Sundogs are sometimes described as Alaska's "winter rainbows." But residents of Anderson, near the Parks Highway about 70 miles south of Fairbanks, saw a real winter rainbow this week, reports the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. Students and teachers at Anderson School especially got a kick out of it, heading outside to take photos even though the temperature was about zero.
The rainbow was visible for about a half-hour, [teacher Nora] Gruner said. "It was one of the finest rainbows I've ever seen," she said.
But Gruner, who teaches middle school science, was unable to explain why a rainbow would appear in winter.
"I was like, ‘What's going on? Why is there a rainbow?' It has be to be raining for there to be a rainbow," she said.
That's when Gruner realized it actually was raining.
"We turned around and faced the sun and saw the silhouettes of tiny drops of rain," she said. "You could feel this little bit of mist on you."
Ted Fathauer of the National Weather Service elaborated.
The likely scenario is that warm air aloft melted snow falling from higher clouds and created tiny droplets of rain that froze as they moved down the mountains on the north side of the Alaska Range, Fathauer said. With the sun only 6 or 7 degrees above the horizon, it was at a perfect angle to create a rainbow, he said. A 1985 Alaska Science Forum article, written after the appearance of a winter rainbow over Fairbanks, adds further explanation of how water might not freeze even if the air temperature is below 32. Read more at the News-Miner.
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Monday, January 31, 2011
Decision coming soon on federal listing for walrus
A spokesman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says the agency is waiting for a publication date from the Federal Register before announcing whether it will recommend listing the Pacific walrus as a threatened or endangered species because of global warming.
The agency is under a court-ordered deadline to decide on a listing petition filed three years ago by the Center for Biological Diversity. The group claims walrus are threatened by a loss of sea ice.
Agency spokesman Bruce Woods says decisions are announced a day before they are published in the Federal Register.
In three of the last four years, walrus have congregated by the thousands on Alaska's northwest shore as sea ice melted beyond shallow continental shelf waters where the animals dive for clams and other prey.
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The agency is under a court-ordered deadline to decide on a listing petition filed three years ago by the Center for Biological Diversity. The group claims walrus are threatened by a loss of sea ice.
Agency spokesman Bruce Woods says decisions are announced a day before they are published in the Federal Register.
In three of the last four years, walrus have congregated by the thousands on Alaska's northwest shore as sea ice melted beyond shallow continental shelf waters where the animals dive for clams and other prey.
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Wandering Russian gray whale seems headed toward Oregon
A highly endangered whale that spends summers off Russia has moved into water off British Columbia after crossing the Bering Sea and passing the Aleutian Islands. The 13-year-old, male western Pacific gray whale dubbed Flex is being tracked by U.S. and Russian researchers.
Its last location was logged Thursday about 400 miles off the coast of British Columbia, said Bruce Mate, director of Oregon State University's Marine Mammal Institute.
Mate said it was possible the whale's satellite tag had fallen off, or that bad weather interfered with transmissions.
"We have not heard from the animal for the last three days," Mate said. "There is a pretty good lump out there in terms of swell, but it's nothing like what was out in the southeast Bering Sea. We may be coming to an end of this, but it's a little early to say."
Western Pacific gray whales are the second-most threatened species of large whales after North Pacific right whales. Only 130 of the gray whales remain.
In contrast, there are about 18,000 eastern Pacific gray whales. Those whales breed and give birth in warm water, mostly along Baja California, and migrate north to spend summers on feeding grounds in Alaska's Bering, Chukchi and Beaufort seas.
Western Pacific gray whales spend summers near Sahkalin Island at the south end of the Sea of Okhotsk near Russia. Little is known of their winter habits. North America waters were not high on lists of suspected winter sites.
Last year, researchers from Oregon State and the A.N. Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution of the Russian Academy of Sciences had hoped to tag 12 western Pacific gray whales but were limited by typhoons and gales to one on the last day of field work.
Flex was tagged Oct. 4. He spent more than two months feeding near Sakhalin Island and moved across the Sea of Okhotsk to the west coast of the Kamchatka Peninsula.
Within a few weeks, the whale rounded the southern tip of the peninsula and left the east coast of Kamchatka across the Bering Sea, averaging about 4.5 mph.
On Jan. 13, Flex was about 80 miles north of Alaska's Pribilof islands. He turned south and was tracked on the south side of the Alaska Peninsula near the Shumagin Islands, possibly crossing the Aleutians through Unimak Pass or False Pass, two common routes for eastern grays during migration.
A week ago, he was in the Gulf of Alaska about 400 miles south of the Alaska fishing community of Cordova. Researchers don't know where he wants to go.
"Our assumption right now, and it's very much an assumption, is that he's going to intersect the primary migratory pathway for the eastern gray whales, which is closer to shore by far than his current path," Mate said.
If his goal is to head south, he's certainly turned the corner to be more efficient, Mate said. His trajectory now puts him on a course to be close to shore along the central Oregon coast by Thursday.
Researchers are prepared to shadow the whale if he gets close to shore.
Mate hopes swells are blocking transmissions from the whale. Satellite monitored radio tags have lasted as long as 385 days on a gray whale but average four months. The tag transmits four hours a day to conserve battery power.
"When animals are coming up to breathe, they basically surface in the trough," he said. "The large swells on either side of him tend to mask the transmissions."
The chances of finding the whale if the tag is off are minimal.
"We really probably couldn't mount an effort with as vague a trajectory as that, so we're really hoping he comes back on line," Mate said.
The public can track the whale on Oregon State's website.
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Its last location was logged Thursday about 400 miles off the coast of British Columbia, said Bruce Mate, director of Oregon State University's Marine Mammal Institute.
Mate said it was possible the whale's satellite tag had fallen off, or that bad weather interfered with transmissions.
"We have not heard from the animal for the last three days," Mate said. "There is a pretty good lump out there in terms of swell, but it's nothing like what was out in the southeast Bering Sea. We may be coming to an end of this, but it's a little early to say."
Western Pacific gray whales are the second-most threatened species of large whales after North Pacific right whales. Only 130 of the gray whales remain.
In contrast, there are about 18,000 eastern Pacific gray whales. Those whales breed and give birth in warm water, mostly along Baja California, and migrate north to spend summers on feeding grounds in Alaska's Bering, Chukchi and Beaufort seas.
Western Pacific gray whales spend summers near Sahkalin Island at the south end of the Sea of Okhotsk near Russia. Little is known of their winter habits. North America waters were not high on lists of suspected winter sites.
Last year, researchers from Oregon State and the A.N. Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution of the Russian Academy of Sciences had hoped to tag 12 western Pacific gray whales but were limited by typhoons and gales to one on the last day of field work.
Flex was tagged Oct. 4. He spent more than two months feeding near Sakhalin Island and moved across the Sea of Okhotsk to the west coast of the Kamchatka Peninsula.
Within a few weeks, the whale rounded the southern tip of the peninsula and left the east coast of Kamchatka across the Bering Sea, averaging about 4.5 mph.
On Jan. 13, Flex was about 80 miles north of Alaska's Pribilof islands. He turned south and was tracked on the south side of the Alaska Peninsula near the Shumagin Islands, possibly crossing the Aleutians through Unimak Pass or False Pass, two common routes for eastern grays during migration.
A week ago, he was in the Gulf of Alaska about 400 miles south of the Alaska fishing community of Cordova. Researchers don't know where he wants to go.
"Our assumption right now, and it's very much an assumption, is that he's going to intersect the primary migratory pathway for the eastern gray whales, which is closer to shore by far than his current path," Mate said.
If his goal is to head south, he's certainly turned the corner to be more efficient, Mate said. His trajectory now puts him on a course to be close to shore along the central Oregon coast by Thursday.
Researchers are prepared to shadow the whale if he gets close to shore.
Mate hopes swells are blocking transmissions from the whale. Satellite monitored radio tags have lasted as long as 385 days on a gray whale but average four months. The tag transmits four hours a day to conserve battery power.
"When animals are coming up to breathe, they basically surface in the trough," he said. "The large swells on either side of him tend to mask the transmissions."
The chances of finding the whale if the tag is off are minimal.
"We really probably couldn't mount an effort with as vague a trajectory as that, so we're really hoping he comes back on line," Mate said.
The public can track the whale on Oregon State's website.
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House approves measure to extend cash aid for seniors
JUNEAU -- The state House has unanimously passed legislation extending for four years a cash assistance program for seniors.
Without legislative action, the Alaska Senior Benefits Program will expire June 30. The bill now goes to the Senate.
The program provides financial assistance of up to $250 a month to help low-income Alaskans 65 years or older to remain independent. Nearly 10,100 seniors were enrolled in the program at the end of 2010.
State Rep. Mike Hawker, R-Anchorage, who sponsored the extension, estimated the program is costing $21 million this budget year.
Most of the costs outlined for the next budget year, which starts July 1, have been included in Gov. Sean Parnell's budget request.
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Without legislative action, the Alaska Senior Benefits Program will expire June 30. The bill now goes to the Senate.
The program provides financial assistance of up to $250 a month to help low-income Alaskans 65 years or older to remain independent. Nearly 10,100 seniors were enrolled in the program at the end of 2010.
State Rep. Mike Hawker, R-Anchorage, who sponsored the extension, estimated the program is costing $21 million this budget year.
Most of the costs outlined for the next budget year, which starts July 1, have been included in Gov. Sean Parnell's budget request.
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Fairbanks-based soldiers leave for Afghanistan deployment
FAIRBANKS -- The first wave of soldiers from Fort Wainwright scheduled to deploy this week has left for Afghanistan, where Maj. Shane Mendenhall says the men and women will be based mainly in the nation's southern region mountains.
About 15 of about 90 soldiers from C Company, 1st Battalion, 52nd Aviation Regiment deployed Sunday, The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reported. The rest of the air ambulance company will ship out in phases this week, along with 12 UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters.
"We're happy to be going, but we will miss our families," said Mendenhall, who commands the unit.
This is his fourth deployment, and second to Afghanistan.
"Every deployment is hard, but the first you don't know what to expect. This time, I know what to expect," said his wife, Sara Mendenhall. They have three kids ranging from 9 to 15 years old. "Each time he goes, I get less worried."
She organizes the Family Readiness Group, a support system for Army spouses and family members. The C company group includes about 40 spouses, she said, and meets once a month. They help each other with things like transportation, child care and even stress and sadness -- something worse for first-time deployments, she said.
CW3 Debra Harlow, a Medevac pilot on her third tour, said she plans to use Skype to keep in touch with her two sons, who are 13 and 4, while she is away.
"We've been saying goodbye for a week and a half," said Harlow, whose sons will live in the Lower 48 with their father while she's gone.
About 200 soldiers from 16th Combat Aviation Brigade, the 6th Squadron, 17th Cavalry Regiment, were scheduled to depart Monday.
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About 15 of about 90 soldiers from C Company, 1st Battalion, 52nd Aviation Regiment deployed Sunday, The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reported. The rest of the air ambulance company will ship out in phases this week, along with 12 UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters.
"We're happy to be going, but we will miss our families," said Mendenhall, who commands the unit.
This is his fourth deployment, and second to Afghanistan.
"Every deployment is hard, but the first you don't know what to expect. This time, I know what to expect," said his wife, Sara Mendenhall. They have three kids ranging from 9 to 15 years old. "Each time he goes, I get less worried."
She organizes the Family Readiness Group, a support system for Army spouses and family members. The C company group includes about 40 spouses, she said, and meets once a month. They help each other with things like transportation, child care and even stress and sadness -- something worse for first-time deployments, she said.
CW3 Debra Harlow, a Medevac pilot on her third tour, said she plans to use Skype to keep in touch with her two sons, who are 13 and 4, while she is away.
"We've been saying goodbye for a week and a half," said Harlow, whose sons will live in the Lower 48 with their father while she's gone.
About 200 soldiers from 16th Combat Aviation Brigade, the 6th Squadron, 17th Cavalry Regiment, were scheduled to depart Monday.
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Haines tops Alaska in percent of residents with college degree
Haines Borough is tops in Alaska as the jurisdiction with the highest percentage of college graduates in the population, reports The Chilkat Valley News. More than 36 percent of Haines residents have a bachelor's degree or better, about a half-percent more than in No. 2 Juneau, according to statistics published last week by The Chronicle of Higher Education. The Alaska average is 26.5 percent. Anchorage was at 32.33 percent.
From the CVN:
School board member Sarah Swinton grew up working in her family store on Main Street and now works as its grocery manager. She received her bachelor's degree in business from Western Oregon University.
Swinton's parents, husband and brother all hold college degrees. "I told my dad, ‘Why waste your money? I'm still doing what I did at (age) seven.' He said, ‘The more tools you have in your toolbox, the better off you'll be in life.'"
"It's amazing we're higher than Juneau," Swinton said. "Maybe we all want to be better people or we all wanted to have more tools in our toolbox."
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From the CVN:
School board member Sarah Swinton grew up working in her family store on Main Street and now works as its grocery manager. She received her bachelor's degree in business from Western Oregon University.
Swinton's parents, husband and brother all hold college degrees. "I told my dad, ‘Why waste your money? I'm still doing what I did at (age) seven.' He said, ‘The more tools you have in your toolbox, the better off you'll be in life.'"
"It's amazing we're higher than Juneau," Swinton said. "Maybe we all want to be better people or we all wanted to have more tools in our toolbox."
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Palin kills 'em in Safari Club speech
Toward the end of the Safari Club International convention Saturday night in Reno, after dinner in a casino ballroom, the globetrotting big-game shooters were getting antsy for the main attraction. Newsweek's Andrew Romano says the "roar of the crowd" when Sarah Palin walked onstage was "positively leonine." Palin brought more politics than usual to the Safari Club's annual gathering -- with the expected warning against more gun control in the wake of the Tucson shootings and an "of course" reference to sympathy for the victims -- but mainly she kept the crowd entertained with a stream of one-liners.
[Palin] admits that she "threw a little politics" into her recent TLC reality show by dragging the crew to the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge on the pretense of hunting caribou. Her real purpose? Showing viewers that ANWR is a "barren, desolate, less-than-pristine place"--perfect, in other words, for lots of new oil drilling. "If a caribou needs to be sacrificed for the sake of energy independence," she adds, "I say, 'Mr. Caribou, maybe you need to take one for the team.'"
She mentions how some media figures have pledged not cover her at all in February, and says the boycott "sounds good" to her "because there's a lot of chaos in Cairo, and I can't wait to not get blamed for it--at least for a month." She even cites her children's Christian names as evidence of her outdoorswoman cred. "Piper was named after Todd's airplane, the Piper cub, which gets us to the hunting grounds," she explains. "Bristol, Bristol Bay fishing grounds. Willow, a local sport-fishing stream. Trig, I pull the TRIG-ger. Track... I remember when we told my dad that his grandson was named Track, he said, 'Like TRACKing an elephant?'"
Outside the banquet hall, amid the hard-core gun-rights contituency, Romano was able to find a few convention-goers willing to endorse more controls on handguns "with no sporting purpose." But mostly the atmosphere was defensive.
Back in the Tuscany Ballroom, Palin is doing her part to cheer up the congregation, punctuating her remarks with one-liners that wouldn't have been out of place at Wednesday's dinner with Larry the Cable Guy. "My family loves animals in the wild-and also next to the mashed potatoes. "For most of these frou-frou, chi-chi types, the extent of their experience is in the Tiki Room at Disneyland." "We eat organic-we just have to shoot it first. And it comes wrapped in fur, not cellophane." The Safari Clubbers are going wild.
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[Palin] admits that she "threw a little politics" into her recent TLC reality show by dragging the crew to the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge on the pretense of hunting caribou. Her real purpose? Showing viewers that ANWR is a "barren, desolate, less-than-pristine place"--perfect, in other words, for lots of new oil drilling. "If a caribou needs to be sacrificed for the sake of energy independence," she adds, "I say, 'Mr. Caribou, maybe you need to take one for the team.'"
She mentions how some media figures have pledged not cover her at all in February, and says the boycott "sounds good" to her "because there's a lot of chaos in Cairo, and I can't wait to not get blamed for it--at least for a month." She even cites her children's Christian names as evidence of her outdoorswoman cred. "Piper was named after Todd's airplane, the Piper cub, which gets us to the hunting grounds," she explains. "Bristol, Bristol Bay fishing grounds. Willow, a local sport-fishing stream. Trig, I pull the TRIG-ger. Track... I remember when we told my dad that his grandson was named Track, he said, 'Like TRACKing an elephant?'"
Outside the banquet hall, amid the hard-core gun-rights contituency, Romano was able to find a few convention-goers willing to endorse more controls on handguns "with no sporting purpose." But mostly the atmosphere was defensive.
Back in the Tuscany Ballroom, Palin is doing her part to cheer up the congregation, punctuating her remarks with one-liners that wouldn't have been out of place at Wednesday's dinner with Larry the Cable Guy. "My family loves animals in the wild-and also next to the mashed potatoes. "For most of these frou-frou, chi-chi types, the extent of their experience is in the Tiki Room at Disneyland." "We eat organic-we just have to shoot it first. And it comes wrapped in fur, not cellophane." The Safari Clubbers are going wild.
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Jonrowe tops field in Tustumena 200 CLOSE RACE: Smyth eight minutes behind to take second place.
Entering her 33rd year as a musher, DeeDee Jonrowe has a long and storied career with many accomplishments: three runner-up Iditarod finishes in the '90s, a Copper Basin 300 victory in 2001, and, perhaps her biggest wins, returning to the trails after a near- fatal car crash in 1996 and beating breast cancer in 2002. Jonrowe can add a Tustumena 200 title to her resume after crossing the finish line with her full team at Tustumena Lodge with a time of 27 hours, 7 minutes to best a 14-team field.
Runner-up Cim Smyth, a two-time Tustumena champion, crossed eight minutes after Jonrowe.
"It's wonderful. I've won most of the mid-distance races at least once but never this one," she said via cell phone. "It's nice to see how well the team came together this close to the Iditarod."
The 2011 Iditarod will be the 57-year-old's 30th and younger mushers would be foolish to count her out.
Jonrowe said she and 54-year-old Paul Gebhardt, who topped the 11-team Tustumena 100 field on Sunday a week after taking the top spot at the Kuskokwim 300, spent some time reveling at Race Central that their sport allows them to still be competitive in their 50s.
"It's kind of exciting for us," said Jonrowe, who began racing in 1978, more than a decade before fellow competitor Kolby Morrison was born. "I think some of my best years are ahead of me."
That's remarkable given the hardships Jonrowe has faced and overcome:
• multiple mushing injuries (back surgery, broken hand, frostbite, to name a few)
• a 1996 car crash that killed her grandmother, injured her husband Mike and left Jonrowe with a ruptured intestine
• a cancer battle that included a double mastectomy followed by months of chemotherapy.
Jonrowe attributes her competitive longevity to a combination of determination, experience and her more recent training regimen to compete in triathlons including the 2006 Ironman World Championship in Kona, Hawaii.
"It took my fitness to another level," Jonrowe said of training for the 2.4-mile ocean swim, a 112-mile bike race and a 26.2-mile run. "I've had plenty of things take me in the other direction heath-wise, so it definitely helped. I mean, you don't get your chest and part of your intestines removed and not notice."
