondezvous. “

After the helicopter failed to show up, additional Troopers were dispatched by snowmachine and the Air National Guard was called in. Guard searchers located the wreckage of the helicopter about 9:30 AM Easter Sunday.

 ”Two para rescue jumpers were lowered down to the scene, the two AWT troopers were on scene shortly thereafter. An assessment of the scene was conducted, and it was determined that there were no survivors from the crash of Helo 1. Due to the condition of Helo 1 and the on scene investigation, the recovery of remains occurred later in the day. Positive identification of the remains is still ongoing. On this point, we will not speculate as to why Helo 1 crashed. The NTSB will conduct an investigation into the cause and circumstances. “

Masters said that the surviving members of the families of the deceased are now the Troopers’ s top concern, although he would not reveal the survivor’s names at this time. He said the crash represented a great tragedy for the troopers and the search and rescue community as well.

Trooper Director Colonel Keith Mallard said that pilot Nading was hired in 2000 and had flown over 3000 hours and saved hundreds of lives during his time with the Troopers in Alaska. He said that Nading had over 12 thousand hours in the air prior to coming to work for the State Troopers

 ”In 2012, Mel Nading made over 900 contacts. So, it’s reasonable to think that he flew over 900 missons. “

The crash marks the fourteenth and fifteeth Trooper deaths in the line of duty since 1974. Helo 1 was the only helicopter of its type in the state. A second Helo has been requested by the Troopers, but that depends on a legislative appropriation. The cost of Helo 1 is over 3 million dollars.

The EPA is scheduled to release its revised watershed assessment for the proposed Pebble Mine in Bristol Bay sometime this spring.

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Conservation groups are stepping up the lobbying pressure in Washington in anticipation of the ruling.

There are a whole host of groups who oppose the Pebble Mine from the Bristol Bay Native Corporation down to independent subsistence fishermen.

But the sheer volume of mineral resources and the hundreds of billions of dollars in possible revenue have enticed many to support the mine.

“It’s a of a size that they’ve told their shareholders is three times bigger than the biggest mine in North America,” former Alaska State Senate President Rick Halford said at a happy hour outside of Washington, D.C. for conservationists.

The Republican has been an outspoken critic of the mine, saying there’s no way an open pit mine of Pebble’s magnitude could coincide with the world’s largest red salmon fishery.

Halford, who represented Chugiak in the state Senate, has both personal and commercial interests in Bristol Bay. He owns a cabin and runs an outfitter service in Western Alaska.

He says the Pebble Partnership needs to step forward and submit its application for a permit.

“Hiding behind the ‘we haven’t applied yet’ when they have the Wardrop Report that they’ve paid for and filed with the Security and Exchange Commission; when they have their water rights application that’s hundreds of pages long, to take all the water from in both forks of the Koktuli and Upper Talarik creek. They have a lot on paper,” Halford said.

The Waldrop report is a study from Northern Dynasty, one of the companies involved with the mine.

Pebble Partnership CEO John Shively says the Waldrop report is a frame work. It doesn’t contain essential environmental guidelines. Those guidelines would be in a final permit application.

Shively would not pinpoint how far along the company is in its application, nor would he say when precisely it will submit its plan to the government.

“We’re a good ways. It’s possible we have a project description out this year. I’ve said that every year I’ve been CEO, and that’s been five years. But I think we’re getting close,” Shively said.

Shively says the Pebble Partnership has spent more than one hundred million dollars researching possible environmental affects.

He says he met with EPA administrators in Seattle three weeks ago, and agency officials say a draft assessment is due this month.

It would be open for public comment, and the agency would review the comments before issuing a final decision.

Jay Bellinger is the former manager of the Kodiak Island National Wildlife Refuge. He and more than a dozen other retired government employees – from the state DNR to the Fish and Wildlife Service – fired off a letter to the president.

They want President Barack Obama to intervene and block the mine.

Bellinger, who now lives in South Dakota, says he can’t believe the federal government, for which he worked for decades, would grant a permit.

“I’m flabbergasted that something like this could be proposed in America. And especially in a pristine habitat in Western Alaska where there’s very little of it rest in the world. And it’s not even necessary for human survival,” Bellinger said.

Unnecessary because the mine would rip copper, gold and other valuable metals out of the Earth, not oil and gas.

Bellinger, who was also visiting DC, says conservation groups in Alaska can’t prevent the mine alone.

“People have joined together that aren’t always on the same page to try and stop this thing. But they can only do so much. They’ve got to get groups down here in the Lower 48 to stand up and be counted,” Bellinger said.

