Another sign of this year’s slow arrival of spring: green up will likely be the latest in Fairbanks recorded history.

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Sgt. Daniel S. Alsdorf fires his M4 carbine from a kneeling position during the weapons qualification event as part of the Pacific Army Reserve Best Warrior Competition, May 18. Photo by Army Staff Sgt. Joseph Vine.

A Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson soldier is competing this week in the Pacific Army Reserve Best Warrior Competition in Hawaii. The week-long competition began Saturday and will end with the awards ceremony Thursday.

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Sgt. Daniel S. Alsdorf orients himself with his compass during the land navigation course as part of the Pacific Army Reserve Best Warrior Competition, May 19. Photo by Army Staff Sgt. Joseph Vine.

The past week has been exhausting for Sergeant Daniel Alsdorf.

From before the sun rises until after it sets, he and 10 other soldiers have been putting their entire military skill-set to the test….from land navigation, to hand-to-hand combat, to their overall fitness and more.

According to Alsdorf, the Hawaiian heat and humidity coupled with a simulated battlefield atmosphere haven’t made the tests any easier.

“It’s amazing when you get to a competition how some of the simple tasks become hard, you add a little sleep deprivation and a little fatigue to that, you know, a 6.5 hour road march in Hawaiian conditions can be pretty intense, especially coming from Alaska…these boys have a 30 degree temperature advantage on me,” Alsdorf said.

Despite the difference in climate between Hawaii and Alaska, he says he’s feeling pretty good about the competition so far.

Alsdorf is a combat medic, and he was able to put his life-saving skills to work during the combat casualty care exercise…where competitors had to take care of two injured soldiers and move them to a helicopter before time ran out…all while under simulated combat conditions.

Sgt. Daniel S. Alsdorf, completed 72 pushups for the Army Physical Fitness Test, May 18. Photo by Army Spc. David W. Harthcock.

“The sounds of battle are real, the sweat is in your eyes, you’re running through jungle, you can’t see 15-20 feet in front of you, you don’t really know what’s happening until you get around the next corner. All the while, you know that there’s someone in there bleeding, and it’s your job to get to them and save their lives before they lose all their blood,” Alsdorf said.

Even though the two “casualties” are mannequins, Alsdorf says it doesn’t stop the soldiers from doing all they can to save them.

“You have to sort of think on your feet…make sure you’re running through your fundamentals like: are they breathing? Can we stop the bright red stuff from coming out of their body? Can we get them to safety? All those things are a lot harder than it sounds whenever you’ve got 50 caliber rounds blasting over your head…it’s pretty exciting,” Alsdorf said.

Competitors won’t know where exactly they stand in the competition until Thursday at the awards ceremony.

The winners will go on to the U.S. Army Reserve Command’s Best Warrior Competition in Fort McCoy, Wisconsin later this year.

Heavy cloud cover over the Alaska Peninsula is making it tough for scientists to monitor Pavlof Volcano. The Alaska Volcano Observary hasn’t been able to get a clear picture of the peak by satellite for almost two days.

According to pilot reports today, the volcano is still erupting, but the ash plume has dropped from 20,000 feet to 10,000 feet or less and is blowing out to sea.

That’s good news for regional airlines, which canceled flights to southwest Alaska this week over concerns that the ash would damage their planes. PenAir President Danny Seybert says the airline restored all of its routes today and started adding some extra planes to work off a backlog of more than 300 passengers.

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The Knik Arm Bridge and Toll Authority, or KABATA, wants an independent source to review findings of a state audit of revenue projections that almost swamped the Knik Arm Bridge project in the waning hours of this year’s legislative session.

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The Parnell administration says it will appeal the dismissal of its lawsuit over the roadless rule in the Tongass National Forest.

Meanwhile, faced with no participation by the state government, and limited participation by environmental groups, the Tongass Futures Roundtable group has decided to shut down. The organization was formed to resolve Southeast Alaska forest-issue conflicts.

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Individual news stories are posted on the APRN news page. You can subscribe to APRN’s newsfeeds via email, podcast and RSS. Follow us on Facebook at alaskapublic.org and on Twitter @aprn.

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Fish And Game Institutes New Razor Clam Harvesting Regulations

Aaron Selbig, KBBI – Homer

As the Memorial Day weekend approaches, Clam diggers on the Kenai Peninsula will have to keep in mind a new set of rules for harvesting razor clams. For the first time in a decade, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game is reducing the bag limit for razor clams from 60 per day all the way down to 25.

