City Councilors Alejandro “Bong” Tungul, center, and Dave Gregory, right, acknowledged the investigation at the Oct. 24 meeting of the Unalaska City Council. Tungul said he’s received a warrant targeting his emails. (Photo by Berett Wilber/KUCB)
Members of the Unalaska City Council are under investigation.
Police Chief Mike Holman confirmed Tuesday to KUCB that the Unalaska Department of Public Safety is investigating current and potentially former city councilors.
Holman declined to comment on the scope of the inquiry. But at Tuesday’s City Council meeting, former councilor Yudelka Leclere connected it to the ongoing controversy surrounding Deputy Police Chief Jennifer Shockley.
“Today, I can stand here and look at you, Officer Shockley,” Leclere said during public comments. “We never gave an order to fire you.”
Since August, the council has denied accusations that they pressured former city manager Dave Martinson to discipline Shockley for creating a survey asking Unalaskans to rate their satisfaction with each councilor.
When Martinson resigned last month, however, he cited long-term tension with the council that came to a head recently over a “personnel decision.”
While it appears councilors are now under investigation for their roles in the power struggle, Councilor Dave Gregory said the extent of the probe is unclear.
“There’s an investigation of council members,” Gregory said. “Maybe it’s Roger (Rowland), maybe it’s me, maybe it’s Yudelka (Leclere), maybe it’s the other council members. We don’t know. We can’t get any information on it.”
Holman said the local Public Safety Department is “part” of the investigation, but he wouldn’t confirm whether other agencies are involved or comment on the timeline for completion.
The most specific information came from Councilor Alejandro “Bong” Tungul, who said an attorney has asked to review his emails.
“I’m being served a warrant on my computer, which I’m not happy about,” Tungul said.
A KUCB public information request for all August emails between the city manager, mayor and council was returned heavily redacted by the city attorney.
While the community awaits more information, the council has narrowly upheld a directive that could launch a counter-investigation.
At her last meeting in office, Leclere proposed hiring a third-party investigator to look into the matter.
Several current councilors argued the city should let the ongoing inquiry play out before taking any action. But others agreed an independent investigator is necessary, given the deputy police chief’s role in the incident.
“Since people who are in the Public Safety division are part of this, we need to get some outside assistance.” Councilor James Fitch said.
Councilors split 3-3 over the directive, leaving Mayor Frank Kelty to cast the tiebreaker vote. He pushed the motion forward, authorizing the interim city manager and city attorney to explore the possibility of contracting for a separate investigation.
Keete Inlet on Prince of Wales Island. (Google Maps image)
A 26-year-old Ketchikan man faces first-degree murder charges related to the Wednesday shooting death of 64-year-old Brian Stanton of Ketchikan. Timothy Murphy was arrested Wednesday, and held at the Craig jail.
The shooting took place at the Phoenix Logging Camp at Keete Inlet on Prince of Wales Island, according to Alaska State Troopers.
Trooper Robert Jensen’s affidavit filed in the Prince of Wales court office states that the POW Troopers station received a call about Stanton’s death at about 6:30 a.m. Wednesday. Stanton had been found dead inside his trailer at the remote camp.
Jensen reports that as troopers were preparing to travel to the camp, they received a second call. The caller told troopers that it appeared the victim had been shot in the back of the head while he sat on a couch. They had found spent shell casings, and the caller told troopers that Murphy had admitted he was responsible.
Trooper Jensen arrived at the camp at around 10:30 a.m., and writes that he detained Murphy while investigating the shooting.
Jensen reports that Stanton shared the trailer with two other men. One roommate told Jensen that he saw Stanton alive at 6 a.m. as the roommate was leaving for breakfast. He told Jensen that he walked past Murphy standing in the door of another trailer, and that Murphy looked surprised and concealed something.
The roommate told Jensen that a few minutes later, he heard a commotion, returned to his trailer and found Stanton dead.
The other roommate was asleep at the time of the shooting. He told Jensen that he woke up when he heard shouting followed by two pops. According to the affidavit, he says he came out of his bedroom, saw the shell casings and saw Stanton dead on the couch.
Murphy’s roommate told Jensen that while others responded to Stanton’s death, Murphy told him that he’d shot someone. Murphy also allegedly told the camp boss that he was responsible for Stanton’s death.
Murphy did not make any admissions to Trooper Jensen, according to the affidavit.
At the time of this report, court records show Murphy has had one court hearing in the case.
Environmental groups held an anti-drilling rally at the Capitol Oct. 17, 2017. Photo: Liz Ruskin.
The U.S. House has passed the Senate’s budget resolution, and with it the seeds of legislation that could open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling.
The resolution itself has no force of law but it tells committees in the House and Senate to draw up a bill that includes tax cuts. It also instructs the energy and resources committees to find at least $1 billion in savings or revenues. Sen. Lisa Murkowski said the best way to fulfill that directive is by opening ANWR. She has scheduled a hearing on that for Nov. 2 in the Senate Energy Committee, which she chairs.
Drilling advocates want ANWR included in the budget reconciliation bill because that kind of bill can’t be filibustered, so it would need only 51 votes to pass the Senate.
Environmental groups, and the Gwich’in Steering Committee, are preparing for legislative battle. They dispute claims that drilling won’t damage the coastal plain of the refuge.
“The Gwich’in Nation will continue to fight until the Arctic Refuge is taken out of the budget bill, as we have done for decades,” Bernadette Demientieff, executive director of the Gwich’in Steering Committee, said in a written statement. “Drilling will hurt the lands, my people and the caribou.”
“I am directing all executive agencies to use every appropriate emergency authority to fight the opioid crisis,” the president proclaimed.