Jonrowe, who finished third last year, was racing to win but didn't consider herself a pre-race favorite because the field included the 34-year-old Smyth, who along with brother Ramey have won five of the last 12 Tustumenas.
"Anytime you're racing against (one of) the Smyth brothers it's not going to be easy," said Jonrowe, who didn't count a darkhorse from the rest of the field either. "When you've done this as many years as I have, you learn that anything can happen. You never know."
The 200-mile Tustumena, which has a $20,000 purse and is the only qualifier on the Kenai Peninsula for the Iditarod and Yukon Quest, has humble roots and a disputed origin, according to the race's website.
Depending on who you listen to, its genesis was either a 1984 beer run into the hills amongst former Iditarod winner Dean Osmar and friends or a springboard race created by Osmar so local mushers, including son Tim, could acquire the 500 race miles needed to compete in the Iditarod.
Kasilof's Gebhardt finished the 100-mile race in 9 hours, 53 minutes. Ninilchik's Merissa Osmar, granddaughter of race-founder Dean Osmar, crossed 15 minutes later.
In the 50-mile Junior Tustumena, which finished Saturday night, 14-year-old Conway Seavey of Sterling edged Eagle River's Alea Robinson, 15, by just five seconds.
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Runner-up Cim Smyth, a two-time Tustumena champion, crossed eight minutes after Jonrowe.
"It's wonderful. I've won most of the mid-distance races at least once but never this one," she said via cell phone. "It's nice to see how well the team came together this close to the Iditarod."
The 2011 Iditarod will be the 57-year-old's 30th and younger mushers would be foolish to count her out.
Jonrowe said she and 54-year-old Paul Gebhardt, who topped the 11-team Tustumena 100 field on Sunday a week after taking the top spot at the Kuskokwim 300, spent some time reveling at Race Central that their sport allows them to still be competitive in their 50s.
"It's kind of exciting for us," said Jonrowe, who began racing in 1978, more than a decade before fellow competitor Kolby Morrison was born. "I think some of my best years are ahead of me."
That's remarkable given the hardships Jonrowe has faced and overcome:
• multiple mushing injuries (back surgery, broken hand, frostbite, to name a few)
• a 1996 car crash that killed her grandmother, injured her husband Mike and left Jonrowe with a ruptured intestine
• a cancer battle that included a double mastectomy followed by months of chemotherapy.
Jonrowe attributes her competitive longevity to a combination of determination, experience and her more recent training regimen to compete in triathlons including the 2006 Ironman World Championship in Kona, Hawaii.
"It took my fitness to another level," Jonrowe said of training for the 2.4-mile ocean swim, a 112-mile bike race and a 26.2-mile run. "I've had plenty of things take me in the other direction heath-wise, so it definitely helped. I mean, you don't get your chest and part of your intestines removed and not notice."
Jonrowe, who finished third last year, was racing to win but didn't consider herself a pre-race favorite because the field included the 34-year-old Smyth, who along with brother Ramey have won five of the last 12 Tustumenas.
"Anytime you're racing against (one of) the Smyth brothers it's not going to be easy," said Jonrowe, who didn't count a darkhorse from the rest of the field either. "When you've done this as many years as I have, you learn that anything can happen. You never know."
The 200-mile Tustumena, which has a $20,000 purse and is the only qualifier on the Kenai Peninsula for the Iditarod and Yukon Quest, has humble roots and a disputed origin, according to the race's website.
Depending on who you listen to, its genesis was either a 1984 beer run into the hills amongst former Iditarod winner Dean Osmar and friends or a springboard race created by Osmar so local mushers, including son Tim, could acquire the 500 race miles needed to compete in the Iditarod.
Kasilof's Gebhardt finished the 100-mile race in 9 hours, 53 minutes. Ninilchik's Merissa Osmar, granddaughter of race-founder Dean Osmar, crossed 15 minutes later.
In the 50-mile Junior Tustumena, which finished Saturday night, 14-year-old Conway Seavey of Sterling edged Eagle River's Alea Robinson, 15, by just five seconds.
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Village snowmachiner dies crashing into trailer
A snowmachiner was killed and his passenger was critically injured when they crashed into an ATCO trailer Sunday morning in the village of Deering, according to Alaska State Troopers.
Neither Craig Jones, 30, nor his passenger, Karla Moto, 22, was wearing a helmet, troopers said. Alcohol was a major factor in the crash, the trooper report said. Deering, 57 miles southwest of Kotzebue, is a dry community.
The snowmachine was stolen and Jones was driving it fast when it left the roadway and crashed into the trailer, troopers said. The snowmachine, Jones and Moto all ended up inside the trailer.
Jones was dead at the scene, the village police officer told troopers. Moto was taken to the Deering clinic with potentially life-threatening injuries and is being flown to Anchorage for treatment, troopers said.
Troopers went to Deering to investigate. A trooper chaplain from Kotzebue went to Deering to console the family.
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Neither Craig Jones, 30, nor his passenger, Karla Moto, 22, was wearing a helmet, troopers said. Alcohol was a major factor in the crash, the trooper report said. Deering, 57 miles southwest of Kotzebue, is a dry community.
The snowmachine was stolen and Jones was driving it fast when it left the roadway and crashed into the trailer, troopers said. The snowmachine, Jones and Moto all ended up inside the trailer.
Jones was dead at the scene, the village police officer told troopers. Moto was taken to the Deering clinic with potentially life-threatening injuries and is being flown to Anchorage for treatment, troopers said.
Troopers went to Deering to investigate. A trooper chaplain from Kotzebue went to Deering to console the family.
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Coachless and short-handed, Bakersfield beats Aces 3-1 3-1 WIN OVER ACES: Bakersfield, with a short bench and without its head coach, denies Alaska a sweep.
By turns listless and sloppy, and lacking any hint of rhythm or collective passion until the too-little, too-late stages Sunday night, the Alaska Aces earned a 3-1 loss their indifferent effort deserved.
The Bakersfield Condors, playing without a coach for the second straight night and dressing just 11 regular skaters in their 14-skater lineup, did not, however, come up short on persistence or will and earned the two points their extra effort warranted.
Bakersfield's victory prevented the Aces from sweeping the three-game ECHL series at Sullivan Arena and wrapped a weekend filled with chaos, suspensions and hurt feelings. Still, Sunday's finale was seriously subdued -- only six minor penalties -- in part because the teams were playing their third hockey game in less than 72 hours and also because both teams were short players.
Alaska (24-16-2) dressed just 14 skaters, two under the ECHL maximum. Bakersfield (22-20-2) played an equal number of skaters, but three of those -- Erik Felde, J.J. Waldrop and Sam Tikka -- were Alaskans filling in for a club that lost six players to league suspension after Friday's 5-4 Aces win, which concluded with a melee that prompted most of the subsequent 31 combined games worth of suspensions issued.
In the wake of Friday's mayhem, both Aces coach Brent Thompson and Condors coach Marty Raymond were suspended from Saturday's rematch, which the Aces won 4-1 - those suspensions meant the bench bosses could not communicate with their clubs during the game.
Raymond was also suspended from Sunday's finale after the league cited him for "violating League rules'' during Saturday's game - Raymond text messaged a staffer behind the Bakersfield bench.
To hear Aces sniper Wes Goldie tell it, his club on Sunday fell into a trap of assuming superiority over a beleaguered opponent.
"You look at their bench and there's no coach, and you beat them (Saturday) night, and you relax and think (victory) is going to happen,'' said Goldie, the Aces' leading scorer. "If you don't work or show up in this league, you're going to be beat, no matter who you play or how short they are. (The Condors) played pretty well.''
That the Aces could during most of Sunday's game glance up at the shot clock and see their advantage reported - they outshot the Condors 39-18 - only added a "false sense of security,'' Goldie said.
Complicating matters for the Aces was the continuing struggles of rookie goaltender Adam Courchaine (15 saves). His turnover behind his net furnished the game-winning goal.
With the Condors already ahead 1-0 on Guillaume Lefebvre's goal off a feed from former UAF center Adam Naglich in the first period, Courchaine went behind his net to play a dump-in. He passed the puck directly onto the tape of Stephane Goulet at the bottom of the left circle and Goulet fired into an open net.
That's the third straight start in which Courchaine has turned over the puck for an easy opposing goal.
The 21-year-old began the season as a terrific backup for veteran Gerald Coleman. In Courchaine's first seven starts for the Aces, he went 5-2-0 with two shutouts, a 1.58 goals-against average and .938 save percentage. In his last five starts, though, his numbers have plunged to 0-4-1, 3.64 and .835.
His counterpart Sunday, Bakersfield rookie Brian Stewart, continued to baffle the Aces. He made 38 saves. In his two games against the Aces, he is 2-0-0 with a 1.00 goals-against average and .977 save percentage.
Stewart said the local additions to the Condors were a great benefit and his usual teammates played with determination.
"The guys we added, they all played really well,'' Stewart said. "That was obviously a big help.
"The guys really battled, and I thought we played better than we did (Saturday). We thought we had to come out of here with a couple of points or we'd be very disappointed.''
The Aces finally cracked Stewart midway through the third period when defenseman Chad Anderson whipped a waist-high shot from the right point and center Brian Swanson deflected it top shelf - "Unbelievable tip,'' Stewart said - to cut Bakersfield's lead to 2-1.
That goal seemed to lift the Aces out of their lethargy, but they could not muster another goal against Stewart and Brad Snetsinger's empty-net goal with 35.9 seconds left sealed victory for the visitors.
Alaska revealed plenty of effort in the final 10 minutes, but it didn't make up for the first two-plus periods, when its passing proved shoddy and it continually turned over the puck.
"Everything was going wrong, so it was hard to get anything going,'' said Goldie, who fired five shots on net. "There were lots of rebounds, but we didn't get to them. I know I had a few chances I should have buried.''
Shuffling the deck
The Aces are 16-6-2 at home, and their home winning percentage of .708 still is best in the 19-team league.
The Aces went scoreless on four power plays, snapping a streak in which they had scored at least one power-play goal at Sullivan Arena in nine straight games.
The Aces will take today off from practice, travel Tuesday and open a three-game series at Victoria (18-24-3) on Wednesday night.
Find Doyle Woody's blog at adn.com/hockeyblog or call him at 257-4335.
Bakersfield 2 0 1 -- 3
Aces 0 0 1 -- 1
First Period - 1, Bakersfield, Lefebvre 1 (Naglich), 8:45; 2, Bakersfield, Goulet 15, 10:45. Penalties - Morency, Bakersfield (clipping), 12:03; Robins, Bakersfield (delay of game-puck over glass), 15:09.
Second Period -- None. Penalties - Goulet, Bakersfield (hooking), 9:26.
Third Period - 3, Aces, Swanson 15 (Anderson, Gaudet), 9:46; 4, Bakersfield, Snetsinger 14 (Robins), 19:24 (en). Penalties - Ward, Aces (boarding), 1:16; Ruegsegger, Aces (high-sticking), 11:10; Morency, Bakersfield (roughing), 13:01.
Shots on goal - Bakersfield 8-4-6--18. Aces 9-16-14--39.
Power-play Opportunities - Bakersfield 0 of 2; Aces 0 of 4.
Goalies - Bakersfield, Stewart, 10-3-4 (39 shots-38 saves). Aces, Courchaine, 5-6-1 (17-15).
A - 3,377 (6,396).
Referee - Joe Sullivan. Linesmen - Steve Glines, Chad Colliander.
Fisherman's Choice Charters
The Bakersfield Condors, playing without a coach for the second straight night and dressing just 11 regular skaters in their 14-skater lineup, did not, however, come up short on persistence or will and earned the two points their extra effort warranted.
Bakersfield's victory prevented the Aces from sweeping the three-game ECHL series at Sullivan Arena and wrapped a weekend filled with chaos, suspensions and hurt feelings. Still, Sunday's finale was seriously subdued -- only six minor penalties -- in part because the teams were playing their third hockey game in less than 72 hours and also because both teams were short players.
Alaska (24-16-2) dressed just 14 skaters, two under the ECHL maximum. Bakersfield (22-20-2) played an equal number of skaters, but three of those -- Erik Felde, J.J. Waldrop and Sam Tikka -- were Alaskans filling in for a club that lost six players to league suspension after Friday's 5-4 Aces win, which concluded with a melee that prompted most of the subsequent 31 combined games worth of suspensions issued.
In the wake of Friday's mayhem, both Aces coach Brent Thompson and Condors coach Marty Raymond were suspended from Saturday's rematch, which the Aces won 4-1 - those suspensions meant the bench bosses could not communicate with their clubs during the game.
Raymond was also suspended from Sunday's finale after the league cited him for "violating League rules'' during Saturday's game - Raymond text messaged a staffer behind the Bakersfield bench.
To hear Aces sniper Wes Goldie tell it, his club on Sunday fell into a trap of assuming superiority over a beleaguered opponent.
"You look at their bench and there's no coach, and you beat them (Saturday) night, and you relax and think (victory) is going to happen,'' said Goldie, the Aces' leading scorer. "If you don't work or show up in this league, you're going to be beat, no matter who you play or how short they are. (The Condors) played pretty well.''
That the Aces could during most of Sunday's game glance up at the shot clock and see their advantage reported - they outshot the Condors 39-18 - only added a "false sense of security,'' Goldie said.
Complicating matters for the Aces was the continuing struggles of rookie goaltender Adam Courchaine (15 saves). His turnover behind his net furnished the game-winning goal.
With the Condors already ahead 1-0 on Guillaume Lefebvre's goal off a feed from former UAF center Adam Naglich in the first period, Courchaine went behind his net to play a dump-in. He passed the puck directly onto the tape of Stephane Goulet at the bottom of the left circle and Goulet fired into an open net.
That's the third straight start in which Courchaine has turned over the puck for an easy opposing goal.
The 21-year-old began the season as a terrific backup for veteran Gerald Coleman. In Courchaine's first seven starts for the Aces, he went 5-2-0 with two shutouts, a 1.58 goals-against average and .938 save percentage. In his last five starts, though, his numbers have plunged to 0-4-1, 3.64 and .835.
His counterpart Sunday, Bakersfield rookie Brian Stewart, continued to baffle the Aces. He made 38 saves. In his two games against the Aces, he is 2-0-0 with a 1.00 goals-against average and .977 save percentage.
Stewart said the local additions to the Condors were a great benefit and his usual teammates played with determination.
"The guys we added, they all played really well,'' Stewart said. "That was obviously a big help.
"The guys really battled, and I thought we played better than we did (Saturday). We thought we had to come out of here with a couple of points or we'd be very disappointed.''
The Aces finally cracked Stewart midway through the third period when defenseman Chad Anderson whipped a waist-high shot from the right point and center Brian Swanson deflected it top shelf - "Unbelievable tip,'' Stewart said - to cut Bakersfield's lead to 2-1.
That goal seemed to lift the Aces out of their lethargy, but they could not muster another goal against Stewart and Brad Snetsinger's empty-net goal with 35.9 seconds left sealed victory for the visitors.
Alaska revealed plenty of effort in the final 10 minutes, but it didn't make up for the first two-plus periods, when its passing proved shoddy and it continually turned over the puck.
"Everything was going wrong, so it was hard to get anything going,'' said Goldie, who fired five shots on net. "There were lots of rebounds, but we didn't get to them. I know I had a few chances I should have buried.''
Shuffling the deck
The Aces are 16-6-2 at home, and their home winning percentage of .708 still is best in the 19-team league.
The Aces went scoreless on four power plays, snapping a streak in which they had scored at least one power-play goal at Sullivan Arena in nine straight games.
The Aces will take today off from practice, travel Tuesday and open a three-game series at Victoria (18-24-3) on Wednesday night.
Find Doyle Woody's blog at adn.com/hockeyblog or call him at 257-4335.
Bakersfield 2 0 1 -- 3
Aces 0 0 1 -- 1
First Period - 1, Bakersfield, Lefebvre 1 (Naglich), 8:45; 2, Bakersfield, Goulet 15, 10:45. Penalties - Morency, Bakersfield (clipping), 12:03; Robins, Bakersfield (delay of game-puck over glass), 15:09.
Second Period -- None. Penalties - Goulet, Bakersfield (hooking), 9:26.
Third Period - 3, Aces, Swanson 15 (Anderson, Gaudet), 9:46; 4, Bakersfield, Snetsinger 14 (Robins), 19:24 (en). Penalties - Ward, Aces (boarding), 1:16; Ruegsegger, Aces (high-sticking), 11:10; Morency, Bakersfield (roughing), 13:01.
Shots on goal - Bakersfield 8-4-6--18. Aces 9-16-14--39.
Power-play Opportunities - Bakersfield 0 of 2; Aces 0 of 4.
Goalies - Bakersfield, Stewart, 10-3-4 (39 shots-38 saves). Aces, Courchaine, 5-6-1 (17-15).
A - 3,377 (6,396).
Referee - Joe Sullivan. Linesmen - Steve Glines, Chad Colliander.
Fisherman's Choice Charters
Shots fired at birthday party in Nenana lead to charges
A birthday party in Nenana turned ugly late Saturday after two sisters began fighting, one fled to the bathroom, and the other then shot through the bathroom door, Alaska State Troopers said.
Sisters Jean Tritt, 52, and Marion Peter, 51, were celebrating the birthday of Tritt's young child, and both women had been drinking, troopers said. Tritt was upset about something else, Peter tried to console her, but it just made her more angry, said troopers spokeswoman Beth Ipsen.
Tritt physically assaulted Peter, the trooper report said. Peter ran into the bathroom and called 911 on her cell phone. Tritt then fired two rounds from a .44 magnum pistol through the bathroom door at her sister, troopers said. Both shots missed. Tritt got hold of Peter's phone and broke it, preventing her from communicating with authorities, troopers said.
Troopers arrived at the residence just before 11:30 p.m. Saturday. Several children were there at the time.
Troopers arrested Tritt. She's been charged with felony weapons misconduct, felony assault, misdemeanor assault, criminal mischief, interfering with a domestic violence report and three counts of reckless endangerment.
Fisherman's Choice Charters
Sisters Jean Tritt, 52, and Marion Peter, 51, were celebrating the birthday of Tritt's young child, and both women had been drinking, troopers said. Tritt was upset about something else, Peter tried to console her, but it just made her more angry, said troopers spokeswoman Beth Ipsen.
Tritt physically assaulted Peter, the trooper report said. Peter ran into the bathroom and called 911 on her cell phone. Tritt then fired two rounds from a .44 magnum pistol through the bathroom door at her sister, troopers said. Both shots missed. Tritt got hold of Peter's phone and broke it, preventing her from communicating with authorities, troopers said.
Troopers arrived at the residence just before 11:30 p.m. Saturday. Several children were there at the time.
Troopers arrested Tritt. She's been charged with felony weapons misconduct, felony assault, misdemeanor assault, criminal mischief, interfering with a domestic violence report and three counts of reckless endangerment.
Fisherman's Choice Charters
UAA chancellor reflects on experience with Gulf oil spill COMMISSION: Panel found fault with oil industry, regulators.