And that’s where Tom Franklin comes in. Franklin works with the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership. He says his group of sport fishing companies, guides and outfitters from all over the country is increasing pressure on Congress to block the permit.

He says the Alaska Congressional delegation has not led on the issue.

“They’re fence sitting a little bit right now. I think they recognize the volatility of this issue,” Franklin said.

Franklin says many in Congress don’t know much about the issue, in part, because the mine would be on state land. But the EPA has an interest in the water quality in the region.

And the area surrounding the state land is controlled by various federal agencies.

He says the EPA could nix any mine outright.

“It’s not necessary to wait for a permit application. We know that the scale of this development would be so great that it would have an effect on water quality. And that’s what EPA is primarily concerned about,” Franklin said.

With the agency about to undergo a leadership change, it’s unlikely any decision will come in the next few months.

The State Senate unanimously passed the governor’s crime package on Monday.

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The bill is meant to combat Alaska’s high rates of domestic and sexual violence.

“We have a problem in Alaska,” said Sen. John Coghill. “This is some forward motion on ways to protect the victims, hold criminals accountable, and give good process for them to work.”

The bill amends criminal code in dozens of ways, with special attention to sex crimes. It gets rid of a statute of limitations for human trafficking and child pornography. It allows for wiretapping in trafficking cases. It makes it so that persons charged with stalking or domestic violence could be ordered to wear GPS monitors. It also makes it a third-degree felony for a probation or parole officer to have sex with someone in their charge. That provision is in response to a case where a state officer had women perform sexual acts in exchange for covering up probation violations. The officer could only be charged with official misconduct and bribery.

Sen. Lesil McGuire, an Anchorage Republican, described that case as “horrific” during discussion of the bill.

“Just because somebody has committed a crime and might be on probation or parole, we don’t allow them to be further sexually violated,” said McGuire.

One controversial provision of Gov. Sean Parnell’s original bill was removed during the committee process. Lawmakers got rid of language that would have imposed criminal penalties on volunteers for sports teams if they didn’t report suspected child abuse.

A companion bill in the House is now in its final committee of review.

Little Sitkin Volcano/AVO

The Alaska Volcano Observatory is joining the list of agencies that have announced cutbacks in response to the massive federal spending cuts known as sequestration. AVO will stop maintaining its seismic networks on some remote volcanoes.

Late last year, scientists at the Alaska Volcano Observatory picked up a swarm of small earthquakes at Little Sitkin volcano, in the far western Aleutians. They would have been undetectable to humans, but were picked up by AVO’s seismic network on the volcano, and alerted scientists to the possibility of an eruption. While the closest community is 200 miles to the east and wouldn’t have been affected, an eruption could have caused problems for international flight traffic.

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Ascending eruption cloud from Redoubt Volcano as viewed to the west from the Kenai Peninsula. The mushroom-shaped plume rose from avalanches of hot debris (pyroclastic flows) that cascaded down the north flank of the volcano. A smaller, white steam plume rises from the summit crater. Photograph by R. Clucas, April 21, 1990.

The Alaska Volcano Observatory is celebrating its 25th anniversary today. It was created in 1988, two years after a large eruption of Augustine volcano near Homer created problems for the Anchorage area and the airport. The next year, in December 1989, Mount Redoubt erupted, sending an ash plume more than 30 thousand feet in the air. When a passenger jet on it’s way to Anchorage encountered the ash, it lost power to all four engines. The airplane plummeted nearly 20,000 feet before the pilots were able to regain control and land safely in Anchorage.

John Power is the scientist in charge of AVO and has been with the agency since its first year. He says that dramatic airline incident highlighted one of the main hazards from volcanic ash.

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After spending the winter at the Homer harbor, the ‘Endeavor’ left Friday morning (Terry Rensel photo)

After a seven-month-long stay at the Homer harbor, Buccaneer Energy’s jack-up rig Endeavor left Kachemak Bay Friday morning. The company plans for the rig to drill in the Cosmopolitan Unit near Anchor Point.

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The City of Homer asked Buccaneer to move the rig to make way for a fender replacement project at the harbor’s Deepwater Dock, where the rig has been moored since last August.

Homer Harbormaster Bryan Hawkins says the materials for the fender replacement have arrived from Seward and are in place on the dock. Jay Brant Construction of Homer is the contractor in charge of the project, which is expected to take about a month to complete.

The Endeavor was given a Certificate of Compliance by the U.S. Coast Guard over the weekend.

Another Cook Inlet jack-up rig, Furie Operating Alaska’s “Spartan 151,” received the same certificate Tuesday from the dock in Port Graham.

