A few hours after this morning’s oral arguments, the Alaska Supreme Court issued an order affirming the Division of Elections’ final count in the House District 1 election, meaning Republican Bart LeBon has won the November election by one vote.

The Alaska House of Representatives’ Republican caucus, which has been identifying itself as the Alaska House Majority despite lacking a literal majority, put out a statement announcing LeBon’s addition to its caucus. The caucus can now count half of the House as its members, one shy of a majority.

The Alaska Supreme Court is meeting in Anchorage this morning to hear arguments in Kathryn Dodge’s case against state election officials and her election opponent.

Dodge, a Democrat from Fairbanks, is contesting the outcome of the recount in her House District 1 election. Election officials’ final count put Dodge one vote behind Bart LeBon, her Republican opponent in that race. A Superior Court judge has recommended the high court uphold the state Division of Elections’ count.

This is a three-way case: Dodge versus the state and versus Bart LeBon and the state Republican Party. The court has set aside 20 minutes for each side.

The case has statewide implications because neither caucus in the Alaska House of Representatives has a clear majority; therefore no one has clear control of House. More immediately, it has also limited the House’s ability to organize and prepare for the upcoming legislative session, which begins in Jan. 15.

Come back to this post for a live video stream beginning at 9 a.m. Friday.

Last month Japan announced that it is leaving the international group that regulates whaling and will resume commercial whaling in its own coastal waters.

That move provoked some criticism. Commercial whaling has been banned by the International Whaling Commission since the 1980s.

But separate from that, Japan’s decision may have consequences for Alaska’s legal aboriginal subsistence whaling.

Japan’s departure means it will no longer conduct what it calls scientific whaling outside its waters — which was criticized by some as a loophole. Instead, it will hunt commercially in its own territorial waters and 200-mile exclusive economic zone.

The announcement comes on the heels of a proposal Japan made to resume commercial whaling at a recent meeting of the IWC — a proposal that failed.

Japan’s leaving the commission has potential consequences for Alaska whalers, whose quota for subsistence whaling is set by the IWC.

“It would be in our best interest to have Japan remain with the IWC,” said John Hopson Jr., chairman of the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission and a whaling captain in Wainwright. “They were a strong ally of ours in obtaining our quota.”

It’s too soon to know the ultimate impact of Japan’s decision. But the country does play an important role at the IWC, according to Jessica Lefevre, a lawyer for AEWC.

“Japan is a key member of the group within the body that refers to themselves as the ‘sustainable use group,’” said Lefevre. Others include Norway and Iceland, as well as some African, Caribbean and Pacific Island countries.

She said it’s possible that other countries in the sustainable use group could follow Japan’s example and leave the IWC as well — diminishing support for Alaska whalers.

That could make a critical rule change that passed last year less secure. The rule change made the renewal of aboriginal subsistence whaling quotas — including Alaska’s — automatic, provided certain conditions are met.

“The main vulnerability for us is that automatic renewal could be challenged at some point in the future if the … balance of power within the IWC, given Japan’s departure, shifts more in the direction of the anti-whaling coalition,” said Lefevre.

It would take a three-fourths majority vote of the IWC to change the current quota rule.

Hopson said AEWC will work with the United States and other IWC countries to try to find a path forward that preserves Japan’s membership.

He said his group will have a better sense of their next steps after AEWC’s next board meeting later this month.

Alaska based skiers again grabbed podium spots today as the U.S. National Cross Country Ski Championships continued in Craftsbury, Vermont with classic technique sprint competitions.

Logan Hanneman, who trains with Alaska Pacific University program in Anchorage, was second in the men’s race, while APU teammate Hannah Halverson was third in the women’s sprint.

Kendall Kramer of Fairbanks and Molly Gellert of Anchorage placed first and third in the women’s junior race.

The US National Championships continue with long distance skate technique races Sunday and conclude with skate sprints Tuesday.

Substance use disorders are diseases caused by many factors. Preventing and treating them requires input from everyone, not just law enforcement and health professionals. Those are some of the key messages in the state’s new opioid action plan. On Talk of Alaska we’ll discuss the plan and the ways you can be part of the solutions.

HOST: Anne Hillman

GUESTS:

• Andy Jones, Office of Substance Misuse and Addiction Prevention
• Christina Love, recovery advocate
• Elijah Gutierrez, Alaska National Guard Counter Drug Support Program

Call 550-8422 (Anchorage) or 1-800-478-8255 (statewide) during the live broadcast

Post your comment before, during or after the live broadcast (comments may be read on air).

Send an email to talk@alaskapublic.org (comments may be read on air)

LIVE Broadcast: Tuesday, January 8, 2019 at 10:00 a.m. on APRN stations statewide.

SUBSCRIBE: Get Talk of Alaska updates automatically by email, RSS or podcast.