Man In Charge Of Kulluk During Tow Testifies At Hearing

Steve Heimel, APRN – Anchorage

Wednesday, the man who was in charge of the Shell drilling rig Kulluk when it went aground New Year’s Eve testified at a Coast Guard hearing that he had never done a winter tow in Alaska before, but he thought they were prepared for the weather ahead when they left Dutch Harbor ten days earlier, to cross the Gulf of Alaska.

Alaskan Officials Rip On NPR-A

Peter Granitz, APRN – Washington DC

The state of Alaska, North Slope Borough, and Arctic Slope Regional Corporation continue to pressure the federal government over its management of the National Petroleum Reserve – Alaska.

The Alaskan officials testified before a mostly-friendly House Committee about a bill that would reevaluate NPR-A.

Ice Jam Above Fort Yukon Loosens

Emily Schwing, KUAC – Fairbanks

A massive ice jam 12 miles upriver from Fort Yukon partially let loose early this morning.

Fairbanks Green Up Likely Latest On Record

Dan Bross, KUAC – Fairbanks

Another sign of this year’s slow arrival of spring: green up will likely be the latest in Fairbanks recorded history.

Assembly Postpones Public Testimony Decision

Daysha Eaton, KSKA – Anchorage

Tuesday night, the Anchorage Assembly voted unanimously to postpone indefinitely an ordinance that would have changed the way that public hearings are conducted.

JBER Soldier Competes In Best Warrior Competition

Josh Edge, APRN – Anchorage

A Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson soldier is competing this week in the Pacific Army Reserve Best Warrior Competition in Hawaii. The week-long competition began Saturday and will end with the awards ceremony on Thursday.

Cloud Covers Making Pavlof Observation Difficult

Lauren Rosenthal, KUCB – Unalaska

Heavy cloud cover over the Alaska Peninsula is making it tough for scientists to monitor Pavlof Volcano. The Alaska Volcano Observary hasn’t been able to get a clear picture of the peak by satellite for almost two days.

According to pilot reports today, the volcano is still erupting, but the ash plume has dropped from 20,000 feet to 10,000 feet or less and is blowing out to sea.

That’s good news for regional airlines, which canceled flights to southwest Alaska this week over concerns that the ash would damage their planes. PenAir President Danny Seybert says the airline restored all of its routes today and started adding some extra planes to work off a backlog of more than 300 passengers.

KABATA Wants Independent Source To Review State Audit

Ellen Lockyer, KSKA – Anchorage

The Knik Arm Bridge and Toll Authority, or KABATA, wants an independent source to review findings of  a state audit of revenue projections that almost swamped the Knik Arm Bridge project in the waning hours of this year’s legislative session.

State To Appeal Dismissal Of Roadless Rule Lawsuit

Ed Schoenfeld, CoastAlaska – Juneau

The Parnell administration says it will appeal the dismissal of its lawsuit over the roadless rule in the Tongass National Forest.

Meanwhile, faced with no participation by the state government, and limited participation by environmental groups, the Tongass Futures Roundtable group has decided to shut down.  The organization was formed  to resolve Southeast Alaska forest-issue conflicts.

A Manhattan judge upholds a lower court ruling that $210 million worth of unredeemed gift cards from the defunct book chain are no longer valid.

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Gary Freitag works the controls for the underwater Remote Operated Vehicle while Ketchikan High School oceanography students watch the ROV’s live video feed.

Students in a Ketchikan High School ocean science class had a unique field trip a couple weeks ago. They went out on the school-owned training boat to nearby Ward Cove, performed some chemical tests and watched a live video feed of the cove’s murky, desolate bottom.

On a cloudy, brisk, somewhat windy day, as the school year winds down, some maritime training students practice running the school-owned Jack Cotant as a Kayhi Ocean Science class rides along to Ward Cove for a day of investigation.

“Oceanography is one of two ocean science classes at Kayhi,” said Ocean sciences teacher Julie Landwehr. “We have marine biology and oceanography. We study a lot of the physical

Kayhi oceanography students test the water at Ward Cove during a field trip on the F/V Jack Cotant.

characteristics of the ocean, things like currents.

This is the one big field trip for Landwehr’s class of mostly seniors. They’ve gotten outside for other tests closer to home, with weekly phytoplankton monitoring at the docks, and keeping an eye out for algae blooms.

But this trip lets them apply more of the skills they’ve learned in class, and in a different location. Ward Cove is interesting because it’s the site of the former pulp mill, and likely has been affected.

