Southeast gillnetters will be able to fish for just over a thousand tons of herring in Seymour Canal off Admiralty Island this spring. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game has announced a guideline harvest level of 1014 tons in the sac roe fishery, which is somewhat above average for the past half-decade. Gillnetters had GHL of just under 1300 tons last year, but they never got to fish it. That’s because the herring never congregated in large enough schools to have an opening.

While the fishery was a bust last year, the herring population itself is in good shape, according to Juneau Area Management Biologist Dave Harris:

“The return of herring to the area and the spawn was just fine as a matter of fact. The fish didn’t present themselves last year in a way that would lead to a viable commercial fishery. Although we waited on the grounds for, gosh, almost three weeks, it was all agreed between the department, fishermen, and processors present that there was never really an option for a fishery,” Harris said.

The department tries to open herring fisheries just before the major spawn, when the females are the ripest with eggs and large schools of fish mass near the beach. Fishermen target the herring for their roe. Older, bigger fish generally have more roe and according to Harris, the forecast for this spring looks good on that front.

In an undated photo, a seafood worker displays the roe inside a Southeast herring. Photo by KFSK.

“Predominantly, a good portion of the fish are the eight-plus, the older fish. About 30 percent of the return is forecast to be those sizes,” Harris explained, “The fish generally start recruiting into the fishery at age three and then age 4 is about another 30 percent or so of the return is anticipated there, with kind of the remaining ages of three to seven sort of about the same but spread out in there. So, it will be pretty-much larger fish the gillnet fleet will be targeting this year.”

Seymour is the only herring fishery scheduled to open for Southeast Gillnetters. It typically takes off in late April.

A smoldering electrical fire gutted the interior of a 41-foot pleasure boat in Petersburg’s South Harbor in the late Friday night. No one was aboard the motor vessel Sea Haven, which was moored at B float. Assistant Fire Chief Dave Berg says the department was called out just before eleven that night.

“The boat, when we got to it, didn’t look like it was on fire or even had really flashed over but there was a significant level of heat damage inside the vessel that caused a great deal of interior damage basically from the ceiling to the floor,” he said.

Berg said the department was still investigating the cause, but it looked like it involved a bad outlet and extension cord connected to a heater.

“You know this time of year, people are using all kinds of heat sources on boats and they are real suspect, especially if you are not watching them, or maintaining them. Anytime you’ve got a cord that’s running a heater or kind of a high amperage load on it, the cord can overheat very easily and even cords that appear to be not very warm, or hot to the touch, can significantly degrade over time in our weather. Salt air and other moisture causes a lot of trouble with extension cords. When you don’t have a good connection the heat builds up in the connection. You may pull them apart and see black tongs on the plugs or excess heat building up. So, that’s really something to watch out for when you are using alternative heat sources on boats.”

According to Berg, the boat was shut up tight enough that the lack of oxygen kept it from spreading to the exterior. However, harbor staff moved a neighboring boat just in case.

The American College of Emergency Physicians and FEMA are hoping to teach children what to do before, during, and after disasters using their online game, Disaster Hero.

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The Massachusetts Democrat will succeed Hillary Clinton. His departure from the Senate is likely to spark a fierce battle for his vacant seat.

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Rush Limbaugh has been spending a lot of time calling new immigration overhaul plans little more than "amnesty" for some 11 million undocumented immigrants already in this country. A lot of time, that is, except for the 15 minutes of his extremely deferential interview with one of the plan's authors, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla.

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Sitka Jazz Festival directors John DePalatis and Mike Kernin talk about this year’s festival lineup, which includes Jeff Collela, Barbara Morrison, and — for the first time — dancer Katherine Kramer. The festival opens noon on Thu Jan 31 with a brown bag concert at Harrigan Centennial Hall. The main concerts are 6 PM Fri and Sat, Feb 1 & 2, at the Sitka Performing Arts Center. This year, an all-Festival pass admits the public to clinics and concerts. For complete information, visit the Sitka Jazz Festival online.

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Public, scientists disagree on cruise ship wastewater during Senate Resources Committee hearing. SE halibut fishermen to see small increase in 2013 catch limit, following IPHC winter meeting. McDonald’s to adopt sustainably-harvested fish in all restaurants.

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JUNEAU — House Democratic leader Beth Kerttula says she's hopeful that legislation will be introduced this year to re-establish a coastal management program.

Kerttula says she's heard that something is being worked on. Last week, Rep. Bryce Edgmon, chairman of the House Bush Caucus, said he expected a coastal management bill to be introduced but didn't know who would do it or what it would look like.

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“Alaska is the third most dependent on fluctuations in the global economy” Senior economist, Gary Schlossberg reported at the Statewide Economic Forecast Luncheon hosted by the World Trade Center of Alaska on January 15. Schlossberg describes what’s changed for international and national economies going into 2013, followed by a Statewide Economic Review and 2013 Forecast presented by Pat Burden of Northern Economics this week on Addressing Alaskans.

BROADCAST ON KSKA: Thursday, January 31, 2013 at 2:00 p.m. (Alaska time)

REPEAT BROADCAST: Thursday, January 31, 2013 at 7:00 p.m. (Alaska time)

RECORDED: January 15, 2013 at the Hotel Captain Cook in Anchorage

SPEAKERS:

• Gary Schlossberg, Vice President and Senior Economist, Wells Capital Management
• Pat Burden, President and Principal Economist, Northern Economics
  

HOST: World Trade Center of Alaska
EVENT: Statewide Economic Forecast Luncheon (Anchorage)

About

Addressing Alaskans features local lectures and forums recorded at public events taking place in Southcentral, Alaska. A variety of local organizations host speakers addressing topics that matter to Alaskans. To let us know about an upcoming community event that you would like to hear on Addressing Alaskans, please Contact Us with details.

