Saturday, May 28, 2011
Chugiak plane crash kills all five members of family aboard CESSNA 180: Family was headed to Seldovia for Memorial Day weekend.
Five members of a family, including three children, were killed Friday when a small plane crashed and burned on railroad tracks near the Birchwood Airport in Chugiak, officials said.
Anchorage police said those killed were pilot Lonn Greiner, 46, from Eagle River; three of his children, Glory, 13, Nathan, 11, and Grace, 10; and his 69-year-old mother, Carolyn Greiner.
Police said they were headed to Seldovia, where they planned to overnight for the start of the Memorial Day weekend. A family friend said they were building a cabin there.
Witnesses said the engine of the green Cessna 180 sounded strong as it took off about 10:15 a.m., but then its nose pitched up sharply, it banked left and dropped out of the sky.
"It just looked like he couldn't push the nose down," said Brad Bartlett, a fellow pilot and friend of Lonn Greiner. "I watched it, but it's hard to say what happened. The engine was running fine; there was nothing wrong with the engine."
The plane was loaded with aviation gas that exploded when it struck the ground. Its fuselage and cockpit were badly burned.
"We went running over there, but they were dead on impact; it was engulfed in flames," Bartlett said.
The wreckage was oriented in a way that suggested the pilot was attempting to return to the airport, but that could not be confirmed.
Bartlett said Greiner did maintenance on jets at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport and was known for his work with youth hockey. He had coached Bartlett's son, Bartlett said.
"He was a real stand-up guy," Bartlett said. "His whole family. His mom. His kids were good kids."
National Transportation Safety Board investigator Chris Shaver said in an early afternoon interview that the investigation had not yet uncovered a cause for the crash.
"Right now we can't speculate on anything with regards to circumstances," Shaver said. "We'll be looking at all aspects -- man, machine and environment."
Shaver said the plane is listed as a four-seater, but the fact that it held five doesn't necessarily mean it was overloaded, Shaver said.
The three children would likely have been sitting on a bench seat, with the two adults in front of them, Bartlett said. Greiner was new to the Cessna, which was likely carrying a full load of supplies, Bartlett said.
One of the witnesses, Joe Rinehart of Spenard Builders Supply, which operates a facility near the crash, said he was alerted by the fire.
"I didn't hear the crash, but I saw the flames shoot up," Rinehart said. He smelled fuel and ran over to look.
"All it was was wingtips, a tail and a smashed engine. There was nothing left -- there was no way to survive that."
At first, a gate blocked access to the Alaska Railroad property where the crash occurred, but Rinehart directed emergency crews through the SBS yard nearby so they could reach the wreckage.
The Alaska Railroad was asked to shut down rail traffic. By around noon, the line reopened with a freight train of hopper cars passing the crash scene.
Reach Casey Grove at casey.grove@adn.com or 257-4589.
Guide identified as one of the fatalities on Mount McKinley RARE OCCURRENCE: Other victim was from Shanghai, China.
A mountaineering guide from Seattle was one of two people killed on Mount McKinley this week, marking only the third time in history a guide leading clients on North America's tallest peak has died while on a climb.
Suzanne Allen of Alpine Ascents, a Seattle-based guiding company that has taken clients to Denali for more than two decades, was killed in a fall late Wednesday night while attempting to traverse Denali Pass, the National Park Service said Friday.
Allen, 34, and three others were roped together when they fell.
Also killed was Peter Bullard, 45, of Shanghai, China.
Two others were injured -- Gary Burke, 31, of Dallas, Texas, and James Mohr, 30, of Camp Pendleton, Calif. Burke is reportedly in stable condition with a broken leg and head injury; Mohr is non-responsive, parks spokeswoman Kris Fister said.
Details of the fall, which happened around 18,000 feet on a 45-degree pitch, remain unknown.
"We would like to speak with Mr. Burke, who is the only person who can give us more information," Fister said.
Guides rarely die on the 20,320-foot McKinley. Since record-keeping began in 1932, only three have died while leading groups of paying customers, according to park service records. Terrance "Mugs" Stump, one of mountaineering's most famous climbers, died on McKinley in 1992 and Chris Hooyman died on a 1998 climb.
Bullard is the 10th climber in history to die while on a guided McKinley expedition, and the second this year. Last year, 38 percent of the 1,222 people who made an attempt at scaling McKinley were either guides or clients on a guided trip, Fister said. The rest of the fatalities occurred on unguided trips.
Allen's team originally had seven members, including another guide. The other guide and two of the clients had already descended by the time of Wednesday night's fall, the park service said.
Allen was in her seventh or eight year with Alpine Ascents, said Gordon Janow, director of programs for the company, whose lineup of guides includes legend Vern Tejas. Her bio on the company website says she summited McKinley three times as a guide.
"She was a stellar guide from Day One," Janow said. "She was very education-oriented. She was teaching constantly what she knew about the mountains."
Janow said Allen is the first U.S.-based guide to die while working for Alpine Ascents, which according to its website has other teams currently on McKinley, including one led by Tejas.
"It's very difficult," Janow said, "but we all understand what it's like to love something so much you want to be involved in it, even if it comes with risks." The deaths of Allen and Bullard bring to 112 the number of people who have died on Denali since 1932. So far this season, seven climbers have died in the Alaska Range, including four on McKinley.
Suzanne Allen of Alpine Ascents, a Seattle-based guiding company that has taken clients to Denali for more than two decades, was killed in a fall late Wednesday night while attempting to traverse Denali Pass, the National Park Service said Friday.
Allen, 34, and three others were roped together when they fell.
Also killed was Peter Bullard, 45, of Shanghai, China.
Two others were injured -- Gary Burke, 31, of Dallas, Texas, and James Mohr, 30, of Camp Pendleton, Calif. Burke is reportedly in stable condition with a broken leg and head injury; Mohr is non-responsive, parks spokeswoman Kris Fister said.
Details of the fall, which happened around 18,000 feet on a 45-degree pitch, remain unknown.
"We would like to speak with Mr. Burke, who is the only person who can give us more information," Fister said.
Guides rarely die on the 20,320-foot McKinley. Since record-keeping began in 1932, only three have died while leading groups of paying customers, according to park service records. Terrance "Mugs" Stump, one of mountaineering's most famous climbers, died on McKinley in 1992 and Chris Hooyman died on a 1998 climb.
Bullard is the 10th climber in history to die while on a guided McKinley expedition, and the second this year. Last year, 38 percent of the 1,222 people who made an attempt at scaling McKinley were either guides or clients on a guided trip, Fister said. The rest of the fatalities occurred on unguided trips.
Allen's team originally had seven members, including another guide. The other guide and two of the clients had already descended by the time of Wednesday night's fall, the park service said.
Allen was in her seventh or eight year with Alpine Ascents, said Gordon Janow, director of programs for the company, whose lineup of guides includes legend Vern Tejas. Her bio on the company website says she summited McKinley three times as a guide.
"She was a stellar guide from Day One," Janow said. "She was very education-oriented. She was teaching constantly what she knew about the mountains."
Janow said Allen is the first U.S.-based guide to die while working for Alpine Ascents, which according to its website has other teams currently on McKinley, including one led by Tejas.
"It's very difficult," Janow said, "but we all understand what it's like to love something so much you want to be involved in it, even if it comes with risks." The deaths of Allen and Bullard bring to 112 the number of people who have died on Denali since 1932. So far this season, seven climbers have died in the Alaska Range, including four on McKinley.
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Fishing boat loses anchor, grounds in Togiak Bay
The Coast Guard and the state Department of Environmental Conservation are monitoring a grounded fishing vessel in Togiak Bay.
The Coast Guard says the 102-foot Nor'Quest grounded early Wednesday morning after it lost an anchor. Neither crew member was injured and they are remaining on board in efforts to refloat the boat.
The Nor'Quest is carrying up to 18,800 gallons of diesel fuel. It also has 200 gallons of gasoline, 200 gallons of lube oil, 300 gallons of hydraulic oil, and 110 gallons of waste oil on board.
A Coast Guard overflight found no pollution. A commercial salvage company is working with the boat owners and operators to lighter it before attempts are made to refloat the Nor'Quest.
The Coast Guard says the 102-foot Nor'Quest grounded early Wednesday morning after it lost an anchor. Neither crew member was injured and they are remaining on board in efforts to refloat the boat.
The Nor'Quest is carrying up to 18,800 gallons of diesel fuel. It also has 200 gallons of gasoline, 200 gallons of lube oil, 300 gallons of hydraulic oil, and 110 gallons of waste oil on board.
A Coast Guard overflight found no pollution. A commercial salvage company is working with the boat owners and operators to lighter it before attempts are made to refloat the Nor'Quest.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Throw fresh fish on the grill HOLIDAY WEEKEND: Copper River salmon is sailing into stores.
Memorial Day Weekend seems like the official start of summertime in Alaska.
For many, it means a chance to hook their own king salmon. For others, it's a time to fire up the grill. Those in the latter category should be happy that commercial fishermen are landing plenty of Copper River salmon.
Here are a couple reports:
Dannon Southall at 10th & M Seafoods: "Copper River is still the talk of the seafood world. Looks like fishing for sockeyes has been good to say the least over the past few openers. The fishermen have been catching a good number of sockeyes with a few kings mixed in."
John Jackson at New Sagaya Markets: "The initial news we are hearing from the opener yesterday that over a million pounds were caught on the reds out of the Copper River. This has brought down the pricing quite a bit and this will translate to good prices for our customers. ... Copper River kings have been another matter, catches have been low and pricing is staying steady, if you can find any. This brings up the fresh Alaskan troll kings as a great value, the fish have been getting bigger and the quality has been top notch and pricing is quite a bit lower than the Coppers."
There you have it -- get some fresh fish and get it on the grill.
Southall says 10th & M will have fresh headed and gutted Copper River sockeye salmon for $6.95 per pound, with the fillets at $9.95 per pound. Additionally, they will have Prince William Sound side-stripe shrimp for $9.95 per pound.
"There is no better way to celebrate this long weekend and the beginning of summer than by pairing these two amazing Alaska seafood products on your grill," he says.
The Copper River kings are $23.95 per pound for fillets. They also have troll kings from Southeast for $12.95 per pound for head-on fish and $16.95 per pound for the fillets. Other seafood options include fresh rockfish, cod and Dover sole fillets.
Jackson says New Sagaya also will have fresh Alaska ling cod in the store. Whole headed and gutted fish will be $4.99 per pound. "When it is fresh it is some of the best eating white fish in Alaska," he says.
Other seafood options at New Sagaya include cod ($5.99 per pound), side-stripe shrimp ($10.99 per pound) and fresh Southeast oysters.
Farmers markets
Fresh seafood can also be tracked down at the South Anchorage Farmers Market on Saturday.
Arctic Choice will have fresh Copper River king and sockeye salmon fillets, along with plenty of their other fresh seafood options: halibut fillets and cheeks, troll-caught king salmon fillets, sablefish fillets, cod fillets, rockfish fillets and side-stripe shrimp.
Some of the other vendors at the market this week include:
South Fork Jams and Jellies: A large variety of heirloom tomato plants will be available at the market, along with a growing expert to explain the needs of heirloom plants. Also available will be early jams and jellies.
Glacier Valley Farm: Hanging strawberry baskets and hanging tumbling tomato planters.
County Garden Farms: They will have 100 percent nugget Kentucky bluegrass sod in easy-to-handle 2-foot-by-5-foot rolls, ready for small or large landscaping projects. Customers can shop online at www.countrygardenfarms.com, call them at 344-2088 to reserve sod or pick it up at the market.
Bearsden Gardens: A large variety of herb plants, including: Genovese, lemon, cinnamon, Thai and globe basil; dill; parsley; cilantro; tarragon; spearmint; and peppermint; along with artichoke, pepper and tomato starts.
Gray Owl Farm: A huge variety of plants for baskets or planters, including exotics and hard to find elements.
Heart of the Mountain Organics: They will have lots of starts and items that can be used right away, including: red and green lettuces, arugula, herbs, Cherokee purple tomatoes, kale, collards, large pots of rhubarb and fresh herbs (thyme, oregano and chervil).
Matanuska Creamery: They will have cheese, cheese curds, ice cream and home-churned butter, including lemon butter.
The big news this week for the Center Market is a new location. While still in Midtown, the market is moving from University Center mall to the Mall at Sears. The market will set up at the corner of Benson Boulevard and Denali Street. According to market organizer Alex Davis, the new location may result in more vendors: "Our hours of operation will be the same, and it looks like we are going to pick up several new vendors due to the change."
Davis says Fat Boy Ribs plans to be at the new location Saturday. And marketgoers can plan on a hearty lunch. "We are hoping to introduce an Alaska burger with Alaska-grown beef and Matanuska Creamery cheese, all on a bun baked by French Oven Bakery. My mouth is watering just over the thought of it," Davis says.
Davis will have certified organic vegetable starts, including broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage and lettuce, along with pork products, jams, goat cheese, and duck and chicken eggs. He also has a 73-pound barbecue pig available and he continues to take reservations on fall-butcher pigs.
Duane Clark will be at the market with grass-fed local beef, frozen Alaska seafood, French Oven Bakery products and information about locally constructed outdoor furniture. Clark says Matanuska Creamery and the Coffee Roastery will be joining the market this week.
The Anchorage Market and Festival has a new farm booth featuring products from the Whittier Community School. Market organizer Bill Webb says "the school kids have built and operate a hydroponic garden ... we were amazed at the quality and variety last weekend." The money raised at the booth goes back to the project and the school. The booth should have parsley, cilantro, spinach, kale, snap peas and green beans this weekend.
The Anchorage Farmers Market will have many of the same vendors as previous weeks, including Arctic Organics, Seldovitsch Family Farm, Persistent Farmer, Matanuska Creamery, Bushes Bunches, Alaska Community Action on Toxics, Turkey Red Cafe, Three Bears Farm, Matanuska Gardens, Arctic Sun Gardening and Floriponics.
Arctic Organics will have the season premiere of greens mix and wild arugula, along with fresh basil from the greenhouse. They also will have overwintered German butterball, yellow Finn and russet potatoes. They also will have plenty of vegetable and flower seedlings, along with tomato plants in gallon pots for $13.50, including Siberian types bred for growing outdoors and classic greenhouse varieties too.
The Spenard Farmers Market is highlighting garden starts and tree seedlings Saturday.
Many vendors will have Alaska-appropriate plant and vegetable starts. Additionally, the market is featuring TREErific Anchorage, a volunteer group with the goal to enrich the community through the planting, caring and promotion of trees. Volunteers will be handing out information about tree planting. There also will be an opportunity to purchase native tree seedlings, sponsored with the Society of American Foresters, with proceeds going toward scholarships for University of Alaska Forestry students.
A couple of vendors to look for this week include: Babbling Brook Farm with herb starts, organic vegetable starts, flowers and hanging baskets; and Haiku Heritage City Farm with baby chickens and organic plant starts.
Salad greens are getting easier to find at the local markets, so try this simple dressing.
Basil vinaigrette
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
1/2 cup chopped fresh basil (about 1 cup packed leaves)
4 large shallots, minced
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 teaspoon seasoned pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup olive oil
Whisk together the first seven ingredients in a small bowl until blended. Gradually add olive oil, whisking continually until blended.
Source: "Farmers Market Cookbook: A Fresh Look at Local Flavor" by Southern Living magazine (Oxmoor House, $29.95)
Steve Edwards lives and writes in Anchorage. If you have a suggestion for a future Market Fresh column, please contact him at sedwards@adn.com.
Local farmers markets
Today: Center Market, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., Mall at Sears, Benson Boulevard and Denali Street
Friday: Palmer Friday Fling, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. at the Pavilion across from Visitor’s Center
Saturday: Anchorage Farmers Market, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at 15th and Cordova in the Central Lutheran Church parking lot; Anchorage Market and Festival, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Third Avenue between C and E streets; Center Market, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Mall at Sears, Benson Boulevard and Denali Street; South Anchorage Farmers Market, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., Subway/Cellular One Sports Center at the corner of Old Seward Highway and O’Malley Road; Spenard Farmers Market, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Spenard Road and 26th Avenue
Sunday: Anchorage Market and Festival, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Third Avenue between C and E streets
For many, it means a chance to hook their own king salmon. For others, it's a time to fire up the grill. Those in the latter category should be happy that commercial fishermen are landing plenty of Copper River salmon.
Here are a couple reports:
Dannon Southall at 10th & M Seafoods: "Copper River is still the talk of the seafood world. Looks like fishing for sockeyes has been good to say the least over the past few openers. The fishermen have been catching a good number of sockeyes with a few kings mixed in."
John Jackson at New Sagaya Markets: "The initial news we are hearing from the opener yesterday that over a million pounds were caught on the reds out of the Copper River. This has brought down the pricing quite a bit and this will translate to good prices for our customers. ... Copper River kings have been another matter, catches have been low and pricing is staying steady, if you can find any. This brings up the fresh Alaskan troll kings as a great value, the fish have been getting bigger and the quality has been top notch and pricing is quite a bit lower than the Coppers."
There you have it -- get some fresh fish and get it on the grill.
Southall says 10th & M will have fresh headed and gutted Copper River sockeye salmon for $6.95 per pound, with the fillets at $9.95 per pound. Additionally, they will have Prince William Sound side-stripe shrimp for $9.95 per pound.
"There is no better way to celebrate this long weekend and the beginning of summer than by pairing these two amazing Alaska seafood products on your grill," he says.
The Copper River kings are $23.95 per pound for fillets. They also have troll kings from Southeast for $12.95 per pound for head-on fish and $16.95 per pound for the fillets. Other seafood options include fresh rockfish, cod and Dover sole fillets.
Jackson says New Sagaya also will have fresh Alaska ling cod in the store. Whole headed and gutted fish will be $4.99 per pound. "When it is fresh it is some of the best eating white fish in Alaska," he says.