2018 was the second warmest year for Bethel in nearly 100 years of recordkeeping. According to Rick Thoman, a climate scientist in Alaska, Bethel has been no stranger to a warming climate, especially in the last five years.

“So this is the fifth year in a row with the average temperature for the calendar year above freezing in Bethel, and there’s never been a five-year period with the average temperature above freezing in the past century until now,” Thoman said.

Those changes are hitting home in a lot of ways. Bethel’s signature sled dog race, the Kuskokwim 300, had to make a last-minute change to its traditional race route in 2018. The Kuskokwim River is taking longer to freeze, so more residents in remote Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta communities have to travel by air instead, which is expensive.

“It’s not frozen up for safe travel, but it’s not really good for boating yet anymore. In that length of time, is that transition season is increasing over time in these warming years?” said Thoman.

The fragile tundra is also beginning to erode faster. This is forcing many villages to consider relocation as the impacts hit closer to home. Just a few big storms would be all it would take to wash Napakiak’s school into the river, and the coastal village of Newtok is gearing up to build more infrastructure at its new site in the spring.

“It’s going to mean the increasing greening of the tundra with the shrubs growing taller. Over a very long-term, a couple of generations, trees will continue to spread westward. So for instance berry-picking areas, I’ve read that areas that were good berrying in the past are now getting overgrown with shrubs,” Thoman said.

Even though temperatures may fluctuate month-to-month, Thoman reiterates that for Bethel and many other Alaska communities, this trend of warmer winters is not going away.

A Ft. Wainwright-based soldier was found dead at his home in North Pole. U.S. Army Alaska reports that 25-year-old Sergeant Jorden Thomas Williams’ body was discovered by Alaska State Troopers conducting a welfare check Wednesday at the request of Williams’ family in the Lower 48. U.S. Army Alaska spokesman John Pennell says authorities are not releasing any additional information about the case, pending findings of an autopsy.

“We’re waiting for results form the state medical examiner’s report into the cause of death,” Pennell said.

Sergeant Williams joined the Army in Ohio in 2013, and was assigned to Ft. Wainwright in 2014. Williams was a dog handler who deployed to Qatar and Afghanistan, and had been awarded several medals for his service.

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

Alaska Supreme Court rules for LeBon in pivotal election recount case

Andrew Kitchenman, KTOO – Juneau

A few hours after this morning’s oral arguments, the Alaska Supreme Court issued an order affirming the Division of Elections’ final count in the House District 1 election, meaning Republican Bart LeBon has won the November election by one vote.

Overpass damaged in Anchorage due to ‘bridge strike’

Abey Collins, Alaska Public Media – Anchorage

The northbound lanes of the Seward Highway in Anchorage are closed, right in the middle of the city, as the Department of Transportation works to repair an overpass.

Alaska cities pay handsomely for ‘ears on the ground’ in Alaska’s capital. They’re called lobbyists.

Jacob Resneck, CoastAlaska – Juneau

At least $2.6 million in public money went to state lobbyists in 2018. That’s Alaska cities, boroughs and school districts hiring private contractors to represent them in the state’s capital.

Why Mount Jumbo won’t be logged anytime soon

Adelyn Baxter, KTOO – Juneau

The Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority board approved its largest land exchange to date yesterday. Through the deal, up to 40,000 acres of land in and around Southeast communities will change hands.

2018 second warmest year on record for Bethel

Krysti Shallenberger, Alaska’s Energy Desk – Bethel

Climate changes are hitting home in many ways: the Kuskokwim 300 sled dog race had to make a last-minute route change, and the Kuskokwim River is taking longer to freeze, so more residents in remote Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta communities have to travel by air instead.

Finding hope in a graveyard of yellow cedar

Elizabeth Jenkins, Alaska’s Energy Desk – Juneau

Climate change has been linked to killing at least a million acres of trees across the Pacific Northwest. So one ecologist wondered, for the yellow cedar forests and the people who care about them, what comes after environmental loss?

AK: Hammer-time in Haines

Jillian Rogers, KHNS – Haines

Well it turns out Alaska has its fair share of them, including the hammer museum in Haines. It’s a place where hammers are revered, and boast stories both heartfelt and weird. The Hammer Museum has been open for more than a dozen years, providing a public display not to be matched.

49 Voices: Ivan Simonek of Wrangell

Aaron Bolton, KSTK – Wrangell

This week we’re hearing from Ivan Simonek in Wrangell. Simonek emigrated from Czechoslovakia in the 60s.

As the partial government shutdown drags on, the Trump administration is making sure some Interior Department employees continue work on one of its biggest, most controversial priorities: opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling.

Drilling opponents were quick to criticize the move, contrasting it with the overflowing trash cans and unattended public toilets in national parks managed by Interior, which have become a symbol of the continuing stalemate in Washington, D.C.