The White House speech laid out an ambitious vision of stamping out opioid addiction within a generation while treating those currently suffering. Trump mentioned his own brother’s struggle with alcoholism, and being moved by infants born at a hospital in West Virginia dependent on opioids. But the speech offered few concrete policy proposals to aid public health officials, families and first-responders across the country.
Alaska’s Bill Walker was among six governors who were at the White House for the president’s signing ceremony.
“It had a very familiar feel to it, when on Feb. 14 when I issued a declaration of disaster,” Walker said. “I think it’s a positive thing that we’re all… we’re all on the field now.”
Walker was the second governor in the country to declare a state-level disaster related to opioids. Supporters of the move say it helped save lives by putting thousands of units of the overdose-reversing drug Nalaxone into the hands of Alaskans and marshaled state resources to better confront addiction while curbing access to prescription pain pills.
Walker said the federal declaration could unlock more funds for Alaska or provide greater flexibility in federal rules.
“Much of what he has proposed is much of what we’re doing in Alaska already but to do it on a national basis, I think has greater significance,” Walker said.
One of Alaska’s authorities on the opioid crisis is Dr. Jay Butler, the state’s chief medical officer, who was also in Washington for the day’s events.
“What we heard today was a very high-level overview, which I think was very positive,” Butler said. “But there’s two questions. What are some of the specifics this will mean? And are there resources that’ll support some of the visionary ideals that we heard today?”
Butler hopes the declaration will prompt a supplemental appropriation from Congress to bring more money into states for treatment and prevention efforts.
One remark the president made that stood out to Butler was a reference to ending a rule known as the IMD exclusion, which bans Medicaid payments to treatment facilities that have more than 16 beds. In Alaska, that’s been a major barrier. Anchorage Assembly member Christopher Constant, who has worked for the Akeela Recovery center, said if it weren’t for the IMD rule they’d be able to double the number of beds at the facility. State officials have already asked for an exemption from the policy. After Trump’s declaration today, people working up-close on substance abuse and recovery are optimistic.
Karl Soderstrom is one of the founders of Fiend 2 Clean, a program in Wasilla that helps connect people with treatment and recovery. He described the declaration as a “really, really big deal.”
Soderstorm constantly works with people who are trying to get clean, but don’t have the money for private treatment options, and can’t get a spot in facilities that accept Medicaid.
“The majority of Alaskans that are indigent, that are homeless, that are IV-drug users, a lot of these folks meet the criteria for a residential-treatment stay, but don’t have access to one,” Soderstorm said.
Soderstrom said the president’s move opens the door for expanded treatment, and he hopes programs like his will see a trickle-down in funds if federal dollars follow. He thinks it’s unfortunate the disaster declaration has taken so long, and pointed out that since the president first announced his intention of designating a federal emergency in August, thousands of Americans have died from opioid overdoses. Still, for Soderstrom, this drives the issue to the front of public consciousness.
“I think it’s great news,” Soderstrom said. “I think that President Trump was really smart to put the Commission on Substance Abuse together, and I think this is just the tip of the iceberg. This disaster declaration pushes the opioid epidemic up as a priority. So now we have to do something about it.”
Both of Alaska’s senators applauded today’s move and say they’ll push for additional resources.
Image taken on April 18, 2017, showing the area of light crude spray near BP’s well. (Photo by Jade Gamble, Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation)
BP will likely plug and abandon 13 wells on the North Slope following an accident earlier this year.
That’s according to Cathy Foerster of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. The commission met with BP representatives Thursday for an update on the April incident, during which one of the company’s older wells spewed oil and gas for several days before it could be plugged.
Several months later, BP determined 14 other wells were at risk, five of which were producing oil. Foerster said it’s likely all but one will be shut down for good.
That’s a small number compared to Prudhoe Bay’s roughly 1,800 wells. But state regulators are still making sure BP shares its investigation with other oil companies.
“Anybody that’s got an old well on the North Slope needs to know what the results of their investigation are and look for implications in their fields,” Foerster said.
BP thinks the accident was caused by thawing permafrost deep below the surface, which put uneven stress on the well. Eventually, the well gave out, rising several feet out of the ground and colliding with the top of the well house.
BP hasn’t been calling the incident a “blowout.” Foerster said oil industry engineers wouldn’t call it that because there wasn’t a rig on the well. But, she said it was definitely an uncontrolled leak.
“If that’s how you define it, then yeah, it was a blowout. [But] if you define it in the black-and-white way that engineers tend to define things, no. So it’s semantics. You call it what you call it,” Foerster said. “But what it was was an uncontrolled release of hydrocarbons to the surface, and that’s not a good thing.”
This wasn’t BP’s only accident this year. Last week, Buzzfeed News released documents showing the company forced many employees to halt work for 12 days this month following a series of safety incidents.
Rep. Matt Claman, D-Anchorage, Rep. Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins, D-Sitka, Rep. Chuck Kopp, R-Anchorage, and Rep. David Eastman, R-Wasilla, discuss amendments to Senate Bill 54. Criminal Division Director John Skidmore, on the right, is testifying. (Photo by Andrew Kitchenman/KTOO)
Lawmakers are making some changes to a bill aimed at revising the state’s criminal sentencing laws. But these changes haven’t dramatically changed the main provisions of the bill, or its cost.
The House Judiciary Committee passed six amendments to Senate Bill 54. It voted down 17 others, through 3 p.m. Wednesday.
Anchorage Republican Rep. Chuck Kopp has proven to be a key vote on the amendments. The retired police officer has voted for some, but he’s voted against most, largely sticking to the recommendations of the Alaska Criminal Justice Commission included in the bill.
One amendment that was defeated would have increased penalties for drug offenders. Kopp voted no, citing the fact that prosecutors had not asked for it. He said prosecutors’ work is difficult.