Other seafood options at New Sagaya include cod ($5.99 per pound), side-stripe shrimp ($10.99 per pound) and fresh Southeast oysters.
Farmers markets
Fresh seafood can also be tracked down at the South Anchorage Farmers Market on Saturday.
Arctic Choice will have fresh Copper River king and sockeye salmon fillets, along with plenty of their other fresh seafood options: halibut fillets and cheeks, troll-caught king salmon fillets, sablefish fillets, cod fillets, rockfish fillets and side-stripe shrimp.
Some of the other vendors at the market this week include:
South Fork Jams and Jellies: A large variety of heirloom tomato plants will be available at the market, along with a growing expert to explain the needs of heirloom plants. Also available will be early jams and jellies.
Glacier Valley Farm: Hanging strawberry baskets and hanging tumbling tomato planters.
County Garden Farms: They will have 100 percent nugget Kentucky bluegrass sod in easy-to-handle 2-foot-by-5-foot rolls, ready for small or large landscaping projects. Customers can shop online at www.countrygardenfarms.com, call them at 344-2088 to reserve sod or pick it up at the market.
Bearsden Gardens: A large variety of herb plants, including: Genovese, lemon, cinnamon, Thai and globe basil; dill; parsley; cilantro; tarragon; spearmint; and peppermint; along with artichoke, pepper and tomato starts.
Gray Owl Farm: A huge variety of plants for baskets or planters, including exotics and hard to find elements.
Heart of the Mountain Organics: They will have lots of starts and items that can be used right away, including: red and green lettuces, arugula, herbs, Cherokee purple tomatoes, kale, collards, large pots of rhubarb and fresh herbs (thyme, oregano and chervil).
Matanuska Creamery: They will have cheese, cheese curds, ice cream and home-churned butter, including lemon butter.
The big news this week for the Center Market is a new location. While still in Midtown, the market is moving from University Center mall to the Mall at Sears. The market will set up at the corner of Benson Boulevard and Denali Street. According to market organizer Alex Davis, the new location may result in more vendors: "Our hours of operation will be the same, and it looks like we are going to pick up several new vendors due to the change."
Davis says Fat Boy Ribs plans to be at the new location Saturday. And marketgoers can plan on a hearty lunch. "We are hoping to introduce an Alaska burger with Alaska-grown beef and Matanuska Creamery cheese, all on a bun baked by French Oven Bakery. My mouth is watering just over the thought of it," Davis says.
Davis will have certified organic vegetable starts, including broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage and lettuce, along with pork products, jams, goat cheese, and duck and chicken eggs. He also has a 73-pound barbecue pig available and he continues to take reservations on fall-butcher pigs.
Duane Clark will be at the market with grass-fed local beef, frozen Alaska seafood, French Oven Bakery products and information about locally constructed outdoor furniture. Clark says Matanuska Creamery and the Coffee Roastery will be joining the market this week.
The Anchorage Market and Festival has a new farm booth featuring products from the Whittier Community School. Market organizer Bill Webb says "the school kids have built and operate a hydroponic garden ... we were amazed at the quality and variety last weekend." The money raised at the booth goes back to the project and the school. The booth should have parsley, cilantro, spinach, kale, snap peas and green beans this weekend.
The Anchorage Farmers Market will have many of the same vendors as previous weeks, including Arctic Organics, Seldovitsch Family Farm, Persistent Farmer, Matanuska Creamery, Bushes Bunches, Alaska Community Action on Toxics, Turkey Red Cafe, Three Bears Farm, Matanuska Gardens, Arctic Sun Gardening and Floriponics.
Arctic Organics will have the season premiere of greens mix and wild arugula, along with fresh basil from the greenhouse. They also will have overwintered German butterball, yellow Finn and russet potatoes. They also will have plenty of vegetable and flower seedlings, along with tomato plants in gallon pots for $13.50, including Siberian types bred for growing outdoors and classic greenhouse varieties too.
The Spenard Farmers Market is highlighting garden starts and tree seedlings Saturday.
Many vendors will have Alaska-appropriate plant and vegetable starts. Additionally, the market is featuring TREErific Anchorage, a volunteer group with the goal to enrich the community through the planting, caring and promotion of trees. Volunteers will be handing out information about tree planting. There also will be an opportunity to purchase native tree seedlings, sponsored with the Society of American Foresters, with proceeds going toward scholarships for University of Alaska Forestry students.
A couple of vendors to look for this week include: Babbling Brook Farm with herb starts, organic vegetable starts, flowers and hanging baskets; and Haiku Heritage City Farm with baby chickens and organic plant starts.
Salad greens are getting easier to find at the local markets, so try this simple dressing.
Basil vinaigrette
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
1/2 cup chopped fresh basil (about 1 cup packed leaves)
4 large shallots, minced
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 teaspoon seasoned pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup olive oil
Whisk together the first seven ingredients in a small bowl until blended. Gradually add olive oil, whisking continually until blended.
Source: "Farmers Market Cookbook: A Fresh Look at Local Flavor" by Southern Living magazine (Oxmoor House, $29.95)
Steve Edwards lives and writes in Anchorage. If you have a suggestion for a future Market Fresh column, please contact him at sedwards@adn.com.
Local farmers markets
Today: Center Market, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., Mall at Sears, Benson Boulevard and Denali Street
Friday: Palmer Friday Fling, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. at the Pavilion across from Visitor’s Center
Saturday: Anchorage Farmers Market, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at 15th and Cordova in the Central Lutheran Church parking lot; Anchorage Market and Festival, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Third Avenue between C and E streets; Center Market, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Mall at Sears, Benson Boulevard and Denali Street; South Anchorage Farmers Market, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., Subway/Cellular One Sports Center at the corner of Old Seward Highway and O’Malley Road; Spenard Farmers Market, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Spenard Road and 26th Avenue
Sunday: Anchorage Market and Festival, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Third Avenue between C and E streets
Monday, May 23, 2011
Today's oil, gas, gold, zinc prices
North Slope oil: $109.50 per barrel, down $2.24
U.S. natural gas (Henry Hub): $4.29 per million BTU, up $0.24
Gold (N.Y. Mercantile): $1,515.30 per ounce, up $6.50
Zinc: $0.9692 per pound, down 0.46 cents
U.S. natural gas (Henry Hub): $4.29 per million BTU, up $0.24
Gold (N.Y. Mercantile): $1,515.30 per ounce, up $6.50
Zinc: $0.9692 per pound, down 0.46 cents
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Fishermen make strong showing in Copper River opener
VALDEZ -- The Alaska Department of Fish and Game says the Copper River salmon catch is off to a strong start.
KCHU-radio in Valdez reports 105,300 sockeyes were caught during the first 12 hours of fishing Monday. The department had projected a catch of 41,000 sockeyes.
Commercial fishermen also report catching 1,700 king salmon and 6,000 chum salmon during the 12-hour opener.
The price of Copper River sockeye has been running at about $4 per pound and kings are fetching at least $6.50 per pound, with chums garnering at least 20 cents per pound.
The next opener is scheduled for 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Thursday.
KCHU-radio in Valdez reports 105,300 sockeyes were caught during the first 12 hours of fishing Monday. The department had projected a catch of 41,000 sockeyes.
Commercial fishermen also report catching 1,700 king salmon and 6,000 chum salmon during the 12-hour opener.
The price of Copper River sockeye has been running at about $4 per pound and kings are fetching at least $6.50 per pound, with chums garnering at least 20 cents per pound.
The next opener is scheduled for 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Thursday.
Man cited after shooting, wounding pregnant musk ox
A Western Alaska man repeatedly shot a musk ox in the head with a small-caliber rifle last month and left the animal wounded, according to Alaska Wildlife Troopers who charged the man with a pair of misdemeanors on Tuesday.
The shooting occurred April 11 just outside the Kuskokwim Bay village of Kwigillingok. At the request of a public safety officer, another villager killed the animal.
The musk ox later turned out to be pregnant, troopers said.
"It's doubly tragic," said wildlife trooper Michael Cresswell, by phone from Bethel. "It's really two musk ox that were killed."
Kwigillingok resident Jonathan Friend, 27, faces two misdemeanors: hunting in a closed area and using an illegal method, troopers said.
The bullets from Friend's gun -- a .22-caliber rifle -- were too small to legally hunt musk ox, Cresswell said.
Some villagers on snowmachines were watching and taking pictures of two groups of musk ox when Friend opened fire, Cresswell said.
"There was a large amount of blood, and (the animal) went to the ground and didn't die. But it didn't get back up," Cresswell said.
Three days later, Cresswell and a wildlife biologist performed a necropsy on the animal and found an unborn musk ox inside.
"It was about five days from being born," Cresswell said.
The musk ox meat was donated to charity, troopers said.
Reach Casey Grove at casey.grove@adn.com or 257-4589.
The shooting occurred April 11 just outside the Kuskokwim Bay village of Kwigillingok. At the request of a public safety officer, another villager killed the animal.
The musk ox later turned out to be pregnant, troopers said.
"It's doubly tragic," said wildlife trooper Michael Cresswell, by phone from Bethel. "It's really two musk ox that were killed."
Kwigillingok resident Jonathan Friend, 27, faces two misdemeanors: hunting in a closed area and using an illegal method, troopers said.
The bullets from Friend's gun -- a .22-caliber rifle -- were too small to legally hunt musk ox, Cresswell said.
Some villagers on snowmachines were watching and taking pictures of two groups of musk ox when Friend opened fire, Cresswell said.
"There was a large amount of blood, and (the animal) went to the ground and didn't die. But it didn't get back up," Cresswell said.
Three days later, Cresswell and a wildlife biologist performed a necropsy on the animal and found an unborn musk ox inside.
"It was about five days from being born," Cresswell said.
The musk ox meat was donated to charity, troopers said.
Reach Casey Grove at casey.grove@adn.com or 257-4589.
Clam diggers who died were from Calif., Oregon, company says
All five men killed in a boating accident in Cook Inlet this week are from outside of Alaska, and the seafood company they worked for is still trying to determine how they died, the company president says.
The men were aboard a 20-foot skiff that was first reported missing Tuesday afternoon. Co-workers soon found a body washed ashore. By 11 a.m. Wednesday, all five members of the group had been found dead in the area of a commercial clamming camp on the west side of the inlet.
Three of the men were from Oregon and two were from California, said Frank Dulcich, president and chief executive for Oregon-based Pacific Seafood Group.
Pacific Seafood is the parent company of Pacific Alaska Shellfish, which runs a Nikiski processing plant that prepares the razor clams for market. The five dead men worked as contractors for the seafood company.
Dulcich declined to name the men “out of respect for the families,” he said. State troopers also had not publicly identified the men as of this morning, pending notification of their next of kin.
Dulcich, however, said a company representative has met with each man’s family to offer condolences and assistance.
The company declined to name the men’s hometowns.
It was also unclear if all five men are United States citizens.
“To my knowledge, three are and two have work permits,” Dulcich said.
“As of this time we believe that they had work visa permits. That’s our understanding right now. That’s still part of the whole discovery of what and who,” he said.
The clam diggers were paid by the pound for razor clams they dug by hand from a six-mile stretch of shore southwest of Kalgin Island. It’s back-breaking work with beautiful scenery, one employee wrote in 2010. Last year, diggers were paid about 60 cents a pound for harvested clams, a state biologist said.
Workers at the Polly Creek camp regularly use rafts to access the shore and transport clams.
Asked what safety policies the firm has in place to avoid boating accidents, Dulcich said the workers are supplied with life vests, flares and whistles.
Three of the dead men were discovered wearing life vests, according to the U.S. Coast Guard. Two were not.
The seafood company provides water-safety training, Dulcich said. He didn’t know if the men on the skiff had received that training. That would have been the responsibility of the contractor who hired them, he said.
“We’ve never had a fatality around the water over 70 years in business and that’s why all this is very disconcerting,” Dulcich said.
The workers had varying levels of experience — one had worked for the clamming operation for nine years, while another may have been working his first or second year at the camp, Dulcich said.
The company president talked with reporters at a news conference in Oregon Thursday and in a brief phone interview with the Daily News.
Of the 25 people who hold commercial razor clam fishing permits with the state, 10 are from Oregon, eight are from California and six are from Washington state, according to the Commercial Fisheries Entry Commission. The sole Alaskan lists a Soldotna address.
Dulcich declined to comment on how exactly the accident may have occurred.
“Right now, we don’t know what caused this tragedy and until we have the facts, it would be irresponsible to speculate,” he told reporters in Oregon, according to a copy of the remarks.
The Coast Guard and troopers are investigating the cause of the accident, said Coast Guard Petty Officer David Mosley.
Meantime, the aluminum skiff reappeared Wednesday on the mudflats as tides receded, he said. Read The Village, the ADN's blog about rural Alaska, at adn.com/thevillage. Twitter updates: twitter.com/adnvillage. Call Kyle Hopkins at 257-4334.
The men were aboard a 20-foot skiff that was first reported missing Tuesday afternoon. Co-workers soon found a body washed ashore. By 11 a.m. Wednesday, all five members of the group had been found dead in the area of a commercial clamming camp on the west side of the inlet.
Three of the men were from Oregon and two were from California, said Frank Dulcich, president and chief executive for Oregon-based Pacific Seafood Group.
Pacific Seafood is the parent company of Pacific Alaska Shellfish, which runs a Nikiski processing plant that prepares the razor clams for market. The five dead men worked as contractors for the seafood company.
Dulcich declined to name the men “out of respect for the families,” he said. State troopers also had not publicly identified the men as of this morning, pending notification of their next of kin.
Dulcich, however, said a company representative has met with each man’s family to offer condolences and assistance.
The company declined to name the men’s hometowns.
It was also unclear if all five men are United States citizens.
“To my knowledge, three are and two have work permits,” Dulcich said.
“As of this time we believe that they had work visa permits. That’s our understanding right now. That’s still part of the whole discovery of what and who,” he said.
The clam diggers were paid by the pound for razor clams they dug by hand from a six-mile stretch of shore southwest of Kalgin Island. It’s back-breaking work with beautiful scenery, one employee wrote in 2010. Last year, diggers were paid about 60 cents a pound for harvested clams, a state biologist said.
Workers at the Polly Creek camp regularly use rafts to access the shore and transport clams.
Asked what safety policies the firm has in place to avoid boating accidents, Dulcich said the workers are supplied with life vests, flares and whistles.
Three of the dead men were discovered wearing life vests, according to the U.S. Coast Guard. Two were not.
The seafood company provides water-safety training, Dulcich said. He didn’t know if the men on the skiff had received that training. That would have been the responsibility of the contractor who hired them, he said.
“We’ve never had a fatality around the water over 70 years in business and that’s why all this is very disconcerting,” Dulcich said.
The workers had varying levels of experience — one had worked for the clamming operation for nine years, while another may have been working his first or second year at the camp, Dulcich said.
The company president talked with reporters at a news conference in Oregon Thursday and in a brief phone interview with the Daily News.
Of the 25 people who hold commercial razor clam fishing permits with the state, 10 are from Oregon, eight are from California and six are from Washington state, according to the Commercial Fisheries Entry Commission. The sole Alaskan lists a Soldotna address.
Dulcich declined to comment on how exactly the accident may have occurred.
“Right now, we don’t know what caused this tragedy and until we have the facts, it would be irresponsible to speculate,” he told reporters in Oregon, according to a copy of the remarks.
The Coast Guard and troopers are investigating the cause of the accident, said Coast Guard Petty Officer David Mosley.
Meantime, the aluminum skiff reappeared Wednesday on the mudflats as tides receded, he said. Read The Village, the ADN's blog about rural Alaska, at adn.com/thevillage. Twitter updates: twitter.com/adnvillage. Call Kyle Hopkins at 257-4334.
Five clam harvesters perish in Cook Inlet SKIFF VANISHES: Seasonal workers arrived at camp last week.
The U.S. Coast Guard found the bodies of two missing clam diggers Wednesday near a beach on the west side of Cook Inlet, raising the death toll to five after a commercial clamming skiff disappeared.
The men had arrived last week at a nearby camp where they are paid by the pound for digging razor clams along a six-mile stretch of shore southwest of Kalgin Island. The job is back-breaking work performed against a beautiful backdrop, one employee wrote, and is the only clamming operation of its kind on Cook Inlet, according to a state biologist.
A plant manager for Pacific Alaska Shellfish reported the crew's 20-foot aluminum skiff overdue at 3:46 p.m. Tuesday, according to the Coast Guard.
Co-workers found the body of one of the clam diggers washed ashore, the Coast Guard said. Searchers in a helicopter soon spotted two more bodies in the water, about a mile from the beach at Polly Creek, across the Inlet from the Kenai Peninsula.
Four Coast Guard MH-60 Jayhawk helicopters took turns blanketing the shoreline and Inlet overnight in search of the remaining men, with the last two bodies discovered around 11 a.m.
The three men discovered Tuesday were wearing life jackets, the Coast Guard said. The two men found Wednesday, less than a mile away, were not.
Coast Guard and company officials had not publicly identified the five dead men as of Wednesday evening.
"They were using the skiffs to move people around -- as well the clams that they would dig up. ... It was reported that they were going from the Polly Creek area back to the camp when they did not arrive," Petty Officer David Mosley said.
The razor clams are harvested with shovels and buckets between Polly Creek and Crescent River, according to the company website. The clam diggers had been at the camp -- reachable by plane or boat -- since May 12, according to a company spokesman. There were 23 people at the camp before the accident, a spokesman said.
The state manages the commercial clamming operation with a harvest goal of fewer than 400,000 pounds of razor clams in the shell each year, said Pat Shields, a state assistant area management biologist for Fish and Game's commercial fisheries division.
Many of the workers are from out of state, he said. The plant manager has told them many come from California, he said. "They stay in tents and they dig the clams from about mid-May to about mid-August."
When tides allow, the clam diggers walk to the beaches or take a skiff or raft to harvest clams, returning to camp when their buckets are full, said acting spokesman Jason Moore of public relations firm MSI Communications.