President Obama in June tapped University of Alaska Anchorage Chancellor Fran Ulmer for the presidential commission investigating the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion, and as crude oil continued to spew from the Macondo well 40 miles from shore in the Gulf of Mexico, Alaska's former lieutenant governor found herself in a helicopter sizing up the spill.
She spoke to worried local officials, watched responders pick up oiled pelicans, and remembered 1989, when she witnessed millions of gallons of crude oil spew from a tanker gashed on a rock in Prince William Sound.
"You hope that you don't repeat the same errors over time as a human society," she says. "And so, yes, it was a real sense of déjà vu, and a sense of, 'Gee, I thought we learned something after the Exxon Valdez.'"
In the next breath, she remembers what did happen after Alaska's tragedy: a federal law that has phased in double hull tankers; a requirement for tanker escorts into Port Valdez; creation of regional citizen councils that act as industry watchdogs; storage facilities in Alaska fishing communities where spill response gear is cached. But the lessons didn't translate to the Gulf of Mexico, which was far more prepared for hurricanes than oil spills.
"I was surprised at how little preparation there was on the ground, apparently, in the Gulf of Mexico, given the amount of oil and gas drilling that exists in the Gulf of Mexico," she said.
The explosion and fire killed 11 men. The commission report, released Jan. 11, faults both industry and the government regulators for failing to prevent the blowout and then failing to contain it.
The industry's safety programs have not kept pace with the astonishing technological advances that allow drilling 10,000 feet below the water and then thousands of feet into the ocean floor, Ulmer said. It's like going to the moon, but workers die in the Gulf of Mexico at four times the rate of workers in the North Sea, she said.
"What needed to happen in sort of a parallel course is the development of more sophisticated risk management techniques that would allow the people both on the rigs, and the people back in Houston at central headquarters, to be able to not only monitor what is going on on the rigs affecting safety, but also integrate that to a decision regime," Ulmer said.
On any given rig, dozens of specialists from a variety of business cultures work together in a high-risk, complicated environment. On the Deepwater Horizon, the safety regime failed.
"It was shocking to us, the very elementary -- not sophisticated, very elementary -- degrees in which on this rig, those mechanisms -- some of them were there but they weren't being done in a way that was commensurate with the amount of the risk," she said.
Previous successes led to a false sense of security.
"Both government and industry had been in a mindset that it's all safe and we don't really have to worry about it, and don't hold our feet to the fire because there hasn't been a really big spill in years."
The number of deep water offshore wells expanded but the federal Minerals Management Service budget remained flat.
"They were being deprived of the resources they needed to effectively regulate," she said. "And, I might note, when they tried to increase regulatory standards, the industry and Congress pushed back and said, 'No, don't worry, this is unnecessarily burdensome. We don't like regulations. We're in an era of deregulation. Get off the industry's back.'" Ulmer said. "That in the long run is not good for either industry or the nation."
The Obama administration responded by restructuring and renaming the MMS, splitting its energy development and safety mission. The commission recommended oil producers imitate the nuclear power industry and fund a safety institute to define best practices and police themselves, in part to ensure that companies with strong safety standards are not compromised by companies with weak records.
The commission also recommended that a "safety case" approach be taken for deep-water wells and high risk areas such as the Arctic. Used in the North Sea, the approach requires oil companies to develop a drilling plan based on the physical conditions of a specific well, plus a specific containment and spill response plan. Those too were lacking in the Gulf of Mexico, where the industry was taken at its word that the chance of a spill was minute.
"Not only could they not contain it, none of the other big companies doing business in the Gulf of Mexico were prepared to come in and help them contain it," Ulmer said. "It took months before they figured it out. They basically on the fly figured out a new containment system."
Ulmer was struck by how little the cleanup tools -- boom, skimming, burning, dispersants -- had changed since the Exxon Valdez.
"The sophistication in the cleanup of oil was very, very small, very marginal improvements. Unfortunately, neither the industry nor government have really invested the dollars needed to advance those technologies," she said.
The commission chose not to comment on specific proposals for what may be the next offshore battle ground, the Arctic Ocean waters of the Chukchi and Beaufort seas off Alaska's northwest and north coast. Shell Oil in 2008 spent $2.1 billion for leases in the Chukchi at an MMS sale and pressure to drill there is increasing as onshore Alaska wells diminish and offshore drilling in other states has been declared out of bounds. America continues to consume 18.7 million barrels of oil per day, the report noted.
Ulmer quickly ticks off Arctic Ocean natural hazards: extreme cold, extended seasons of darkness, hurricane-strength storms, pervasive fog. The nearest Coast Guard base is more than 1,000 miles away and its leaders acknowledge a lack of basic information available in the gulf, such as navigation hazards and currents.
The Arctic is rich in marine mammals such as endangered whales, polar bears, walrus and ice seals and the U.S. Geological Survey is assessing an acknowledged gap in habitat studies for making policy decisions.
Ulmer said commissioners did not want to substitute their judgment for regulators considering drilling permits or science gaps. But speaking in general of offshore drilling, Ulmer said it will continue.
"That's where the oil is and so that's where we're going to be drilling. So we better do a better job of prevention, containment and oil spill cleanup in the future."
Fisherman's Choice Charters
She spoke to worried local officials, watched responders pick up oiled pelicans, and remembered 1989, when she witnessed millions of gallons of crude oil spew from a tanker gashed on a rock in Prince William Sound.
"You hope that you don't repeat the same errors over time as a human society," she says. "And so, yes, it was a real sense of déjà vu, and a sense of, 'Gee, I thought we learned something after the Exxon Valdez.'"
In the next breath, she remembers what did happen after Alaska's tragedy: a federal law that has phased in double hull tankers; a requirement for tanker escorts into Port Valdez; creation of regional citizen councils that act as industry watchdogs; storage facilities in Alaska fishing communities where spill response gear is cached. But the lessons didn't translate to the Gulf of Mexico, which was far more prepared for hurricanes than oil spills.
"I was surprised at how little preparation there was on the ground, apparently, in the Gulf of Mexico, given the amount of oil and gas drilling that exists in the Gulf of Mexico," she said.
The explosion and fire killed 11 men. The commission report, released Jan. 11, faults both industry and the government regulators for failing to prevent the blowout and then failing to contain it.
The industry's safety programs have not kept pace with the astonishing technological advances that allow drilling 10,000 feet below the water and then thousands of feet into the ocean floor, Ulmer said. It's like going to the moon, but workers die in the Gulf of Mexico at four times the rate of workers in the North Sea, she said.
"What needed to happen in sort of a parallel course is the development of more sophisticated risk management techniques that would allow the people both on the rigs, and the people back in Houston at central headquarters, to be able to not only monitor what is going on on the rigs affecting safety, but also integrate that to a decision regime," Ulmer said.
On any given rig, dozens of specialists from a variety of business cultures work together in a high-risk, complicated environment. On the Deepwater Horizon, the safety regime failed.
"It was shocking to us, the very elementary -- not sophisticated, very elementary -- degrees in which on this rig, those mechanisms -- some of them were there but they weren't being done in a way that was commensurate with the amount of the risk," she said.
Previous successes led to a false sense of security.
"Both government and industry had been in a mindset that it's all safe and we don't really have to worry about it, and don't hold our feet to the fire because there hasn't been a really big spill in years."
The number of deep water offshore wells expanded but the federal Minerals Management Service budget remained flat.
"They were being deprived of the resources they needed to effectively regulate," she said. "And, I might note, when they tried to increase regulatory standards, the industry and Congress pushed back and said, 'No, don't worry, this is unnecessarily burdensome. We don't like regulations. We're in an era of deregulation. Get off the industry's back.'" Ulmer said. "That in the long run is not good for either industry or the nation."
The Obama administration responded by restructuring and renaming the MMS, splitting its energy development and safety mission. The commission recommended oil producers imitate the nuclear power industry and fund a safety institute to define best practices and police themselves, in part to ensure that companies with strong safety standards are not compromised by companies with weak records.
The commission also recommended that a "safety case" approach be taken for deep-water wells and high risk areas such as the Arctic. Used in the North Sea, the approach requires oil companies to develop a drilling plan based on the physical conditions of a specific well, plus a specific containment and spill response plan. Those too were lacking in the Gulf of Mexico, where the industry was taken at its word that the chance of a spill was minute.
"Not only could they not contain it, none of the other big companies doing business in the Gulf of Mexico were prepared to come in and help them contain it," Ulmer said. "It took months before they figured it out. They basically on the fly figured out a new containment system."
Ulmer was struck by how little the cleanup tools -- boom, skimming, burning, dispersants -- had changed since the Exxon Valdez.
"The sophistication in the cleanup of oil was very, very small, very marginal improvements. Unfortunately, neither the industry nor government have really invested the dollars needed to advance those technologies," she said.
The commission chose not to comment on specific proposals for what may be the next offshore battle ground, the Arctic Ocean waters of the Chukchi and Beaufort seas off Alaska's northwest and north coast. Shell Oil in 2008 spent $2.1 billion for leases in the Chukchi at an MMS sale and pressure to drill there is increasing as onshore Alaska wells diminish and offshore drilling in other states has been declared out of bounds. America continues to consume 18.7 million barrels of oil per day, the report noted.
Ulmer quickly ticks off Arctic Ocean natural hazards: extreme cold, extended seasons of darkness, hurricane-strength storms, pervasive fog. The nearest Coast Guard base is more than 1,000 miles away and its leaders acknowledge a lack of basic information available in the gulf, such as navigation hazards and currents.
The Arctic is rich in marine mammals such as endangered whales, polar bears, walrus and ice seals and the U.S. Geological Survey is assessing an acknowledged gap in habitat studies for making policy decisions.
Ulmer said commissioners did not want to substitute their judgment for regulators considering drilling permits or science gaps. But speaking in general of offshore drilling, Ulmer said it will continue.
"That's where the oil is and so that's where we're going to be drilling. So we better do a better job of prevention, containment and oil spill cleanup in the future."
Fisherman's Choice Charters
'Alaska's best friend' subject of PBS historical documentary
Tonight public television will debut a documentary program about Adolphus Greely, the Army officer some have credited with doing more than anyone else to make territorial Alaska a permanent part of the USA.
Trained in warfare, he fostered important peacetime innovations. Did you use a cell phone to call another state today? Greely made the first connection possible. When you watch fighter jets take off from Elmendorf, know that it was Greely who purchased the military's first airplanes. Fort Greely, near Delta, home of America's high-tech anti-missile system is fittingly named for him.
But "The Greely Expedition" mentions none of that. Instead it focuses on macabre events that brought Greely both fame and infamy 125 years ago.
The documentary, presented as part of PBS's "American Experience" series, touches on Greely's impoverished boyhood and his service in the Union Army. He survived some of the worst fighting of the Civil War and led one of the first contingents of black troops. After the war, he became a specialist in the new sciences of telegraphy and weather forecasting.
In 1881, as part of an international polar research effort, he was dropped off in the Canadian Arctic with a contingent of 25 men. They overwintered, made weather observations and set a new "farthest north" record.
But the following summer, no ship returned to bring them home. Nor did one appear the next summer. The expedition was forgotten, cut off by ice floes and lost between the cracks of the War Department.
Following orders, Greely and his men left comfortable and well-supplied quarters and set out for a rendezvous point pre-determined by bureaucrats with no understanding of the region. The documentary recounts how Greely became listless and nearly lost command of his men as they wound up stranded with meager supplies on a small pan of sea ice. Just before it melted, the ice washed up on a barren rock devoid of game or vegetation.
Then things got bad.
ABANDONED
The men huddled in sleeping bags under makeshift shelters through the ferocious winter at nearly 75 degrees latitude, farther north than Point Barrow. Greely's courage and leadership now came to the fore. But he faced a hopeless situation. Eighteen men died from cold and starvation. One was executed for theft.
The government had abandoned them. But the documentary shows how Greely's wife waged a desperate campaign in the popular press until the public demanded action. A final search mission went out. The last survivors were hours from death when rescuers arrived. One perished shortly after he was plucked off the rock.
Greely and the five other men who made it back alive were heroes. But reports of cannibalism soon circulated in The New York Times and elsewhere. Politicians and fellow explorers loudly condemned the adventure's failures.
The late Alden Todd, author of "Abandoned," the 1961 book still cited as the definitive account of the expedition, once told the Daily News that some of the corpses probably had chunks hacked off and consumed. But he doubted that Greely or the other survivors did it. If anything, he said, the cannibals probably caused their own deaths by eating the toxified flesh of their companions' corpses.
SPECTACULAR CAREER
"The Greely Expedition" jumps from the rescue in 1884 to Greely's death in 1935. This covers the expedition, but hardly encompasses the man.
"It's not a biography," admitted producer Rod Rapley. He compared the expedition's "morality play" of human character placed in extreme conditions with his earlier film about Wyatt Earp.
"When society is in a crucible, some people are ennobled and others have their flaws magnified."
Ignoring the last half of Greely's career was painful, he said. "The 51-minute limit is just tyranny. This is by nature a 75-minute story. A lot of things had to get cut."
Here's some of what didn't make it.
After 20 years as a lieutenant, Greely became the Army's Chief Signal Officer with the rank of brigadier general. During the Spanish-American War he oversaw the construction of thousands of miles of telegraph lines in Cuba and the Philippines.
When the gold rush hit in 1898, Alaska had no telecommunications to speak of. Greely arrived and, under adverse conditions, built a telegraph system that connected the far reaches of the territory with the rest of the world. It included land lines, submarine cables and the new-fangled radio.
Gold rush Alaska had the largest regularly working system of wireless telegraphy in the world.
EMBRACING TECHNOLOGY
Greely didn't just build infrastructure. He developed the financing to expand the system and make it available to private users. He's considered the founder of the Alaska Communications System, the predecessor of the companies that supply communications between Alaska and the Lower 48.
He made several trips to every corner of the territory. His encyclopedic "Handbook on Alaska," first published in 1909, was a standard text for decades. A Seward newspaper of the day expressed widespread sentiment when it wrote, "Gen. Greely is one of the best friends that Alaska has ever had."
In 1906, he took command of the Army's Pacific Division, headquartered in San Francisco. When the great San Francisco earthquake struck that year, he worked quickly to restore order and utilities.
Before his mandatory retirement at age 64, he made one more incalculable contribution to military history; he ordered the Army's first airplanes from the Wright Brothers. Many years later, when he heard of Richard Byrd's flight over the North Pole, he called it "a matter of great gratification to me."
"He was always organizing, speaking, taking initiatives," said Todd. "He saw to it that new ideas -- aviation, radio, photography -- were developed in practical ways. He showed remarkable abilities to learn and keep up with technology throughout his life."
IMPACT CONTINUES
His contributions continue long after his death.
"The Greely Expedition" ends by noting that the weather observations he made in the 1880s, only recently put into a digitized format, are now being used as a baseline by scientists studying climate change.
"It's much earlier than any other reliable data," said Rapley. "The next solid information wasn't collected until the Cold War" in the 1950s.
Shortly before he died, Greely received perhaps the most unusual Congressional Medal of Honor ever issued. It was not presented for any specific act of heroism, but for lifetime achievement. He is buried in Arlington Cemetery.
Todd, who died in Anchorage in 2006, remembered meeting Greely as a boy when his mother visited the general's eldest daughter.
"He was sitting in a corner, an old man with this formidable beard."
Todd put his wrist to his chin, hand sticking out horizontal to the ground, fingers splayed to indicate how Greely's whiskers grew. "One finger was missing. He had this great, deep voice.
"I was 10 and very impressed."
When they drove away, he asked who the old man was.
"My mother told me only that he was the central figure in a tragic story from her youth."
Fisherman's Choice Charters
Trained in warfare, he fostered important peacetime innovations. Did you use a cell phone to call another state today? Greely made the first connection possible. When you watch fighter jets take off from Elmendorf, know that it was Greely who purchased the military's first airplanes. Fort Greely, near Delta, home of America's high-tech anti-missile system is fittingly named for him.
But "The Greely Expedition" mentions none of that. Instead it focuses on macabre events that brought Greely both fame and infamy 125 years ago.
The documentary, presented as part of PBS's "American Experience" series, touches on Greely's impoverished boyhood and his service in the Union Army. He survived some of the worst fighting of the Civil War and led one of the first contingents of black troops. After the war, he became a specialist in the new sciences of telegraphy and weather forecasting.
In 1881, as part of an international polar research effort, he was dropped off in the Canadian Arctic with a contingent of 25 men. They overwintered, made weather observations and set a new "farthest north" record.
But the following summer, no ship returned to bring them home. Nor did one appear the next summer. The expedition was forgotten, cut off by ice floes and lost between the cracks of the War Department.
Following orders, Greely and his men left comfortable and well-supplied quarters and set out for a rendezvous point pre-determined by bureaucrats with no understanding of the region. The documentary recounts how Greely became listless and nearly lost command of his men as they wound up stranded with meager supplies on a small pan of sea ice. Just before it melted, the ice washed up on a barren rock devoid of game or vegetation.
Then things got bad.
ABANDONED
The men huddled in sleeping bags under makeshift shelters through the ferocious winter at nearly 75 degrees latitude, farther north than Point Barrow. Greely's courage and leadership now came to the fore. But he faced a hopeless situation. Eighteen men died from cold and starvation. One was executed for theft.
The government had abandoned them. But the documentary shows how Greely's wife waged a desperate campaign in the popular press until the public demanded action. A final search mission went out. The last survivors were hours from death when rescuers arrived. One perished shortly after he was plucked off the rock.
Greely and the five other men who made it back alive were heroes. But reports of cannibalism soon circulated in The New York Times and elsewhere. Politicians and fellow explorers loudly condemned the adventure's failures.
The late Alden Todd, author of "Abandoned," the 1961 book still cited as the definitive account of the expedition, once told the Daily News that some of the corpses probably had chunks hacked off and consumed. But he doubted that Greely or the other survivors did it. If anything, he said, the cannibals probably caused their own deaths by eating the toxified flesh of their companions' corpses.
SPECTACULAR CAREER
"The Greely Expedition" jumps from the rescue in 1884 to Greely's death in 1935. This covers the expedition, but hardly encompasses the man.
"It's not a biography," admitted producer Rod Rapley. He compared the expedition's "morality play" of human character placed in extreme conditions with his earlier film about Wyatt Earp.
"When society is in a crucible, some people are ennobled and others have their flaws magnified."
Ignoring the last half of Greely's career was painful, he said. "The 51-minute limit is just tyranny. This is by nature a 75-minute story. A lot of things had to get cut."
Here's some of what didn't make it.
After 20 years as a lieutenant, Greely became the Army's Chief Signal Officer with the rank of brigadier general. During the Spanish-American War he oversaw the construction of thousands of miles of telegraph lines in Cuba and the Philippines.
When the gold rush hit in 1898, Alaska had no telecommunications to speak of. Greely arrived and, under adverse conditions, built a telegraph system that connected the far reaches of the territory with the rest of the world. It included land lines, submarine cables and the new-fangled radio.
Gold rush Alaska had the largest regularly working system of wireless telegraphy in the world.
EMBRACING TECHNOLOGY
Greely didn't just build infrastructure. He developed the financing to expand the system and make it available to private users. He's considered the founder of the Alaska Communications System, the predecessor of the companies that supply communications between Alaska and the Lower 48.