“You have no capacity to appreciate that it leaves scars on their soul, protecting us,” Kopp said. “When they come here and tell us this is what we think is right I defer to that. They suffered to get to the wisdom they have to tell us this. And it is to our peril that we ignore and we mock them.”
The hearings have been testy. Eagle River Republican Rep. Lora Reinbold questioned the testimony of John Skidmore, who directs the state’s criminal prosecutions.
“I recognize that you’re here on behalf of the attorney general, representing the Department of Law, not necessarily fighting for the prosecutors,” Reinbold said.
Skidmore took exception.
“I need to correct that misrepresentation,” Skidmore said. “I am sitting here fighting for prosecutors. I am sitting here trying to make sure they get the right tools.”
Skidmore said it will take more time for the department to make recommendations to change the law.
Whether Senate Bill 54 becomes law may depend on how much it’s amended.
The more it’s changed, the more difficult it may be for both legislative chambers to agree to a bill. And there has been some concern that amendments to the bill could increase spending.
The bill is one of two items Gov. Bill Walker included in the special session that’s scheduled to end by Nov. 21. The other bill would institute a 1.5 percent payroll tax.
The F/V Akutan arrived in August after a disastrous fishing season in Bristol Bay. Since then, more than half a dozen state and federal agencies have been monitoring the vessel, but to the frustration of city leaders, none are willing or able to remove it from the bay.
Fall in the Aleutians means strong winds – so strong they can cause a ship to drag anchor. That’s exactly what happened on Oct. 5, when Unalaska Ports Director Peggy McLaughlin received a call that the fishing vessel Akutan was headed towards the beach.
“It was roughly 200 yards off the beach,” McLaughlin said. “We were able to work with Dunlap Towing, and they went out and got a line on it, kept it off the beach and kept it from potentially breaching its hull.”
That prompted the Coast Guard to take another look at the abandoned vessel. Officials determined the vessel was in imminent danger of polluting the bay.
So, the Coast Guard hired a salvage company to remove the remaining fuel and other hazardous substances from the Akutan. So far, the company Resolve Magone Marine has offloaded 14,000 gallons of fuel, Coast Guard Lt. Abbie Lyons said.
“When it’s not raining sideways and blowing 75 knots outside, they’ve been working on the Akutan to remove all the fuel,” Lyons said.
With unpredictable weather, Lyons said she doesn’t know when the cleanup will be completed. But she estimates there are at most 20,000 gallons left on the vessel.
“As a result of going on board and going into some of the tanks, they’re finding that there is fuel and oily waste in places that it wouldn’t normally be or shouldn’t be held,” Lyons said.
The Coast Guard has spent almost $2 million on the clean up to date. McLaughlin, Unalaska’s Ports Director, is glad to see the fuel removal taking place, but said it doesn’t solve the problem of having a large ship abandoned in a busy, ecologically important bay as winter sets in.
Removing the heavy fuel will cause the Akutan to sit higher in the water, making it more susceptible to strong winds. Even with additional efforts to secure the boat, McLaughlin is concerned the ship may run aground or sink.
“Captains Bay in the wintertime can be absolutely crazy with wind,” McLaughlin said. “We’ve seen it time and time again where anchorages don’t hold.”
Ultimately, McLaughlin would like to see the boat out of Unalaska waters. But there’s no indication the Akutan will be moving any time soon.
After the Akutan’s owners abandoned the vessel, the city was hopeful a state or federal agency would step in to remove it. But McLaughlin has found that unless there is immediate danger, like an environmental threat, there’s not much that any party will do.
“There’s at least half-a-dozen-plus agencies involved with the Akutan,” McLaughlin said. “Yet not one of those agencies has an opportunity or a mechanism to enact any kind of jurisdiction over dealing with the vessel itself. The Coast Guard can come in and remove some of the contaminants, but the vessel remains where it’s at.”
McLaughlin and community members were under the impression that once the crew abandoned ship, the Alaska Department of Natural Resources (DNR) would declare the Akutan a derelict vessel and gain jurisdiction to take steps to move the ship before it sinks or runs aground. But DNR’s Clark Cox said that’s not the state’s responsibility. Even if it was, he said, they don’t have the money.
“Our staffing and funding resources are quite limited and we certainly don’t have them for a large vessel in a remote location like this,” Cox said. “We’re often left just as incapable of dealing with these issues as local municipalities and state agencies.”
While DNR often takes the lead because they own state tidelands and are responsible for waterways, Alaska Statute does not specify who is responsible for taking over derelict vessels.
With no one taking responsibility for the ship, it’s unclear what will happen to the Akutan. The city is adamant that it needs to move. But for the foreseeable future, it will remain anchored, ghost-like, in Captains Bay.
Smoke from wood burning in the Mat-Su’s Butte region is pushing ever-closer to violating federal air quality standards. Too many bad air days, and the Environmental Protection Agency will swoop in to take action.
That’s what happened in Fairbanks, and it has cost millions to address.
A combination of geography, cold temperatures and stagnant air can cause smoke from wood stoves or burn piles to get trapped close to the ground, and the particulates in the smoke are harmful to lungs. That health risk is why the EPA regulates air quality.
Speaking to the Mat-Su Borough Assembly in Palmer this week, Fairbanks North Star Borough Mayor Karl Kassel says Fairbanks has spent considerable time and money getting in line with EPA rules.
“Their mission really has been to help us get to cleaner air. This is a health problem,” Kassel said. “We see up-ticks at our hospital when the air is bad. And they understand that coming in like a SWAT team is going to make people annoyed.”
Fairbanks officials have tried to educate residents on the benefits of burning drier wood and cleaning their chimneys, funded a program to swap old stoves for more efficient ones and developed guidelines for burn bans and fines for violators.