Individual workers can harvest about 200 to 250 pounds a day, Shields said. "Some even more." He said he didn't how much the workers made. "The last time I looked (sometime last year) it was about 62 cents a pound."
The eastern shore of Cook Inlet has been set aside for sport harvest of razor clams, with the only commercial digging approved for the western shore, where virtually all of up to 400,000 pounds allowed each year are dug by hand, according to Fish and Game.
Nearly 380,000 pounds of razor clams were harvested on Upper Cook Inlet in 2010, the agency says. Much of it goes to restaurant markets in the Lower 48, Shields said.
An eight-page newsletter titled "Razor Review," provided by the company, describes the Polly Creek operation.
"Each man is paid for what he digs. Two to four guys share a raft. The raft brings out the empty buckets and is filled with a tide's worth of razors," the report says. "The scenery is hard to beat."
Pacific Alaska Shellfish, a subsidiary of Oregon-based Pacific Seafood Group, flies the clams in a small plane from the camp to a seasonal processing plant in Nikiski, where they are shucked, cleaned and vacuum-packed for sale, according to the company website.
A company-owned plane makes several trips a day, Shields said, and workers dig as many as 22 days a month as tides allow.
The packaged clams are sold in Alaska, Washington and Oregon, Moore said.
Pacific Seafood chief executive Frank Dulcich was traveling Wednesday and unavailable for comment, Moore said.
In a prepared statement distributed to media and posted on the Pacific Seafood website, Dulcich said the company is heartbroken by the accident.
"This is the most tragic event in the history of our company. These hard-working and experienced individuals have contracted with our company for many years and are considered close friends and family," Dulcich said.
The crew members killed in the accident are supervised by a longtime contractor for Pacific Alaska Shellfish, the company said. That supervisor was not on board the skiff, Moore said.
"They're not direct employees of the company and so what happens is these guys sort of set their (hours) on when they're going to fish and when they're not going to fish," he said.
The company "will do everything within our power to comfort the family members ... and learn the facts behind this terrible tragedy," Dulcich said in a prepared statement.
The clam diggers held licenses and permit from the state Commercial Fisheries Entry Commission, Department of Environmental Conservation and the Department of Fish and Game, the company said.
The Coast Guard and Alaska State Troopers are investigating to determine the cause of the accident.
The men had arrived last week at a nearby camp where they are paid by the pound for digging razor clams along a six-mile stretch of shore southwest of Kalgin Island. The job is back-breaking work performed against a beautiful backdrop, one employee wrote, and is the only clamming operation of its kind on Cook Inlet, according to a state biologist.
A plant manager for Pacific Alaska Shellfish reported the crew's 20-foot aluminum skiff overdue at 3:46 p.m. Tuesday, according to the Coast Guard.
Co-workers found the body of one of the clam diggers washed ashore, the Coast Guard said. Searchers in a helicopter soon spotted two more bodies in the water, about a mile from the beach at Polly Creek, across the Inlet from the Kenai Peninsula.
Four Coast Guard MH-60 Jayhawk helicopters took turns blanketing the shoreline and Inlet overnight in search of the remaining men, with the last two bodies discovered around 11 a.m.
The three men discovered Tuesday were wearing life jackets, the Coast Guard said. The two men found Wednesday, less than a mile away, were not.
Coast Guard and company officials had not publicly identified the five dead men as of Wednesday evening.
"They were using the skiffs to move people around -- as well the clams that they would dig up. ... It was reported that they were going from the Polly Creek area back to the camp when they did not arrive," Petty Officer David Mosley said.
The razor clams are harvested with shovels and buckets between Polly Creek and Crescent River, according to the company website. The clam diggers had been at the camp -- reachable by plane or boat -- since May 12, according to a company spokesman. There were 23 people at the camp before the accident, a spokesman said.
The state manages the commercial clamming operation with a harvest goal of fewer than 400,000 pounds of razor clams in the shell each year, said Pat Shields, a state assistant area management biologist for Fish and Game's commercial fisheries division.
Many of the workers are from out of state, he said. The plant manager has told them many come from California, he said. "They stay in tents and they dig the clams from about mid-May to about mid-August."
When tides allow, the clam diggers walk to the beaches or take a skiff or raft to harvest clams, returning to camp when their buckets are full, said acting spokesman Jason Moore of public relations firm MSI Communications.
Individual workers can harvest about 200 to 250 pounds a day, Shields said. "Some even more." He said he didn't how much the workers made. "The last time I looked (sometime last year) it was about 62 cents a pound."
The eastern shore of Cook Inlet has been set aside for sport harvest of razor clams, with the only commercial digging approved for the western shore, where virtually all of up to 400,000 pounds allowed each year are dug by hand, according to Fish and Game.
Nearly 380,000 pounds of razor clams were harvested on Upper Cook Inlet in 2010, the agency says. Much of it goes to restaurant markets in the Lower 48, Shields said.
An eight-page newsletter titled "Razor Review," provided by the company, describes the Polly Creek operation.
"Each man is paid for what he digs. Two to four guys share a raft. The raft brings out the empty buckets and is filled with a tide's worth of razors," the report says. "The scenery is hard to beat."
Pacific Alaska Shellfish, a subsidiary of Oregon-based Pacific Seafood Group, flies the clams in a small plane from the camp to a seasonal processing plant in Nikiski, where they are shucked, cleaned and vacuum-packed for sale, according to the company website.
A company-owned plane makes several trips a day, Shields said, and workers dig as many as 22 days a month as tides allow.
The packaged clams are sold in Alaska, Washington and Oregon, Moore said.
Pacific Seafood chief executive Frank Dulcich was traveling Wednesday and unavailable for comment, Moore said.
In a prepared statement distributed to media and posted on the Pacific Seafood website, Dulcich said the company is heartbroken by the accident.
"This is the most tragic event in the history of our company. These hard-working and experienced individuals have contracted with our company for many years and are considered close friends and family," Dulcich said.
The crew members killed in the accident are supervised by a longtime contractor for Pacific Alaska Shellfish, the company said. That supervisor was not on board the skiff, Moore said.
"They're not direct employees of the company and so what happens is these guys sort of set their (hours) on when they're going to fish and when they're not going to fish," he said.
The company "will do everything within our power to comfort the family members ... and learn the facts behind this terrible tragedy," Dulcich said in a prepared statement.
The clam diggers held licenses and permit from the state Commercial Fisheries Entry Commission, Department of Environmental Conservation and the Department of Fish and Game, the company said.
The Coast Guard and Alaska State Troopers are investigating to determine the cause of the accident.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Today's oil, gas, gold, zinc prices
North Slope oil: Not yet available
U.S. natural gas (Henry Hub): $4.15 per million BTU, down $0.10
Gold (N.Y. Mercantile): $1,495.60 per ounce, up $15.80 Zinc: $0.9602 per pound, up 0.84 cents
U.S. natural gas (Henry Hub): $4.15 per million BTU, down $0.10
Gold (N.Y. Mercantile): $1,495.60 per ounce, up $15.80 Zinc: $0.9602 per pound, up 0.84 cents
Kelly Cup series at 2-1 as K-Wings down Aces 4-1
KALAMAZOO, MICH.: Kalamazoo scored twice in the third period for a 4-1 win Wednesday.
After one period in game 3 of the ECHL Championship series, the Alaska Aces and Kalamazoo Wings are knotted-up at 1-1.
The K-Wings struck first with a goal from Mitch Versteeg. The Aces' Dan Kissel tied it up with a goal near the end of the first period.
Kalamazoo's Andrew Fournier scored in the second period to give the K-Wings a 2-1 lead. Check back for more score updates.
After one period in game 3 of the ECHL Championship series, the Alaska Aces and Kalamazoo Wings are knotted-up at 1-1.
The K-Wings struck first with a goal from Mitch Versteeg. The Aces' Dan Kissel tied it up with a goal near the end of the first period.
Kalamazoo's Andrew Fournier scored in the second period to give the K-Wings a 2-1 lead. Check back for more score updates.
State capital budget targets $500 million for Anchorage
Anchorage came out well in the Legislature's capital budget, with about $500 million in state and federal money designated to be spent in the city, Mayor Dan Sullivan said Wednesday.
That counts money for municipal projects as well as the university, school district, state construction and grants to specific organizations. It includes about $350 million in state money and $150 million in federal money. The projects range from $37.5 million for the beleaguered Port of Anchorage expansion to around $20,000 for a Mountain View Elementary School technology upgrade.
Sullivan said the city's priorities -- for example, the port money, and nearly $10 million for renovations to city buildings such as the library, Sullivan Arena, museum and Alaska Center for the Performing Arts -- were covered.
Moreover, Sullivan said he had talked to Gov. Sean Parnell Wednesday, and the governor assured him he supports the $10 million for city buildings.
The Legislature passed a huge capital budget, nearly $4 billion statewide, much more than Parnell has said he would accept. He has said he'd support a capital budget of about $2.8 billion. The governor gets 20 days to decide on vetoes, after the Legislature formally sends the budget to him.
Sullivan said the city will help the governor's office sort through Anchorage projects, for example, by figuring out which road projects are ready to go this year and which can wait.
One of Sullivan's priorities that didn't get through was $4 million to develop the South Anchorage Sports Park at C Street and Klatt Road. Sullivan said the project changed when the city learned the park had too much peat to support a building he had envisioned. He still wants to put in a water system for ball parks, and build a fenced dog park, among other amenities. "I think we can make a better case next year."
Here's a sampling of projects the Legislature funded in Anchorage, in addition to the port work and city building renovations:
• $34 million for a new University of Alaska Anchorage sports arena.
• $20 million in state funds to the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium for a long-term care facility in Anchorage.
• $8 million to expand the Blood Bank of Alaska.
• $6 million for pavement rehabilitation on Anchorage streets.
• $5 million for drainage projects.
• $4.2 million to upgrade the Chugiak-Eagle River Senior Center.
• $3.6 million to continue reconstruction of Ninth Avenue.
• $3 million for a Cook Inlet Tribal Council demonstration project.
• $3 million for a Covenant House Alaska facility.
• $3 million to help renovate West Anchorage High School and Romig Middle School, plus about another half-million dollars for furniture, technology and the like at West.
• $2 million to the Dimond High School Alumni Projects, Inc., to replace the Dimond track.
• $1.5 million for a law enforcement shooting range and $1.4 million for digital video recorders in Anchorage police cars.
• $1.5 million for Muldoon Community Park.
• $715,000 to expand the often over-filled Glen Alps trail head, used to get to Flattop and other areas of Chugach State Park.
Reach Rosemary Shinohara at rshinohara@adn.com or 257-4340.
That counts money for municipal projects as well as the university, school district, state construction and grants to specific organizations. It includes about $350 million in state money and $150 million in federal money. The projects range from $37.5 million for the beleaguered Port of Anchorage expansion to around $20,000 for a Mountain View Elementary School technology upgrade.
Sullivan said the city's priorities -- for example, the port money, and nearly $10 million for renovations to city buildings such as the library, Sullivan Arena, museum and Alaska Center for the Performing Arts -- were covered.
Moreover, Sullivan said he had talked to Gov. Sean Parnell Wednesday, and the governor assured him he supports the $10 million for city buildings.
The Legislature passed a huge capital budget, nearly $4 billion statewide, much more than Parnell has said he would accept. He has said he'd support a capital budget of about $2.8 billion. The governor gets 20 days to decide on vetoes, after the Legislature formally sends the budget to him.
Sullivan said the city will help the governor's office sort through Anchorage projects, for example, by figuring out which road projects are ready to go this year and which can wait.
One of Sullivan's priorities that didn't get through was $4 million to develop the South Anchorage Sports Park at C Street and Klatt Road. Sullivan said the project changed when the city learned the park had too much peat to support a building he had envisioned. He still wants to put in a water system for ball parks, and build a fenced dog park, among other amenities. "I think we can make a better case next year."
Here's a sampling of projects the Legislature funded in Anchorage, in addition to the port work and city building renovations:
• $34 million for a new University of Alaska Anchorage sports arena.
• $20 million in state funds to the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium for a long-term care facility in Anchorage.
• $8 million to expand the Blood Bank of Alaska.
• $6 million for pavement rehabilitation on Anchorage streets.
• $5 million for drainage projects.
• $4.2 million to upgrade the Chugiak-Eagle River Senior Center.
• $3.6 million to continue reconstruction of Ninth Avenue.
• $3 million for a Cook Inlet Tribal Council demonstration project.
• $3 million for a Covenant House Alaska facility.
• $3 million to help renovate West Anchorage High School and Romig Middle School, plus about another half-million dollars for furniture, technology and the like at West.
• $2 million to the Dimond High School Alumni Projects, Inc., to replace the Dimond track.
• $1.5 million for a law enforcement shooting range and $1.4 million for digital video recorders in Anchorage police cars.
• $1.5 million for Muldoon Community Park.
• $715,000 to expand the often over-filled Glen Alps trail head, used to get to Flattop and other areas of Chugach State Park.
Reach Rosemary Shinohara at rshinohara@adn.com or 257-4340.
Bodies of 2 missing clammers found
The U.S. Coast Guard found the bodies of two missing clam diggers today near a Cook Inlet beach, raising the death toll to five after a commercial clamming skiff disappeared Tuesday.
The men had arrived less than a week earlier at a nearby camp where they are paid by the pound for digging razor clams along a six-mile stretch of shore southwest of Kalgin Island.
A plant manager for Pacific Alaska Shellfish reported the crew's 20-foot aluminum skiff overdue at 3:46 p.m. Tuesday, according to the Coast Guard. Co-workers had found the body of one of the clam diggers washed ashore, the Coast Guard said.
A helicopter soon spotted two more bodies in the water, about a mile from the beach at Polly Creek, on the western shore of the inlet.
Four Coast Guard MH-60 Jayhawk helicopters took turns blanketing 800 square miles of the shoreline and inlet overnight in search of the remaining men, with the last two bodies discovered at 11 a.m.
The three men discovered Tuesday were wearing life jackets, the Coast Guard said. The two men found today, less than a mile away, were not.
Coast Guard and company officials had not publicly identified the five dead men as of this afternoon.
"They were using the skiffs to move people around -- as well the clams that they would dig up. ... It was reported that they were going from the Polly Creek area back to the camp when they did not arrive," Petty Officer David Mosley said.
The razor clams are harvested with shovels and buckets between Polly Creek and Crescent River, according to the company website. The area is only accessible between May and August, the website says.
The clam diggers had been at the camp -- which can only be reached by plane or boat -- since May 12, according to a spokesman for the company. There were 23 people at the camp before the accident, a spokesman said.
When the tides allow, the clam diggers walk to the beaches or take a skiff or raft to harvest clams. When their buckets are full, they walk or boat back to camp, said Jason Moore, of Marketing Solutions Inc., an acting spokesman for the company.
The job is back-breaking work in a beautiful setting, according to an eight-page report titled "Razor Review," provided by the company, that describes the Polly Creek operation.
"Each man is paid for what he digs. Two to four guys share a raft. The raft brings out the empty buckets and is filled with a tide's worth of razors," the report says. "The scenery is hard to beat."
Pacific Alaska Shellfish, a subsidiary of Oregon-based Pacific Seafood Group, flies the clams in a small plane from the camp to a seasonal Nikiski processing plant where they are shucked, cleaned and vacuum-packed for sale, according to the company website.
Nikiski is about nine miles north of Kenai. The packaged clams are sold in Alaska, Washington and Oregon, Moore said.
Pacific Seafood chief executive Frank Dulcich was traveling Wednesday and unavailable for comment, Moore said.
In a prepared statement distributed to media and posted on the Pacific Seafood website, Dulcich said the company is heartbroken by the accident.
"This is the most tragic event in the history of our company. These hard-working and experienced individuals have contracted with our company for many years and are considered close friends and family," Dulcich said.
The crew members killed in the accident are supervised by a longtime contractor for Pacific Alaska Shellfish, the company said. That supervisor was not on board the skiff, Moore said.
"They're not direct employees of the company and so what happens is these guys sort of set their (hours) on when they're going to fish and when they're not going to fish," he said.
The company "will do everything within our power to comfort the family members, support ongoing search and rescue operations and learn the facts behind this terrible tragedy," Dulcich said in a prepared statement.
"Our thoughts and prayers are with the deceased, the missing and their families," he said.
The missing aluminum skiff was owned by the seafood company, according to the Coast Guard.
The clam diggers held licenses and permit from the state Commercial Fisheries Entry Commission, Department of Environmental Conservation and the Department of Fish and Game, the company said.
The Coast Guard and Alaska State Troopers are investigating to determine the cause of the accident.
Call Kyle Hopkins at 257-4334 or e-mail khopkins@adn.com.
The men had arrived less than a week earlier at a nearby camp where they are paid by the pound for digging razor clams along a six-mile stretch of shore southwest of Kalgin Island.
A plant manager for Pacific Alaska Shellfish reported the crew's 20-foot aluminum skiff overdue at 3:46 p.m. Tuesday, according to the Coast Guard. Co-workers had found the body of one of the clam diggers washed ashore, the Coast Guard said.
A helicopter soon spotted two more bodies in the water, about a mile from the beach at Polly Creek, on the western shore of the inlet.
Four Coast Guard MH-60 Jayhawk helicopters took turns blanketing 800 square miles of the shoreline and inlet overnight in search of the remaining men, with the last two bodies discovered at 11 a.m.
The three men discovered Tuesday were wearing life jackets, the Coast Guard said. The two men found today, less than a mile away, were not.
Coast Guard and company officials had not publicly identified the five dead men as of this afternoon.
"They were using the skiffs to move people around -- as well the clams that they would dig up. ... It was reported that they were going from the Polly Creek area back to the camp when they did not arrive," Petty Officer David Mosley said.
The razor clams are harvested with shovels and buckets between Polly Creek and Crescent River, according to the company website. The area is only accessible between May and August, the website says.