He made several trips to every corner of the territory. His encyclopedic "Handbook on Alaska," first published in 1909, was a standard text for decades. A Seward newspaper of the day expressed widespread sentiment when it wrote, "Gen. Greely is one of the best friends that Alaska has ever had."
In 1906, he took command of the Army's Pacific Division, headquartered in San Francisco. When the great San Francisco earthquake struck that year, he worked quickly to restore order and utilities.
Before his mandatory retirement at age 64, he made one more incalculable contribution to military history; he ordered the Army's first airplanes from the Wright Brothers. Many years later, when he heard of Richard Byrd's flight over the North Pole, he called it "a matter of great gratification to me."
"He was always organizing, speaking, taking initiatives," said Todd. "He saw to it that new ideas -- aviation, radio, photography -- were developed in practical ways. He showed remarkable abilities to learn and keep up with technology throughout his life."
IMPACT CONTINUES
His contributions continue long after his death.
"The Greely Expedition" ends by noting that the weather observations he made in the 1880s, only recently put into a digitized format, are now being used as a baseline by scientists studying climate change.
"It's much earlier than any other reliable data," said Rapley. "The next solid information wasn't collected until the Cold War" in the 1950s.
Shortly before he died, Greely received perhaps the most unusual Congressional Medal of Honor ever issued. It was not presented for any specific act of heroism, but for lifetime achievement. He is buried in Arlington Cemetery.
Todd, who died in Anchorage in 2006, remembered meeting Greely as a boy when his mother visited the general's eldest daughter.
"He was sitting in a corner, an old man with this formidable beard."
Todd put his wrist to his chin, hand sticking out horizontal to the ground, fingers splayed to indicate how Greely's whiskers grew. "One finger was missing. He had this great, deep voice.
"I was 10 and very impressed."
When they drove away, he asked who the old man was.
"My mother told me only that he was the central figure in a tragic story from her youth."
Fisherman's Choice Charters
Shorter gas line to hub touted as alternative STATE PAYS: Project offers several options for delivery to consumers in the future.
So, you don't believe TransCanada will ever get enough customers to build a gas line to the Lower 48 or Valdez? And you think it even more likely that Conoco Phillips and BP's Denali gas project is doomed, since it has neither the state license nor the half-billion-dollar subsidy that TransCanada has?
And that bullet line from the North Slope to Southcentral Alaska: Do you want to spend three times as much as you do now on gas, for the next 50 or so years?
Enter the "stub to hub" line, something Anchorage businessman and financial adviser David Gottstein has been quietly pushing for the last year and a half. His idea: The state should finance, through bonds or direct investment, a big-diameter gas pipeline from the North Slope to a hub near Fairbanks, perhaps at Livengood.
From there it's just a short jaunt to gas-starved Fairbanks and close enough to Anchorage and Kenai that a utility could afford to finance a pipeline to take gas to Southcentral for local consumers, Gottstein said.
"The private sector will take it the rest of the way," he said in a recent interview. "We're just doing that which the private sector can't afford to do."
A Livengood hub, with some 400 miles of pipe from the North Slope, offers flexibility for the future, Gottstein said. If the price of gas rises and it becomes economical to sell large quantities commercially, it wouldn't be a colossal feat to extend the pipeline another 400 miles to Valdez for a future liquefied natural gas plant -- a dream of some Alaskans, like defeated Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill Walker -- or another 1,300 miles into Alberta and the existing pipeline network leading to the Lower 48.
INTRIGUED POLITICIANS
"It's an intriguing idea," said the spokespersons for both Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Mark Begich. State Sen. Bill Wielechowski, an Anchorage Democrat and a leader on energy issues, said precisely the same thing.
Murkowski and Begich, who have both gotten briefings from Gottstein, won't say more, in part because they are still awaiting word from TransCanada Corp. on its "open season" -- the period, closed now for six months, in which shippers bid for space in its pipeline.
Open season agreements are critical for assessing whether TransCanada's multibillion-dollar pipeline is commercially viable. TransCanada says it has bids, but won't describe them until it negotiates formal agreements with the bidders.
Gottstein is among many skeptics, including some in the Legislature, who believe there isn't a chance that TransCanada will come back to the state with reasonable bids.
"People like to believe things are happening, when they're not," he said.
NEW ENERGY NEEDED
Gottstein said he decided to go public with his idea for several reasons:
• The Legislature is getting antsy about a pipeline. Cook Inlet might not produce enough gas for Southcentral residents by the middle of the decade, leading to a number of expensive choices: subsidized drilling for smaller and smaller pockets of gas, building a "bullet line" direct from the North Slope, or importing liquefied natural gas -- the "coals to Newcastle" approach.
• The governor is proposing billions of dollars in oil-tax cuts. Gottstein said he's concerned that the oil companies will "trick us into thinking that by lowering taxes by tens of billions of dollars, we further the pipeline." The main reason the oil companies aren't building a gas pipeline is simple economics: The price of gas might be too low in the future to justify spending billions on construction, he said.
• The quiet that has come from TransCanada, which is entitled to up to $500 million in state subsidies as the licensee under the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act, and potentially huge damages if the state breaks the deal. TransCanada once hoped to report before New Year's that its open season last year had resulted in shipping commitments. Now it's not giving any target date even as the state continues to reimburse it millions of dollars for its expenses.
Several legislators, including Rep. Mike Hawker, R-Anchorage, have suggested the cutoff date is around Canada Day, July 1. That's when Dan Fauske, executive director of the Alaska House Finance Corp., is directed by a 2009 law to report on the options for bringing gas to Southcentral, a study that could provoke a special session with action-oriented legislators.
Fauske said Gottstein's idea won't get more than a mention in his report because the pipeline stops at Fairbanks.
"It's not to say it isn't worth discussing," Fauske said. But he said he's troubled by Gottstein's "adversarial" position to the oil industry, that Gottstein suggests forcing the North Slope producers to deliver gas to a pipeline if they didn't do it voluntarily.
"I'd rather try to figure out where we have a project where it would entice the oil companies" to invest their own money to move their own gas Fauske said.
TOO SOON TO ACT?
Larry Persily, the federal gas pipeline coordinator, said it's enough to think that Gottstein would spend $6 billion to $8 billion in state money to build a 48-inch pipeline to Fairbanks and a gas treatment plant on the North Slope.
"People are certainly getting creative because people, rightfully so, are frustrated and impatient," Persily said.
But what happens if the line is built and the gas prices are so low that no one wants to buy North Slope gas, he asked.
"Now you have an $8 billion gas project to serve Fairbanks -- that's the risk. You're trying to force something that maybe doesn't happen, and is that the appropriate use of public funds?"
House Speaker Mike Chenault, R-Nikiski, said the idea of a big pipeline to a Fairbanks-area hub gives the state "more options," though he was noncommittal about the options he preferred.
"At some point in time, we can't continue to wait," Chenault said.
Gov. Sean Parnell, a supporter of TransCanada, was lukewarm to the idea.
"If I believed the project could result in lower energy costs for the Interior in a reasonable period of time, I would move on it," Parnell said in a prepared statement. "The discussion itself is important to advance possibilities for natural gas for Alaskans."
LOBBYING JUNEAU
Gottstein, who comes from a family of grocers at Anchorage's tent city beginnings, said he has no personal stake in his proposal except for how he thinks it would help the state economy.
"I'm building an army," he said on his cell phone last week from Juneau, where at his own expense he is speaking to labor groups and buttonholing legislators.
Gottstein said he can also be sympathetic to oil company interests in waiting for a significant price rise in gas before considering the huge cost of a pipeline. Such a wait might also be in the interests of Alaska because a higher price makes the state's royalty share of gas production more valuable.
"We would normally want them to wait so that we'd get more money," he said. "But we're going to freeze in the dark if we don't at least get a trickle to ourselves."
Fisherman's Choice Charters
And that bullet line from the North Slope to Southcentral Alaska: Do you want to spend three times as much as you do now on gas, for the next 50 or so years?
Enter the "stub to hub" line, something Anchorage businessman and financial adviser David Gottstein has been quietly pushing for the last year and a half. His idea: The state should finance, through bonds or direct investment, a big-diameter gas pipeline from the North Slope to a hub near Fairbanks, perhaps at Livengood.
From there it's just a short jaunt to gas-starved Fairbanks and close enough to Anchorage and Kenai that a utility could afford to finance a pipeline to take gas to Southcentral for local consumers, Gottstein said.
"The private sector will take it the rest of the way," he said in a recent interview. "We're just doing that which the private sector can't afford to do."
A Livengood hub, with some 400 miles of pipe from the North Slope, offers flexibility for the future, Gottstein said. If the price of gas rises and it becomes economical to sell large quantities commercially, it wouldn't be a colossal feat to extend the pipeline another 400 miles to Valdez for a future liquefied natural gas plant -- a dream of some Alaskans, like defeated Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill Walker -- or another 1,300 miles into Alberta and the existing pipeline network leading to the Lower 48.
INTRIGUED POLITICIANS
"It's an intriguing idea," said the spokespersons for both Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Mark Begich. State Sen. Bill Wielechowski, an Anchorage Democrat and a leader on energy issues, said precisely the same thing.
Murkowski and Begich, who have both gotten briefings from Gottstein, won't say more, in part because they are still awaiting word from TransCanada Corp. on its "open season" -- the period, closed now for six months, in which shippers bid for space in its pipeline.
Open season agreements are critical for assessing whether TransCanada's multibillion-dollar pipeline is commercially viable. TransCanada says it has bids, but won't describe them until it negotiates formal agreements with the bidders.
Gottstein is among many skeptics, including some in the Legislature, who believe there isn't a chance that TransCanada will come back to the state with reasonable bids.
"People like to believe things are happening, when they're not," he said.
NEW ENERGY NEEDED
Gottstein said he decided to go public with his idea for several reasons:
• The Legislature is getting antsy about a pipeline. Cook Inlet might not produce enough gas for Southcentral residents by the middle of the decade, leading to a number of expensive choices: subsidized drilling for smaller and smaller pockets of gas, building a "bullet line" direct from the North Slope, or importing liquefied natural gas -- the "coals to Newcastle" approach.
• The governor is proposing billions of dollars in oil-tax cuts. Gottstein said he's concerned that the oil companies will "trick us into thinking that by lowering taxes by tens of billions of dollars, we further the pipeline." The main reason the oil companies aren't building a gas pipeline is simple economics: The price of gas might be too low in the future to justify spending billions on construction, he said.
• The quiet that has come from TransCanada, which is entitled to up to $500 million in state subsidies as the licensee under the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act, and potentially huge damages if the state breaks the deal. TransCanada once hoped to report before New Year's that its open season last year had resulted in shipping commitments. Now it's not giving any target date even as the state continues to reimburse it millions of dollars for its expenses.
Several legislators, including Rep. Mike Hawker, R-Anchorage, have suggested the cutoff date is around Canada Day, July 1. That's when Dan Fauske, executive director of the Alaska House Finance Corp., is directed by a 2009 law to report on the options for bringing gas to Southcentral, a study that could provoke a special session with action-oriented legislators.
Fauske said Gottstein's idea won't get more than a mention in his report because the pipeline stops at Fairbanks.
"It's not to say it isn't worth discussing," Fauske said. But he said he's troubled by Gottstein's "adversarial" position to the oil industry, that Gottstein suggests forcing the North Slope producers to deliver gas to a pipeline if they didn't do it voluntarily.
"I'd rather try to figure out where we have a project where it would entice the oil companies" to invest their own money to move their own gas Fauske said.
TOO SOON TO ACT?
Larry Persily, the federal gas pipeline coordinator, said it's enough to think that Gottstein would spend $6 billion to $8 billion in state money to build a 48-inch pipeline to Fairbanks and a gas treatment plant on the North Slope.
"People are certainly getting creative because people, rightfully so, are frustrated and impatient," Persily said.
But what happens if the line is built and the gas prices are so low that no one wants to buy North Slope gas, he asked.
"Now you have an $8 billion gas project to serve Fairbanks -- that's the risk. You're trying to force something that maybe doesn't happen, and is that the appropriate use of public funds?"
House Speaker Mike Chenault, R-Nikiski, said the idea of a big pipeline to a Fairbanks-area hub gives the state "more options," though he was noncommittal about the options he preferred.
"At some point in time, we can't continue to wait," Chenault said.
Gov. Sean Parnell, a supporter of TransCanada, was lukewarm to the idea.
"If I believed the project could result in lower energy costs for the Interior in a reasonable period of time, I would move on it," Parnell said in a prepared statement. "The discussion itself is important to advance possibilities for natural gas for Alaskans."
LOBBYING JUNEAU
Gottstein, who comes from a family of grocers at Anchorage's tent city beginnings, said he has no personal stake in his proposal except for how he thinks it would help the state economy.
"I'm building an army," he said on his cell phone last week from Juneau, where at his own expense he is speaking to labor groups and buttonholing legislators.
Gottstein said he can also be sympathetic to oil company interests in waiting for a significant price rise in gas before considering the huge cost of a pipeline. Such a wait might also be in the interests of Alaska because a higher price makes the state's royalty share of gas production more valuable.
"We would normally want them to wait so that we'd get more money," he said. "But we're going to freeze in the dark if we don't at least get a trickle to ourselves."
Fisherman's Choice Charters
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Short-handed Condors top Aces
The short-handed Bakersfield Condors beat the listless Alaska Aces 3-1 on Sunday night to keep the Aces from sweeping the three-game ECHL series.
Struggling Aces rookie goaltender Adam Courchaine stopped 15 shots, but made a ghastly and costly turnover, and Bakersfield's Brian Stewart made 38 saves.
Brad Snetsinger's empty-net goal with 35.9 seconds left sealed victory for the Condors (22-20-2).
With only about 10 minutes left, Aces center Brian Swanson finally cracked Stewart, and even that took a remarkable display of hand-eye coordination. Swanson redirected Chad Anderson's waist-high shot from the right point over Stewart's blocker and into the top shelf to cut Bakersfield's lead to 2-1.
In two wins against the Aces (24-16-2), Stewart has stopped 84 of 86 shots for a .977 save percentage, which is really good.
The Aces' first period proved an indifferent effort, at best - turnovers, shoddy passing, sloppy breakouts and a dearth of quality scoring chances. The second period was much of the same.
The Condors, with three local players added to their lineup to supplement 11 regular skaters, grabbed a 1-0 lead when former UAF center Adam Naglich set up Guillaume Lefebvre for a goal just shy of nine minutes into the game.
Exactly two minutes later, Courchaine went behind his net to play the puck and inadvertently delivered a tape-to-tape pass to Bakersfield's Stephane Goulet. Goulet, stationed at the bottom of the right circle, immediately fired into an open net for a 2-0 lead.
When a goaltender plays the puck well, he frustrates opposing forecheckers and relieves pressure on his own defensemen by serving as a third defenseman of sorts. When a goalie plays the puck poorly, he only compounds his team's problems. Courchaine played the puck smartly and well earlier in the season but lately he's treated the puck like a grenade and also been prone to surrendering soft goals.
Courchaine's first-period difficulties were line with his previous four games, which were miserable, especially in comparison to his first seven starts for the Aces.
In his first seven Alaska games, the rookie went 5-2-0 with a 1.58 goals-against average and .938 save percentage. In his previous four games prior to Sunday, those numbers plunged to 0-3-1, 4.68 and .825.
The Aces on Wednesday night open a three-game series at Victoria.
Fisherman's Choice Charters
Struggling Aces rookie goaltender Adam Courchaine stopped 15 shots, but made a ghastly and costly turnover, and Bakersfield's Brian Stewart made 38 saves.
Brad Snetsinger's empty-net goal with 35.9 seconds left sealed victory for the Condors (22-20-2).
With only about 10 minutes left, Aces center Brian Swanson finally cracked Stewart, and even that took a remarkable display of hand-eye coordination. Swanson redirected Chad Anderson's waist-high shot from the right point over Stewart's blocker and into the top shelf to cut Bakersfield's lead to 2-1.
In two wins against the Aces (24-16-2), Stewart has stopped 84 of 86 shots for a .977 save percentage, which is really good.
The Aces' first period proved an indifferent effort, at best - turnovers, shoddy passing, sloppy breakouts and a dearth of quality scoring chances. The second period was much of the same.
The Condors, with three local players added to their lineup to supplement 11 regular skaters, grabbed a 1-0 lead when former UAF center Adam Naglich set up Guillaume Lefebvre for a goal just shy of nine minutes into the game.
Exactly two minutes later, Courchaine went behind his net to play the puck and inadvertently delivered a tape-to-tape pass to Bakersfield's Stephane Goulet. Goulet, stationed at the bottom of the right circle, immediately fired into an open net for a 2-0 lead.
When a goaltender plays the puck well, he frustrates opposing forecheckers and relieves pressure on his own defensemen by serving as a third defenseman of sorts. When a goalie plays the puck poorly, he only compounds his team's problems. Courchaine played the puck smartly and well earlier in the season but lately he's treated the puck like a grenade and also been prone to surrendering soft goals.
Courchaine's first-period difficulties were line with his previous four games, which were miserable, especially in comparison to his first seven starts for the Aces.
In his first seven Alaska games, the rookie went 5-2-0 with a 1.58 goals-against average and .938 save percentage. In his previous four games prior to Sunday, those numbers plunged to 0-3-1, 4.68 and .825.
The Aces on Wednesday night open a three-game series at Victoria.
Fisherman's Choice Charters
Commission cuts halibut harvests
KODIAK -- A lot less Pacific halibut will be crossing the docks this year.
On Friday, the International Pacific Halibut Commission, which oversees fisheries in the United States and Canada, reduced the 2011 coast-wide catch limit to 41 million pounds, a 19 percent drop. Alaska's share of the catch will be 32.5 million pounds, down from 40 million last year.
"Of course, they cited the ongoing concern with the decline in the size at age and declining catch rates coast wide. There's a lot of fish out there; they just don't seem to be growing and recruiting into the fishery," said Doug Bowen with Alaska Boats and Permits in Homer.
"The commissioners commented that the halibut are the smallest size at age in the history of the fishery," he added during a phone call from the annual meeting.
There are lots of theories as to why the fish are growing so slowly. Most point to competition for food from the abundance of small halibut, as well as voracious arrowtooth flounder, which blanket the Gulf seafloor. More predation by burgeoning cod and pollock stocks might also be a factor.
Southeast longliners will take the biggest hit -- a 47 percent cut to just 2.3 million pounds.
For the biggest fishing hole in the Central Gulf, the catch is slashed 28 percent to just over 14 million pounds.
Halibut catches in the Western Gulf will decrease from 10 million to 7.5 million pounds.
Only fishing areas along the Aleutians and Bering Sea will see slight increases.
In other actions, the commission imposed a 37-inch size limit on the sport charter sector in Southeast, which has exceeded its catch limit every year since 2004. Commissioners said the size limit may be lifted when catch shares go into effect next year.
The proposals to allow filleted halibut aboard charter vessels or house boats went down in flames due to enforcement concerns. The commission plans to begin a project focusing on reducing halibut bycatch in other fisheries to get an accurate accounting of all removals. Due to expressed concerns over its perceived "ad hoc" management style, the commission will review its own performance over the coming year.