But there has been some pushback in Fairbanks. On a few occasions, Fairbanks residents have voted to limit the borough’s powers over regulating air quality.
With similar smoke issues on the horizon in the Butte, borough officials are concerned.
Mat-Su Borough Manager John Moosey said he wants to not only avoid negative impacts to Valley residents’ health, but also running afoul of the EPA.
“And as we learned from Fairbanks, the cost to try to reverse that and prove that is incredible,” Moosey said.
Moosey said – like in Fairbanks – there are opportunities for education and person-to-person communication, like calling individual wood burners to discuss ongoing smoke problems.
Moosey said one big push is getting people to properly split and stack fire wood so that it dries out as much as possible. He also said there may be ways to better define the best times to burn brush: when it’s not too hot, dry and windy – because of wildfire danger – and when it’s not so cold that an inversion layer traps the smoke.
But, the question is, will it be difficult to convince people to get on board?
“People live in Alaska because they like freedom, and we want to honor that,” Moosey said. “We want people to be able to use their choice of heating their homes, and I think with doing some preventative measures, we’re not going to have to worry about it. It’s just going to take a little effort.”
Meanwhile, the Mat-Su Borough issued an air quality alert Thursday for a different reason: wind-blown silt.
The borough says gusting winds up to 55 miles per hour, expected through Friday night, are kicking up silt that can also cause breathing problems, especially for the elderly or anyone with heart or lung conditions.
Mugshot of Robert Stroud at Leavenworth circa 1912 (Kansascity.com via Juneau-Douglas City Museum)
In this spooky pre-Halloween edition of AK, we revisit the scene of the crime, the site of a cold-blooded murder over a hundred years ago in Juneau. KTOO’s Matt Miller spent this summer researching what happened when the Birdman of Alcatraz killed for the first time.
“Robert F. Stroud. Breaking that train window was a serious offense.”
“It was hot. I was thinking of my lungs.”
That’s Karl Malden and Burt Lancaster in the 1962 movie Birdman of Alcatraz that’s based on the book of the same name. Lancaster plays Robert Stroud, perhaps the country’s most notorious inmate.
“You know, I think I got you figured out, Shoemaker,” Stroud said, as portrayed by Lancaster. “First day I came here you as much asked me to get down on my knees and whimper. I wouldn’t do it then. I won’t do it now. I won’t lick your hand and that’s what eats you… Well, you keep this in mind. A man ain’t whipped until he quits! And, I’ll never give you that pleasure!”
While incarcerated at Leavenworth prison in Kansas, Stroud took in a few birds and nursed them back to health. That led to a small cottage industry of bird care remedies, and one of the first and most widely regarded books on bird diseases and bird care.
In this example of the many court documents found in the state’s archives, Robert Stroud’s defense attorney and the prosecutor appear in U.S. District Court on Feb. 23, 1909. They argue over changing the trial location to Skagway on June 7, 1909. At the bottom of the page, ‘Kitty Dulaney’, who was initially charged as an accessory to the murder, has her own case continued to the following Monday.
Stroud was forced to end his study of birds when he was transferred to Alcatraz in San Francisco. He landed there because he murdered two men. The first in downtown post-gold rush Juneau.
“In 1909 in Alaska, you appointed yourself judge, jury and executioner and killed one Charles Damer because he allegedly beat up a friend, Katy Malone, a prostitute,” Malden said, portraying a prison official, Stroud’s principal antagonist.
Stroud met his girlfriend Kate Dulaney in Cordova in 1908. Dulaney, also known as Kitty O’Brien, was a dance hall girl among her various occupations.
A few sensational accounts paint Stroud as Dulaney’s pimp. But Stroud was only 18 years old and, according to Thomas Gaddis’ book Birdman of Alcatraz, was completely inexperienced with women until he met Dulaney. She was twice his age and probably bonded with Stroud when she nursed him back to health after a bout of pneumonia.
Stroud and Dulaney left Cordova and followed one of Dulaney’s acquaintances to Juneau. Charles Damer had become a bartender at the Montana Saloon.
Leo Helmar helped retrace the events of the murder. Helmar is a paralegal at the City and Borough of Juneau’s Department of Law. He also just started a podcast called “Murder Alaska.”
“A lot of the things about Robert Stroud have sort of passed into the realm of myth,” Helmar said. “Like the fact that he’s called the Birdman of Alcatraz is not accurate at all, for example. He didn’t have birds at Alcatraz.”
Helmar walked through downtown Juneau to find the Montana Saloon and Dulaney’s crib in Juneau’s old red light district.
Mugshot of Robert Stroud at Alcatraz (Alcatraz via Juneau-Douglas City Museum)
“Apparently, there’s some previous relationship there between Dulaney and Damer,” Helmar said. “Obviously, that was a flashpoint with Stroud, for whatever reason.”
Some accounts say Damer stiffed Dulaney on money he owed her. But according to Gaddis, Damer wanted Dulaney to stay with him. He assaulted her, gave her black eyes and took a gold locket with her daughter’s picture after ripping it from around her neck.
Stroud came back to her room, became enraged and took Dulaney’s revolver when she passed out drunk. Stroud bought some ammunition and headed up the hill to Damer’s cottage several blocks away.
Stroud and Damer fought. Stroud fired a shot and missed. He fired again into Damer’s temple and down into his pelvis.
A neighbor heard the two shots and watched Stroud leave Damer’s house. Stroud returned the locket and gun to Dulaney’s room, and then turned himself into the local marshal.
“It’s so interesting to try to do historical reconstruction because a lot of the time you don’t have all the info you’d like to do, you don’t have all the photos and stuff like that,” Helmar said.