The clam diggers had been at the camp -- which can only be reached by plane or boat -- since May 12, according to a spokesman for the company. There were 23 people at the camp before the accident, a spokesman said.
When the tides allow, the clam diggers walk to the beaches or take a skiff or raft to harvest clams. When their buckets are full, they walk or boat back to camp, said Jason Moore, of Marketing Solutions Inc., an acting spokesman for the company.
The job is back-breaking work in a beautiful setting, according to an eight-page report titled "Razor Review," provided by the company, that describes the Polly Creek operation.
"Each man is paid for what he digs. Two to four guys share a raft. The raft brings out the empty buckets and is filled with a tide's worth of razors," the report says. "The scenery is hard to beat."
Pacific Alaska Shellfish, a subsidiary of Oregon-based Pacific Seafood Group, flies the clams in a small plane from the camp to a seasonal Nikiski processing plant where they are shucked, cleaned and vacuum-packed for sale, according to the company website.
Nikiski is about nine miles north of Kenai. The packaged clams are sold in Alaska, Washington and Oregon, Moore said.
Pacific Seafood chief executive Frank Dulcich was traveling Wednesday and unavailable for comment, Moore said.
In a prepared statement distributed to media and posted on the Pacific Seafood website, Dulcich said the company is heartbroken by the accident.
"This is the most tragic event in the history of our company. These hard-working and experienced individuals have contracted with our company for many years and are considered close friends and family," Dulcich said.
The crew members killed in the accident are supervised by a longtime contractor for Pacific Alaska Shellfish, the company said. That supervisor was not on board the skiff, Moore said.
"They're not direct employees of the company and so what happens is these guys sort of set their (hours) on when they're going to fish and when they're not going to fish," he said.
The company "will do everything within our power to comfort the family members, support ongoing search and rescue operations and learn the facts behind this terrible tragedy," Dulcich said in a prepared statement.
"Our thoughts and prayers are with the deceased, the missing and their families," he said.
The missing aluminum skiff was owned by the seafood company, according to the Coast Guard.
The clam diggers held licenses and permit from the state Commercial Fisheries Entry Commission, Department of Environmental Conservation and the Department of Fish and Game, the company said.
The Coast Guard and Alaska State Troopers are investigating to determine the cause of the accident.
Call Kyle Hopkins at 257-4334 or e-mail khopkins@adn.com.
Copper River salmon should arrive soon IN STORES: Fish could be at 10th & M Seafoods and New Sagaya markets today.
When the salmon start returning to the Copper River, you know it's a good week. Throw in an extra local farmers market opening up, and it gets even better.
The Copper River salmon fishery opened Monday and both John Jackson at New Sagaya Markets and Dannon Southall from 10th & M Seafoods say fish should be in the stores by today. (While fresh salmon needs no adornment, check out the recipe at the end of the story for a new twist.)
"Sounds like fishing was good yesterday with a fair amount of fish hitting the docks," Southall says. "The fishermen were able to get a good number of sockeyes with a few kings mixed in with them."
Both New Sagaya and 10th & M should have both sockeye and kings in the store today.
Jackson says the kings aren't coming on as strong as the sockeyes: "Kings are starting out slow again and availability is very limited, but the season is just starting so we will see what happens this year."
While the first of the year Copper River salmon are getting plenty of attention, Southall reminds shoppers to not forget the "other amazing Alaskan seafood available too." That includes: fresh halibut for $19.95 per pound for fillets and $18.95/pound for cheeks; fresh Prince William Sound spot shrimp for $16.95/pound and side-stripes for $10.95/pound; Gulf of Alaska we have fresh cod and rockfish fillets going for $5.95/pound and $8.95/pound respectively. Another salmon option is Southeast troll-caught kings for $14.95/pound for head-on fish and $18.95/pound for fillets.
While everyone is excited about fresh salmon, Jackson reminds shoppers that other options are plentiful. "The halibut is looking good this season, a lot of small fish, but great eating and easy to work with," he says. New Sagaya has fresh halibut in 10- to 20-pound sizes for $8.99/pound. They also have cod, rockfish and side-stripe shrimp. And they also have a supply of fish from other waters: cherrystone clams, squid, scallops, scups, and fresh big eye and yellow fin tuna from Hawaii.
Farmers markets
The Spenard Farmers Market joins the roundup Saturday, expecting a full market of 40 vendors along with live music.
Spokesperson Shannon Kuhn says the market will feature plenty of plant starts and fresh seafood, while Back Acres will be playing. Among the vendors will be Northern Lights Oysters and Chugach Farm, an off-the-grid homestead farm from Chickaloon with gluten free bread and homemade pestos.
Part of Saturday's kickoff celebration is a birthday bash for Joe Spenard. Special items will include Alaska grown carrot cupcakes and party favors from local Spenard businesses like Bella Boutique, Bear Tooth and Spenard Road House. Marketgoers will have a chance to win party favors.
The Spenard Market will be accepting food stamp Quest cards, one of just two markets in the state doing so during the summer market season.
For more information, visit www.spenardfarmersmarket.org.
There will be plenty going on the south side of town at the South Anchorage Farmers Market. Nancy Lampman says they will have loads of vendors and two special events: the Northrim Purple Plant contest and a Glacier Pilots booth with information and ticket packages for sale.
Among the vendors are plenty offering plant starts, including:
Glacier Valley Farm: Hanging strawberry baskets and hanging Tumbling Tomato planters.
Bearsden Gardens: Loads of herbs including Genovese, lemon, cinnamon, Thai, and globe basil; dill; parsley; cilantro; and tarragon; tomato starts; hanging baskets; and of perennial and annual flowers.
Mountain Organics: Vegetable and herb starter plants, including cilantro, lettuces and arugula. Joining the booth this week is Ellie VandeVisse of the Good Earth Gardening school and author of "Ask Mother Nature."
Gray Owl Farm: Plenty of component plants for filling in planters or boxes, along with hanging baskets and edible and aromatic "gourmet" geraniums. They also will perennials, including several varieties of ornamental grasses.
Other non-plant vendors include: Denali Kettle Corn with multiple varieties, including Parmesan and garlic, and English toffee; Arctic Choice with plenty of seafood including fresh halibut, troll-caught king salmon, sablefish fillets, side-stripe shrimp, cod and rockfish; Matanuska Creamery with cheese curds and other items; French Oven Bakery items including whole wheat cinnamon rolls; and Mat Valley Meats with a variety of meats and sausages.
At the Anchorage Farmers Market, about 10 vendors will gather, including: Arctic Organics, Seldovitsch Family Farm, Persistent Farmer, Matanuska Creamery, Bushes Bunches, Turkey Red Cafe, Three Bears Farm, Matanuska Gardens, Arctic Sun Gardening and Floriponics. Among the items available will be plant starts, hanging baskets, tomato plants, a few early greens, 2010 potatoes, local dairy products and fresh rustic breads.
The Center Market is open today and Saturday.
Duane Clark will be at the market with local beef, frozen Alaska seafood, local honey, popcorn and French Oven Bakery breads and sweets. Alex Davis of A.D. Farm will have plenty of pork cuts, including chops, roasts, steaks and sausage; chicken and duck eggs; jams; and storage parsnips.
Salmon with
maple-lemon glaze
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
2 tablespoons maple syrup
1 tablespoon cider vinegar
1 tablespoon canola oil
4 (6-ounce) skinless salmon fillets
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Cooking spray
Preheat broiler.
Combine first four ingredients in a large zip-top bag. Add fish to bag; seal. Refrigerate 10 minutes, turning bag once.
Remove fish from bag, reserving marinade. Place marinade in microwave-safe bowl. Microwave on high for 1 minute.
Heat a large ovenproof nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Sprinkle fish evenly with salt and pepper. Coat fry pan with cooking spray. Add fish to pan; cook 3 minutes. Turn fish over. Brush marinade evenly over fish. Broil 3 minutes, or until fish flakes easily.
Yield: 4 servings.
Note: 287 calories, 14 g fat.
Source: "Mix and Match Low-Calorie Cookbook: 1,500 Calories a Day" by Cooking Light magazine (Oxmoor House, $24.95)
Steve Edwards lives and writes in Anchorage. If you have a suggestion for a future Market Fresh column, please contact him at sedwards@adn.com.
Local farmers markets
Today: Center Market, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., University Center mall
Friday: Palmer Friday Fling, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. at the Pavilion across from Visitor’s Center
Saturday: Anchorage Farmers Market, 10 a.m to 2 p.m. at 15th and Cordova in the Central Lutheran Church parking lot; Anchorage Market and Festival, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Third Avenue between C and E streets; Center Market, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., University Center mall; South Anchorage Farmers Market, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., Subway/Cellular One Sports Center at the corner of Old Seward Highway and O’Malley Road; Spenard Farmers Market, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Spenard Road and 26th Avenue
Sunday: Anchorage Market and Festival, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Third Avenue between C and E streets
The Copper River salmon fishery opened Monday and both John Jackson at New Sagaya Markets and Dannon Southall from 10th & M Seafoods say fish should be in the stores by today. (While fresh salmon needs no adornment, check out the recipe at the end of the story for a new twist.)
"Sounds like fishing was good yesterday with a fair amount of fish hitting the docks," Southall says. "The fishermen were able to get a good number of sockeyes with a few kings mixed in with them."
Both New Sagaya and 10th & M should have both sockeye and kings in the store today.
Jackson says the kings aren't coming on as strong as the sockeyes: "Kings are starting out slow again and availability is very limited, but the season is just starting so we will see what happens this year."
While the first of the year Copper River salmon are getting plenty of attention, Southall reminds shoppers to not forget the "other amazing Alaskan seafood available too." That includes: fresh halibut for $19.95 per pound for fillets and $18.95/pound for cheeks; fresh Prince William Sound spot shrimp for $16.95/pound and side-stripes for $10.95/pound; Gulf of Alaska we have fresh cod and rockfish fillets going for $5.95/pound and $8.95/pound respectively. Another salmon option is Southeast troll-caught kings for $14.95/pound for head-on fish and $18.95/pound for fillets.
While everyone is excited about fresh salmon, Jackson reminds shoppers that other options are plentiful. "The halibut is looking good this season, a lot of small fish, but great eating and easy to work with," he says. New Sagaya has fresh halibut in 10- to 20-pound sizes for $8.99/pound. They also have cod, rockfish and side-stripe shrimp. And they also have a supply of fish from other waters: cherrystone clams, squid, scallops, scups, and fresh big eye and yellow fin tuna from Hawaii.
Farmers markets
The Spenard Farmers Market joins the roundup Saturday, expecting a full market of 40 vendors along with live music.
Spokesperson Shannon Kuhn says the market will feature plenty of plant starts and fresh seafood, while Back Acres will be playing. Among the vendors will be Northern Lights Oysters and Chugach Farm, an off-the-grid homestead farm from Chickaloon with gluten free bread and homemade pestos.
Part of Saturday's kickoff celebration is a birthday bash for Joe Spenard. Special items will include Alaska grown carrot cupcakes and party favors from local Spenard businesses like Bella Boutique, Bear Tooth and Spenard Road House. Marketgoers will have a chance to win party favors.
The Spenard Market will be accepting food stamp Quest cards, one of just two markets in the state doing so during the summer market season.
For more information, visit www.spenardfarmersmarket.org.
There will be plenty going on the south side of town at the South Anchorage Farmers Market. Nancy Lampman says they will have loads of vendors and two special events: the Northrim Purple Plant contest and a Glacier Pilots booth with information and ticket packages for sale.
Among the vendors are plenty offering plant starts, including:
Glacier Valley Farm: Hanging strawberry baskets and hanging Tumbling Tomato planters.
Bearsden Gardens: Loads of herbs including Genovese, lemon, cinnamon, Thai, and globe basil; dill; parsley; cilantro; and tarragon; tomato starts; hanging baskets; and of perennial and annual flowers.
Mountain Organics: Vegetable and herb starter plants, including cilantro, lettuces and arugula. Joining the booth this week is Ellie VandeVisse of the Good Earth Gardening school and author of "Ask Mother Nature."
Gray Owl Farm: Plenty of component plants for filling in planters or boxes, along with hanging baskets and edible and aromatic "gourmet" geraniums. They also will perennials, including several varieties of ornamental grasses.
Other non-plant vendors include: Denali Kettle Corn with multiple varieties, including Parmesan and garlic, and English toffee; Arctic Choice with plenty of seafood including fresh halibut, troll-caught king salmon, sablefish fillets, side-stripe shrimp, cod and rockfish; Matanuska Creamery with cheese curds and other items; French Oven Bakery items including whole wheat cinnamon rolls; and Mat Valley Meats with a variety of meats and sausages.
At the Anchorage Farmers Market, about 10 vendors will gather, including: Arctic Organics, Seldovitsch Family Farm, Persistent Farmer, Matanuska Creamery, Bushes Bunches, Turkey Red Cafe, Three Bears Farm, Matanuska Gardens, Arctic Sun Gardening and Floriponics. Among the items available will be plant starts, hanging baskets, tomato plants, a few early greens, 2010 potatoes, local dairy products and fresh rustic breads.
The Center Market is open today and Saturday.
Duane Clark will be at the market with local beef, frozen Alaska seafood, local honey, popcorn and French Oven Bakery breads and sweets. Alex Davis of A.D. Farm will have plenty of pork cuts, including chops, roasts, steaks and sausage; chicken and duck eggs; jams; and storage parsnips.
Salmon with
maple-lemon glaze
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
2 tablespoons maple syrup
1 tablespoon cider vinegar
1 tablespoon canola oil
4 (6-ounce) skinless salmon fillets
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Cooking spray
Preheat broiler.
Combine first four ingredients in a large zip-top bag. Add fish to bag; seal. Refrigerate 10 minutes, turning bag once.
Remove fish from bag, reserving marinade. Place marinade in microwave-safe bowl. Microwave on high for 1 minute.
Heat a large ovenproof nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Sprinkle fish evenly with salt and pepper. Coat fry pan with cooking spray. Add fish to pan; cook 3 minutes. Turn fish over. Brush marinade evenly over fish. Broil 3 minutes, or until fish flakes easily.
Yield: 4 servings.
Note: 287 calories, 14 g fat.
Source: "Mix and Match Low-Calorie Cookbook: 1,500 Calories a Day" by Cooking Light magazine (Oxmoor House, $24.95)
Steve Edwards lives and writes in Anchorage. If you have a suggestion for a future Market Fresh column, please contact him at sedwards@adn.com.
Local farmers markets
Today: Center Market, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., University Center mall
Friday: Palmer Friday Fling, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. at the Pavilion across from Visitor’s Center
Saturday: Anchorage Farmers Market, 10 a.m to 2 p.m. at 15th and Cordova in the Central Lutheran Church parking lot; Anchorage Market and Festival, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Third Avenue between C and E streets; Center Market, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., University Center mall; South Anchorage Farmers Market, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., Subway/Cellular One Sports Center at the corner of Old Seward Highway and O’Malley Road; Spenard Farmers Market, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Spenard Road and 26th Avenue
Sunday: Anchorage Market and Festival, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Third Avenue between C and E streets
3 clam diggers found dead in Cook Inlet
The U.S. Coast Guard says three clam diggers have been found dead in Cook Inlet after reports that their skiff had run into trouble.
Petty Officer David Mosley said a Coast Guard rescue crew was responding to a report Tuesday of five missing clam diggers southwest of Kalgin Island in Cook Inlet. The crew quickly discovered two men dead about 1,700 yards from the shore. Workers from Pacific Alaska Shellfish, where the clam diggers worked, found a third man dead.
It's not clear what took down the men's 20-foot aluminum skiff. The company said the men were in transit after a day digging for clams. The Coast Guard received a distress signal around 4 p.m.The Coast Guard is still looking for the other two missing men.
Petty Officer David Mosley said a Coast Guard rescue crew was responding to a report Tuesday of five missing clam diggers southwest of Kalgin Island in Cook Inlet. The crew quickly discovered two men dead about 1,700 yards from the shore. Workers from Pacific Alaska Shellfish, where the clam diggers worked, found a third man dead.
It's not clear what took down the men's 20-foot aluminum skiff. The company said the men were in transit after a day digging for clams. The Coast Guard received a distress signal around 4 p.m.The Coast Guard is still looking for the other two missing men.
Monday, May 16, 2011
Busted, then grounded: Alaska skipper has 'year from hell' so far
First Fred Rodolf lost his handguns. Now he may have lost his tour boat and his livelihood. The longtime Valdez tour captain and his wife headed north from their winter home in Washington this month and almost immediately got into trouble: Rodolf, 72, was busted by Canadian authorities for having handguns aboard his boat, the Lu-Lu Belle. After Rodolf posted $2,000 bail, they continued their journey north, reports The Peninsula Daily News of Port Angeles, Wash.
But things got worse: They ran the Lu-Lu Belle aground in Prince William Sound on Saturday and had to be rescued by the Coast Guard. They weren't hurt in the grounding, and no fuel was spilled. "We were tired, and we grounded the boat," Megan Rodolf said.
The Lu-Lu Belle is being towed to Valdez today, the Coast Guard says. Meanwhile, Fred Rodolf could be facing a year in jail or more on the Canadian gun charges, which include making a false statement to customs officers. It's well known among Alaska travelers that Canadians don't like handguns crossing their borders, but the Rodolfs say they were simply in a hurry to get to Valdez and forgot they had the loaded guns aboard.
From The Peninsula Daily News:
Rodolf called Customs Canada upon his arrival in the Gulf Islands. A Canada Border Services officer asked if he had any weapons aboard. Rodolf said that he had a shotgun, [his Canadian lawyer Tom] Morino said.
Officers boarded the vessel and noticed a box of .38 caliber bullets beside a box of shotgun shells.
Rodolf first denied having any other weapons aboard, but within five minutes he admitted having three loaded handguns aboard and showed them to the officers, Morino said.
"He forgot about them, and then he remembered about them," Megan Rodolf said Sunday. "It was a bad mistake to make - forgetting that he had them."