Landwehr says she’s excited for the students to see the bottom of the cove. She expects lots of debris left over from its longtime industrial use. As they’re not a diving class, the method for examining the bottom is an ROV, a remote operated vehicle, which is operated – remotely – by Gary Freitag, the Ketchikan Marine Advisory Agent for the University of Alaska Fairbanks Sea Grant Program.

Freitag and Ketchikan-based Oceans Alaska put together a state grant to buy the ROV for marine debris survey work. He says the compact submarine device is capable of diving about 800 feet, sends back real-time video, and has a manipulator arm that can lift up to 200 pounds.

“It’s got thrusters that allow it to do forward and back, up and down, auto heading and depth settings, lights, color camera with focus adjustments,” he adds. “It’s quite a unique little machine and it’s really easy to carry. It’s only about 30 pounds.”

Freitag’s done a few surveys already, and says they found a tremendous amount of debris, but so far no obviously dangerous discarded fishing gear. They did bring up an old rusty mailbox, because the door was still on it and it could trap marine animals, and they identified some old tires that should be removed at some point.

The grant to buy the ROV included an educational component, which was partly why he and Barbara Morgan of Oceans Alaska are out that day with the Kayhi students.

“The intent of it is to do marine surveys, looking for ghost fishing gear, and to expose students to the idea that good stewardship is the way to go, not just throw things over the side,” Morgan said.

Marine science teacher Julie Landwehr shows a pH test for water at Ward Cove.

The trip from Bar Harbor to Ward Cove doesn’t take long. Soon the maritime students tie the Jack Cotant up to the Oceans Alaska barge, and the ocean science students get out their gear to start testing the cove.

They looked at salinity, turbidity, plankton, dissolved oxygen, and temperature. Then, Freitag shows them an old-fashioned clamshell trap that they use to collect a soil sample from the bottom.

They send the trap down and get a small handful of mud. It isn’t particularly interesting to look at, although Freitag makes sure to give it a good sniff.

“If it smells like rotten eggs, it means it’s anoxy, which means there’s no oxygen,” he said.

Those are all initial tests before the star of the trip makes its appearance. Freitag and Morgan lift the ROV out of its case, start its generator (cue generator sound) and send it down. The result is a little anticlimactic.

“It’s pretty barren,” Freitag says, as Landwehr exclaims over the lack of debris.

There’s not much to see, and the students are starting to look bored. Luckily, the exploration is cut short when a thruster sucks up some debris.

Once Freitag fixes the ROV, they don’t bother sending it back down into Ward Cove.

Julie Landwehr and Gary Freitag look at a crinoid that the Remove Operated Vehicle brought up from the bottom of Tongass Narrows.

Instead, the maritime students and their teacher untie the boat and motor a short distance across the narrows, so everyone can see the contrast between a damaged and a healthy ocean floor.

As soon as the ROV hits bottom, the difference is obvious, with an abundance of curious rockfish and a variety of starfish-type critters.

“There’s all kinds of sea stars here,” Freitag said, also pointing out a sea pen and a crinoid. “The one on the left in a crinoid and the one on the left is a sea pen. Those are really neat animals.”

Freitag uses the ROV’s arm to grab some of the crinoid’s limbs, and brings them up for closer examination. The orange, spindly fingers have an alien appearance, and Landwehr slips them into a sample bag to take back to school.

More fodder for eager science students.

Barbara Morgan holds the Remote Operated Vehicle after bringing it up with a crinoid sample in its manipulator arm.

The IRS bureaucrat showed up long enough at a House hearing into the scandal engulfing her agency to declare her innocence and her constitutional right to say no more.

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What was billed as an informational meeting turned into a counseling session and a chance to recognize principals, teachers and support staff who stepped up in the crisis.

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Activists say the case against Wisconsin dairy farmer Vernon Hershberger is about raw milk — and much more. His supporters have turned the case into a rallying cry for personal food freedom and the rights of farmers and consumers to enter into private contracts without government intervention.

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For the first time, the Justice Department admits that it targeted American-born al-Qaida leader Anwar al-Awlaki and that three other U.S. citizens have died in drone strikes.

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Jacquie Hedrick’s Baranof Elementary kindergarten class watches an Air Station Sitka H-60 Jayhawk sling load fertilizer to Redoubt Lake for the U.S. Forest Service on Wednesday. The fertilizer is used to help sustain the red salmon fishery in Redoubt Lake. (USCG photo by Lt. David Birky)