At the murder scene, inside the current house on the lot is Eric Jorgensen. His firm EarthJustice bought the hip-roofed house with the small eyebrow dormer back in the late 1980s.
“Well, it’s a little oddity about living and working here, I guess,“ Jorgensen said.
Possible scene of Charles Damer’s murder at 325 Fourth Street in Juneau. (Photo by Matt Miller/KTOO)
Jorgensen recalled a rather macabre, tourist walking tour stopping in the adjacent lot years ago. He wasn’t entirely sure, but he presumed it was about the murder and Birdman of Alcatraz.
“An interesting thing to find out that the place that I’m working is near where something like this happened,” Jorgensen said. “Not a particularly positive thing to have this place be associated with, but an interesting little nugget of history for this little place.”
Instead of standing trial after his arrest, Stroud pled out to a manslaughter charge and was sentenced to 12 years in prison. Initially incarcerated at McNeil Island in Washington, he was considered one of the most violent prisoners there.
Stroud spent the rest of his life in the federal prison system, including well over four decades in solitary confinement.
“Will they allow you to work with birds where you’re going?” a reporter asked in the final moments of Birdman of Alcatraz.
“I’m afraid not,” Stroud answered. “In the eyes of the prison bureau, avian research is – as you boys might put it – for the birds.”
Carissa Pearce of Anchorage (Photo by Wesley Early, Alaska Public Media – Anchorage)
This week we’re keeping the Halloween theme going with Carissa Pearce who writes under the moniker The Fermeted Alaskan. Pearce lives in Anchorage, but creates drink recipes for the New Orleans-based company Tales of the Cocktail, and we got her to share some of her favorite Halloween-inspired concoctions.
PEARCE: I go out and hike and pick blueberries and cranberries and goldenberries and salmonberries and I’ll turn it into liqueurs. So my friends kept asking me to make more, and I started making more. And then they’re like, “Well, you should make cocktails out of these.”
Halloween is my favorite holiday, so I do a party every year at my house and it’s all Halloween-themed drinks. So I do candy corn cocktails and Sour Patch Kids shots. And I’ll use some of my infusions in there and pop a little piece of dry ice in it so it’s all smoky and spooky.
The cider… it’s super easy. You can get your favorite brand and I’ll put it in a pot on the stove. And I dump an entire 16-ounce bag of Brock cinnamon red disc candies in it, and I’ll heat it up and stir it until it melts. And then I just stick the ladle in there and people can come up and get their own cider. And it’s cinnamony and delicious. I also, for the alcoholic version, I will add whiskey to it.
My favorite Halloween cocktail is a spin-off of the Corpse Revival, and I call it The Walking Dead. So, I infused gin with fresh cherries and then I have lemon thyme-infused gin that I mix with it. I put in orange liqueur — which I use Grand Marnier. You can use other orange liqueurs if you want. I use Lillet, which is a fortified wine, fresh lemon juice and orange blossom water spray on the top, and I pop a piece of dry ice in there. It’s mind-blowing, the flavors.
I do love candy, so if I can stick a Reese’s Pieces and infuse it and make a cocktail out of it, it’s fun for me. I get to play a little bit and act like a little kid.
All 158,318 of highly contested Bristol Bay salmon from the F/V Akutan has been thrown away in the Anchorage landfill. (Photo by Eric Keto/Alaska Public Media)
Some 158,318 pounds of highly contested Bristol Bay salmon from the F/V Akutan have reached their final destination: the Anchorage landfill.
This summer, the custom processor was supposed to process up to 100,000 pounds of salmon a day for Bristol Bay Seafoods LLC, a small group of fishermen.
But nearly everything that could go wrong did. The vessel’s owner went broke, the crew wasn’t paid, and when 158,318 pounds of fish came off the boat in early September, the third-party testing group NSF declared it unfit for human or animal consumption.
Capt. Steve Lecklitner said the only test NSF ran on the fish was a sniff test, meaning the tester smelled the fish to determine it was bad.
“I kind of chuckled a little bit, but that’s how they’re certified,” Lecklitner said.
Lecklitner said a representative from Bristol Bay Seafoods selected the four 50-pound bags that NSF tested. That means less than a tenth of one percent of all the fish was tested.
Because the fish was so highly contested, Lecklitner said he suggested to the NSF tester that additional testing be done.
“She told me that full testing could be done, but it had to be contracted,” Lecklitner said. “Bristol Bay Seafoods LLC did not pay for that. They didn’t want the report released.”
NSF officials declined to comment for this story, saying they want to keep the testing confidential.
Pallets of detained fish from the F/V Akutan await transport to Anchorage. (Photo courtesy of William Earnhart/Birch Horton Bittner & Cherot)
In a statement, a lawyer representing Bristol Bay Seafoods said the company believes the fish was polluted sometime between an Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) inspection in mid-August and when the fish was removed from the processor in early September.
“When the fish was unloaded, 25,000 pounds were visibly saturated with fuel,” the lawyer said. “[NSF] inspected the remaining fish and found all samples to be positive for diesel.”
The lawyer said it’s unclear whether the Akutan’s crew contaminated the fish on purpose or through negligence.
But Chief Engineer Decio Andrade said it wouldn’t make sense for the crew to destroy the fish, because their pay hinged on the fish going to market.
“To say that all the fish is condemned — that all the fish has diesel in it — that’s BS,” Andrade said. “There’s no way the diesel ever touched the fish.”
Both Andrade and Lecklitner believe Bristol Bay Seafoods wanted the fish to be found unsafe for consumption, because it allows the company to collect on an insurance claim for the fish’s full market value.
“If the fish is condemned, then Bristol Bay Seafoods has an insurance claim. They would receive all of it,” Lecklitner said. “If it went that way, then the crew would not get paid.”