... "He does not belong there [in jail]," Megan Rodolf said. "He does not have a criminal bone in his body."
A spokeswoman for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police told the Victoria Times Colonist that Americans regularly violate Canadian handgun laws. Some know the law and think they'll get away with it; others are clueless. "They carry handguns around in the pockets like Smarties. To them, owning guns is commonplace. It's a fundamental right and their beliefs are deep-rooted. But we're very different," she said.
Read more at The Peninsula Daily News and at the Victoria (B.C.) Times Colonist.
But things got worse: They ran the Lu-Lu Belle aground in Prince William Sound on Saturday and had to be rescued by the Coast Guard. They weren't hurt in the grounding, and no fuel was spilled. "We were tired, and we grounded the boat," Megan Rodolf said.
The Lu-Lu Belle is being towed to Valdez today, the Coast Guard says. Meanwhile, Fred Rodolf could be facing a year in jail or more on the Canadian gun charges, which include making a false statement to customs officers. It's well known among Alaska travelers that Canadians don't like handguns crossing their borders, but the Rodolfs say they were simply in a hurry to get to Valdez and forgot they had the loaded guns aboard.
From The Peninsula Daily News:
Rodolf called Customs Canada upon his arrival in the Gulf Islands. A Canada Border Services officer asked if he had any weapons aboard. Rodolf said that he had a shotgun, [his Canadian lawyer Tom] Morino said.
Officers boarded the vessel and noticed a box of .38 caliber bullets beside a box of shotgun shells.
Rodolf first denied having any other weapons aboard, but within five minutes he admitted having three loaded handguns aboard and showed them to the officers, Morino said.
"He forgot about them, and then he remembered about them," Megan Rodolf said Sunday. "It was a bad mistake to make - forgetting that he had them."
... "He does not belong there [in jail]," Megan Rodolf said. "He does not have a criminal bone in his body."
A spokeswoman for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police told the Victoria Times Colonist that Americans regularly violate Canadian handgun laws. Some know the law and think they'll get away with it; others are clueless. "They carry handguns around in the pockets like Smarties. To them, owning guns is commonplace. It's a fundamental right and their beliefs are deep-rooted. But we're very different," she said.
Read more at The Peninsula Daily News and at the Victoria (B.C.) Times Colonist.
3 hurt in early-morning medevac crash near Atqasuk
BARROW -- Only minor injuries have been reported after a medevac plane crashed near Barrow early Monday morning.
North Slope Borough Police Department Chief Leon Boyea says a Beechcraft King Air was going to Atqasuk on the medevac mission when it went down about seven miles from the village.
KTUU reports there were three people aboard, all North Slope Borough employees.
Boyea says he doesn't know the extent of the injuries but they are reportedly minor in nature. All three were transported back to Barrow.
The airplane was operated by North Slope Borough Search and Rescue. The crash was reported about 3 a.m.
North Slope Borough Police Department Chief Leon Boyea says a Beechcraft King Air was going to Atqasuk on the medevac mission when it went down about seven miles from the village.
KTUU reports there were three people aboard, all North Slope Borough employees.
Boyea says he doesn't know the extent of the injuries but they are reportedly minor in nature. All three were transported back to Barrow.
The airplane was operated by North Slope Borough Search and Rescue. The crash was reported about 3 a.m.
Former Nome fire chief in critical condition after bear attack
Wes Perkins is a longtime member of the Nome Volunteer Fire Department. (2003 photo by Bob Hallinen/Anchorage Daily News)
2 P.M. UPDATE: Wes Perkins, 54, is in critical condition at the intensive care unit of Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, a spokeswoman said.
Meantime, Alaska State Troopers just sent this description of the attack, saying Perkins was with a group that had been tracking the bear on snowmachines just prior to the attack:
Yesterday Wes Perkins went on a spring bear hunt with two other men. The three had spotted a large brown bear and were tracking it via snowmachines.
Perkins was riding ahead of the two other men when he passed the bear, which had gone down by a creek and laid down in the deep snow. He drove about 70 feet further then turned his snowmachine around. The bear charged Perkins.
Perkins was still on his snowmachine handling gear and was not able to get out of the way. The other men in his hunting party were able to shoot the bear. It wandered away and died.
The men contacted help via a hand-held they had with them. The incident occurred sometime around 3 p.m. and was reported to troopers at approximately 3:45 p.m.
A helicopter retrieved Perkins and transported him to the hospital. He is receiving further treatment from a hospital out of state. The brown bear died and was salvaged. The other two men were able to return to Nome yesterday evening. Today an AWT trooper conducted interviews and flew out to survey the scene.
ORIGINAL POST:
From Kyle Hopkins in Anchorage --
Alaska State Troopers are investigating a bear mauling reported Sunday east of Nome.
The victim, Wes Perkins, was attacked near an area called Skookum Pass, trooper spokeswoman Megan Peters said.
Peters did not know Perkins' condition. He was taken to the Nome hospital following the attack, then flown outside the city for treatment, she said.
As of 10:30 a.m. today he was out of surgery and has been placed in an induced coma, said Maryjane Sipes, Perkins' co-worker in Nome.
"His wife and kids are with him," Sipes said.
Perkins is the former chief of the Nome volunteer fire department and now works for the telecommunication company TelAlaska. A spokeswoman said Perkins was not on the job at the time of the attack.
A member of his party shot the bear, which has been skinned and salvaged, Peters said.
Troopers had few details about the mauling this morning.
A wildlife trooper in Nome was unavailable. No one at the Nome Police Department or emergency services was available to talk about the incident.
Perkins works as Nome area supervisor for TelAlaska. He graduated from Nome Public Schools and the University of Alaska Fairbanks, according to a TelAlaska news release that announced his hire.
He has worked for the school district, the Department of Transportation and Nome Joint Utilities, the company says.
Perkins has served on the Nome Volunteer Fire Department for more than 30 years, including a seven-year stint as fire chief that ended in 2007, according to TelAlaska.
He is also a training officer for the Nome Volunteer Ambulance Department, the company says.
This is a developing story. Check back later for updates. If you live in the Nome area and would like to talk to a reporter about this incident, email Kyle Hopkins at khopkins@adn.com or call me at 257-4334 or 1-800-478-4200 ext 334.
Italian climber killed in 1,000-foot fall on Mount McKinley
Unroped Italian climber Luciano Colombo, 67, slipped while making a steep traverse near Denali Pass and fell 1,000 feet to his death on Mount McKinley Monday morning.
The accident was the second fatality on North America's highest peak in less than a week. On Thursday, Swiss climber Beat Niederer, 38, died at the 18,000-foot level. A cause of Niederer's death has not been established, but several climbers in his party suffered from severe frostbite in the wind-whipped, sub-zero cold that battered McKinley last week.
On Monday, several climbers at the 17,200-foot high saw Colombo fall about 10 a.m.
Ranger Matt Hendrickson with the National Park Service and three fellow patrollers were able to reach Columbo and confirm that he had perished. Two of Columbo's teammates were traveling farther ahead at the time of the fall, which happened in clear weather with calm winds.
Columbo's body was taken to the 17,200-foot camp, and it will be recovered.
The accident was the second fatality on North America's highest peak in less than a week. On Thursday, Swiss climber Beat Niederer, 38, died at the 18,000-foot level. A cause of Niederer's death has not been established, but several climbers in his party suffered from severe frostbite in the wind-whipped, sub-zero cold that battered McKinley last week.
On Monday, several climbers at the 17,200-foot high saw Colombo fall about 10 a.m.
Ranger Matt Hendrickson with the National Park Service and three fellow patrollers were able to reach Columbo and confirm that he had perished. Two of Columbo's teammates were traveling farther ahead at the time of the fall, which happened in clear weather with calm winds.
Columbo's body was taken to the 17,200-foot camp, and it will be recovered.
Donley wins her eighth Gold Nugget Triathlon
Smiles were plentiful Sunday at the 29th Gold Nugget Triathlon at Bartlett High, as athletes and spectators enjoyed warmer, sunnier weather than they were used to, and then welcomed a winner they've gotten quite used to seeing in recent years.
When Shannon Donley cruised across the finish line, she tied the record for most victories in the event, matching Alice Godfred's eight. The win gave Donley her second three-peat, having also completed a trio of wins in 2002. She finished the 500-yard swim, 14-mile bike ride and 5-kilometer run in 1 hour, 5 minutes, 7 seconds.
Donley, 39, said the weather was some of the best she has ever seen for the event, but entering the cool, spring air after completing the initial swim in the Bartlett pool still created a challenge.
"Even on a day like this, I was freezing on the bike," Donley said.
She trailed several racers when she got out of the pool, but Donley pedaled her way to the lead during the biking portion and held off a hard-charging Kikkan Randall on the final run.
Randall, a three-time Olympic nordic skier, was in fourth place when she got off her bike, but overtook Kinsey Loan and Amber Stull during the run on the Glenn Highway bike trail.
Stull was in second place, about 30 seconds behind Donley, when she hit the running trail, and said Randall didn't catch her until the end was near.
"It was less than a mile," she said. "Little stinker."
Randall, the 2005 champion, said she likes the running portion of the race, because it's an out-and-back trail where she can see the runners ahead of her and gauge how fast she needs to go to catch them.
"It pushed me to go faster," she said.
There were 1,540 athletes pushing themselves Sunday, many doing so for the first time, and feeling lucky to have made the list of participants. Due to a new online registration process earlier this year, the event completely filled up in less than 30 minutes.
Sarah Murray, a 30-year-old medical biller, signed up because one of her co-workers thought it would be something fun to experience together, and Murray had a helping hand with the registration process.
"My fabulous husband did it for me," she said.
Murray, who was a swimmer in high school, said she was feeling nervous before her start, in part because she wasn't sure what to expect, but also because her doctor recently told her she was pregnant.
"They said not to be too competitive," she said.
Veronica Vania, 48, entered her first Golden Nugget in 1993, and said one of the best things about the race is the wide range of athletes who can enter and enjoy it. She has raced in the front with the top-seeded athletes and in the back with the casual crowd, and said she always has a good time.
One of Vania's training companions, Martha Marlow, didn't even know how to swim when she decided to start training for the Gold Nugget, more than 10 years ago. This year, the 33 year old turned in her most competitive time, finishing in 1:13:19 and taking 14th place.
Marlow said she was so determined to make sure she got in the Gold Nugget, she used three computers to make sure she beat the rush on registration day.
"It's a group of women celebrating," said Marlow. "It's a positive atmosphere."
Gold Nugget Triathlon
Bartlett High
Sunday's results
Top ten -- 1) Shannon Donley, 1:05:07; 2) Kikkan Randall, 1:05:32; 3) Amber Stull, 1:08:09; 4) Kinsey Loan, 1:08:55; 5) Danell Winn, 1:09:19; 6) Kristi Waythomas, 1:09:19; 7) Larrell Lockard, 1:10:46; 8) Erin Beam, 1:11:34; 9) Natasha Bergt, 1:11:54; 10: Deane Watson, 1:12:13.
When Shannon Donley cruised across the finish line, she tied the record for most victories in the event, matching Alice Godfred's eight. The win gave Donley her second three-peat, having also completed a trio of wins in 2002. She finished the 500-yard swim, 14-mile bike ride and 5-kilometer run in 1 hour, 5 minutes, 7 seconds.
Donley, 39, said the weather was some of the best she has ever seen for the event, but entering the cool, spring air after completing the initial swim in the Bartlett pool still created a challenge.
"Even on a day like this, I was freezing on the bike," Donley said.
She trailed several racers when she got out of the pool, but Donley pedaled her way to the lead during the biking portion and held off a hard-charging Kikkan Randall on the final run.
Randall, a three-time Olympic nordic skier, was in fourth place when she got off her bike, but overtook Kinsey Loan and Amber Stull during the run on the Glenn Highway bike trail.
Stull was in second place, about 30 seconds behind Donley, when she hit the running trail, and said Randall didn't catch her until the end was near.
"It was less than a mile," she said. "Little stinker."
Randall, the 2005 champion, said she likes the running portion of the race, because it's an out-and-back trail where she can see the runners ahead of her and gauge how fast she needs to go to catch them.
"It pushed me to go faster," she said.
There were 1,540 athletes pushing themselves Sunday, many doing so for the first time, and feeling lucky to have made the list of participants. Due to a new online registration process earlier this year, the event completely filled up in less than 30 minutes.
Sarah Murray, a 30-year-old medical biller, signed up because one of her co-workers thought it would be something fun to experience together, and Murray had a helping hand with the registration process.
"My fabulous husband did it for me," she said.
Murray, who was a swimmer in high school, said she was feeling nervous before her start, in part because she wasn't sure what to expect, but also because her doctor recently told her she was pregnant.
"They said not to be too competitive," she said.
Veronica Vania, 48, entered her first Golden Nugget in 1993, and said one of the best things about the race is the wide range of athletes who can enter and enjoy it. She has raced in the front with the top-seeded athletes and in the back with the casual crowd, and said she always has a good time.
One of Vania's training companions, Martha Marlow, didn't even know how to swim when she decided to start training for the Gold Nugget, more than 10 years ago. This year, the 33 year old turned in her most competitive time, finishing in 1:13:19 and taking 14th place.
Marlow said she was so determined to make sure she got in the Gold Nugget, she used three computers to make sure she beat the rush on registration day.
"It's a group of women celebrating," said Marlow. "It's a positive atmosphere."
Gold Nugget Triathlon
Bartlett High
Sunday's results
Top ten -- 1) Shannon Donley, 1:05:07; 2) Kikkan Randall, 1:05:32; 3) Amber Stull, 1:08:09; 4) Kinsey Loan, 1:08:55; 5) Danell Winn, 1:09:19; 6) Kristi Waythomas, 1:09:19; 7) Larrell Lockard, 1:10:46; 8) Erin Beam, 1:11:34; 9) Natasha Bergt, 1:11:54; 10: Deane Watson, 1:12:13.
The long goodbye for Afghanistan deployment
FAIRBANKS -- The five minutes before the initial moment of separation is the hardest part of deployment, said Lt. Col. Brian Payne, commander of the 1-5 Infantry Battalion.
"As you're moving down towards deployment, the time is clicking down for how much time you've got with that person," Payne said. "The minute you're out of sight of each other, the clock shifts too. The minute you leave 'em, the clock flips and it's how much time 'til I get to see 'em again."
The clock has flipped for the 4,000 soldiers of the 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 25th Division, who will be deployed in southern Afghanistan for one year under the command of Col. Todd Wood. The month-long process of shipping out began in April and winds up today.
This is the brigade's third deployment. About 40 percent of the soldiers are being deployed for the first time.
"My job is to get our units ready to go and get our families ready to stay," said United States Army Alaska Commanding General Maj. Gen. Raymond Palumbo during the 1/25 SBCT deployment ceremony April 7 at Fort Wainwright. Soldiers and their families have been preparing for this deployment the past 18 months with various exercises, including full-spectrum training in February at the National Training Center near Fort Irwin, Calif.
"It's with great pride and optimism that I report to you today that the Stryker Brigade Combat Team is ready to go," Palumbo said.
After their return from the National Training Center, most soldiers went on block leave for two weeks. The soldiers and their families began final preparations for the impeding deployment to Afghanistan.
Payne said that he realized the importance of looking for opportunities where he could create time for his soldiers. He framed the situation as a question: "How do I still get some training I still gotta get done, but how would I carve time so the guy's got an extra uninterrupted time with his family?"
"When I look out here what I see is family." Payne said, commenting about a recent Family Readiness Group meeting. "And I care about all of you the same way I care about my own. We want to do our best to make sure we do our job and come back with honor, dignity and respect.
"And that we come home."
In their final weeks together, families took every opportunity to spend time together. At the Father-Daughter Ball, girls twirled in tulle skirts with their dads at the "Secret Garden" gala. Stryker couples of the 5-1 Cavalry Squadron renewed their vows at the Door of Hope Church in Fairbanks. Families like that of 1 st Sgt. Larry Addy and wife Angela hosted a fish fry and corn bread feed at their home for friends and family of 1-5 Infantry Battalion soldiers.
Staff Sgt. Faafetia Tufi's family made the 2-8 Field Artillery Battalion's departure special by giving him a big American-Samoan sendoff. His wife, Malo, wore a hooded sweatshirt with a portrait of her husband while other family members held a banner that read, "We support our troops, especially our daddy, Staff Sgt. Tufi."
Tufi's daughter, Filogia, 9, said she will say a prayer for him every night while he is gone.
"Please bless our dad. And when he goes to Afghanistan, I want you to heal him, God, and protect him.
"Amen."
J.R. Ancheta is a University of Alaska Fairbanks journalism student. In February, he embedded with the 1/25 Stryker Brigade Combat Team at the National Training Center near Fort Irwin, Calif. He is photographing the story of the brigade's deployment and creating a multimedia project, "Getting Ready to Go, Getting Ready to Stay." UAF Snedden Chair Cheryl Hatch contributed to this story.
"As you're moving down towards deployment, the time is clicking down for how much time you've got with that person," Payne said. "The minute you're out of sight of each other, the clock shifts too. The minute you leave 'em, the clock flips and it's how much time 'til I get to see 'em again."
The clock has flipped for the 4,000 soldiers of the 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 25th Division, who will be deployed in southern Afghanistan for one year under the command of Col. Todd Wood. The month-long process of shipping out began in April and winds up today.
This is the brigade's third deployment. About 40 percent of the soldiers are being deployed for the first time.
"My job is to get our units ready to go and get our families ready to stay," said United States Army Alaska Commanding General Maj. Gen. Raymond Palumbo during the 1/25 SBCT deployment ceremony April 7 at Fort Wainwright. Soldiers and their families have been preparing for this deployment the past 18 months with various exercises, including full-spectrum training in February at the National Training Center near Fort Irwin, Calif.
"It's with great pride and optimism that I report to you today that the Stryker Brigade Combat Team is ready to go," Palumbo said.