Emails obtained by Alaska’s Energy Desk show that on Jan. 3 — 13 days into the shutdown — Bureau of Land Management project coordinator Nicole Hayes wrote to community leaders in Alaska to schedule public meetings for the ongoing environmental review process needed to allow oil lease sales in the Arctic refuge.

When contacted Friday by Alaska’s Energy Desk, Hayes’ email account sent an automatic reply: “Due to the lapse in funding of the federal government budget, I am out of the office. I am not authorized to work during this time, but will respond to your email when I return to the office.”

The partial shutdown also isn’t stopping Trump’s Interior Department from pressing ahead with potentially allowing more oil development in another vast, federally managed area in the Arctic, the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, or NPR-A.

The Bureau of Land Management confirmed it is going forward with previously scheduled public meetings on overhauling the NPR-A management plan in the North Slope communities of Utqiagvik on Fri., Jan. 4 and Nuiqsut on Sat., Jan. 5, despite many other Interior Department activities remaining frozen.

The agency is using funds left over from the previous fiscal year to pay for the work, according to acting BLM Alaska director Ted Murphy.

“This money will be used for labor and operations for staff and contractors involved. Work may continue on these projects as long as we have appropriated funds remaining,” Murphy said in a statement.

Interior officials declined to comment further.

Groups opposed to expanding oil development in Alaska’s Arctic criticized Interior’s decision to continue its NPR-A and Arctic refuge-related work during the partial shutdown.

One former Interior employee, now working for a law firm that represents environmental organizations that have sued the Trump administration over oil development, said it is “unusual” to press forward with public meetings during a shutdown.

“When I was with the government I never saw anything like that happen — generally, all non-essential work was basically shut down and employees are not even supposed to be checking their emails,” said Bridget Psarianos, a staff attorney with Trustees for Alaska who formerly worked as project manager for BLM’s Alaska office.

Psarianos asserted that the BLM Alaska employees who are continuing work to allow more oil development during the shutdown are acting under the authority of an administration “whose priorities are drilling on our public lands rather than performing essential government services, like picking up trash in National Parks.”

The Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority board approved its largest land exchange to date Thursday.

Through the deal, up to 40,000 acres of land in and around Southeast communities will change hands between the Trust and the U.S. Forest Service.

The land exchange is the culmination of more than a decade of work by stakeholders and took acts of both Congress and the Alaska Legislature to make it happen.

Once all is said and done, about 18,000 acres of land owned by the Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority will be swapped for roughly 20,000 acres of U.S. Forest Service land.

“We don’t know the exact acreage because it’s based upon equal value, so we’ll see in the end,” said Wyn Menefee, executive director of the Trust Land Office.

The Mental Health Trust owns land all over Alaska, and its goal is to use them to generate money to pay for services for beneficiaries.

Often, that means earning funds through logging and mining. But some of the trust’s lands in Southeast border residential neighborhoods and sites for outdoor recreation.

That includes 2,689 acres around Mount Jumbo, also known as Mount Bradley, a scenic hiking destination in Juneau.

The same goes for Deer Mountain overlooking Ketchikan and similar parcels near Petersburg, Sitka and Wrangell.

Those lands will now be owned and protected by the Forest Service.

“All the lands that we’re receiving are going to be lands that people can access or recreate on,” said Forest Service spokesman Paul Robbins Jr. back in November. “Whether it’s remote recreation or semi-remote recreation, we are supposed to manage these lands for that, including the development and maintenance of recreational trails.”

In exchange, the trust receives federal lands on Prince of Wales Island for logging. They also have a contract with Viking Lumber on Prince of Wales — one of the last working sawmills in Alaska.

With that deal, the trust expects the 10-year sale of old-growth timber to generate up to $15 million for the trust.

But that’s just some of the land involved. Menefee said the entirety of the land they’re getting from the Forest Service will generate millions more in the decades to come.

He said the exchange is a win-win — they gave up lands communities did not want to see logged, and now they can use existing logging infrastructure on Prince of Wales.

“So this puts us in a situation where we can actually make revenues from lands that we get through this exchange, which will help the beneficiaries,” Menefee said.

While residents in those communities may be relieved that nearby lands will be protected, some on Prince of Wales view the exchange as just another instance where they bear the burden of resource development.

Cheryl Fecko has lived in Craig, Alaska, for nearly 40 years. She said she and many of her neighbors are concerned by the impact logging has on species like salmon and deer, which many people rely on for food in the remote community.

“We have over 1,000 miles of road and a patchwork of clear cuts in various stages of regrowth, but honestly I think that’s kind of reason to maybe not go immediately to Prince of Wales instead of always using it as the ‘sacrificial lamb of the Tongass,’” Fecko said.

Menefee said the smaller first phase of the land exchange — which involves two mountains near Ketchikan and timber lands on Prince of Wales — should finalize later this month.