The examinations included verification of the rigs’ documentation, safety equipment, machinery installations and watching crew perform fire and abandon ship drills. Coast Guard Inspector Jay Jerome says certificates of compliance are issued to all offshore drilling units before they can get to work.

Calls and emails to Buccaneer representative Jay Morakis were not returned in time for this story. In a news release earlier this month, Morakis said the Endeavour had also received permitting approval from the American Bureau of Shipping to move to the Cosmopolitan Unit.

Before the Endeavor can drill at Cosmo, however, it still must receive approval from the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation.

If you live in Anchorage, you may want to double check your Assembly precinct before voting on Tuesday. The Anchorage Municipal Clerk’s office says redistricting has shifted the boarders of precincts in three areas of the city.

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Amanda Moser is the Deputy Clerk of Elections at the Anchorage Municipal Clerk’s office. She says this past year, the Assembly declared the districts did not adequately represent the population, and in November they drafted and approved new Assembly district maps. Moser says voters in three main areas could be voting in a new district.

“It mostly affects people midtown, west Anchorage area and also midtown south Anchorage. The line shifted in the midtown west Anchorage area to address split precincts that we had their previously. And then the line in South Anchorage is a little bit further South in some areas.”

Officials with the Municipal Clerk’s office say the redistricting was an effort to eliminate split precincts.

“Voters who live in those split precincts, would go into the precinct and instead of everyone voting on the same ballot, they would have to determine what part of town they lived in to issue them the ballot.”

Moser says split precincts occur when a precint is divided into to two or more assembly districts. They are problematic she says because they require the distribution of multiple ballots at polling places. redistricting did not completely eliminate split precincts, but it should simplify things. The Department of Justice did not object to the new districts.

Anchorage Municipal Elections are Tuesday, April 2nd. The polls will be open from 7am until 8pm.

• Anchorage Municipal Elections webpage
• Anchorage Assembly District 1
• Anchorage Assembly District 2
• Anchorage Assembly District 3
• Anchorage Assembly District 4
• Anchorage Assembly District 5
• Anchorage Assembly District 6
• League of Women Voters: Ballot Review
• Sample Ballot
• Notice of Election
• Follow the Municipal Elections on Twitter
• AR 2012-181

Over the weekend, the Anchorage School Board appointed a new board member, but Sunday he declined the position because of his employment with VECO corporation during a corruption scandal. Tonight the board plans to appoint the runner up.

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On Saturday, the board listened to 31 candidates that had applied to fill the vacant seat D, left open by the departure of Gretchen Guess. They narrowed it down to two candidates. The board voted and chose Tom Corkran. School Board President Jeannie Mackie says board members chose Corkran because of his financial expertise

“We believed that he possessed a skill set which could have greatly helped navigate the district through a very serious budget reality. Unfortunately his association with a company which was involved with corruption has tainted his ability to be effective. So he has stepped away from the appointment.”

Although he was not convicted of any wrongdoing, Mackie says, Corkran did work for the now defunct Alaska-based oil pipeline service and construction company VECO corporation at the time of a corruption scandal. In an email to School Board President Jeannie Mackie Sunday, Corchran said he was declining the position because:
” … it is apparent that my appointment would be a tremendous distraction to the Board’s mission and purpose for the students and teachers of this district.” Mackie says the board will likely appoint their number two choice, Kameron Perez Verdia.

“The board will be meeting at a regularly scheduled board meeting this evening and we will discuss next steps. I believe Kameron Perez Verdia is still interested in accepting the appointment and the board will re-vote this evening.”

Perez Verdia was chosen as an alternate to Corkran. His resume says that he was born in Alaska and graduated from Barrow High School and hat he is currently the CEO at Avant-Garde Learning Alliance, a statewide education non-profit focused on education reform. Verdia must be appointed by a vote of the school board. If he’s appointed he will be sworn in tonight.

• Tom Corkran letter (PDF)
• Anchorage School Board
• ASD Appointment Applicants

Traveling Outside, many of us encounter questions about Alaska stemming from curiosity and ignorance. Do we live in igloos? Is it always winter with six months darkness?  Is American money accepted?   But rural Alaska residents often feel their urban-dwelling fellow Alaskans have just as many misperceptions about their bush homes.  As part of our on-going series looking at how we define our culture and live our lives as Alaskans, Len Anderson presents these examples.

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For over 60 years, Inupiaq Chester Ballot has lived above the Arctic Circle in the coastal community of Kotzebue, located in Northwest Alaska. Ballot says people can comprehend 60 below, but they have a hard time grasping that some upriver communities can experience 90 degrees in summer.