After their return from the National Training Center, most soldiers went on block leave for two weeks. The soldiers and their families began final preparations for the impeding deployment to Afghanistan.
Payne said that he realized the importance of looking for opportunities where he could create time for his soldiers. He framed the situation as a question: "How do I still get some training I still gotta get done, but how would I carve time so the guy's got an extra uninterrupted time with his family?"
"When I look out here what I see is family." Payne said, commenting about a recent Family Readiness Group meeting. "And I care about all of you the same way I care about my own. We want to do our best to make sure we do our job and come back with honor, dignity and respect.
"And that we come home."
In their final weeks together, families took every opportunity to spend time together. At the Father-Daughter Ball, girls twirled in tulle skirts with their dads at the "Secret Garden" gala. Stryker couples of the 5-1 Cavalry Squadron renewed their vows at the Door of Hope Church in Fairbanks. Families like that of 1 st Sgt. Larry Addy and wife Angela hosted a fish fry and corn bread feed at their home for friends and family of 1-5 Infantry Battalion soldiers.
Staff Sgt. Faafetia Tufi's family made the 2-8 Field Artillery Battalion's departure special by giving him a big American-Samoan sendoff. His wife, Malo, wore a hooded sweatshirt with a portrait of her husband while other family members held a banner that read, "We support our troops, especially our daddy, Staff Sgt. Tufi."
Tufi's daughter, Filogia, 9, said she will say a prayer for him every night while he is gone.
"Please bless our dad. And when he goes to Afghanistan, I want you to heal him, God, and protect him.
"Amen."
J.R. Ancheta is a University of Alaska Fairbanks journalism student. In February, he embedded with the 1/25 Stryker Brigade Combat Team at the National Training Center near Fort Irwin, Calif. He is photographing the story of the brigade's deployment and creating a multimedia project, "Getting Ready to Go, Getting Ready to Stay." UAF Snedden Chair Cheryl Hatch contributed to this story.
Researchers try beads to fool thieving sperm whales FISHERMEN: Device may mess up sonar as they try to pick black cod.
When Southeast Alaska commercial fisherman Jay Skordahl prepares to lay down a 2-mile line of baited fish hooks, he keeps an eye out for 40-ton pests.
Sperm whales, the world's largest toothed cetaceans, for more than a decade have bedeviled fishermen catching sablefish, also known as black cod, a deep-water fish that tastes like butter and sells for more dollars per pound than any other Alaska finned fish.
"Some whales are happy enough kind of jogging around behind you as you're moving up your string and slurping up the discards. Those are the nice whales," Skordahl says.
Then there are the "bad boys" with more sophisticated palates. They suspend themselves hundreds of feet below a boat and pick off sablefish as a fisherman retrieves his longline.
"Some of them are very well educated," Skordahl says. "They've eaten black cod before and really like it. They really know what they're doing."
Researchers this year are using a $353,000 federal grant to continue assessing how much thieving sperm whales, an endangered species, conduct in the black cod fishery. They plan to continue using acoustic recorders to refine their estimates of how many fish are taken. They also will experiment with a cheap deterrent: acrylic beads attached to lines that are designed to confuse a sperm whale's built-in sonar, echoing back a signal that resembles a tasty sablefish.
"It's going to essentially light up the whole longline string," said Jan Straley, a whale biologist at the University of Alaska Southeast.
Americans so far have largely not discovered the allure of sablefish, also known as butterfish. Their high oil content make them exceptionally flavorful and excellent for smoking. Most of the market is in Japan.
In federally managed waters, fishermen last year reported a total Alaska catch of 21.9 million pounds. Southeast Alaska fishermen sold dressed sablefish for an average of $5.96 per pound. Skordahl says large specimens this year are fetching more than $8 per pound.
They're harvested with "longlines" -- 3/8-inch nylon rope thousands of feet long. Attached every three feet or so is a ganion, a short line with a circular hook to which bait is attached. The longline is let out behind a boat and anchored to the bottom.
Estimates that whales can pluck 5 to 10 percent of the fish off a line may be low, Straley said. Before a camera captured a sperm whale gently taking a black cod from a line in shallow water, the only visual evidence of plundering was bent hooks or fish lips left on lines. Fishermen sometimes even caught more fish when whales were present, Straley said, which may prove only that both whales and fishermen know where the fishing hot spots are.
Skordahl fishes out of Sitka on the edge of the outer continental shelf, laying his line on steep canyon walls 600 to 900 feet deep.
The fishing used to be derby style, where boats rushed out to catch a set quota as quickly as they could. These days, fishermen are assigned individual quotas and can head out anytime from spring to fall. It also means that opportunistic whales have a longer season to find fishermen.
Researchers have determined that sperm whales apparently can distinguish longliners from salmon trollers or other boats by how they shift gears. Laying down a string, Skordahl said, requires pacing: moving forward, shifting to neutral or reverse, finding the best speed to pay out a line. It's been a dinner bell for sperm whales.
They're among the deepest diving whales and when they forage where little light penetrates, they find prey with echolocation. The behemoths send out sounds and read what comes back. Their skill is so sophisticated, they can distinguish between a sablefish and an unappetizing rockfish in the dark water.
"It's like an individual label," Straley said.
Acoustic work by research oceanographer Aaron Thode of Scripps Institution of Oceanography recorded sperm whale "clicks" that accelerate into "creaks," almost like the sound of a rusty hinge, as they approach prey, including fish caught on a longline. The video shot in 2006 recorded those sounds, underscoring the importance of echolocation even when whales could use their eyes, Thode said.
Straley's role in the latest research will be to determine whether 28mm beads attached to each ganion will throw the whales off their game. The beads, slightly smaller than a golf ball, were picked because they bounce back a signal similar to a sablefish. Researchers hope the whales will not be able to distinguish the signal returned by a fish from the signal from the beads.
"It's inexpensive and it doesn't damage anybody's gear coming over the roller," Straley said. "If it works, it will be great. It's passive deterrent."
It likely will take until mid-June to get the beads and make the gear, she said.
"It's kind of like a big macrame project," Straley said.
Underwater sound recorders will try to detect how effective the beads are.
"We're going to try to come up with ways to distinguish how successful the whales are in depredating, under both normal haul conditions and under these various deterrent strategies," Thode said.
Of special interest to fishermen such as Skordahl will be an assessment of how sperm whales affect the federal survey used to set fishermen's quota. The primary tool for assessing sablefish populations is a longline fishery that federal biologists do themselves. The take by sperm whales on the survey has not been factored. Chris Lunsford of the National Marine Fisheries Service said researchers hope to measure depredation acts through "creaks" to quantify whales' effect on the survey.
Sperm whales, the world's largest toothed cetaceans, for more than a decade have bedeviled fishermen catching sablefish, also known as black cod, a deep-water fish that tastes like butter and sells for more dollars per pound than any other Alaska finned fish.
"Some whales are happy enough kind of jogging around behind you as you're moving up your string and slurping up the discards. Those are the nice whales," Skordahl says.
Then there are the "bad boys" with more sophisticated palates. They suspend themselves hundreds of feet below a boat and pick off sablefish as a fisherman retrieves his longline.
"Some of them are very well educated," Skordahl says. "They've eaten black cod before and really like it. They really know what they're doing."
Researchers this year are using a $353,000 federal grant to continue assessing how much thieving sperm whales, an endangered species, conduct in the black cod fishery. They plan to continue using acoustic recorders to refine their estimates of how many fish are taken. They also will experiment with a cheap deterrent: acrylic beads attached to lines that are designed to confuse a sperm whale's built-in sonar, echoing back a signal that resembles a tasty sablefish.
"It's going to essentially light up the whole longline string," said Jan Straley, a whale biologist at the University of Alaska Southeast.
Americans so far have largely not discovered the allure of sablefish, also known as butterfish. Their high oil content make them exceptionally flavorful and excellent for smoking. Most of the market is in Japan.
In federally managed waters, fishermen last year reported a total Alaska catch of 21.9 million pounds. Southeast Alaska fishermen sold dressed sablefish for an average of $5.96 per pound. Skordahl says large specimens this year are fetching more than $8 per pound.
They're harvested with "longlines" -- 3/8-inch nylon rope thousands of feet long. Attached every three feet or so is a ganion, a short line with a circular hook to which bait is attached. The longline is let out behind a boat and anchored to the bottom.
Estimates that whales can pluck 5 to 10 percent of the fish off a line may be low, Straley said. Before a camera captured a sperm whale gently taking a black cod from a line in shallow water, the only visual evidence of plundering was bent hooks or fish lips left on lines. Fishermen sometimes even caught more fish when whales were present, Straley said, which may prove only that both whales and fishermen know where the fishing hot spots are.
Skordahl fishes out of Sitka on the edge of the outer continental shelf, laying his line on steep canyon walls 600 to 900 feet deep.
The fishing used to be derby style, where boats rushed out to catch a set quota as quickly as they could. These days, fishermen are assigned individual quotas and can head out anytime from spring to fall. It also means that opportunistic whales have a longer season to find fishermen.
Researchers have determined that sperm whales apparently can distinguish longliners from salmon trollers or other boats by how they shift gears. Laying down a string, Skordahl said, requires pacing: moving forward, shifting to neutral or reverse, finding the best speed to pay out a line. It's been a dinner bell for sperm whales.
They're among the deepest diving whales and when they forage where little light penetrates, they find prey with echolocation. The behemoths send out sounds and read what comes back. Their skill is so sophisticated, they can distinguish between a sablefish and an unappetizing rockfish in the dark water.
"It's like an individual label," Straley said.
Acoustic work by research oceanographer Aaron Thode of Scripps Institution of Oceanography recorded sperm whale "clicks" that accelerate into "creaks," almost like the sound of a rusty hinge, as they approach prey, including fish caught on a longline. The video shot in 2006 recorded those sounds, underscoring the importance of echolocation even when whales could use their eyes, Thode said.
Straley's role in the latest research will be to determine whether 28mm beads attached to each ganion will throw the whales off their game. The beads, slightly smaller than a golf ball, were picked because they bounce back a signal similar to a sablefish. Researchers hope the whales will not be able to distinguish the signal returned by a fish from the signal from the beads.
"It's inexpensive and it doesn't damage anybody's gear coming over the roller," Straley said. "If it works, it will be great. It's passive deterrent."
It likely will take until mid-June to get the beads and make the gear, she said.
"It's kind of like a big macrame project," Straley said.
Underwater sound recorders will try to detect how effective the beads are.
"We're going to try to come up with ways to distinguish how successful the whales are in depredating, under both normal haul conditions and under these various deterrent strategies," Thode said.
Of special interest to fishermen such as Skordahl will be an assessment of how sperm whales affect the federal survey used to set fishermen's quota. The primary tool for assessing sablefish populations is a longline fishery that federal biologists do themselves. The take by sperm whales on the survey has not been factored. Chris Lunsford of the National Marine Fisheries Service said researchers hope to measure depredation acts through "creaks" to quantify whales' effect on the survey.
Aces win 3-2 in OT, lead series 2-0
In what could have been a somber dressing room before overtime Sunday night - particularly after blowing a two-goal, third-period lead by surrendering the tying goal with 24.2 seconds left in regulation - the Alaska Aces instead played a question-and-answer game designed spark their spirits.
The question: Who's going to be the hero?
Veteran defenseman Bryan Miller, an alternate captain, spoke up: "I got it, boys.''
Yes, it was a bit of bravado -- and he had company -- but Miller backed up the boast with a power-play, one-timer at 7 minutes, 33 seconds of extra time to deliver a 3-2 victory over the Kalamazoo Wings and a 2-0 lead in the best-of-7 ECHL Kelly Cup Finals.
Miller said he was simply trying to buoy his teammates after they gave up the lead in the waning seconds before a standing-room-only crowd of 6,599 at Sullivan Arena.
"It's pretty deflating, everyone is down,'' Miller said. "The best thing about overtime is you have to envision success.
"I'm sure a bunch of other guys said it - I heard a couple of guys say it.''
The Aces, who won Saturday's opener 5-0, gained their power-play opportunity in overtime when the K-Wings, who outplayed the home team for much of the game with their persistent will, were penalized for too many men on the ice.
"You can't shoot yourself in the foot like that,'' said Kalamazoo coach Nick Bootland. "That's just unacceptable this time of year. A center and a winger went on (to the ice) and only a winger (came off).''
Miller's subsequent game-winning strike carried more than a little irony. He and rookie Mark Isherwood pair at defense on the power play, but it is usually Miller furnishing Isherwood the pass so the rookie can unleash his wicked one-timer. This time, though, Isherwood loaded the artillery and Miller fired it from atop the left circle, cranking off a shot that whistled past the attempted shot block of K-Wings defenseman Mitch Versteeg and beat goaltender Ryan Nie high to his glove side.
"That was a bomb,'' Isherwood said.
And no one was more surprised than Miller, a skilled offensive blueliner more likely to score with precision than power.
"Weird, isn't it?'' Miller said. "And me actually getting the puck off the ice for the first time in forever.''
Miller's overtime goal was his second this season - he scored the decider in a 5-4 win at Utah back in November.
Sunday's goal, Miller's second of the playoffs, kept the Aces and goalie Gerald Coleman perfect in the postseason. The Aces have won all 10 of their games and Coleman, who racked his playoff high of 39 saves, has won all nine of his starts.
The overtime win was Alaska's second in the playoffs. Rookie center Chris Langkow, who furnished a first-period, power-play goal to open the scoring less than three minutes into the game and set up Curtis Fraser's first-period goal, scored in overtime to beat Victoria in Game 2 of the Aces' Western Conference Finals sweep.
The series now moves to Michigan for Game 3 on Wednesday night, Game 4 on Friday and, if necessary, Game 5 on Saturday.
The Aces held their 2-0 lead into the third period, and Miller's goal pushed their season record when leading after two periods to 47-0-0.
But perfection was not without peril.
Kalamazoo's Trent Daavettila thought he scored just 41 seconds into the third period when he jammed away at the puck at the right post as Coleman tried to keep it out with his pads and stick. But referee Ryan Murphy did not signal a goal, the goal light did not come on, and Murphy ruled no goal after conferring with linesmen Scott Sivulich and Steve Glines.
Still, Kalamazoo's Brandon Svendsen walked out of the left corner nearly six minutes into the third, side-stepped the attempted check of Isherwood and flicked a dart over Coleman's glove to cut his club's deficit to 2-1.
That goal snapped Coleman's shutout streak at 116:08, nearly the equivalent of two full regulation games. Three times this postseason he has fashioned a shutout streak longer than 100 minutes
With K-Wings goalie Ryan Nie (26 saves) on the bench in favor of an extra attacker in the final minute of regulation, Andrew Fournier picked up the puck, which momentarily had been buried beneath a pile of players in Coleman's crease, and scored for a 2-2 tie with 24.2 ticks left.
Kalamazoo outshot Alaska 41-29 and looked like the Eastern Conference champs after a lackluster performance in the series opener.
"I felt we played a lot better game,'' Bootland said. "We played with more poise and more tenaciousness, and gave ourselves a chance to win.''
No argument from the Aces.
"They came with the effort,'' said Aces captain Scott Burt. "They played hard. They beat us in all the battles on the boards.
"But after we gave up two goals, we didn't hang our heads. We battled.''
And Miller became the sixth Ace of this postseason to deliver a game-winning goal.
"Any guy on any given night can step up to the challenge,'' Langkow said.
Shuffling the deck
Scott Howes' secondary assist on Miller's goal extended his streak of furnishing at least one point in all 10 playoff games. He has at least one point in 16 straight games, dating back to the regular season.
Dan Kissel's assist on Langkow's goal pushed his point streak to five games.
Langkow has scored six goals in the last five games.
The Aces killed off both Kalamazoo power plays Sunday and have killed 30 of 31 opposing power plays in the playoffs.
Find Doyle Woody's blog at adn.com/hockeyblog or call him at 257-4335.
Kalamazoo 0 0 2 0 - 2
Aces 2 0 0 1 - 3
First Period - 1, Aces, Langkow 6 (Kissel, Fraser), 2:38 (pp); 2, Aces, Fraser 4 (Langkow, Falite), 9:32. Penalties - Karlander, Kalamazoo (hooking), 1:33; Fraser, Aces (hooking), 5:00; Lloyd, Kalamazoo (tripping), 16:47.
Second Period - None. Penalties - Ftorek, Kalamazoo (high-sticking), 3:56; Clarke, Kalamazoo (roughing), 15:12; Kissel, Aces (slashing), 18:38.
Third Period -3, Kalamazoo, Svendsen 5 (Clarke, McGinnis), 5:51; 4, Kalamazoo, Fournier 4 (Thelen, Daavettila), 19:35. Penalties - Thelen, Kalamazoo (cross-checking), 6:17.
Overtime - 5, Aces, Miller 2 (Isherwood, Howes), 7:33. Penalties - Kalamazoo bench, served by Taylor (too many men), 6:48
Shots on goal - Kalamazoo 15-9-11-6-41. Aces 7-9-10-3-29.
Power-play Opportunities - Kalamazoo 0 of 2; Aces 2 of 6.
Goalies - Kalamazoo, Nie, 11-3-2 (29 shots-26 saves). Aces, Coleman, 9-0-0 (41-39).
A - 6,599 (6,399). Referee - Ryan Murphy. Linesmen - Scott Sivulich, Steve Glines.
The question: Who's going to be the hero?
Veteran defenseman Bryan Miller, an alternate captain, spoke up: "I got it, boys.''
Yes, it was a bit of bravado -- and he had company -- but Miller backed up the boast with a power-play, one-timer at 7 minutes, 33 seconds of extra time to deliver a 3-2 victory over the Kalamazoo Wings and a 2-0 lead in the best-of-7 ECHL Kelly Cup Finals.
Miller said he was simply trying to buoy his teammates after they gave up the lead in the waning seconds before a standing-room-only crowd of 6,599 at Sullivan Arena.
"It's pretty deflating, everyone is down,'' Miller said. "The best thing about overtime is you have to envision success.