Bowen said it was a tough meeting but there was general agreement that the health of the halibut stocks comes first.
"Several commissioners said it was the most difficult meeting they had ever participated in and they were forced to make very tough decisions," he said. "But people agreed that drastic measures need to be taken so we can get a handle on this and get these catches down to where the stocks can rebuild."
The halibut fishery opens March 12 and ends Nov. 18.
SURIMI SPREADING
Pollock, Alaska's biggest fishery, got under way Jan. 20 in the Gulf of Alaska and the Bering Sea. More than 3 billion pounds of the popular whitefish will be harvested from Alaska waters this year, accounting for 30 percent of U.S. seafood landings.
Many people are not aware that pollock is valued for three products: fillets, roe and surimi. Surimi, which means ground meat in Japanese, is a protein-packed, ready-to-eat item shaped and flavored to taste like crab, shrimp or other seafoods.
Surimi production from Alaska last year reached nearly 230 million pounds, an increase of more than 19 percent. Nearly 205 million pounds of the surimi pack was exported, a whopping 30 percent increase over 2009. Market analyst Ken Talley said foreign wholesalers paid $1.27 a pound for Alaska pollock surimi, up nearly 12 percent.
Laine Welch is a Kodiak-based fisheries journalist. Her Fish Radio programs can be heard on stations around the state. Her information column appears every other Sunday. This material is protected by copyright. For information on reprinting or placing on your Web site or newsletter, contact msfish@alaska.com.
Fisherman's Choice Charters
On Friday, the International Pacific Halibut Commission, which oversees fisheries in the United States and Canada, reduced the 2011 coast-wide catch limit to 41 million pounds, a 19 percent drop. Alaska's share of the catch will be 32.5 million pounds, down from 40 million last year.
"Of course, they cited the ongoing concern with the decline in the size at age and declining catch rates coast wide. There's a lot of fish out there; they just don't seem to be growing and recruiting into the fishery," said Doug Bowen with Alaska Boats and Permits in Homer.
"The commissioners commented that the halibut are the smallest size at age in the history of the fishery," he added during a phone call from the annual meeting.
There are lots of theories as to why the fish are growing so slowly. Most point to competition for food from the abundance of small halibut, as well as voracious arrowtooth flounder, which blanket the Gulf seafloor. More predation by burgeoning cod and pollock stocks might also be a factor.
Southeast longliners will take the biggest hit -- a 47 percent cut to just 2.3 million pounds.
For the biggest fishing hole in the Central Gulf, the catch is slashed 28 percent to just over 14 million pounds.
Halibut catches in the Western Gulf will decrease from 10 million to 7.5 million pounds.
Only fishing areas along the Aleutians and Bering Sea will see slight increases.
In other actions, the commission imposed a 37-inch size limit on the sport charter sector in Southeast, which has exceeded its catch limit every year since 2004. Commissioners said the size limit may be lifted when catch shares go into effect next year.
The proposals to allow filleted halibut aboard charter vessels or house boats went down in flames due to enforcement concerns. The commission plans to begin a project focusing on reducing halibut bycatch in other fisheries to get an accurate accounting of all removals. Due to expressed concerns over its perceived "ad hoc" management style, the commission will review its own performance over the coming year.
Bowen said it was a tough meeting but there was general agreement that the health of the halibut stocks comes first.
"Several commissioners said it was the most difficult meeting they had ever participated in and they were forced to make very tough decisions," he said. "But people agreed that drastic measures need to be taken so we can get a handle on this and get these catches down to where the stocks can rebuild."
The halibut fishery opens March 12 and ends Nov. 18.
SURIMI SPREADING
Pollock, Alaska's biggest fishery, got under way Jan. 20 in the Gulf of Alaska and the Bering Sea. More than 3 billion pounds of the popular whitefish will be harvested from Alaska waters this year, accounting for 30 percent of U.S. seafood landings.
Many people are not aware that pollock is valued for three products: fillets, roe and surimi. Surimi, which means ground meat in Japanese, is a protein-packed, ready-to-eat item shaped and flavored to taste like crab, shrimp or other seafoods.
Surimi production from Alaska last year reached nearly 230 million pounds, an increase of more than 19 percent. Nearly 205 million pounds of the surimi pack was exported, a whopping 30 percent increase over 2009. Market analyst Ken Talley said foreign wholesalers paid $1.27 a pound for Alaska pollock surimi, up nearly 12 percent.
Laine Welch is a Kodiak-based fisheries journalist. Her Fish Radio programs can be heard on stations around the state. Her information column appears every other Sunday. This material is protected by copyright. For information on reprinting or placing on your Web site or newsletter, contact msfish@alaska.com.
Fisherman's Choice Charters
Palin touts conservation, hunting to Reno crowd
RENO, Nev. -- Sarah Palin touted gun rights to an audience of thousands at a fundraising dinner for an international big game hunting organization and called on Americans to "keep tabs on what the White House is telling us."
Emphasizing her belief that local governments should set policy, not "bureaucrats thousand of miles away" in Washington, the former Republican vice-presidential candidate drew on her experience as mayor of Wasilla before she was elected that state's governor.
Palin also talked about her family and her love of the outdoors to more than 2,000 people, who paid $100 each for the Safari Club International event Saturday where she was the keynote speaker.
Hunting and fishing, Palin said, are part of America's "heritage," and she called for "responsible conservation" to protect the environment.
"Don't retreat, stand tall," Palin told the crowd.
The event was closed to reporters, but parts of Palin's speech could be heard outside the Peppermill's Tuscany Ballroom, according to the Reno Gazette-Journal.
Woven through the Palin's speech were family stories, including her daughter Bristol Palin's role on the TV competition, "Dancing with the Stars."
Carol Kjorstad, of Pinedale, Wyo., said she was impressed with Palin's focus on conservation.
"Everyone knows that hunting won't survive without animals being protected," Kjorstad said. "I wasn't pro-Sarah Palin, but I really enjoyed what she had to say. There was so much common sense to it."
Dave Tofte, of Williston, N.D., said Palin stands for ideas he likes. "She's very pro-American," he said.
Heidi Smith, who is a member of the GOP's national committee for the state, said many in northern Nevada were anxious to see Palin and wanted her to do something for the party.
"... But right now, she is a hunter and a shooter, and that is what Safari got her for," Smith said. "They're paying the big bucks for her."
Fisherman's Choice Charters
Emphasizing her belief that local governments should set policy, not "bureaucrats thousand of miles away" in Washington, the former Republican vice-presidential candidate drew on her experience as mayor of Wasilla before she was elected that state's governor.
Palin also talked about her family and her love of the outdoors to more than 2,000 people, who paid $100 each for the Safari Club International event Saturday where she was the keynote speaker.
Hunting and fishing, Palin said, are part of America's "heritage," and she called for "responsible conservation" to protect the environment.
"Don't retreat, stand tall," Palin told the crowd.
The event was closed to reporters, but parts of Palin's speech could be heard outside the Peppermill's Tuscany Ballroom, according to the Reno Gazette-Journal.
Woven through the Palin's speech were family stories, including her daughter Bristol Palin's role on the TV competition, "Dancing with the Stars."
Carol Kjorstad, of Pinedale, Wyo., said she was impressed with Palin's focus on conservation.
"Everyone knows that hunting won't survive without animals being protected," Kjorstad said. "I wasn't pro-Sarah Palin, but I really enjoyed what she had to say. There was so much common sense to it."
Dave Tofte, of Williston, N.D., said Palin stands for ideas he likes. "She's very pro-American," he said.
Heidi Smith, who is a member of the GOP's national committee for the state, said many in northern Nevada were anxious to see Palin and wanted her to do something for the party.
"... But right now, she is a hunter and a shooter, and that is what Safari got her for," Smith said. "They're paying the big bucks for her."
Fisherman's Choice Charters
Alaska's Ulmer reflects on experience with gulf oil spill
President Obama in June tapped University of Alaska Anchorage Chancellor Fran Ulmer for the presidential commission investigating the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion, and as crude oil continued to spew from the Macondo well 40 miles from shore in the Gulf of Mexico, Alaska's former lieutenant governor found herself in a helicopter sizing up the spill.
She spoke to worried local officials, watched responders pick up oiled pelicans, and remembered 1989, when she witnessed millions of gallons of crude oil spew from a tanker gashed on a rock in Prince William Sound.
"You hope that you don't repeat the same errors over time as a human society," she says. "And so, yes, it was a real sense of deja vu, and a sense of, 'Gee, I thought we learned something after the Exxon Valdez."
In the next breath, she remembers what did happen after Alaska's tragedy: a federal law that has phased in double hull tankers; a requirement for tanker escorts into Port Valdez; creation of regional citizen councils that act as industry watchdogs; storage facilities in Alaska fishing communities where spill response gear is cached. But the lessons didn't translate to the Gulf of Mexico, which was far more prepared for hurricanes than oil spills.
"I was surprised at how little preparation there was on the ground, apparently, in the Gulf of Mexico, given the amount of oil and gas drilling that exists in the Gulf of Mexico," she said.
The explosion and fire killed 11 men. The commission report, released Jan. 11, faults both industry and the government regulators for failing to prevent the blowout and then failing to contain it.
The industry's safety programs have not kept pace with the astonishing technological advances that allow drilling 10,000 feet below the water and then thousands of feet into the ocean floor, Ulmer said. It's like going to the moon, but workers die in the Gulf of Mexico at four times the rate of workers in the North Sea, she said.
"What needed to happen in sort of a parallel course is the development of more sophisticated risk management techniques that would allow the people both on the rigs, and the people back in Houston at central headquarters, to be able to not only monitor what is going on on the rigs affecting safety, but also integrate that to a decision regime," Ulmer said.
On any given rig, dozens of specialists from a variety of business cultures work together in a high-risk, complicated environment. On the Deepwater Horizon, the safety regime failed.
"It was shocking to us, the very elementary -- not sophisticated, very elementary -- degrees in which on this rig, those mechanisms -- some of them were there but they weren't being done in a way that was commensurate with the amount of the risk," she said.
Previous successes led to a false sense of security.
"Both government and industry had been in a mindset that it's all safe and we don't really have to worry about it, and don't hold our feet to the fire because there hasn't been a really big spill in years."
The number of deep water offshore wells expanded but the federal Minerals Management Service budget remained flat.
"They were being deprived of the resources they needed to effectively regulate," she said. "And, I might note, when they tried to increase regulatory standards, the industry and Congress pushed back and said, 'No, don't worry, this is unnecessarily burdensome. We don't like regulations. We're in an era of deregulation. Get off the industry's back.'" Ulmer said. "That in the long run is not good for either industry or the nation."
The Obama administration responded by restructuring and renaming the MMS, splitting its energy development and safety mission. The commission recommended oil producers imitate the nuclear power industry and fund a safety institute to define best practices and police themselves, in part to ensure that companies with strong safety standards are not compromised by companies with weak records.
The commission also recommended that a "safety case" approach be taken for deep-water wells and high risk areas such as the Arctic. Used in the North Sea, the approach requires oil companies to develop a drilling plan based on the physical conditions of a specific well, plus a specific containment and spill response plan. Those too were lacking in the Gulf of Mexico, where the industry was taken at its word that the chance of a spill was minute.
"Not only could they not contain it, none of the other big companies doing business in the Gulf of Mexico were prepared to come in and help them contain it," Ulmer said. "It took months before they figured out. They basically on the fly figured out a new containment system."
Ulmer was struck by how little the cleanup tools -- boom, skimming, burning, dispersants -- had changed since the Exxon Valdez.
"The sophistication in the cleanup of oil was very, very small, very marginal improvements. Unfortunately, neither the industry nor government have really invested the dollars needed to advance those technologies," she said.
The commission chose not to comment on specific proposals for what may be the next offshore battle ground, the Arctic Ocean waters of the Chukchi and Beaufort seas off Alaska's northwest and north coast. Shell Oil in 2008 spent $2.1 billion for leases in the Chukchi at an MMS sale and pressure to drill there is increasing as onshore Alaska wells diminish and offshore drilling in other states has been declared out of bounds. America continues to consume 18.7 million barrels of oil per day, the report noted.
Ulmer quickly ticks off Arctic Ocean natural hazards: extreme cold, extended seasons of darkness, hurricane-strength storms, pervasive fog. The nearest Coast Guard base is more than 1,000 miles away and its leaders acknowledge a lack of basic information available in the gulf, such as navigation hazards and currents.
The Arctic is rich in marine mammals such as endangered whales, polar bears, walrus and ice seals and the U.S. Geological Survey is assessing an acknowledged gap in habitat studies for making policy decisions.
Ulmer said commissioners did not want to substitute their judgment for regulators considering drilling permits or science gaps. But speaking in general of offshore drilling, Ulmer said it will continue.
"That's where the oil is and so that's where we're going to be drilling. So we better do a better job of prevention, containment and oil spill cleanup in the future."
Fisherman's Choice Charters
She spoke to worried local officials, watched responders pick up oiled pelicans, and remembered 1989, when she witnessed millions of gallons of crude oil spew from a tanker gashed on a rock in Prince William Sound.
"You hope that you don't repeat the same errors over time as a human society," she says. "And so, yes, it was a real sense of deja vu, and a sense of, 'Gee, I thought we learned something after the Exxon Valdez."
In the next breath, she remembers what did happen after Alaska's tragedy: a federal law that has phased in double hull tankers; a requirement for tanker escorts into Port Valdez; creation of regional citizen councils that act as industry watchdogs; storage facilities in Alaska fishing communities where spill response gear is cached. But the lessons didn't translate to the Gulf of Mexico, which was far more prepared for hurricanes than oil spills.
"I was surprised at how little preparation there was on the ground, apparently, in the Gulf of Mexico, given the amount of oil and gas drilling that exists in the Gulf of Mexico," she said.
The explosion and fire killed 11 men. The commission report, released Jan. 11, faults both industry and the government regulators for failing to prevent the blowout and then failing to contain it.
The industry's safety programs have not kept pace with the astonishing technological advances that allow drilling 10,000 feet below the water and then thousands of feet into the ocean floor, Ulmer said. It's like going to the moon, but workers die in the Gulf of Mexico at four times the rate of workers in the North Sea, she said.
"What needed to happen in sort of a parallel course is the development of more sophisticated risk management techniques that would allow the people both on the rigs, and the people back in Houston at central headquarters, to be able to not only monitor what is going on on the rigs affecting safety, but also integrate that to a decision regime," Ulmer said.
On any given rig, dozens of specialists from a variety of business cultures work together in a high-risk, complicated environment. On the Deepwater Horizon, the safety regime failed.
"It was shocking to us, the very elementary -- not sophisticated, very elementary -- degrees in which on this rig, those mechanisms -- some of them were there but they weren't being done in a way that was commensurate with the amount of the risk," she said.
Previous successes led to a false sense of security.
"Both government and industry had been in a mindset that it's all safe and we don't really have to worry about it, and don't hold our feet to the fire because there hasn't been a really big spill in years."
The number of deep water offshore wells expanded but the federal Minerals Management Service budget remained flat.
"They were being deprived of the resources they needed to effectively regulate," she said. "And, I might note, when they tried to increase regulatory standards, the industry and Congress pushed back and said, 'No, don't worry, this is unnecessarily burdensome. We don't like regulations. We're in an era of deregulation. Get off the industry's back.'" Ulmer said. "That in the long run is not good for either industry or the nation."
The Obama administration responded by restructuring and renaming the MMS, splitting its energy development and safety mission. The commission recommended oil producers imitate the nuclear power industry and fund a safety institute to define best practices and police themselves, in part to ensure that companies with strong safety standards are not compromised by companies with weak records.
The commission also recommended that a "safety case" approach be taken for deep-water wells and high risk areas such as the Arctic. Used in the North Sea, the approach requires oil companies to develop a drilling plan based on the physical conditions of a specific well, plus a specific containment and spill response plan. Those too were lacking in the Gulf of Mexico, where the industry was taken at its word that the chance of a spill was minute.
"Not only could they not contain it, none of the other big companies doing business in the Gulf of Mexico were prepared to come in and help them contain it," Ulmer said. "It took months before they figured out. They basically on the fly figured out a new containment system."
Ulmer was struck by how little the cleanup tools -- boom, skimming, burning, dispersants -- had changed since the Exxon Valdez.
"The sophistication in the cleanup of oil was very, very small, very marginal improvements. Unfortunately, neither the industry nor government have really invested the dollars needed to advance those technologies," she said.
The commission chose not to comment on specific proposals for what may be the next offshore battle ground, the Arctic Ocean waters of the Chukchi and Beaufort seas off Alaska's northwest and north coast. Shell Oil in 2008 spent $2.1 billion for leases in the Chukchi at an MMS sale and pressure to drill there is increasing as onshore Alaska wells diminish and offshore drilling in other states has been declared out of bounds. America continues to consume 18.7 million barrels of oil per day, the report noted.
Ulmer quickly ticks off Arctic Ocean natural hazards: extreme cold, extended seasons of darkness, hurricane-strength storms, pervasive fog. The nearest Coast Guard base is more than 1,000 miles away and its leaders acknowledge a lack of basic information available in the gulf, such as navigation hazards and currents.
The Arctic is rich in marine mammals such as endangered whales, polar bears, walrus and ice seals and the U.S. Geological Survey is assessing an acknowledged gap in habitat studies for making policy decisions.
Ulmer said commissioners did not want to substitute their judgment for regulators considering drilling permits or science gaps. But speaking in general of offshore drilling, Ulmer said it will continue.
"That's where the oil is and so that's where we're going to be drilling. So we better do a better job of prevention, containment and oil spill cleanup in the future."
Fisherman's Choice Charters
Hatchery opens cautiously SHIP CREEK: Biologists won't stock catchable-size fish this spring.
For urban anglers, this summer may be the worst of times.
But the silver lining is that better days are ahead.
As the Alaska Department of Fish and Game prepares for the opening of its new $96 million Jack Hernandez State Fish Hatchery on the banks of Ship Creek this spring, state biologists have decided not to stock catchable-size fish this year and extend bag-limit restrictions first enacted last year.
That will leave a big hole for local anglers.
The 26 stocked lakes in the Anchorage area offer what the Fish and Game Department estimates are 40,000 angler days -- 10,000 anglers fishing four full days, for instance -- of fishing enjoyment. Stocked fish include 108,650 rainbow trout and 4,600 Arctic char of catchable size, or at least 8 inches long.
"To conserve the catchable-size fish and help ensure angler opportunity throughout the fishing season, it is necessary to reduce the bag and possession limit," said area management biologist Dan Bosch in a press release.
Like last year, the limit has been reduced from five fish of each species to two; only one of each species can exceed 12 inches.
Instead of transferring fish from the old facility to the new one, biologists will start with eggs at the new hatchery to minimize any prospect of disease.
Rainbow eggs will start incubating in the new hatchery this spring and are expected to reach catchable size next spring. The state-of-the-art facility has 105 circular fish tanks ranging up to 26 feet in diameter.
Eventually, Jeff Milton, hatchery program supervisor for the Department of Fish and Game, expects to be stocking 50 percent more fish than before the new hatchery opened.
"What anglers are going to notice, I think, is that we're going to get back to bigger fish," he said.