Lecklitner said the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) had liens on the fish. If it had sold, he said Bristol Bay Seafoods would not see any money. Instead, the funds would be used to pay the crew. The DOL has declined to comment until the case is closed.
In Alaska, DEC officials said it’s not unprecedented to have this much fish go to waste. Since 2014, the department has ordered more than 100,000 pounds of fish destroyed at least two other times.
In this case, Bristol Bay Seafoods said the Anchorage landfill was the only available disposal option in the state.
Vernon Smith, 2002 Nobel laureate in Economics (Photo courtesy of UAA)
Nobel laureate economist Vernon Smith spent three years at the University of Alaska Anchorage late in his career, and UAA has now named the centerpiece of its experimental economics program after him.
Smith was a C student in high school, with sloppy handwriting. No one else in his family had been to college. He grew up on a farm in Kansas and helped build B-29 bombers as a teenager during World War II.
But Smith worked hard at a local community college, passed the entrance exam at Cal Tech and started reading about economics.
“I was really amazed, here are the social sciences, you could do social science in a rigorous way,” Smith said.
Smith taught at universities around the country and developed methods for conducting laboratory experiments in economics. Essentially, he created tools that didn’t exist before that have allowed for a much greater understanding of how complex systems and markets are likely to behave in the real world.
“So you can do experiments to answer policy questions,” Smith said. “But the first job is to understand that world.”
For Smith, understanding and getting to know Alaska started in the mid-1960s, when he visited for seven weeks of camping and fishing.
“You know, kind of fell in love with Alaska on that summer trip,” Smith said.
Smith returned over the years, and he was visiting Anchorage when – decades later in the early 2000s – a UAA professor asked if he’d be interested in being the first ever Rasmuson Chair of Economics. Smith agreed, but then something happened: That fall he won the Nobel in Economics.
Of course, that was great for Smith. But it worried UAA.
“Well they thought I wouldn’t come, thought, now, you know, ‘It’s probably off because he’ll be so busy,’ but I didn’t- I still wanted to come,” Smith said. “It was something I wanted to do, and I figured I’d just make time for it.”
So with Nobel prize in hand, Smith came to UAA and laid the groundwork for the experimental economics program and the lab there that is now named after him.
Over the years, with his connection to Alaska, Smith also watched the state’s own grand experiment play out, as it used its oil wealth to create a permanent fund. He said the fund was a great idea, and a really great model for other resource-rich states or countries.
But Smith says 100 percent of that oil tax revenue should’ve gone to the fund, with an income tax to pay for state government. He says Alaskans have so far gotten a “free ride.”
If there were a more direct connection between Alaskans’ income and how government is funded, Smith says more people would be more engaged with policy decisions and government officials.
“I mean, people think, ‘What difference does it make? You just put it in one pocket and take it out of the other,'” Smith said. “But it goes through some sort of a ballot process, you see, so that governments don’t get access to that free. They’ve got to convince the people that they’re willing to pay taxes in order to support their programs. It’s a big difference.”
At this point, years down the road, Smith says an income tax will be a hard sell. And with the Legislature set to again take up the issue, it could be another Alaska economics experiment still playing out.
The Juneau Housing First building. Taken Sept. 19, 2017, right before the facility opened. (Photo by David Purdy/KTOO)
Alaska has a housing shortage, and it’s hard for many of the state’s most vulnerable residents to find secure, stable places to live. Different organizations around Alaska are coming together to try to fill the gap, but it’s going to require new types of collaboration.
Today ends the first week of the Legislature’s fourth special session. Alaska Public Media’s Zachariah Hughes spoke with KTOO’s Andrew Kitchenman about where things stand.
HUGHES: Andrew, hello, and first of all, tell me where in the Capitol building are you?
KITCHENMAN: Well, I’m in the Capitol’s press room’s little audio recording booth.
HUGHES: And what is happening outside the booth in the capitol today?
KITCHENMAN: Well, we have reporters working on stories, and legislators kind of milling around. And basically what we’ve seen this week is a lot less activity than we would’ve seen if the Senate had stuck around. We’ve only seen meetings basically in the House the last coupe days. The Senate’s going to be holding meetings next week in Anchorage. But, for now, basically the House is working on both of the bills hat Governor Bill Walker asked the Legislature to consider. One bill would bill would scale back some of the changes made last year in the major overhaul of the state’s criminal justice law, and the other bill would just impose a new tax — a one and a half percent payroll tax.
HUGHES: I want to start with the criminal justice bill because I think people are getting very confused messages about what’s actually happening. It sounds like there’s SB91 which was signed into law last year, but this year the Senate’s actually considering Senate Bill 54. Explain what, in the last few days, they’ve decided to do with that?
KITCHENMAN: Well, before they started work on it, what the bill would’ve done is basically make the penalties for committing some offenses tougher than they were under SB91. For example, the Legislature, if it passes this bill, people who commit Class C felonies, like assault or threatening, would expect to face one year in jail, and under SB91, they would only see jail time if they violated their probation. What’s been happening this week is the House Judiciary Committee debated amendments to the bill. They passed eight of those. They defeated 22 others. Many, many hours of debate. The eight amendments aren’t expected to have a major budget impact, and that is probably good for the chances of the bill passing, because the majorities in both houses probably don’t want to see a dramatic incrase in the budget due to this bill.
HUGHES: Do you have a sense about where things are headed with the bill?
KITCHENMAN: Well, it goes to the House Finance Committee next and they’re also considering the tax bill. Once they’re done with the crime bill, it’s gonna go to the entire house, and that promises to be a heated floor debate. Most Republicans want the bill to go further in repealing SB91, while most Democrats want to give the major provisions of last year’s law more time. My sense is that lawmakers want to pass a bill considering how concerned Alaskans are about crime, particularly in Anchorage.