“And the light, you know.  They ask, ‘Does it get dark up there six months a year?’  And I say, ‘No.  We can go up on the hill, up Cemetery Hill and we can look at the sun.  If it’s a clear day, we can look at the sun for an hour and 43 minutes on the shortest day of the year.  And in the summer time,  if we have all clear days, you can see the sun for 44 days, beginning in early June and ending in July,” Ballot said.

Another misconception:  just because notherners live in the Arctic, does not mean they like to be cold. Inside their wall tents out camping, or their homes in town, they’re toasty warm. That’s another one: those houses that may look like “shacks” to some outsiders.

Hadley Ferguson has lived most of her life in Kotzebue.  She’s says urban residents who see pictures, even those who visit, are surprised by them.

“I think a lot of get culture shock when they first come into a vill…town like Kotzebue or smaller villages.  They’re used to the nice fancy houses.  They come into, their first perception is that they’re shacks.   But they don’t understand that a lot of it is due to weather conditions.  And you go inside the home and they’re beautiful.  So, I’ve heard them talk and say that’s one of the biggest shocks that they had,” Ferguson said.

Carl Weisner grew up in the northwest Alaska village of Shungnak and now lives in Kotzebue; he says urban Alaskans have a theoretical grasp of higher bush prices, but the reality still produces a wallet shock.

“When folks from the urban area come to the Northwest Arctic, they expect the cost of living is equivalent to their experience.  And it’s just not.  We have to pay greater than $10 a gallon in some villages for gasoline,” Weisner said.

On the positive side, Weisner says many visitors are surprised at the closeness existing in rural communities, a bonding that extends beyond family.

“It’s necessary, because in order to overcome some of these challenges, like the extremely harsh winter and cold weather conditions, or other challenges in the country, we have to cooperate.  We have to communicate and work together in order to make something happen,” Weisner said.

For several years, Dean Westlake has worked on rural economics and development in various jobs and rural location.  He has returned to Northwest Alaska and has served on the borough assembly.  Westlake says one urban misperception that he often encounters grates on him more than others.  It’s the urban accusation that rural Alaska is an economic drain on state finances.   He adds his response is his own, not necessarily any official position

“We need to think through this and understand where the resources come from.   Who subsidizes who, here? should really be the question.  When we say, all rural Alaska is a drain, hey buddy, rural Alaska is the resources, and let’s get that straight right now,” Westlake said.

Sometimes the difference between urban and rural lies in how one views the same situation.   In Kotzebue, the thick ice on the sound will remain solid into June while in the town itself scattered snow piles resolutely resist the long daylight hours. Visitors can find the scene disturbing – snow and ice in June?  Not so for locals.

“In the summertime, spring time about June when the ice breaks up and you hear the crinkling of the ice floating by there and the sun not setting.   To me it’s indescribable to be here, to enjoy it, to see it.  To live here, it’s great.  It’s home,” Ballot said.

Chester Ballot and many other residents walk along the shore every evening, taking in that exhilarating, comforting panorama.

The FV Katmai is clearly identifiable even after 41-years on the bottom. USCG photo

In February 1972 a Kodiak-bound fishing boat out of Mobile, Alabama, disappeared without a trace, taking all hands with it. Now, 41 years later, the Coast Guard announced that the fishing vessel Katmai has been found.

It was stumbled across by a Schmidt Ocean Institute survey of the ocean floor in December, while working for the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. The crew of the research vessel Falkor saw an unknown sonar blip about 200 miles offshore, but had no record of a sunken vessel in that spot. They sent a remote operating vehicle, or ROV, down to investigate, and there they found the Katmai in 9,000 of water in remarkably good shape.

The Coast Guard was notified and initiated a cold-case investigation.

What they determined was the Katmai departed Mobile, where it was constructed by Bender Ship Building, on February 18, 1972, and it never made its destination of Alaska, or even as far as the Panama Canal.

The Katmai had disappeared without a trace and was presumed sunk in the Gulf of Mexico. It was skippered by owner Oskar Joos, and had aboard his wife, their eight-year-old child, and crewman Clinton Hollevoet.

The Coast Guard has contacted the families of the victims and told them what happened to their loved ones.

Sequestration of federal spending is going to mean a change in volcano monitoring. The Alaska Volcano Observatory watches the volcanoes because ash cloud eruptions that get up high enough can be a severe hazard to intercontinental aviation. But maintenance of the seismic network has been repeatedly reduced due to state and federal budget reductions, and just 120 of almost 200 seismic monitors in the state are in working condition.

The Observatory announced Friday that it will no longer seismically monitor Little Sitkin, Ukinrek Maars and Ugashik-Peulik volcanoes with real-time equipment. They will have to rely on satellite data, infra-sound and reports from pilots and others to detect eruptions.