Warm water is the catalyst. In warm water, hatchery biologists can grow 9-inch rainbows in 11 months. Without it, the same fish can take two years to reach 4 inches.
And since the heat-generating power plants on Elmendorf Air Force Base and Fort Richardson closed in 2004 and 2005, the Ship Creek water temperature could dip as low as 31.5 degrees, according to Moser.
The ideal for fast-growing rainbows is 58 degrees.
"We'll be able to drive growth quickly and with much more control," Milton said. "If you have warm water, they'll grow an inch per month. With cold water, they might shrink."
Fisherman's Choice Charters
But the silver lining is that better days are ahead.
As the Alaska Department of Fish and Game prepares for the opening of its new $96 million Jack Hernandez State Fish Hatchery on the banks of Ship Creek this spring, state biologists have decided not to stock catchable-size fish this year and extend bag-limit restrictions first enacted last year.
That will leave a big hole for local anglers.
The 26 stocked lakes in the Anchorage area offer what the Fish and Game Department estimates are 40,000 angler days -- 10,000 anglers fishing four full days, for instance -- of fishing enjoyment. Stocked fish include 108,650 rainbow trout and 4,600 Arctic char of catchable size, or at least 8 inches long.
"To conserve the catchable-size fish and help ensure angler opportunity throughout the fishing season, it is necessary to reduce the bag and possession limit," said area management biologist Dan Bosch in a press release.
Like last year, the limit has been reduced from five fish of each species to two; only one of each species can exceed 12 inches.
Instead of transferring fish from the old facility to the new one, biologists will start with eggs at the new hatchery to minimize any prospect of disease.
Rainbow eggs will start incubating in the new hatchery this spring and are expected to reach catchable size next spring. The state-of-the-art facility has 105 circular fish tanks ranging up to 26 feet in diameter.
Eventually, Jeff Milton, hatchery program supervisor for the Department of Fish and Game, expects to be stocking 50 percent more fish than before the new hatchery opened.
"What anglers are going to notice, I think, is that we're going to get back to bigger fish," he said.
Warm water is the catalyst. In warm water, hatchery biologists can grow 9-inch rainbows in 11 months. Without it, the same fish can take two years to reach 4 inches.
And since the heat-generating power plants on Elmendorf Air Force Base and Fort Richardson closed in 2004 and 2005, the Ship Creek water temperature could dip as low as 31.5 degrees, according to Moser.
The ideal for fast-growing rainbows is 58 degrees.
"We'll be able to drive growth quickly and with much more control," Milton said. "If you have warm water, they'll grow an inch per month. With cold water, they might shrink."
Fisherman's Choice Charters
CEO predicts continued Alaska Railroad economic upturn FREIGHT: Increases in the transfer of jet fuel, coal boost revenues.
Alaska Railroad Corp. CEO Christopher Aadnesen says he's expecting the railroad's economic recovery that began during fiscal 2009 to continue through the current fiscal year.
According to its fiscal year 2009 annual report, the state-owned railroad netted about $14 million in profits. That was an increase from the prior fiscal year when the railroad netted $12.5 million.
The railroad laid off 127 employees in 2009, but Aadnesen told the Alaska Journal of Commerce he doesn't think further cost-cutting will be needed.
"Most of the scaling back in this company has already been done," he said. "We're looking at productivity items. And productivity items allow better use of employees within the labor agreement."
Aadnesen said he is hoping to craft new labor agreements that will result in both higher productivity and higher wages for workers.
"We've had some good success with that, and we have no reason to believe that won't go on in the future," he said.
Much of the company's net revenue comes from its real estate holdings, explained railroad CFO Bill O'Leary. Freight and passenger service accounts for more than $106 million of the company's operating revenue of $143.6 million in 2009, but that revenue would not give the company a net profit on their own, Aadnesen said.
"Passenger service lines in the United States are almost always subsidized. They're losing propositions, from a net income standpoint," Aadnesen said.
The corporation owns more than 36,000 acres across Alaska, including land in the Healy area, which encompasses a large coal mine owned by Usibelli Coal Mine Inc.
The year 2008 was rough for the railroad, mostly because of low demand for the jet fuel the railroad transports from a refinery in North Pole to Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport.
Flint Hills Resources, which owns the refinery, shut down its jet fuel processing unit in 2009 following a sharp decline in the number of flights connecting through Anchorage.
"That's a huge part of our business," Aadnesen said.
But recent increases in flights and cargo planes leaving Anchorage have increased the amount of fuel the refinery produces, and Flint Hills officials have indicated they would operate the processing unit through that summer.
"We are handling jet fuel as we speak, so it's not a complete loss of jet fuel. And they are projecting a higher level of production of that jet fuel this year compared to last year," Aadnesen said.
Hauling coal is also big business for the railroad. Aadnesen said there are two big markets for Alaska coal: exports to countries in regions like Asia, and power generation in Fairbanks and the military bases in the Interior region.
Aadnesen said shipments of coal from Healy to the port at Seward, where ships come to export it, have been increasing.
"The price of that coal, because of demand in the Asian markets and elsewhere, the price has gone up, so Usibelli is actively pursuing additional markets, and we're lucky enough to be the company that puts that coal into the position where they can put it on a ship and sell it," Aadnesen said.
Fisherman's Choice Charters
According to its fiscal year 2009 annual report, the state-owned railroad netted about $14 million in profits. That was an increase from the prior fiscal year when the railroad netted $12.5 million.
The railroad laid off 127 employees in 2009, but Aadnesen told the Alaska Journal of Commerce he doesn't think further cost-cutting will be needed.
"Most of the scaling back in this company has already been done," he said. "We're looking at productivity items. And productivity items allow better use of employees within the labor agreement."
Aadnesen said he is hoping to craft new labor agreements that will result in both higher productivity and higher wages for workers.
"We've had some good success with that, and we have no reason to believe that won't go on in the future," he said.
Much of the company's net revenue comes from its real estate holdings, explained railroad CFO Bill O'Leary. Freight and passenger service accounts for more than $106 million of the company's operating revenue of $143.6 million in 2009, but that revenue would not give the company a net profit on their own, Aadnesen said.
"Passenger service lines in the United States are almost always subsidized. They're losing propositions, from a net income standpoint," Aadnesen said.
The corporation owns more than 36,000 acres across Alaska, including land in the Healy area, which encompasses a large coal mine owned by Usibelli Coal Mine Inc.
The year 2008 was rough for the railroad, mostly because of low demand for the jet fuel the railroad transports from a refinery in North Pole to Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport.
Flint Hills Resources, which owns the refinery, shut down its jet fuel processing unit in 2009 following a sharp decline in the number of flights connecting through Anchorage.
"That's a huge part of our business," Aadnesen said.
But recent increases in flights and cargo planes leaving Anchorage have increased the amount of fuel the refinery produces, and Flint Hills officials have indicated they would operate the processing unit through that summer.
"We are handling jet fuel as we speak, so it's not a complete loss of jet fuel. And they are projecting a higher level of production of that jet fuel this year compared to last year," Aadnesen said.
Hauling coal is also big business for the railroad. Aadnesen said there are two big markets for Alaska coal: exports to countries in regions like Asia, and power generation in Fairbanks and the military bases in the Interior region.
Aadnesen said shipments of coal from Healy to the port at Seward, where ships come to export it, have been increasing.
"The price of that coal, because of demand in the Asian markets and elsewhere, the price has gone up, so Usibelli is actively pursuing additional markets, and we're lucky enough to be the company that puts that coal into the position where they can put it on a ship and sell it," Aadnesen said.
Fisherman's Choice Charters
Aces top short-handed Condors ECHL: Alaska outshoots Bakersfield 48-17 in the win.
All the pucks were lined up in favor of the Alaska Aces on Saturday night, yet for a while there, they fanned on ample opportunity.
The Bakersfield Condors were the road team, presumably skating on road-weary legs. They were also a team without a coach behind the bench and relatively few players on it.
Still, the Aces didn't get rolling until they scored late in the second period, and that Wes Goldie strike served as a springboard to a three-goal third period and a 4-1 ECHL win before an announced crowd of 5,002 at Sullivan Arena.
On a night when both teams were short-handed because of massive suspensions the ECHL delivered in the wake of Friday night's mayhem between the clubs -- the Aces were slightly short players, the Condors considerably so -- the Aces needed nearly two periods to find their footing.
They prospered by virtue of one goal and two assists from both defenseman Bryan Miller and winger Scott Howes, two helpers from defenseman Mark Isherwood and 16 saves from Gerald Coleman.
"I don't know if everyone was caught up in all the hoopla of (Friday) night, or what,'' Miller said. "They had no bodies, so they were kind of passive, and we kind of played into that, didn't move our feet.''
The ECHL on Saturday suspended six Condors and coach Marty Raymond for a combined 19 games and three Aces and coach Brent Thompson for a combined 12 games. That was the fallout from the 249 combined penalty minutes and a post-game eruption on the ice in Alaska's 5-4 win.
"You see that kind of thing in movies,'' Howes marveled.
Raymond and Thompson each served a one-game suspension Saturday.
Bakersfield dressed 13 skaters -- the ECHL maximum is 16 skaters -- but that crew included Erik Felde of Anchorage, who spot-shifted, and hobbled defenseman Jean-Francois David.
The Aces dressed 15 skaters, and that contingent included Anchorage's Merit Waldrop, a spot-shifting forward and former Ace, and newcomer Brandon Coccimiglio, who furnished an assist for his first pro point.
At least the Aces had the luxury of a bench boss. Assistant coach Louis Mass, the former Aces defenseman, filled in and racked his second win of the day. Earlier, he guided his North Stars Pee Wee B team to a win.
Of course, a game like Saturday's can also be a set-up. With so many advantages, the Aces were supposed to win. The Condors, who played a smart game before tiring, had little to lose.
And for nearly two periods, the Aces were on track to fall for the set-up.
"I think the emotions were really high (Friday) night,'' Howes said. "We're hockey players, not street fighters. Guys were probably a little tired, probably didn't sleep that well.
"Lot of little things. It was just a matter of time before things started to click.''
After Bakersfield's Stephane Goulet was inexplicably left all alone in front of Coleman and roofed a goal off a pass from Joel Broda early in the second period, the Aces finally answered on a power play late in the period.
Goldie, whose 26 goals are one behind league-leader Alexandre Imbeault, the former Aces center who plays for Florida, flipped a modestly paced shot on the net guarded by Bakersfield's Josh Tordjman (44 saves). The shot, barely hard enough to leave a bruise, squeezed through a double screen set by Howes and Swanson and inside the left post for a 1-1 tie.
"He scores them wherever, however he wants,'' Howes said.
Zach Harrison gave the Aces their first lead, 2-1, just 24 seconds into the third period, and Howes and Miller added power-play goals to give Alaska a cushion.
Saturday's game proved relatively tame -- no fights, no major penalties -- but Howes said the Aces were on their guard.
"It happened, so it can always happen,'' he said.
Shuffling the deck
The announced crowd of 5,002 was the Aces' third crowd of more than 5,000 in the club's 23 home games this season.
Miller delivered a goal and two assists for the second straight night gives him 6-17--23 totals in 34 games, which ties him for eighth in the league in scoring among blueliners. He's three points off the lead league.
Goldie's goal was the 315th of his ECHL career, leaving him one shy of tying Sheldon Gorski for No. 5 on the league's all-time list. He has scored at least one goal in four straight games, and has scored five in that span.
The Aces went 3 for 8 on the power play and have scored at least one power-play goal in nine straight home games and in 13 of their last 14 games at Sullivan.
Find Doyle Woody's blog at adn.com/hockeyblog or call him at 257-4335.
Bakersfield 0 1 0 -- 1
Aces 0 1 3 -- 4
First Period -- None. Penalties -- Goulet, Bakersfield (interference), 9:05; Harrison, Aces (hooking), 13:53; Morency, Bakersfield (roughing), 18;13.
Second Period -- 1, Bakersfield, Goulet 14 (Broda, Beaudoin), 2:54; 2, Aces, Goldie 26 (Miller, Howes), 15:40 (pp). Penalties -- Harrison, Aces (tripping), 5:02; Harrison, Aces (cross-checking), 12:51; Naglich, Bakersfield (hooking), 15:33; Robins, Bakersfield (roughing), 16:22; David, Bakersfield (high-sticking), 18:17.
Third Period -- 3, Aces, Harrison 5 (Coccimiglio, Isherwood), :24; 4, Aces, Howes 13 (Miller, Isherwood), 6:53 (pp); 5, Aces, Miller 6 (Goldie, Howes), 15:49 (pp). Penalties -- Goldie, Aces (hooking), :40; Burgdoerfer, Bakersfield (slashing), 6:30; Morency, Bakersfield (interference), 14:53; Gergen, Bakersfield (slashing), 15:29; Morency, Bakersfield (misconduct), 15:29; Falite, Aces (charging), 19:24.
Shots on goal -- Bakersfield 4-5-8--17. Aces 12-17-19--48.
Power-play Opportunities -- Bakersfield 0 of 5; Aces 3 for 8.
Goalies -- Bakersfield, Tordjman, 14-12-2 (48 shots-44 saves). Aces, Coleman, 19-10-1 (17-16).
A -- 5,002 (6,396). T -- 2:20.
Referee -- Joe Sullivan. Linesmen -- Steve Glines, Travis Jackson.
The ECHL on Saturday delivered the hammer of justice to the Alaska Aces and Bakersfield Condors for postgame mayhem in the Aces' 5-4 victory at Sullivan Arena, and for events that transpired during Friday's game. The sentences added up to 31 combined games of suspensions, 19 for Bakersfield and 12 for Alaska. Each player and coach suspended was also fined an undisclosed amount, as was each team. Here is the fallout:
Alaska Aces
Position/Name Games
D Alex Dzielski 6
LW Scott Burt 3
C Chris Langkow 2
Coach Brent Thompson 1
Bakersfield Condors
Position/Name Games
RW Erick Lizon 9
D Joe Rullier 3
C Slava Trukhno 2
D Joey Ryan 2
LW Guillaume Lefebvre 1
C Joel Broda 1
Coach Marty Raymond 1
Fisherman's Choice Charters
The Bakersfield Condors were the road team, presumably skating on road-weary legs. They were also a team without a coach behind the bench and relatively few players on it.
Still, the Aces didn't get rolling until they scored late in the second period, and that Wes Goldie strike served as a springboard to a three-goal third period and a 4-1 ECHL win before an announced crowd of 5,002 at Sullivan Arena.
On a night when both teams were short-handed because of massive suspensions the ECHL delivered in the wake of Friday night's mayhem between the clubs -- the Aces were slightly short players, the Condors considerably so -- the Aces needed nearly two periods to find their footing.
They prospered by virtue of one goal and two assists from both defenseman Bryan Miller and winger Scott Howes, two helpers from defenseman Mark Isherwood and 16 saves from Gerald Coleman.
"I don't know if everyone was caught up in all the hoopla of (Friday) night, or what,'' Miller said. "They had no bodies, so they were kind of passive, and we kind of played into that, didn't move our feet.''
The ECHL on Saturday suspended six Condors and coach Marty Raymond for a combined 19 games and three Aces and coach Brent Thompson for a combined 12 games. That was the fallout from the 249 combined penalty minutes and a post-game eruption on the ice in Alaska's 5-4 win.
"You see that kind of thing in movies,'' Howes marveled.
Raymond and Thompson each served a one-game suspension Saturday.
Bakersfield dressed 13 skaters -- the ECHL maximum is 16 skaters -- but that crew included Erik Felde of Anchorage, who spot-shifted, and hobbled defenseman Jean-Francois David.
The Aces dressed 15 skaters, and that contingent included Anchorage's Merit Waldrop, a spot-shifting forward and former Ace, and newcomer Brandon Coccimiglio, who furnished an assist for his first pro point.
At least the Aces had the luxury of a bench boss. Assistant coach Louis Mass, the former Aces defenseman, filled in and racked his second win of the day. Earlier, he guided his North Stars Pee Wee B team to a win.
Of course, a game like Saturday's can also be a set-up. With so many advantages, the Aces were supposed to win. The Condors, who played a smart game before tiring, had little to lose.
And for nearly two periods, the Aces were on track to fall for the set-up.
"I think the emotions were really high (Friday) night,'' Howes said. "We're hockey players, not street fighters. Guys were probably a little tired, probably didn't sleep that well.
"Lot of little things. It was just a matter of time before things started to click.''
After Bakersfield's Stephane Goulet was inexplicably left all alone in front of Coleman and roofed a goal off a pass from Joel Broda early in the second period, the Aces finally answered on a power play late in the period.
Goldie, whose 26 goals are one behind league-leader Alexandre Imbeault, the former Aces center who plays for Florida, flipped a modestly paced shot on the net guarded by Bakersfield's Josh Tordjman (44 saves). The shot, barely hard enough to leave a bruise, squeezed through a double screen set by Howes and Swanson and inside the left post for a 1-1 tie.
"He scores them wherever, however he wants,'' Howes said.
Zach Harrison gave the Aces their first lead, 2-1, just 24 seconds into the third period, and Howes and Miller added power-play goals to give Alaska a cushion.
Saturday's game proved relatively tame -- no fights, no major penalties -- but Howes said the Aces were on their guard.
"It happened, so it can always happen,'' he said.
Shuffling the deck
The announced crowd of 5,002 was the Aces' third crowd of more than 5,000 in the club's 23 home games this season.
Miller delivered a goal and two assists for the second straight night gives him 6-17--23 totals in 34 games, which ties him for eighth in the league in scoring among blueliners. He's three points off the lead league.
Goldie's goal was the 315th of his ECHL career, leaving him one shy of tying Sheldon Gorski for No. 5 on the league's all-time list. He has scored at least one goal in four straight games, and has scored five in that span.
The Aces went 3 for 8 on the power play and have scored at least one power-play goal in nine straight home games and in 13 of their last 14 games at Sullivan.
Find Doyle Woody's blog at adn.com/hockeyblog or call him at 257-4335.
Bakersfield 0 1 0 -- 1
Aces 0 1 3 -- 4
First Period -- None. Penalties -- Goulet, Bakersfield (interference), 9:05; Harrison, Aces (hooking), 13:53; Morency, Bakersfield (roughing), 18;13.
Second Period -- 1, Bakersfield, Goulet 14 (Broda, Beaudoin), 2:54; 2, Aces, Goldie 26 (Miller, Howes), 15:40 (pp). Penalties -- Harrison, Aces (tripping), 5:02; Harrison, Aces (cross-checking), 12:51; Naglich, Bakersfield (hooking), 15:33; Robins, Bakersfield (roughing), 16:22; David, Bakersfield (high-sticking), 18:17.
Third Period -- 3, Aces, Harrison 5 (Coccimiglio, Isherwood), :24; 4, Aces, Howes 13 (Miller, Isherwood), 6:53 (pp); 5, Aces, Miller 6 (Goldie, Howes), 15:49 (pp). Penalties -- Goldie, Aces (hooking), :40; Burgdoerfer, Bakersfield (slashing), 6:30; Morency, Bakersfield (interference), 14:53; Gergen, Bakersfield (slashing), 15:29; Morency, Bakersfield (misconduct), 15:29; Falite, Aces (charging), 19:24.