"I'm sure a bunch of other guys said it - I heard a couple of guys say it.''
The Aces, who won Saturday's opener 5-0, gained their power-play opportunity in overtime when the K-Wings, who outplayed the home team for much of the game with their persistent will, were penalized for too many men on the ice.
"You can't shoot yourself in the foot like that,'' said Kalamazoo coach Nick Bootland. "That's just unacceptable this time of year. A center and a winger went on (to the ice) and only a winger (came off).''
Miller's subsequent game-winning strike carried more than a little irony. He and rookie Mark Isherwood pair at defense on the power play, but it is usually Miller furnishing Isherwood the pass so the rookie can unleash his wicked one-timer. This time, though, Isherwood loaded the artillery and Miller fired it from atop the left circle, cranking off a shot that whistled past the attempted shot block of K-Wings defenseman Mitch Versteeg and beat goaltender Ryan Nie high to his glove side.
"That was a bomb,'' Isherwood said.
And no one was more surprised than Miller, a skilled offensive blueliner more likely to score with precision than power.
"Weird, isn't it?'' Miller said. "And me actually getting the puck off the ice for the first time in forever.''
Miller's overtime goal was his second this season - he scored the decider in a 5-4 win at Utah back in November.
Sunday's goal, Miller's second of the playoffs, kept the Aces and goalie Gerald Coleman perfect in the postseason. The Aces have won all 10 of their games and Coleman, who racked his playoff high of 39 saves, has won all nine of his starts.
The overtime win was Alaska's second in the playoffs. Rookie center Chris Langkow, who furnished a first-period, power-play goal to open the scoring less than three minutes into the game and set up Curtis Fraser's first-period goal, scored in overtime to beat Victoria in Game 2 of the Aces' Western Conference Finals sweep.
The series now moves to Michigan for Game 3 on Wednesday night, Game 4 on Friday and, if necessary, Game 5 on Saturday.
The Aces held their 2-0 lead into the third period, and Miller's goal pushed their season record when leading after two periods to 47-0-0.
But perfection was not without peril.
Kalamazoo's Trent Daavettila thought he scored just 41 seconds into the third period when he jammed away at the puck at the right post as Coleman tried to keep it out with his pads and stick. But referee Ryan Murphy did not signal a goal, the goal light did not come on, and Murphy ruled no goal after conferring with linesmen Scott Sivulich and Steve Glines.
Still, Kalamazoo's Brandon Svendsen walked out of the left corner nearly six minutes into the third, side-stepped the attempted check of Isherwood and flicked a dart over Coleman's glove to cut his club's deficit to 2-1.
That goal snapped Coleman's shutout streak at 116:08, nearly the equivalent of two full regulation games. Three times this postseason he has fashioned a shutout streak longer than 100 minutes
With K-Wings goalie Ryan Nie (26 saves) on the bench in favor of an extra attacker in the final minute of regulation, Andrew Fournier picked up the puck, which momentarily had been buried beneath a pile of players in Coleman's crease, and scored for a 2-2 tie with 24.2 ticks left.
Kalamazoo outshot Alaska 41-29 and looked like the Eastern Conference champs after a lackluster performance in the series opener.
"I felt we played a lot better game,'' Bootland said. "We played with more poise and more tenaciousness, and gave ourselves a chance to win.''
No argument from the Aces.
"They came with the effort,'' said Aces captain Scott Burt. "They played hard. They beat us in all the battles on the boards.
"But after we gave up two goals, we didn't hang our heads. We battled.''
And Miller became the sixth Ace of this postseason to deliver a game-winning goal.
"Any guy on any given night can step up to the challenge,'' Langkow said.
Shuffling the deck
Scott Howes' secondary assist on Miller's goal extended his streak of furnishing at least one point in all 10 playoff games. He has at least one point in 16 straight games, dating back to the regular season.
Dan Kissel's assist on Langkow's goal pushed his point streak to five games.
Langkow has scored six goals in the last five games.
The Aces killed off both Kalamazoo power plays Sunday and have killed 30 of 31 opposing power plays in the playoffs.
Find Doyle Woody's blog at adn.com/hockeyblog or call him at 257-4335.
Kalamazoo 0 0 2 0 - 2
Aces 2 0 0 1 - 3
First Period - 1, Aces, Langkow 6 (Kissel, Fraser), 2:38 (pp); 2, Aces, Fraser 4 (Langkow, Falite), 9:32. Penalties - Karlander, Kalamazoo (hooking), 1:33; Fraser, Aces (hooking), 5:00; Lloyd, Kalamazoo (tripping), 16:47.
Second Period - None. Penalties - Ftorek, Kalamazoo (high-sticking), 3:56; Clarke, Kalamazoo (roughing), 15:12; Kissel, Aces (slashing), 18:38.
Third Period -3, Kalamazoo, Svendsen 5 (Clarke, McGinnis), 5:51; 4, Kalamazoo, Fournier 4 (Thelen, Daavettila), 19:35. Penalties - Thelen, Kalamazoo (cross-checking), 6:17.
Overtime - 5, Aces, Miller 2 (Isherwood, Howes), 7:33. Penalties - Kalamazoo bench, served by Taylor (too many men), 6:48
Shots on goal - Kalamazoo 15-9-11-6-41. Aces 7-9-10-3-29.
Power-play Opportunities - Kalamazoo 0 of 2; Aces 2 of 6.
Goalies - Kalamazoo, Nie, 11-3-2 (29 shots-26 saves). Aces, Coleman, 9-0-0 (41-39).
A - 6,599 (6,399). Referee - Ryan Murphy. Linesmen - Scott Sivulich, Steve Glines.
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Aces ahead 2-0 after first period in Kelly Cup Final Game 2
The Alaska Aces came away from the first period Sunday night with a 2-0 lead over the visiting Kalamazoo Wings at Sullivan Arena.
Anchorage port project mired in cost, construction woes DISASTER: Expansion and dock replacement might be abandoned.
A controversial project to expand the Port of Anchorage and replace its old docks may be abandoned as its costs continue to escalate.
At Mayor Dan Sullivan's request, the port has proposed a scaled-back version that would shore up old, corroded pilings and finish two new barge berths and one berth for ships. But the big cargo carriers that bring in most of the goods consumed by Alaskans would remain at the old dock, which the port says would fail in a major earthquake.
Sullivan, port officials and Assembly members dislike the scaled-back option, which still carries a big price tag of more than $650 million, counting money already spent.
At the same time, the latest estimate to replace the existing dock in its entirety has risen to nearly $1.2 billion, triple the figure stated in 2005.
If the smaller project is all that is built, "we would call that a win and a victory and cut it off at that point," Port Director Bill Sheffield told Assembly members at a recent briefing.
But the city doesn't have money in hand for either approach.
The port turns 50 this year, and the old steel piles that hold up the dock are rusting out, officials say. The full-scale project involves creating a new dock face 1.5 miles long out of sheets of steel, and backfilling it with gravel to create new land. Cargo ships would get new berths. A petroleum dock would be redone. But the project has been plagued by financial and construction troubles.
Some are putting the blame squarely on the shoulders of Sheffield, a well-connected former governor who has been responsible for securing the funds.
State Rep. Chris Tuck, an Anchorage Democrat and electrician who's done work at the port, said the city should look into replacing Sheffield.
"We need to get out of this mess," Tuck said. "We might have to take a fresh look."
Bob Shavelson, head of the environmental advocacy group Cook Inletkeeper, described the project as a disaster.
"I would say it's the greatest example of project mismanagement and taxpayer fraud in the history of Alaska," Shavelson said in an interview from his base in Homer. "And Bill Sheffield has to be held accountable."
Sullivan said the project was mismanaged, but the escalating costs and construction problems aren't Sheffield's fault. The city in 2003 gave the lead role to a federal agency called the Maritime Administration, which had never run a port-construction project before. Sullivan said as he understands it, the city didn't have a choice since much of the money for the project was federal.
Still, asked whether he had full confidence in his port director, Sullivan declined to answer. He said it was a personnel matter and not something he wanted to discuss in public.
For now, the project remains stalled. Large sections of new dock already installed are damaged -- the work must be redone. Port officials say crews will work this summer inspecting and dismantling sections where the sheets of pile were bent and mangled as they were driven into the sea floor. No new sections are expected to be built this summer or next.
PORT IS ESSENTIAL
City and state officials say the port is essential to the state. Much of what Alaskans eat, wear and drive arrives through it.
The city had been looking to replace its dock on piles with a traditional dock like the old one when Sheffield began pushing the bulkhead system, which extends the shore into the sea. If the full version were built, the port would get 135 acres of new land. Under the scaled-back version, 65 acres would be created.
Sheffield, 82, a former one-term governor, has held the port job since 2001, when he was appointed by then-Mayor George Wuerch. A registered Democrat, he has been bipartisan in his political fund raising. He often headlines or hosts fund-raisers for local, state and federal politicians, including Sullivan, Gov. Sean Parnell and U.S. Rep. Don Young, all Republicans.
"Anyone else who came in $800 million over budget would have lost their job without the political contacts Mr. Sheffield has with Rep. Young and others," state Rep. Les Gara, an Anchorage Democrat, said in an email. He was responding to a Daily News query about solutions and accountability for the port project sent to Assembly members and Anchorage-area legislators.
Sullivan said that Sheffield's political connections are irrelevant.
A citizen activist and retired longshoreman, Jack Veit, also says Sheffield needs to go. Veit flew to Juneau to brief legislators about the expansion problems and also created a website, www.publicadvocateak.com, to call attention to the issue.
Sheffield said port officials didn't know the extent of the damaged installation from 2009 until more than a year later. He said he knows he's the face of the project and is taking heat for the problems, but doesn't see what he could have done differently.
"Right now we're doing everything we can to dig ourselves out of this hole so when we go forward in earnest," he said. Now that the problems are known, the construction methods are being changed to prevent steel sheets from hitting hard ground or rock and bending, he said.
He said he hopes to stay on as port director.
"I'm not proud of what happened in 2009, but I'm proud we've found the problem," he said.
HOW DID IT GET THIS BAD?
So far, no city tax dollars have gone into the project. Much of the $279 million collected so far has come from congressional earmarks. The state has been putting in $10 million to $20 million a year.
The two options for continuing the expansion were presented at a May 6 briefing for an Anchorage Assembly committee by Sheffield, port engineer Todd Cowles and municipal manager George Vakalis.
They didn't like what they heard.
"I'm trying to figure out how it got this bad," Assembly member Dick Traini said.
Assembly member Patrick Flynn, who has chaired the special Assembly committee on the port for the past year, was flabbergasted that the limited option didn't include new berths for the cargo ships.
Assembly Chairwoman Debbie Ossiander said the city can't afford the full expansion, which would cost another $922 million above the $265 million already spent.
State legislators say they have concerns, too, though recent changes to add more city oversight are on target.
"Certainly, time delays and cost escalations have brought into question the present port project viability," Anna Fairclough, an Eagle River Republican and vice chair of the House Finance Committee, said in an email.
Tuck said if the state is picking up the bill, the state should take charge of the project.
A budget proposal in the state House would provide $37.5 million for the expansion and require quarterly progress reports.
On Friday, Gara, the Anchorage House member, proposed cutting the port budget item to $20 million, the amount proposed by Parnell. But his amendment to the capital budget failed in a party-line vote on the House floor Friday evening. Republicans voted to keep the higher amount.
Sheffield also has proposed that the city receive $300 million from a state bond package to complete one phase of the expansion.
LACK OF OVERSIGHT
The 2003 port project agreement pushed during the last days of the Wuerch administration specified that the Maritime Administration would oversee the contractors and the city would secure the funds.
At the time, Assembly members asked to approve the agreement raised concerns. Sheffield assured them that the federal agency was acting as an agent of the city, and the port would remain in city control.
That didn't happen. Now the city is working to strengthen its role.
Sullivan said he found the 2003 arrangement shocking. The city wasn't even protected by liability insurance or a contractor performance bond. It is now, city officials said. The city also is working to craft a new agreement with the federal agency.
In addition, two new oversight committees meet weekly. One includes Sheffield, Vakalis and a Maritime Administration official. A separate, technical committee includes representatives from the port, the federal agency and Integrated Concepts and Research Corp., the general contractor and construction manager.
Eventually, Sheffield and Sullivan said, the city must replace the entire dock.
"This is the top of our radar," Sullivan said. "There's nothing more important to this administration than getting this port project back on track, making sure we can complete it, so that it can serve the needs of not only this community but all of Alaska for literally generations to come."
Reach Lisa Demer at ldemer@adn.com or 257-4390.
Two options for rebuild of Port of Anchorage
Limited expansion
• Complete two barge berths and one new ship berth
• Add 65 acres of new land
• Realign new section in the hope of reducing silt now accumulating in the berth of cargo shipper Totem Ocean Trailer Express Inc.
• Complete rail extension for cargo and military use
• Encase corroded old steel piles in new sleeves to restore strength
• Major shippers Tote and Horizon Lines Inc. would stay in their old berths. Horizon had wanted to move to a bigger dock to support bigger cranes for bigger ships. Tote doesn't use cranes.
• Would last 25 years
• Cost: Another $397 million, plus $265 million already spent.
Full expansion
• Replace existing deteriorated dock
• Add 135 acres of new land
• Complete two barge berths and three ship berths
• Tote and Horizon would get new berths. Horizon could install bigger cranes.
• Complete rail extension for cargo and military use
• Would last 50 years
• Cost: Another $922 million, plus $265 million already spent.
Source: Port of Anchorage
At Mayor Dan Sullivan's request, the port has proposed a scaled-back version that would shore up old, corroded pilings and finish two new barge berths and one berth for ships. But the big cargo carriers that bring in most of the goods consumed by Alaskans would remain at the old dock, which the port says would fail in a major earthquake.
Sullivan, port officials and Assembly members dislike the scaled-back option, which still carries a big price tag of more than $650 million, counting money already spent.
At the same time, the latest estimate to replace the existing dock in its entirety has risen to nearly $1.2 billion, triple the figure stated in 2005.
If the smaller project is all that is built, "we would call that a win and a victory and cut it off at that point," Port Director Bill Sheffield told Assembly members at a recent briefing.
But the city doesn't have money in hand for either approach.
The port turns 50 this year, and the old steel piles that hold up the dock are rusting out, officials say. The full-scale project involves creating a new dock face 1.5 miles long out of sheets of steel, and backfilling it with gravel to create new land. Cargo ships would get new berths. A petroleum dock would be redone. But the project has been plagued by financial and construction troubles.
Some are putting the blame squarely on the shoulders of Sheffield, a well-connected former governor who has been responsible for securing the funds.
State Rep. Chris Tuck, an Anchorage Democrat and electrician who's done work at the port, said the city should look into replacing Sheffield.
"We need to get out of this mess," Tuck said. "We might have to take a fresh look."
Bob Shavelson, head of the environmental advocacy group Cook Inletkeeper, described the project as a disaster.
"I would say it's the greatest example of project mismanagement and taxpayer fraud in the history of Alaska," Shavelson said in an interview from his base in Homer. "And Bill Sheffield has to be held accountable."
Sullivan said the project was mismanaged, but the escalating costs and construction problems aren't Sheffield's fault. The city in 2003 gave the lead role to a federal agency called the Maritime Administration, which had never run a port-construction project before. Sullivan said as he understands it, the city didn't have a choice since much of the money for the project was federal.
Still, asked whether he had full confidence in his port director, Sullivan declined to answer. He said it was a personnel matter and not something he wanted to discuss in public.
For now, the project remains stalled. Large sections of new dock already installed are damaged -- the work must be redone. Port officials say crews will work this summer inspecting and dismantling sections where the sheets of pile were bent and mangled as they were driven into the sea floor. No new sections are expected to be built this summer or next.
PORT IS ESSENTIAL
City and state officials say the port is essential to the state. Much of what Alaskans eat, wear and drive arrives through it.
The city had been looking to replace its dock on piles with a traditional dock like the old one when Sheffield began pushing the bulkhead system, which extends the shore into the sea. If the full version were built, the port would get 135 acres of new land. Under the scaled-back version, 65 acres would be created.
Sheffield, 82, a former one-term governor, has held the port job since 2001, when he was appointed by then-Mayor George Wuerch. A registered Democrat, he has been bipartisan in his political fund raising. He often headlines or hosts fund-raisers for local, state and federal politicians, including Sullivan, Gov. Sean Parnell and U.S. Rep. Don Young, all Republicans.
"Anyone else who came in $800 million over budget would have lost their job without the political contacts Mr. Sheffield has with Rep. Young and others," state Rep. Les Gara, an Anchorage Democrat, said in an email. He was responding to a Daily News query about solutions and accountability for the port project sent to Assembly members and Anchorage-area legislators.
Sullivan said that Sheffield's political connections are irrelevant.
A citizen activist and retired longshoreman, Jack Veit, also says Sheffield needs to go. Veit flew to Juneau to brief legislators about the expansion problems and also created a website, www.publicadvocateak.com, to call attention to the issue.
Sheffield said port officials didn't know the extent of the damaged installation from 2009 until more than a year later. He said he knows he's the face of the project and is taking heat for the problems, but doesn't see what he could have done differently.
"Right now we're doing everything we can to dig ourselves out of this hole so when we go forward in earnest," he said. Now that the problems are known, the construction methods are being changed to prevent steel sheets from hitting hard ground or rock and bending, he said.
He said he hopes to stay on as port director.
"I'm not proud of what happened in 2009, but I'm proud we've found the problem," he said.
HOW DID IT GET THIS BAD?
So far, no city tax dollars have gone into the project. Much of the $279 million collected so far has come from congressional earmarks. The state has been putting in $10 million to $20 million a year.
The two options for continuing the expansion were presented at a May 6 briefing for an Anchorage Assembly committee by Sheffield, port engineer Todd Cowles and municipal manager George Vakalis.
They didn't like what they heard.