HUGHES: And what about the tax bill? Wasn’t that the reason legislators were called back to Juneau in the first place, ostensibly, by the Governor? Where do things stand with that?
KITCHENMAN: That’s basically what the session was supposed to be about before the crime issue sort of took it over. The Senate Finance Committiee is scheduled to hold hearings on oil revenue, the state budget and the Permanent Fund next week. Presumably, they’re gonna explore how large a gap there is between what the state spends and what it brings in in oil royalties, taxes and fees. Walker’s team says that the tax is needed to cover that gap, and that’d be true even if the Legislature were to pass another major bill that would draw money from Permanent Fund earnings to pay for state government. The bill faces long odds in the Senate because some Senators are basically hopeful that oil royalties will cover the gap like it has whenever the state’s been in a budget crisis in the past.
In other news out of the capitol, the Alaska State Officers Compensation Commission voted Wednesday to cut state legislators’ pay by 10 percent, or roughly $5,000 per year.
It would be the first cut to Alaska legislators’ salaries since 1987. The commission also voted to cut the amount lawmakers are paid each day during the session by roughly two thirds, down to $78 per day.
The changes will go into effect, unless the Legislature votes against it.
Esau Sinnok, of Shishmaref, is one of 16 young Alaskans suing the state. He’s shown here in 2015, with Interior Secretary Sally Jewell and others at the COP21 climate meeting in Paris. (Photo courtesy Arctic Youth Ambassadors)
Sixteen young Alaskans are suing the state, demanding Gov. Bill Walker’s administration take action on climate change.
It’s the second such legal action in the last six years. In 2014, the Alaska Supreme Court dismissed a similar lawsuit, Kanuk v Alaska, from six young people asking the state to reduce carbon emissions, among other recommendations. The justices ruled then that it’s not for the courts to set climate policy and that those decisions must be made through the political process, by the Legislature and the governor.
The new lawsuit says, essentially, the state has made its choice, and by encouraging oil development and permitting projects that emit greenhouse gases, Alaska is actively making climate change worse. The plaintiffs argue that violates their constitutional rights to, among other things, “a stable climate system that sustains human life and liberty.”
The suit argues it’s time for the courts to intervene.
Andrew Welle is one of the lawyers representing the young plaintiffs. He said they want the state to produce a plan to reduce carbon emissions, including from the state’s major industries.
“There needs to be a way for Alaska to address the emergency that’s being compounded by its government,” Welle said. “If that results in reductions of oil and gas extraction, that could be a component of the plan.”
Welle works for Our Children’s Trust, an Oregon-based nonprofit that has filed similar lawsuits on behalf of young plaintiffs in states around the country and in federal court. Our Children’s Trust also backed the previous suit in Alaska.
The complaint, Sinnok et al v State of Alaska, is named for lead plaintiff Esau Sinnok, 19, who is from the community of Shishmaref on the Chukchi Sea coast. Shishmaref has voted to relocate because of rapid erosion due in part to the loss of sea ice. The lawsuit argues that climate change threatens “the very existence” of Sinnok’s “home village and native culture.”
Seb Kurland, a high school senior in Juneau, is another plaintiff. Kurland, 18, said young Alaskans have a particular stake in how the state handles climate change.
“I think a lot of young people in Alaska are very aware of this issue,” Kurland said. “We’re on the forefront of it, we see the impacts firsthand, we see how they alter the world around us.”
Kurland was one of 19 teenagers with the advocacy group Alaska Youth for Environmental Action who filed a petition with the Department of Environmental Conservation earlier this fall, asking the state to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The state denied that petition, arguing the request posed “significant consequences for employment and resource development”.
But the Walker administration has promised that some sort of climate plan is in the works.
It’s not clear yet what that plan will include, or when it will be released.
A NASA DC-8 was used to sample the uranium particle. (NASA)
Scientists found an enriched uranium particle over the Aleutian Islands and don’t know where it came from. In 20 years of aerial surveys, it’s the first time researchers have detected a particle like this. It’s not naturally occurring uranium – it’s the kind that might be found in nuclear bombs or fuel.
Dan Murphy wasn’t looking for uranium in August 2016. He wasn’t attempting to sample any radioactive material. He was looking into what particles are in the atmosphere as part of a global survey that could help people better understand air pollution and the climate for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
During the flight from Anchorage to Hawaii, Murphy collected thousands of particles and it wasn’t until he was analyzing the samples back on the ground that he realized what he had.
“We have this mystery particle that we have no way of making that we know about,” Murphy said. “Right now it’s sort of an interesting mystery.”
The mystery particle is enriched uranium — the type of uranium associated with nuclear fuel or bombs, but Murphy says people of the Aleutians do not need to be worried about one atmospheric particle of uranium.
“It’s not going to change world politics,” Murphy said.
The particle was so small that it can’t be seen even with a small optical microscope.
What Murphy can tell is that the uranium probably came from somewhere in Asia. But even using wind trajectories and particle dispersion models, he can’t pin it on a specific country. Murphy says this discovery won’t change how he does his research.
“This was rare enough that I don’t think if I did more flights I would see another one,” Murphy said.
Murphy recently published a paper about the particle with the hope that another scientist – maybe one who knows a lot about uranium will help solve this mystery.
An oil rig at Prudhoe Bay this spring. (Photo by Elizabeth Harball, Alaska’s Energy Desk)
Senator Lisa Murkowski on Friday released a letter she sent to five oil company leaders, saying she is concerned about the steady decrease in Alaska hire in the oil industry.
Murkowski cited a recently released Alaska Department of Labor report, stating the share of out-of-state workers in Alaska’s oil industry rose to 37.1% in 2016. That’s compared to a low of 28.1% in 2009.