Shots on goal -- Bakersfield 4-5-8--17. Aces 12-17-19--48.
Power-play Opportunities -- Bakersfield 0 of 5; Aces 3 for 8.
Goalies -- Bakersfield, Tordjman, 14-12-2 (48 shots-44 saves). Aces, Coleman, 19-10-1 (17-16).
A -- 5,002 (6,396). T -- 2:20.
Referee -- Joe Sullivan. Linesmen -- Steve Glines, Travis Jackson.
The ECHL on Saturday delivered the hammer of justice to the Alaska Aces and Bakersfield Condors for postgame mayhem in the Aces' 5-4 victory at Sullivan Arena, and for events that transpired during Friday's game. The sentences added up to 31 combined games of suspensions, 19 for Bakersfield and 12 for Alaska. Each player and coach suspended was also fined an undisclosed amount, as was each team. Here is the fallout:
Alaska Aces
Position/Name Games
D Alex Dzielski 6
LW Scott Burt 3
C Chris Langkow 2
Coach Brent Thompson 1
Bakersfield Condors
Position/Name Games
RW Erick Lizon 9
D Joe Rullier 3
C Slava Trukhno 2
D Joey Ryan 2
LW Guillaume Lefebvre 1
C Joel Broda 1
Coach Marty Raymond 1
Fisherman's Choice Charters
Fairbanks' pollution levels could hinder federal money STANDARDS: State could lose funding for roads over wood-burning stoves.
FAIRBANKS -- The head of the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation says the state could be more active in enforcing pollution laws after Fairbanks rejected stricter standards in a fall 2010 ballot measure.
Commissioner Larry Hartig told the Alaska House Finance Committee on Friday that the decision by residents could have statewide ramifications for federal road dollars to Alaska, which depends on a federal order that the city reduce pollution levels by 2014.
It could also induce broader economic sanctions, according The Daily News-Miner.
"We really don't want to get Fairbanks in a box where development is restricted," Hartig said.
Alaska Republican Rep. Tammie Wilson, a former Fairbanks North Star Assembly Member, said she worries that regulators could use Fairbanks' problem as justification to punish the city economically, including bypassing the city if a long-discussed natural gas pipeline is built.
The federal order spurred Fairbanks North Star Borough mayor Luke Hopkins to issue a plan for stricter standards on wood-burning stoves and made fines for pollution possible.
The ballot measure stripped those powers from the city and turned them over to the state. Hopkins said he now doesn't think the city will be able to meet the order's deadline.
The state's environmental conservation department can use civil actions, instead of fines, to enforce pollution standards.
"Our preference is for the community to do it," Hartig said.
Wilson, who helped write the ballot measure that took the teeth out of the city's pollution-control plan, said she prefers public education programs and subsidies for home heating over enforcement measures.
Smoke from inefficient wood stoves is believed to be the No. 1 contributor to the problem that has put Fairbanks on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's list of communities violating fine particle pollution standards.
As home heating oil prices have skyrocketed, more residents are using wood. Emissions from increasing wood burning include tiny but toxic particulates.
The particulate matter consists of tiny individual grains just 2.5 micrometers or less in size. They lodge deep in the lungs and can cause respiratory problems.
The state can use public nuisance laws as an enforcement tool to discourage the worst polluters and eventually bring about civil lawsuits if the issues aren't resolved.
"We haven't done that yet" for air pollution in Fairbanks, Hartig said. "But we are getting complaints."
The Alaska Department of Health and Social Services studied Fairbanks last year and found a relationship between pollution levels and hospital visits for certain heart and lung problems.
It's not simply a compliance issue," Hartig said. "It's a human health issue."
Fisherman's Choice Charters
Commissioner Larry Hartig told the Alaska House Finance Committee on Friday that the decision by residents could have statewide ramifications for federal road dollars to Alaska, which depends on a federal order that the city reduce pollution levels by 2014.
It could also induce broader economic sanctions, according The Daily News-Miner.
"We really don't want to get Fairbanks in a box where development is restricted," Hartig said.
Alaska Republican Rep. Tammie Wilson, a former Fairbanks North Star Assembly Member, said she worries that regulators could use Fairbanks' problem as justification to punish the city economically, including bypassing the city if a long-discussed natural gas pipeline is built.
The federal order spurred Fairbanks North Star Borough mayor Luke Hopkins to issue a plan for stricter standards on wood-burning stoves and made fines for pollution possible.
The ballot measure stripped those powers from the city and turned them over to the state. Hopkins said he now doesn't think the city will be able to meet the order's deadline.
The state's environmental conservation department can use civil actions, instead of fines, to enforce pollution standards.
"Our preference is for the community to do it," Hartig said.
Wilson, who helped write the ballot measure that took the teeth out of the city's pollution-control plan, said she prefers public education programs and subsidies for home heating over enforcement measures.
Smoke from inefficient wood stoves is believed to be the No. 1 contributor to the problem that has put Fairbanks on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's list of communities violating fine particle pollution standards.
As home heating oil prices have skyrocketed, more residents are using wood. Emissions from increasing wood burning include tiny but toxic particulates.
The particulate matter consists of tiny individual grains just 2.5 micrometers or less in size. They lodge deep in the lungs and can cause respiratory problems.
The state can use public nuisance laws as an enforcement tool to discourage the worst polluters and eventually bring about civil lawsuits if the issues aren't resolved.
"We haven't done that yet" for air pollution in Fairbanks, Hartig said. "But we are getting complaints."
The Alaska Department of Health and Social Services studied Fairbanks last year and found a relationship between pollution levels and hospital visits for certain heart and lung problems.
It's not simply a compliance issue," Hartig said. "It's a human health issue."
Fisherman's Choice Charters
If it's not no, then is it yes?
The traffic stop that ended with rape began one morning in April 2009, a 21-year-old woman told a jury Thursday. Anthony Rollins, the former Anchorage police officer charged with sexually assualting her and five others, sat at the defendant's table.
The young woman said she was pulled over for tailgating and flashing her bright headlights at another car. When the officer asked her if she had been drinking, she said yes. Earlier in the evening, she had a few shots. After that, she fought with her boyfriend. He broke up with her. She was coming back home from dropping him off in Muldoon. She had been crying as she drove. When a car cut her off, she got mad and started tailgating. She wasn't really mad at the other motorist, she testified. She was really upset about the breakup.
She took a field sobriety test given by one officer and ended up in the back of a patrol car that belonged to Rollins. She recognized him, she told the jury. She'd gone to school with one of his children. He used to come to talk with her elementary school class.
He tried to calm her down as they drove, she said. She was crying and scared. He told her she was pretty. That she shouldn't be mistreated by anyone. By the time she got to the downtown police substation, she felt comfortable enough to joke around a little as they went to the small room where she was going take a breath test.
She was in handcuffs. She took a seat. He turned on a recorder. They did an official interview. She took her breath test. Her halter top slid down, exposing her bra. He pulled it up for her. She started to feel uncomfortable. Her breath test results came back. She was well below the legal limit. He stroked her face and her hair. He turned the recorder off. He asked about her tongue ring and whether she liked to perform oral sex.
She didn't, she told him. She was still in handcuffs.
Then, she testified, he took out his penis and a condom. She couldn't believe it. They couldn't do that there, she said. He could lose his job, she said. Weren't there cameras?
He told her no one was going to see. And then he forced himself on her.
She didn't scream or tell him to stop. She didn't fight. It was over quickly. And soon her mom was there to pick her up. She was 19 at the time. Later she told her friends what happened. She didn't use the word rape. She didn't tell the police.
Rollins' attorney, Susan Carney, didn't dispute that Rollins had intercourse with the young woman, but she wants the jury to believe the young woman asked for it. She wants the jury to believe that Rollins, who has been charged with sexually assaulting six women while on the job, is only guilty of "sexual dalliances" at work.
In a few cases, she wants the jury to believe the women made everything up.
"You didn't tell him 'no,' did you?" Carney asked the young woman on the stand.
Carney asked if she ever texted Rollins that she was considering taking a job as a stripper. The young woman said, "No." But the implication hung there.
Carney's job is to plant seeds of doubt. She's doing it by any means necessary, including trying to scare up outdated attitudes among the jurors about how a woman might be responsible for a man's predatory behavior. It's a tired tactic that ignores the power imbalance between a 19-year-old and a cop. If it works with a jury in 2011, it's a sad sign about a woman's place in the world.
It wasn't hard to read between the lines during Carney's cross-examination. Had the young woman thought about work as a stripper? (Was she promiscuous?) Carney read some of what the young woman told a grand jury earlier about the rape. She blamed herself for what happened. If she had fought and said no, she said earlier, Rollins probably would have stopped. (So, did that mean the promiscuous woman really said yes?)
One problem for Carney is that she has to make this kind of argument about six women. To believe it, you'd have to think the world is full of women who want to have sex with police officers they don't know. Doesn't it seem more likely that there was one cop taking advantage of vulnerable women?
I could tell from the young woman's testimony that she had a hard time making sense of what happened at first. If Rollins hit or threatened her with a weapon, then it would have been clear. Maybe she would have told her friends she'd been raped or gone to the police right away. But it wasn't that clear. The girl didn't want to have sex, she said in court. But she didn't fight him.
I think Rollins was counting on that. He knew he didn't need to use violence. He had an invisible weapon. It was in his position as a police officer. It was in his uniform, a symbol of trust. His word was more powerful than hers. He could take her to jail if he wanted to. He weighed almost twice as much as she did, and he was twice her age. She was shocked, emotional and scared. She was still in handcuffs. He had a gun on his hip.
Maybe she didn't exactly say no. But that doesn't mean she said anything close to yes.
Fisherman's Choice Charters
The young woman said she was pulled over for tailgating and flashing her bright headlights at another car. When the officer asked her if she had been drinking, she said yes. Earlier in the evening, she had a few shots. After that, she fought with her boyfriend. He broke up with her. She was coming back home from dropping him off in Muldoon. She had been crying as she drove. When a car cut her off, she got mad and started tailgating. She wasn't really mad at the other motorist, she testified. She was really upset about the breakup.
She took a field sobriety test given by one officer and ended up in the back of a patrol car that belonged to Rollins. She recognized him, she told the jury. She'd gone to school with one of his children. He used to come to talk with her elementary school class.
He tried to calm her down as they drove, she said. She was crying and scared. He told her she was pretty. That she shouldn't be mistreated by anyone. By the time she got to the downtown police substation, she felt comfortable enough to joke around a little as they went to the small room where she was going take a breath test.
She was in handcuffs. She took a seat. He turned on a recorder. They did an official interview. She took her breath test. Her halter top slid down, exposing her bra. He pulled it up for her. She started to feel uncomfortable. Her breath test results came back. She was well below the legal limit. He stroked her face and her hair. He turned the recorder off. He asked about her tongue ring and whether she liked to perform oral sex.
She didn't, she told him. She was still in handcuffs.
Then, she testified, he took out his penis and a condom. She couldn't believe it. They couldn't do that there, she said. He could lose his job, she said. Weren't there cameras?
He told her no one was going to see. And then he forced himself on her.
She didn't scream or tell him to stop. She didn't fight. It was over quickly. And soon her mom was there to pick her up. She was 19 at the time. Later she told her friends what happened. She didn't use the word rape. She didn't tell the police.
Rollins' attorney, Susan Carney, didn't dispute that Rollins had intercourse with the young woman, but she wants the jury to believe the young woman asked for it. She wants the jury to believe that Rollins, who has been charged with sexually assaulting six women while on the job, is only guilty of "sexual dalliances" at work.
In a few cases, she wants the jury to believe the women made everything up.
"You didn't tell him 'no,' did you?" Carney asked the young woman on the stand.
Carney asked if she ever texted Rollins that she was considering taking a job as a stripper. The young woman said, "No." But the implication hung there.
Carney's job is to plant seeds of doubt. She's doing it by any means necessary, including trying to scare up outdated attitudes among the jurors about how a woman might be responsible for a man's predatory behavior. It's a tired tactic that ignores the power imbalance between a 19-year-old and a cop. If it works with a jury in 2011, it's a sad sign about a woman's place in the world.
It wasn't hard to read between the lines during Carney's cross-examination. Had the young woman thought about work as a stripper? (Was she promiscuous?) Carney read some of what the young woman told a grand jury earlier about the rape. She blamed herself for what happened. If she had fought and said no, she said earlier, Rollins probably would have stopped. (So, did that mean the promiscuous woman really said yes?)
One problem for Carney is that she has to make this kind of argument about six women. To believe it, you'd have to think the world is full of women who want to have sex with police officers they don't know. Doesn't it seem more likely that there was one cop taking advantage of vulnerable women?
I could tell from the young woman's testimony that she had a hard time making sense of what happened at first. If Rollins hit or threatened her with a weapon, then it would have been clear. Maybe she would have told her friends she'd been raped or gone to the police right away. But it wasn't that clear. The girl didn't want to have sex, she said in court. But she didn't fight him.
I think Rollins was counting on that. He knew he didn't need to use violence. He had an invisible weapon. It was in his position as a police officer. It was in his uniform, a symbol of trust. His word was more powerful than hers. He could take her to jail if he wanted to. He weighed almost twice as much as she did, and he was twice her age. She was shocked, emotional and scared. She was still in handcuffs. He had a gun on his hip.
Maybe she didn't exactly say no. But that doesn't mean she said anything close to yes.
Fisherman's Choice Charters
Dealmaker will pull no punches in 20th term
WASHINGTON -- There he was, sitting in the House of Representatives, grinning ear-to-ear, and attending his first State of the Union speech since 1974.
It almost didn't happen. Laid low by the scandal of a federal criminal investigation and a near-pariah in his own Republican Party, Alaska's Rep. Don Young has in recent years struggled to stay relevant in a political era that's sidelined the kind of earmarking and horse-trading at which he excels.
Now, though, he's cleared of the investigation, and Republicans are back in charge of the House. The 77-year-old congressman who brags of never using a computer but always carrying a knife? He's back -- and spoiling for another round.
Settling into his 20th term in office, Young has moved his hunting trophies into the biggest office in the House of Representatives. He's holding sway over a new panel on Indian affairs -- and although it's a subcommittee, it returns to him the title "chairman" he cherished for so much of his time in Congress. He's back as the western representative on the House GOP policy committee that helps shape Republican initiatives. He's even taking calls from the White House about spending priorities in Indian Country.
Tuesday night, he was talking about the stir his presence caused after a 37-year hiatus from the State of Union, but it may as well have been about his career: "I have to tell you something," he said. "By being absent for so long, I was wanted."
The renewed vigor comes after a stretch of challenges that his defense lawyer, John Dowd, said would be insurmountable for most people.
"Being under investigation is worse than having a gun pointed at you, particularly when you're a public official," Dowd said. "It's extremely difficult."
In August 2009, Young lost his wife of 46 years, Lu, his constant companion. If she hadn't persuaded him to file for re-election before her death, he might not have run last fall, Young said in an interview recently.
"And it was the best thing she did to me, because if I hadn't had the job, I would have been dead in a heartbeat," he said. "Now I've got more to focus on, so it keeps me going, and I thank her for that."
But he's also free of the federal investigation, which looked at whether he accepted illegal campaign contributions and gifts from a now-defunct Alaska-based oil-field service company, Veco, and its convicted chairman Bill Allen. Young was also being investigated for an earmark in a transportation bill for a Florida interchange sought by a campaign donor.
In August, Young said the Justice Department had told his lawyer, Dowd, that it had dropped its investigations.
Young has never fully addressed the accusations but spent more than $1 million on legal fees from his campaign account in fending them off. Several of his aides were snared in them. One aide from Young's time on the Transportation committee, Fraser Verrusio, is on trial now, accused of illegally accepting an expenses-paid trip to the 2003 World Series and lying about it on a financial disclosure form.
In granting a rare interview with the Daily News, Young would allow just one question about the federal probe. Asked whether he learned who his true friends were, it was the only time during the interview that he struggled to control his emotions.
"Let's put it this way. I learned who was not my friend," he said. "It's like a movie star who has three flops in a row. Nobody goes to their movies, nobody knows who they are anymore."
"I'm very happy with those that did stay with me," he added. "Those that didn't? You recognize that. And just have a little short pile in the back of your head and just remember that."
He continues to revel in his reputation for colorful metaphors, bluster and the possibility of fisticuffs. There's the transportation bill he admitted was "stuffed like a turkey" with earmarks. There's the legendary tale of him in 1994 brandishing an oosik -- the penis bone of a walrus at a female Fish and Wildlife Service chief. In 2007, he threatened on the House floor to bite a political opponent "like a mink."
He's also now counted among lawmakers who may or may not carry a gun -- he's not saying for sure where or when he does. But following the shooting this month of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., Young said he wouldn't hesitate to use firepower, if necessary.
"I carry it wherever no one can see it," he said, although he says he does not have a concealed weapons permit. "I don't use it as a threat. My biggest fear is someone that's a nut that might try to make a statement, and I don't have a chance to retaliate, that's all."
DEFINING A LEGACY
He is, his friends say, little changed from the man who made his way to Fort Yukon to make his mark in Alaska's Interior in its first year of statehood. You might catch him cleaning his fingernails with his Bowie knife, said Dan Kish, a former aide on the Natural Resources Committee, but don't be fooled.
"Despite the gruff exterior and the un-Washington ways, sometimes his intuitions and insights into things are extraordinary," said Kish, who acknowledges he's also "nearly come to blows arguing" with Young.
"But it's born out of respect," he said. "Washington is full of that crap, and Don's different. It's a different cut of cloth. He continues to have that bright-faced optimism."
Those closest to Young are eager to paint him as something other than caricature. As Young enters the final stages of his career, they're hoping to define the legacy of a man who has had perhaps the renown of iconic fellow Alaskan, Sen. Ted Stevens but never his gravitas.
Before agreeing to an interview time, Young's office asked that several former staffers be contacted first. Each sought to tout a list of Young's all-time career highs: the 1973 legislation that created the trans- Alaska pipeline, the legislation that established a 200-mile fishing limit, and the $286 billion transportation bill named after his wife.
All former staffers, the men on the list are either lobbyists or run companies with ties to energy or Alaska Native corporations. They've benefited greatly from their ties to Young, who for his part is unapologetic about the success of the people close to him and calls them "his sons."
"What's wrong with that?" Young said. "They're knowledgeable; they know what they're doing. I've said this publicly before, many years ago: The lobbyists are one of the most important branches of any government, because they know the issue. You have interest groups who say, 'Oh, lobbyists are bad.' But the funny thing about it is they have their own lobbyists."
Among the lobbyists close to Young is Jack Ferguson, a former aide to both Stevens and Young.
At just a decade younger than his former boss, Ferguson hesitates to call Young a father figure. But he is among Young's closest friends and, as a lobbyist, best positioned to describe why the congressman has pictures on his office wall of him signing bills with nearly every president since Nixon.
'AM I JEALOUS? NO'
Young is skilled at building coalitions other Republicans won't touch, Ferguson said, including with organized labor. And he knows how to trade.