"I'm trying to figure out how it got this bad," Assembly member Dick Traini said.
Assembly member Patrick Flynn, who has chaired the special Assembly committee on the port for the past year, was flabbergasted that the limited option didn't include new berths for the cargo ships.
Assembly Chairwoman Debbie Ossiander said the city can't afford the full expansion, which would cost another $922 million above the $265 million already spent.
State legislators say they have concerns, too, though recent changes to add more city oversight are on target.
"Certainly, time delays and cost escalations have brought into question the present port project viability," Anna Fairclough, an Eagle River Republican and vice chair of the House Finance Committee, said in an email.
Tuck said if the state is picking up the bill, the state should take charge of the project.
A budget proposal in the state House would provide $37.5 million for the expansion and require quarterly progress reports.
On Friday, Gara, the Anchorage House member, proposed cutting the port budget item to $20 million, the amount proposed by Parnell. But his amendment to the capital budget failed in a party-line vote on the House floor Friday evening. Republicans voted to keep the higher amount.
Sheffield also has proposed that the city receive $300 million from a state bond package to complete one phase of the expansion.
LACK OF OVERSIGHT
The 2003 port project agreement pushed during the last days of the Wuerch administration specified that the Maritime Administration would oversee the contractors and the city would secure the funds.
At the time, Assembly members asked to approve the agreement raised concerns. Sheffield assured them that the federal agency was acting as an agent of the city, and the port would remain in city control.
That didn't happen. Now the city is working to strengthen its role.
Sullivan said he found the 2003 arrangement shocking. The city wasn't even protected by liability insurance or a contractor performance bond. It is now, city officials said. The city also is working to craft a new agreement with the federal agency.
In addition, two new oversight committees meet weekly. One includes Sheffield, Vakalis and a Maritime Administration official. A separate, technical committee includes representatives from the port, the federal agency and Integrated Concepts and Research Corp., the general contractor and construction manager.
Eventually, Sheffield and Sullivan said, the city must replace the entire dock.
"This is the top of our radar," Sullivan said. "There's nothing more important to this administration than getting this port project back on track, making sure we can complete it, so that it can serve the needs of not only this community but all of Alaska for literally generations to come."
Reach Lisa Demer at ldemer@adn.com or 257-4390.
Two options for rebuild of Port of Anchorage
Limited expansion
• Complete two barge berths and one new ship berth
• Add 65 acres of new land
• Realign new section in the hope of reducing silt now accumulating in the berth of cargo shipper Totem Ocean Trailer Express Inc.
• Complete rail extension for cargo and military use
• Encase corroded old steel piles in new sleeves to restore strength
• Major shippers Tote and Horizon Lines Inc. would stay in their old berths. Horizon had wanted to move to a bigger dock to support bigger cranes for bigger ships. Tote doesn't use cranes.
• Would last 25 years
• Cost: Another $397 million, plus $265 million already spent.
Full expansion
• Replace existing deteriorated dock
• Add 135 acres of new land
• Complete two barge berths and three ship berths
• Tote and Horizon would get new berths. Horizon could install bigger cranes.
• Complete rail extension for cargo and military use
• Would last 50 years
• Cost: Another $922 million, plus $265 million already spent.
Source: Port of Anchorage
Climbers involved in McKinley rescue bid are identified RESCUE: Alaska guide sustained frostbite and broke a rib in a fall.
The National Park Service on Saturday identified the climbers and guide involved in this week's dramatic high-altitude rescue bid on Mount McKinley, North America's tallest peak.
Suffering frostbite to his hands, legs and face as well as a broken leg, Jeremiah O'Sullivan, 40, of Ballinhassig, Ireland, was pulled off the mountain at 19,500 feet on Thursday by helicopter pilot Andy Hermansky, who lowered a basket from 200 feet above the injured man while flying his Eurocopter AS-350 B3.
The rescue tied the highest ever by a helicopter in North America.
"It was a big deal," Hermansky said.
But a member of O'Sullivan's party, 38-year-old Beat Niederer of St. Gallen, Switzerland, died from unknown causes near 18,000 feet. Niederer's body was recovered late Thursday by helicopter.
On Friday afternoon, guide Dave Staeheli, 56, of Wasilla and client Lawrence Culter, 45, of Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y., were evacuated by helicopter. Both men suffered frostbite to their hands and feet after a night spent in brutally cold temperatures worsened by gusty winds.
Staeheli, who also broke a rib in a fall, is among Alaska's finest climbers. He works for the company Mountain Trip, and is renowned as the first climber, in March 1989, to complete a solo winter ascent of McKinley up the West Rib route.
In addition, Tony Diskin, 33, of Westmeath, Ireland, a climber who had turned back earlier before the four-man team made its summit bid, was evacuated from the National Park Service's camp at 14,200 feet on Thursday.
After being plucked off the upper reaches of McKinley, O'Sullivan dangled in a basket beneath a 125-foot rope as Hermansky eased down the mountain no faster than 1,000 feet a minute to ward off additional frostbite.
At the Kahiltna base camp at 7,200 feet, park service rangers transferred O'Sullivan to a waiting LifeMed air ambulance that flew him to an Anchorage hospital.
Only one other helicopter rescue in North American has been conducted as high as 19,500 feet. Hermansky's is the highest on Denali using the short-haul technique, the Park Service said.
Some 282 climbers have attempted to climb the 20,320-foot Mount McKinley so far this season, with eight reaching the summit.
Suffering frostbite to his hands, legs and face as well as a broken leg, Jeremiah O'Sullivan, 40, of Ballinhassig, Ireland, was pulled off the mountain at 19,500 feet on Thursday by helicopter pilot Andy Hermansky, who lowered a basket from 200 feet above the injured man while flying his Eurocopter AS-350 B3.
The rescue tied the highest ever by a helicopter in North America.
"It was a big deal," Hermansky said.
But a member of O'Sullivan's party, 38-year-old Beat Niederer of St. Gallen, Switzerland, died from unknown causes near 18,000 feet. Niederer's body was recovered late Thursday by helicopter.
On Friday afternoon, guide Dave Staeheli, 56, of Wasilla and client Lawrence Culter, 45, of Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y., were evacuated by helicopter. Both men suffered frostbite to their hands and feet after a night spent in brutally cold temperatures worsened by gusty winds.
Staeheli, who also broke a rib in a fall, is among Alaska's finest climbers. He works for the company Mountain Trip, and is renowned as the first climber, in March 1989, to complete a solo winter ascent of McKinley up the West Rib route.
In addition, Tony Diskin, 33, of Westmeath, Ireland, a climber who had turned back earlier before the four-man team made its summit bid, was evacuated from the National Park Service's camp at 14,200 feet on Thursday.
After being plucked off the upper reaches of McKinley, O'Sullivan dangled in a basket beneath a 125-foot rope as Hermansky eased down the mountain no faster than 1,000 feet a minute to ward off additional frostbite.
At the Kahiltna base camp at 7,200 feet, park service rangers transferred O'Sullivan to a waiting LifeMed air ambulance that flew him to an Anchorage hospital.
Only one other helicopter rescue in North American has been conducted as high as 19,500 feet. Hermansky's is the highest on Denali using the short-haul technique, the Park Service said.
Some 282 climbers have attempted to climb the 20,320-foot Mount McKinley so far this season, with eight reaching the summit.
The National Park Service on Saturday identified the climbers and guide involved in this week's dramatic high-altitude rescue bid on Mount McKinley, North America's tallest peak.
Suffering frostbite to his hands, legs and face as well as a broken leg, Jeremiah O'Sullivan, 40, of Ballinhassig, Ireland, was pulled off the mountain at 19,500 feet on Thursday by helicopter pilot Andy Hermansky, who lowered a basket from 200 feet above the injured man while flying his Eurocopter AS-350 B3.
The rescue tied the highest ever by a helicopter in North America.
"It was a big deal," Hermansky said.
But a member of O'Sullivan's party, 38-year-old Beat Niederer of St. Gallen, Switzerland, died from unknown causes near 18,000 feet. Niederer's body was recovered late Thursday by helicopter.
On Friday afternoon, guide Dave Staeheli, 56, of Wasilla and client Lawrence Culter, 45, of Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y., were evacuated by helicopter. Both men suffered frostbite to their hands and feet after a night spent in brutally cold temperatures worsened by gusty winds.
Staeheli, who also broke a rib in a fall, is among Alaska's finest climbers. He works for the company Mountain Trip, and is renowned as the first climber, in March 1989, to complete a solo winter ascent of McKinley up the West Rib route.
In addition, Tony Diskin, 33, of Westmeath, Ireland, a climber who had turned back earlier before the four-man team made its summit bid, was evacuated from the National Park Service's camp at 14,200 feet on Thursday.
After being plucked off the upper reaches of McKinley, O'Sullivan dangled in a basket beneath a 125-foot rope as Hermansky eased down the mountain no faster than 1,000 feet a minute to ward off additional frostbite.
At the Kahiltna base camp at 7,200 feet, park service rangers transferred O'Sullivan to a waiting LifeMed air ambulance that flew him to an Anchorage hospital.
Only one other helicopter rescue in North American has been conducted as high as 19,500 feet. Hermansky's is the highest on Denali using the short-haul technique, the Park Service said.
Some 282 climbers have attempted to climb the 20,320-foot Mount McKinley so far this season, with eight reaching the summit.
Suffering frostbite to his hands, legs and face as well as a broken leg, Jeremiah O'Sullivan, 40, of Ballinhassig, Ireland, was pulled off the mountain at 19,500 feet on Thursday by helicopter pilot Andy Hermansky, who lowered a basket from 200 feet above the injured man while flying his Eurocopter AS-350 B3.
The rescue tied the highest ever by a helicopter in North America.
"It was a big deal," Hermansky said.
But a member of O'Sullivan's party, 38-year-old Beat Niederer of St. Gallen, Switzerland, died from unknown causes near 18,000 feet. Niederer's body was recovered late Thursday by helicopter.
On Friday afternoon, guide Dave Staeheli, 56, of Wasilla and client Lawrence Culter, 45, of Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y., were evacuated by helicopter. Both men suffered frostbite to their hands and feet after a night spent in brutally cold temperatures worsened by gusty winds.
Staeheli, who also broke a rib in a fall, is among Alaska's finest climbers. He works for the company Mountain Trip, and is renowned as the first climber, in March 1989, to complete a solo winter ascent of McKinley up the West Rib route.
In addition, Tony Diskin, 33, of Westmeath, Ireland, a climber who had turned back earlier before the four-man team made its summit bid, was evacuated from the National Park Service's camp at 14,200 feet on Thursday.
After being plucked off the upper reaches of McKinley, O'Sullivan dangled in a basket beneath a 125-foot rope as Hermansky eased down the mountain no faster than 1,000 feet a minute to ward off additional frostbite.
At the Kahiltna base camp at 7,200 feet, park service rangers transferred O'Sullivan to a waiting LifeMed air ambulance that flew him to an Anchorage hospital.
Only one other helicopter rescue in North American has been conducted as high as 19,500 feet. Hermansky's is the highest on Denali using the short-haul technique, the Park Service said.
Some 282 climbers have attempted to climb the 20,320-foot Mount McKinley so far this season, with eight reaching the summit.
Legislature adjourns amid high drama AGREEMENT: House adjourns first, forcing Senate to OK its budget.
JUNEAU -- The special session came to a dramatic end late Saturday, with the Alaska House adjourning three days early amid a monthlong budget dispute with the Senate.
The move forced the Senate either to accept the House's version of the omnibus capital bill or to let the state go without the budget. The Senate agreed to it -- in spite of concerns voiced by leadership over its structure and inclusion of certain projects.
Senate President Gary Stevens said it was a tough decision to make but in the end, taking the House bill was the right thing to do.
Lost in the shuffle was the coastal management program. The House failed to accept a compromise crafted by a conference committee working off a Senate version of the bill and Speaker Mike Chenault said the Senate refused to accept a compromise that would have been based on the House's version. That means that unless the governor calls a special session to deal with the issue, and he's given no indication he will, the program -- and more than 30 jobs -- will end by July 1.
Chenault said he didn't feel good about that or about the House leaving early; he had said repeatedly that he had no intention of cutting and running. But he said he didn't see the debate advancing much more if the House had stuck around until the end of session.
It was a drama-filled end to what had been an at-times frustratingly slow special session, which was sparked by an impasse between the House and Senate over the capital budget. The end came on the 27th day of the 30-day session, and the timing was key: It meant the House would not be at risk of being called back by the Senate if it decided to gavel out first.
The day began with Senate leaders saying they wanted to take the capital budget to conference committee. The House, which passed its version of the bill late Friday, refused, and didn't send the bill to the Senate until Saturday, after gaveling out until January. That meant the Senate wouldn't have the opportunity to force the bill to conference.
For weeks, House leaders and Gov. Sean Parnell called on the Senate majority to follow the legislative process, send a budget bill to the House and iron out the differences in conference if necessary. The Senate Finance Committee, which had refused to advance a bill without agreement from the House on its size and structure, finally passed it out Tuesday -- which Sen. Bert Stedman said was more than enough time for the House to hold hearings, pass the bill and allow for a conference.
But patience had worn out -- and Chenault said there was no guarantee that House and Senate leaders would advance past the same arguments they've had for weeks. He said it was "time to go home."
One of the biggest differences in the budget bills is the House stripped Senate language binding about $400 million in energy projects into an as-is, all-or-nothing package. House leaders considered the language inappropriate, if not an infringement upon the governor's veto authority. Senate leaders saw it as being in line with the Legislature's appropriations powers.
Stedman, R-Sitka, said the language -- which for weeks had been the stumbling block -- would have been on the table for discussion again. He said there would have been no "sacred cows."
The overall sizes of the omnibus bills passed by the House and Senate are comparable -- in the range of $3.8 billion -- and the amount of surplus left over is almost exact. But the structures of the bills are different.
The House bill has operating items that Senate leaders felt should have been in the operating budget. And the bill included $200 million for an in-state natural gas pipeline fund, a priority for Chenault, and $400 million for student scholarships and aid, a priority for Parnell.
While the Senate had $400 million for scholarships and student aid, too, it proposed reaching that number through different funding means. On the pipeline issue, Stedman said there had been no decision made by the Legislature on whether to pursue an in-state gas project, making that set-aside premature.
Capital appropriations in the House bill total about $3.2 billion. After both chambers adjourned late Saturday, Stedman called it a "good budget," all-in-all, and reasonably sized. The governor had said he'd let the Legislature spend $2.8 billion on the capital budget if the Legislature also passed a bill addressing oil taxes during the regular session. It didn't; that bill stalled in the Senate, prompting the contingency language that Senate leaders felt was necessary to protect their energy projects from being vetoed.
The move forced the Senate either to accept the House's version of the omnibus capital bill or to let the state go without the budget. The Senate agreed to it -- in spite of concerns voiced by leadership over its structure and inclusion of certain projects.
Senate President Gary Stevens said it was a tough decision to make but in the end, taking the House bill was the right thing to do.
Lost in the shuffle was the coastal management program. The House failed to accept a compromise crafted by a conference committee working off a Senate version of the bill and Speaker Mike Chenault said the Senate refused to accept a compromise that would have been based on the House's version. That means that unless the governor calls a special session to deal with the issue, and he's given no indication he will, the program -- and more than 30 jobs -- will end by July 1.
Chenault said he didn't feel good about that or about the House leaving early; he had said repeatedly that he had no intention of cutting and running. But he said he didn't see the debate advancing much more if the House had stuck around until the end of session.
It was a drama-filled end to what had been an at-times frustratingly slow special session, which was sparked by an impasse between the House and Senate over the capital budget. The end came on the 27th day of the 30-day session, and the timing was key: It meant the House would not be at risk of being called back by the Senate if it decided to gavel out first.
The day began with Senate leaders saying they wanted to take the capital budget to conference committee. The House, which passed its version of the bill late Friday, refused, and didn't send the bill to the Senate until Saturday, after gaveling out until January. That meant the Senate wouldn't have the opportunity to force the bill to conference.
For weeks, House leaders and Gov. Sean Parnell called on the Senate majority to follow the legislative process, send a budget bill to the House and iron out the differences in conference if necessary. The Senate Finance Committee, which had refused to advance a bill without agreement from the House on its size and structure, finally passed it out Tuesday -- which Sen. Bert Stedman said was more than enough time for the House to hold hearings, pass the bill and allow for a conference.
But patience had worn out -- and Chenault said there was no guarantee that House and Senate leaders would advance past the same arguments they've had for weeks. He said it was "time to go home."
One of the biggest differences in the budget bills is the House stripped Senate language binding about $400 million in energy projects into an as-is, all-or-nothing package. House leaders considered the language inappropriate, if not an infringement upon the governor's veto authority. Senate leaders saw it as being in line with the Legislature's appropriations powers.
Stedman, R-Sitka, said the language -- which for weeks had been the stumbling block -- would have been on the table for discussion again. He said there would have been no "sacred cows."
The overall sizes of the omnibus bills passed by the House and Senate are comparable -- in the range of $3.8 billion -- and the amount of surplus left over is almost exact. But the structures of the bills are different.
The House bill has operating items that Senate leaders felt should have been in the operating budget. And the bill included $200 million for an in-state natural gas pipeline fund, a priority for Chenault, and $400 million for student scholarships and aid, a priority for Parnell.
While the Senate had $400 million for scholarships and student aid, too, it proposed reaching that number through different funding means. On the pipeline issue, Stedman said there had been no decision made by the Legislature on whether to pursue an in-state gas project, making that set-aside premature.
Capital appropriations in the House bill total about $3.2 billion. After both chambers adjourned late Saturday, Stedman called it a "good budget," all-in-all, and reasonably sized. The governor had said he'd let the Legislature spend $2.8 billion on the capital budget if the Legislature also passed a bill addressing oil taxes during the regular session. It didn't; that bill stalled in the Senate, prompting the contingency language that Senate leaders felt was necessary to protect their energy projects from being vetoed.
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