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Valencia, which once spent lavishly on tourism projects, now epitomizes the worst of Spain's economic problems. Its landscape is littered with empty and half-finished buildings, and the regional government has run out of funds to repair schools.

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The American Federation of Teachers proposes a single, standard test to determine who's fit to teach. The exam would replace a patchwork of different certification requirements that vary by state. But it has raised more questions than answers, especially about how teachers are prepared in school.

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Records leaked to The Miami New Times appear to show players have not stopped doping. The paper says its interviews and records show "the war on doping has been as futile as the war on drugs."

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Suicide is a tough topic in Alaska. Too many of the state's young people, including members of the state's Native communities, consider killing themselves. Some will have failed attempts to end their lives. Too many will succeed. Increasingly, Alaskans are starting to talk about it, to bring the despair out from its quiet, pained darkness and into the light. “We Breathe Again,” a film dedicated to the topic, aims to be a part of the solution.

A bill that would relax the wastewater standards placed on cruise ships by Alaska voters is on the fast track in the Senate.

The Senate Resources committee took the first public testimony on Senate Bill 29 last Friday (1-25-13). Proponents of the bill advocated for the lower standards, saying that the current law unfairly puts ships under tighter rules than Alaskan communities. The leading opponent of the bill was a marine ecologist, who was dissenting from her colleagues on the science advisory panel that studies cruise ship wastewater.

Gov. Parnell is putting his weight behind SB29 to expedite permitting for cruise lines by this summer.

Karla Hart, with Alaska Community Action on Toxics, urged the Senate Resources committee to slow down.

“The risk of quick action on your part is that you’ll betray the voters of Alaska, who voted to have this higher standard of clean water.”

Hart reminded the committee that the amount of discharge was significant. More people visit Alaska on cruise ships each summer than live in the state. She did not think leveling cruise ship discharge with local communities made sense.

“If an Alaska community doesn’t meet discharge standards, it’s in our front yard. We know where it comes from. We know who’s responsible, and we have to clean it up. Ships discharge anywhere, so remote areas that you might go to for subsistence harvests or commercial fishing that you might go to because you think they are clean, because they are far away from any apparent discharge, could be getting a pretty substantial burden over time, because a lot of these things are heavy metals that bioaccumulate.”

Alaska voters in 2006 passed the statewide Cruise Ship Initiative, which set wastewater standards “at the point of discharge.” The Department of Environmental Conservation subsequently granted cruise lines temporary relief from these requirements, to allow them time to install the necessary treatment systems.

Putting ships on a different standard than Alaskan communities was a major argument against the initiative. John Kimmel, with Cruise Line Agencies of Alaska told the committee that Senate Bill 29 would correct a flaw in the law that voters adopted.

“The cruise ships really need to be held to the same standard as everyone else. The original initiative held them to a higher standard than everyone else. This fix is going to make it more fair for the cruise lines.”

A variation of this theme has made it to the table from a different direction: The Alaska Cruise Ship Wastewater Science Advisory Panel, in a preliminary report, says that many ships now meet or exceed Alaska water standards, except for a few key heavy metals, like copper. The report concludes that there would be little, if any, environmental benefit to requiring cruise ships to adopt additional treatment methods in the future.

The report gave advocates of the cruise industry an opening to talk about science. This is Andy Rodgers, the deputy director of the Alaska State Chamber of Commerce. He testified that his organization has now adopted a position “Advocating for legislation and regulations that are based on sound science, as opposed to a precautionary method.”

And this is Bob Janes, a tour operator from Juneau.

“I am not a scientist, but I think this subject is all about science.”

But at least one bona fide scientist who testified before the Senate Resources committee disagreed with the conclusions of the Science Advisory Panel – which she herself sits on. Michelle Ridgeway, a marine ecologist in Juneau, believes the other members of the panel underestimate the potential harm from the consistent discharge of heavy metals.

“Quite frankly, I think we’ll be appalled by the long-term degradation to the marine ecosystem if we allow this to go forward in this form.”

Ridgeway thinks applying rules for shore-base treatment plants – which allow for mixing zones – to cruise ships will ultimately create a kind of Sophie’s choice for the state.

“I believe it will be exceedingly excruciatingly difficult for Alaskans to concur on where it is between a 0 to 3 nautical mile area – our state waters – that we find it’s acceptable for vessels to discharge water that contains copper, zinc, nickel, and ammonia at levels that are known to be acutely and chronically toxic to marine life that we all depend on.”

Read an open letter from Michelle Ridgeway to DEC Commissioner Larry Hartig.

Chip Thoma, president of Responsible Cruising in Alaska, said it was his organization’s preference that ships discharge all waste in federal waters. He urged the committee to maintain the water quality standards set by voters, saying it was likely that much of the copper contamination would eventually be reduced as ships modernized with the use of flexible plastic plumbing.

Senate Resources chair Cathy Giessel scheduled another hearing on SB29 for Monday afternoon, January 28, at which she invited members to propose amendments. A companion bill in the House, HB 80, was heard in that body’s Resources Committee on Monday afternoon as well.

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Alaska's senior senator has once again introduced legislation to rename Mount McKinley as Denali.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski says Denali might not be the name that people in the Midwest recognize. But she says it has long been the name in Alaska, the state where North America's highest peak is located.

Denali is an Athabascan word meaning "the high one."

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Local reaction to the changes to the Alaska Class Ferry project is not positive.


Local News for Jan. 28, 2013 | KHNS FM
www.khns.org
Local reaction to the changes to the Alaska Class Ferry project; a power outage, a small earthquake, chilly weather and a basketball wrap-up.