"There's something about Don Young that enables him to make friends on both sides of the aisle, to further his chairman in sort of a sly way and be such a cooperative sort of fellow that they work close," Ferguson said. "He's like a trapper. Trappers learn how to trade. You've got a certain number of pelts, they've got what you want, you've got to put a value on it, then you've got to strike a trade. He's always been like that."
When asked whether he has ever been envious of Stevens' stature in Alaska, Young says no, and he asks a staffer to retrieve a framed photo of Stevens kissing Young's ring.
Then, Young launches into a story about the work he did with former Rep. Gerry Studds, D-Mass., to pass the landmark fisheries bill known as the Magnuson-Stevens Act. The 1976 bill created 200-mile exclusive economic zones off the country's coast and led to Alaska's multi-billion dollar fishing industry.
Young said he recognized the need for the legislation during a trip to Kodiak, where whole fleets of foreign fishing vessels were visible at night, just one mile off shore. Then-President Gerald Ford, who was on his way to Asia and refueling in Alaska, invited Young along. Young said he used the long trip on Air Force One to persuade Ford to sign the legislation, over then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger's concerns about the effect it would have on U.S. ties to Japan.
"I said -- and Gerry Ford is a friend of mine -- 'Mr. President, with all due respect, that's bull****,'" Young said. "I said, 'they will figure out a way to get the fish, but we will control the seas 200 miles out.'"
"This went on until we got off the airplane," Young said. "On his way back, he signed that bill. And I take credit for that every time. Of course, Ted got it named after him. Am I jealous? No. I didn't really care, as long as it happened."
'I DON'T NEED A LOT OF FRIENDS'
Young still demonstrates that behind-the-scenes cajolery. Mid-interview, Young excused himself to take a call from Jacob Lew, the director of the Office of Management and Budget at the White House.
"I believe very strongly that if you read the Constitution and our agreement with the American Indians and Alaska Natives, we have an obligation," Young said after the call. "And I don't want to see us balancing the budget on the backs of those we have an obligation to."
Young said he has always worked well with Democrats. He points out that some of his signature achievements -- including the Alaska pipeline -- happened while Democrats controlled the House.
Yet there's no question of his Republican loyalty -- Young wore a tie emblazoned with elephants to Tuesday's State of the Union address, where much was made of the first mixed-party seating at the annual event.
He also is a bit of a self-acknowledged loner. As one of the senior House members -- the only Republican to have served longer is Rep. Bill Young of Florida -- Young has outlived many of his friends.
But Young said he's fine with that. He grew up on a remote ranch, and in high school, he said, he learned that drama was a great escape from his own personality.
"Not because I had any interest in really acting," he said. "But because when I was on the stage, I was never Don Young, I was whoever I was acting. And you can do all kinds of weird things when you are somebody else."
"I don't need a lot of friends," he added. "I never have."
Those House members closest to him include former Rep. Jim Oberstar, D-Minn., the chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, who lost re-election last fall after 36 years. Loner or not, Young takes "a very personal approach," Oberstar said.
"He knows members' first names, he talks to them one-on-one, he's very approachable," Oberstar said. "When you watch Don Young, when he smiles, the room lights up. And he's just very likeable, a delightful person."
'I KNOW HIM AS AN INDIVIDUAL'
Even Young's so-called "enemies," such as Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., have great affection for him. Both Young and Miller, who called their years of sparring "a rocky wild ride," served together on the House Natural Resources Committee.
For decades, they've been on opposite sides of epic congressional battles, including the one fight Young has been incapable of winning in his 38-year career: opening up the coastal plan of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil and gas development.
"People look at me in disbelief that I would work with Don Young, that we would like one another," said Miller, who has been hunting with Young and shares with him an appreciation for the conservation of Africa's big cats and apes. "But I know him as an individual."
"He's a real legislator. You don't always get it your way, and he knows that that's true," Miller said. "He's more than willing to sit down and talk a deal. He may say, 'That's a deal I can't accept.' But he'll entertain those discussions. Some people today, it's only their-way-or-the-highway. He doesn't start out that way."
Young will entertain all ideas from all comers, Miller said.
"And he'll tell you right to your face: 'That's the dumbest thing I ever heard.' But he'll hear you out. Or he'll say, 'We can do something around this idea.'"
Although he has suggested recently that he might be on the lookout for a successor, Young said in the interview that he intends to run for office again, as long as he is physically able. He has asked his staff and his daughters to be honest with him, and let him know if he should retire.
"Will I be replaced someday? Yes." Young said. "God will either take care of me or the devil, I don't know. I hope it's God, because I want to see Lu again."
Fisherman's Choice Charters
It almost didn't happen. Laid low by the scandal of a federal criminal investigation and a near-pariah in his own Republican Party, Alaska's Rep. Don Young has in recent years struggled to stay relevant in a political era that's sidelined the kind of earmarking and horse-trading at which he excels.
Now, though, he's cleared of the investigation, and Republicans are back in charge of the House. The 77-year-old congressman who brags of never using a computer but always carrying a knife? He's back -- and spoiling for another round.
Settling into his 20th term in office, Young has moved his hunting trophies into the biggest office in the House of Representatives. He's holding sway over a new panel on Indian affairs -- and although it's a subcommittee, it returns to him the title "chairman" he cherished for so much of his time in Congress. He's back as the western representative on the House GOP policy committee that helps shape Republican initiatives. He's even taking calls from the White House about spending priorities in Indian Country.
Tuesday night, he was talking about the stir his presence caused after a 37-year hiatus from the State of Union, but it may as well have been about his career: "I have to tell you something," he said. "By being absent for so long, I was wanted."
The renewed vigor comes after a stretch of challenges that his defense lawyer, John Dowd, said would be insurmountable for most people.
"Being under investigation is worse than having a gun pointed at you, particularly when you're a public official," Dowd said. "It's extremely difficult."
In August 2009, Young lost his wife of 46 years, Lu, his constant companion. If she hadn't persuaded him to file for re-election before her death, he might not have run last fall, Young said in an interview recently.
"And it was the best thing she did to me, because if I hadn't had the job, I would have been dead in a heartbeat," he said. "Now I've got more to focus on, so it keeps me going, and I thank her for that."
But he's also free of the federal investigation, which looked at whether he accepted illegal campaign contributions and gifts from a now-defunct Alaska-based oil-field service company, Veco, and its convicted chairman Bill Allen. Young was also being investigated for an earmark in a transportation bill for a Florida interchange sought by a campaign donor.
In August, Young said the Justice Department had told his lawyer, Dowd, that it had dropped its investigations.
Young has never fully addressed the accusations but spent more than $1 million on legal fees from his campaign account in fending them off. Several of his aides were snared in them. One aide from Young's time on the Transportation committee, Fraser Verrusio, is on trial now, accused of illegally accepting an expenses-paid trip to the 2003 World Series and lying about it on a financial disclosure form.
In granting a rare interview with the Daily News, Young would allow just one question about the federal probe. Asked whether he learned who his true friends were, it was the only time during the interview that he struggled to control his emotions.
"Let's put it this way. I learned who was not my friend," he said. "It's like a movie star who has three flops in a row. Nobody goes to their movies, nobody knows who they are anymore."
"I'm very happy with those that did stay with me," he added. "Those that didn't? You recognize that. And just have a little short pile in the back of your head and just remember that."
He continues to revel in his reputation for colorful metaphors, bluster and the possibility of fisticuffs. There's the transportation bill he admitted was "stuffed like a turkey" with earmarks. There's the legendary tale of him in 1994 brandishing an oosik -- the penis bone of a walrus at a female Fish and Wildlife Service chief. In 2007, he threatened on the House floor to bite a political opponent "like a mink."
He's also now counted among lawmakers who may or may not carry a gun -- he's not saying for sure where or when he does. But following the shooting this month of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., Young said he wouldn't hesitate to use firepower, if necessary.
"I carry it wherever no one can see it," he said, although he says he does not have a concealed weapons permit. "I don't use it as a threat. My biggest fear is someone that's a nut that might try to make a statement, and I don't have a chance to retaliate, that's all."
DEFINING A LEGACY
He is, his friends say, little changed from the man who made his way to Fort Yukon to make his mark in Alaska's Interior in its first year of statehood. You might catch him cleaning his fingernails with his Bowie knife, said Dan Kish, a former aide on the Natural Resources Committee, but don't be fooled.
"Despite the gruff exterior and the un-Washington ways, sometimes his intuitions and insights into things are extraordinary," said Kish, who acknowledges he's also "nearly come to blows arguing" with Young.
"But it's born out of respect," he said. "Washington is full of that crap, and Don's different. It's a different cut of cloth. He continues to have that bright-faced optimism."
Those closest to Young are eager to paint him as something other than caricature. As Young enters the final stages of his career, they're hoping to define the legacy of a man who has had perhaps the renown of iconic fellow Alaskan, Sen. Ted Stevens but never his gravitas.
Before agreeing to an interview time, Young's office asked that several former staffers be contacted first. Each sought to tout a list of Young's all-time career highs: the 1973 legislation that created the trans- Alaska pipeline, the legislation that established a 200-mile fishing limit, and the $286 billion transportation bill named after his wife.
All former staffers, the men on the list are either lobbyists or run companies with ties to energy or Alaska Native corporations. They've benefited greatly from their ties to Young, who for his part is unapologetic about the success of the people close to him and calls them "his sons."
"What's wrong with that?" Young said. "They're knowledgeable; they know what they're doing. I've said this publicly before, many years ago: The lobbyists are one of the most important branches of any government, because they know the issue. You have interest groups who say, 'Oh, lobbyists are bad.' But the funny thing about it is they have their own lobbyists."
Among the lobbyists close to Young is Jack Ferguson, a former aide to both Stevens and Young.
At just a decade younger than his former boss, Ferguson hesitates to call Young a father figure. But he is among Young's closest friends and, as a lobbyist, best positioned to describe why the congressman has pictures on his office wall of him signing bills with nearly every president since Nixon.
'AM I JEALOUS? NO'
Young is skilled at building coalitions other Republicans won't touch, Ferguson said, including with organized labor. And he knows how to trade.
"There's something about Don Young that enables him to make friends on both sides of the aisle, to further his chairman in sort of a sly way and be such a cooperative sort of fellow that they work close," Ferguson said. "He's like a trapper. Trappers learn how to trade. You've got a certain number of pelts, they've got what you want, you've got to put a value on it, then you've got to strike a trade. He's always been like that."
When asked whether he has ever been envious of Stevens' stature in Alaska, Young says no, and he asks a staffer to retrieve a framed photo of Stevens kissing Young's ring.
Then, Young launches into a story about the work he did with former Rep. Gerry Studds, D-Mass., to pass the landmark fisheries bill known as the Magnuson-Stevens Act. The 1976 bill created 200-mile exclusive economic zones off the country's coast and led to Alaska's multi-billion dollar fishing industry.
Young said he recognized the need for the legislation during a trip to Kodiak, where whole fleets of foreign fishing vessels were visible at night, just one mile off shore. Then-President Gerald Ford, who was on his way to Asia and refueling in Alaska, invited Young along. Young said he used the long trip on Air Force One to persuade Ford to sign the legislation, over then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger's concerns about the effect it would have on U.S. ties to Japan.
"I said -- and Gerry Ford is a friend of mine -- 'Mr. President, with all due respect, that's bull****,'" Young said. "I said, 'they will figure out a way to get the fish, but we will control the seas 200 miles out.'"
"This went on until we got off the airplane," Young said. "On his way back, he signed that bill. And I take credit for that every time. Of course, Ted got it named after him. Am I jealous? No. I didn't really care, as long as it happened."
'I DON'T NEED A LOT OF FRIENDS'
Young still demonstrates that behind-the-scenes cajolery. Mid-interview, Young excused himself to take a call from Jacob Lew, the director of the Office of Management and Budget at the White House.
"I believe very strongly that if you read the Constitution and our agreement with the American Indians and Alaska Natives, we have an obligation," Young said after the call. "And I don't want to see us balancing the budget on the backs of those we have an obligation to."
Young said he has always worked well with Democrats. He points out that some of his signature achievements -- including the Alaska pipeline -- happened while Democrats controlled the House.
Yet there's no question of his Republican loyalty -- Young wore a tie emblazoned with elephants to Tuesday's State of the Union address, where much was made of the first mixed-party seating at the annual event.
He also is a bit of a self-acknowledged loner. As one of the senior House members -- the only Republican to have served longer is Rep. Bill Young of Florida -- Young has outlived many of his friends.
But Young said he's fine with that. He grew up on a remote ranch, and in high school, he said, he learned that drama was a great escape from his own personality.
"Not because I had any interest in really acting," he said. "But because when I was on the stage, I was never Don Young, I was whoever I was acting. And you can do all kinds of weird things when you are somebody else."
"I don't need a lot of friends," he added. "I never have."
Those House members closest to him include former Rep. Jim Oberstar, D-Minn., the chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, who lost re-election last fall after 36 years. Loner or not, Young takes "a very personal approach," Oberstar said.
"He knows members' first names, he talks to them one-on-one, he's very approachable," Oberstar said. "When you watch Don Young, when he smiles, the room lights up. And he's just very likeable, a delightful person."
'I KNOW HIM AS AN INDIVIDUAL'
Even Young's so-called "enemies," such as Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., have great affection for him. Both Young and Miller, who called their years of sparring "a rocky wild ride," served together on the House Natural Resources Committee.
For decades, they've been on opposite sides of epic congressional battles, including the one fight Young has been incapable of winning in his 38-year career: opening up the coastal plan of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil and gas development.
"People look at me in disbelief that I would work with Don Young, that we would like one another," said Miller, who has been hunting with Young and shares with him an appreciation for the conservation of Africa's big cats and apes. "But I know him as an individual."
"He's a real legislator. You don't always get it your way, and he knows that that's true," Miller said. "He's more than willing to sit down and talk a deal. He may say, 'That's a deal I can't accept.' But he'll entertain those discussions. Some people today, it's only their-way-or-the-highway. He doesn't start out that way."
Young will entertain all ideas from all comers, Miller said.
"And he'll tell you right to your face: 'That's the dumbest thing I ever heard.' But he'll hear you out. Or he'll say, 'We can do something around this idea.'"
Although he has suggested recently that he might be on the lookout for a successor, Young said in the interview that he intends to run for office again, as long as he is physically able. He has asked his staff and his daughters to be honest with him, and let him know if he should retire.
"Will I be replaced someday? Yes." Young said. "God will either take care of me or the devil, I don't know. I hope it's God, because I want to see Lu again."
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Lawmakers to review oil tax credits and their effects
JUNEAU -- Alaska provided $1.3 billion in tax credits to oil and gas companies over 2 1/2 years and is poised to pay out hundreds of millions more -- not counting the expanded credits Gov. Sean Parnell is now proposing.
But it's not clear whether the programs are leading to the level of increased development the state wants to see.
The issue is expected to be a focus of a legislative hearing in February. Senate Finance Committee co-chairman Bert Stedman wants a better understanding of how the credits work, and what they're going toward, as the Legislature weighs larger changes to the state's oil and gas tax regime. He said data and analysis -- not emotion or politics -- must drive the debate.
The fact that one commissioned report isn't expected until June -- and other members of the Senate's bipartisan ruling bloc have expressed the same sentiment as Stedman -- raises the possibility that the tax issue, a major piece of Parnell's legislative agenda, could get pushed to a special session or to next year. Parnell has said there's plenty of time to address the issue within the current 90-day session.
Credits are seen as a way to encourage investment; in Alaska, they're offered in areas including oil and gas, film production and education.
Between July 1, 2007, and Dec. 31, 2009, a period that includes the implementation of the current tax structure, known as Alaska's Clear and Equitable Share, the state honored about $1.3 billion in oil and gas tax credits.
The governor has budgeted $400 million for existing credits for the upcoming fiscal year, and Stedman said North Slope companies are expected to write off $450 million as part of another option, credits used against tax liability. That credit "is a real strong stimulus if it's used to enhance oil production," Stedman said. "If it's being used to push maintenance costs to the state, then I think it's open to discussion." The Department of Revenue could not immediately provide details on use or application of the credits.
The department reported total North Slope lease expenditures for fiscal year 2010 at about $4.7 billion. It projects about $5.1 billion in expenditures during the current fiscal year and $5.5 billion in the fiscal year beginning July 1.
Parnell also is proposing expanded credits as part of his larger plan to overhaul the tax scheme to help boost investment amid declining oil production. Oil is largely responsible for keeping the state running, and political leaders have been looking for ways to get more oil.
The department, in a recent presentation to lawmakers, said longer-range spending by companies, particularly on capital investment, "is highly uncertain." Steve Rinehart, a spokesman for BP Alaska, said there's a place for credits.
But he said the bigger concern is having a tax structure in place that's more inviting to investment and activity in the state's major fields.
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But it's not clear whether the programs are leading to the level of increased development the state wants to see.
The issue is expected to be a focus of a legislative hearing in February. Senate Finance Committee co-chairman Bert Stedman wants a better understanding of how the credits work, and what they're going toward, as the Legislature weighs larger changes to the state's oil and gas tax regime. He said data and analysis -- not emotion or politics -- must drive the debate.
The fact that one commissioned report isn't expected until June -- and other members of the Senate's bipartisan ruling bloc have expressed the same sentiment as Stedman -- raises the possibility that the tax issue, a major piece of Parnell's legislative agenda, could get pushed to a special session or to next year. Parnell has said there's plenty of time to address the issue within the current 90-day session.
Credits are seen as a way to encourage investment; in Alaska, they're offered in areas including oil and gas, film production and education.
Between July 1, 2007, and Dec. 31, 2009, a period that includes the implementation of the current tax structure, known as Alaska's Clear and Equitable Share, the state honored about $1.3 billion in oil and gas tax credits.
The governor has budgeted $400 million for existing credits for the upcoming fiscal year, and Stedman said North Slope companies are expected to write off $450 million as part of another option, credits used against tax liability. That credit "is a real strong stimulus if it's used to enhance oil production," Stedman said. "If it's being used to push maintenance costs to the state, then I think it's open to discussion." The Department of Revenue could not immediately provide details on use or application of the credits.
The department reported total North Slope lease expenditures for fiscal year 2010 at about $4.7 billion. It projects about $5.1 billion in expenditures during the current fiscal year and $5.5 billion in the fiscal year beginning July 1.
Parnell also is proposing expanded credits as part of his larger plan to overhaul the tax scheme to help boost investment amid declining oil production. Oil is largely responsible for keeping the state running, and political leaders have been looking for ways to get more oil.
The department, in a recent presentation to lawmakers, said longer-range spending by companies, particularly on capital investment, "is highly uncertain." Steve Rinehart, a spokesman for BP Alaska, said there's a place for credits.
But he said the bigger concern is having a tax structure in place that's more inviting to investment and activity in the state's major fields.
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- Fisherman's Choice Charters
- Houston, Alaska, United States
- With over 30 years experience as Alaska salmon fishing guides, Ray Blodgett and his Coast Guard licensed crew are privileged to know the Alaska rivers and their hot spots and have the boats and river savvy to get you there. With 3 rivers to choose from, our Alaska salmon fishing guides have over 300 miles of the hottest salmon and trout fishing waters in the world at their disposal giving our clients a great success rate! Give us a call and LET'S GO FISHING!! 907-892-8707