The Senator addressed the letter to the heads of ConocoPhillips Alaska, BP Exploration Alaska, Alyeska Pipeline Service Company, ExxonMobil Alaska and Hilcorp Alaska.
As the Senator does every year, Murkowski asked for data on how many Alaskan residents the companies employ, including contractors and subcontractors.
In response to a request for comment, three of the companies provided statements including data on how many Alaskans they employ.
BP reported 76% Alaska hire.
“We do encourage our contractors to hire Alaskans,” BP spokesperson Dawn Patience said in an email. “BP will respond directly to the Senator’s request.”
Conoco reported 84% Alaska hire.
“We strongly support Alaska hire and buy, and encourage our contract companies to hire Alaskans,” Conoco spokesperson Natalie Lowman said in a statement.
Alyeska reported the highest share of in-state hire at 95%.
“All of our active recruiting is in Alaska. We work with Alaska colleges and universities, trade training programs [and] local job fairs,” Alyeska spokesperson Michelle Egan said in an email. “We are very committed to hiring Alaskans.”
Hilcorp reported 89% Alaska hire. A spokesperson said the company was unable to provide further comment.
A spokesperson for Exxon also said the company was unable to comment for this story. Exxon’s website states its percent Alaska hire is roughly 85%.
Two people and a dog curl up near a boiler room on Shattuck Way on Jan. 20, 2017 in downtown Juneau, Alaska. (Photo by Rashah McChesney/Alaska’s Energy Desk)
Thousands of Alaskans have been homeless, but the number would be much higher if organizations and individuals didn’t work to prevent it. On the next Talk of Alaska, we’re discussing solutions for preventing homelessness, and why it affects everyone in the state, not just the families who experience it.
This episode is part of a Solutions Desk series about life on the brink of homelessness. Hear the story of one man whose life hit an unexpected speed bump that almost made him lose his home and his dreams. Listen here.
Gov. Bill Walker presented a health care “blue print” at the National Press Club. (Photo: Liz Ruskin)
Alaska Gov. Bill Walker stood with the governors of Colorado and Ohio in Washington, D.C. to announce a new “blueprint” for health care policy. The blueprint is a broad statement of the principles, and the governors want Congress to get a move on.
It might seem like the health care debate disappeared into the Washington night some time last year. After Republican bills to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act died, there was an effort to keep and fix, by restoring insurance subsidies and shoring up the markets. It fizzled in the Senate.
Ohio Republican Gov. John Kasich says that’s a shame.
“They can’t seem to get this done,” Kasich said at a media announcement held at the National Press Club. “And it’s all politics. It’s all ‘Obama this’ and ‘Obama that.’ Well, you know what? That system needs changed.”
Gov. Bill Walker presented a health care “blueprint” with Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, left, and Ohio Gov. John Kasich, right. Photo: Liz Ruskin
Bipartisanship is a key element in this blueprint. Kasich is a Republican. Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper is a Democrat. And Walker is an independent. So far, two other governors have also signed on: Tom Wolf, D-Pennsylvania, and Brian Sandoval, R-Nevada.
Walker says party lines shouldn’t apply to health care policy.
“The pendulum swinging back and forth between the administrations on health care – that’s what’s got to stop,” Walker said. “Because the ones that get hurt in that swing of the pendulum are those that need health care and need coverage.”
The blueprint calls for market stability, innovation and competition.
Another word that came up a lot: “Flexibility.” Walker said governors need flexibility.
To do what, exactly?
“Flexibility to make sure the health care is provided at a lower cost to Alaskans, with higher value,” Walker said.
How?
“You sit down and you negotiate” with insurance carriers and medical providers, Walker said, adding that it’s not going to be popular.
“It’ll be the right thing to do for Alaskans and that’s what we’re going to do,” Walker said. “We’re going to sit down with the providers. We’re going to sit down and say, ‘what can you bring to the table to bring down the cost of health care in Alaska?'”
The governor is in Washington for the winter meeting of National Governors Association. With him were Alaska Insurance Director Lori Wing-Heier and Health Commissioner Valerie Nurr’araaluk Davidson.
Wing-Heier says one option the governor is considering is to allow other Alaska groups to join forces with the state-funded insurance plans to negotiate better prices.
Alaska Insurance Director Lori Wing-Heier, foreground, and Health Commissioner Valerie Davidson. Photo: Liz Ruskin.
“That would allow us to pool state employees with other populations,” Wing-Heier said, “and the small group market might be one that we look at.”
An idea on the rise in some states is imposing work requirements on people who receive Medicaid. Alaska Senate President Pete Kelly, R-Fairbanks, has sponsored a bill to do that.
Davidson says most Alaskans who are covered by Medicaid live in households with at least one working member already. And every week, Davidson says, the governor hears from people who say enrolling in Medicaid allowed them to get treatment for debilitating illness or injury so they could return work.
“And they were looking at not being able to ever work in their lives again,” Davidson said. “We see first-hand the opportunity that the availability of health care has on improving the productivity of Alaskans’ lives.”
The state’s Medicaid rolls grew last year by about 26,000, and nearly 40 percent were children. Wing-Heier and Davidson say it’s due to Alaska’s poor job market.
Several people called 911 a little before 1:30 a.m. reporting the blaze.
The townhouse was engulfed in flames when firefighters arrived, Anchorage Fire Marshal Cleo Hill said.
“Unfortunately during the fire investigation we found three victims who had perished in the fire,” Hill said. “It was a parent and two children.”
The victims have not yet been publicly identified.
Hill said late Friday fire investigators were still combing through the home, and she was unable to say what caused the fire. But Hill noted that early indications are the fire was accidental and foul play is not suspected.