He said Viking could begin processing lumber by February.

On Sunday, Alaskans again posted top results at the U.S. National Cross Country Ski Championships in Vermont.

David Norris, who grew up in Fairbanks and skis for the Alaska Pacific University program in Anchorage, won the men’s 30-kilometer skate technique race, while APU teammate Scott Paterson was 3rd, and fellow Anchorage skier Gus Schumacher was 4th.

APU athletes dominated the women’s 20K event, with Caitlin Patterson in the top spot, followed by Rosie Frankowski, Jessica Yeaton and Hailey Swirbul.

Kendall Kramer of Fairbanks continued to dominate the junior women’s category, winning Sunday’s 7.5K race, while Anchorage’s Luke Jager and Zanden McMullen placed 2nd and 3rd in the junior men’s 10K Sunday.

The US National Championships conclude Tuesday with slate technique sprint competitions.

Scientists have known for a while why yellow cedar is dying across its range. Without a blanket of snow in the spring, the roots can freeze during cold snaps.

Climate change has been linked to killing at least a million acres of trees across the Pacific Northwest. So one ecologist wondered, for the yellow cedar forests and the people who care about them, what comes after environmental loss?

Lauren Oakes says a dead standing yellow cedar tree looks out of place, like a telephone pole on the landscape.

Over time, the branches fall off. What you’re left with is a ghostly hull. It’s the kind of image that leaves an impression.

“It made climate change that much more real to me,” Oakes said. “It often seems like it’s something future or far off or not affecting me yet.”

Oakes is an ecologist, and she calls yellow cedar “the canary tree.” As in that old saying, “The canary in the coal mine” — a sign of impending danger. However, Oakes is quick to point out she doesn’t see yellow cedar’s fate as a doom-and-gloom story.

“It is a story of loss. But it’s also a story of regrowth,” Oakes said.

Yellow cedar is an iconic species that grows from the top of California all the way to Prince William Sound. It has been used for centuries by Indigenous carvers and weavers. And commercially, it’s some of the most valuable timber for harvest. But yellow cedar is declining across its range, and that decline is expected to continue. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is considering listing it as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act.

Oakes says the science on why the decline is happening is pretty much settled: Warming is largely to blame. So, as part of her doctoral research, she traveled to Southeast Alaska with a different set of questions in mind: “How is the forest community changing in response to the death of these trees, and how might people be coping with those changes in their community?”

That is, how could she still find hope in a forest that’s turning into a graveyard?

To answer her first question — how the ecosystem itself is changing — Oakes set out to survey dead stands of yellow cedar across the region. A task she said was overwhelming because of the volume.

But she found the forest was adjusting: New tree species were growing in the newly-opened understory, and shrubs were coming up that deer like to eat. Oakes said focusing on that regrowth gave her some hope.

She also interviewed people affected by the loss and found they were adjusting, too. Oakes spoke to the late Tlingit weaver Teri Rofkar. During their conversations, Rofkar referred to yellow cedar as the “tree people.”

She appears in this Rasmuson Foundation video from 2013, gathering materials outside for weaving.

“So you look for an areas where there’s just moss starting to mature,” Rofkar explains.

In the video, Rofkar is looking for spruce roots. She explained to Oakes she was using them more in her weaving as a substitute for yellow cedar.

Rofkar thought yellow cedar could use “a break,” due to climate change.

“She was someone who had a real emotional tie to these trees,” Oakes said. “(She) certainly talked of the grief she was experiencing. But it was also something that inspired her to not only share with others the importance of offering some restraint for these trees, themselves, but then educate others about climate change.”

Like Oakes, other scientists are also starting to document more examples of environmental grief to understand how humans are adapting to a warming planet.

Oakes said acknowledging a personal loss — in this case, a culturally valuable tree species — may lead to less apathy and potentially more individual action.

It can spark a feeling of, “Wow, this is bigger than me. This is hitting home. How can I cope with that?”

Oakes recently wrote a book about this feeling called “In Search of the Canary Tree,” which is about her time spent doing research on yellow cedar in Southeast Alaska.

She said despite the tremendous loss, life is still growing. She thinks people can still change the narrative.

Former Alaska Gov. Bill Sheffield has a book out. It’s called “Bill Sheffield: A memoir from the Great Depression to the Governor’s Mansion and Beyond.”

And the title kind of says it all. The autobiography chronicles Sheffield’s beginnings as the son of a farmer in the Great Depression, to when he arrived in Alaska in the 1950s, to his term as governor from 1982 to 1986. Sheffield was also CEO of the Alaska Railroad and director of the Port of Anchorage.

Sheffield spoke about the book and his life with Alaska Public Media’s Casey Grove.

Grove: So if you don’t mind, tell me when were you born? And where did you come from?

Sheffield: Well, I was born in 1928 and in Spokane, Wash., and the deep Depression. And then of course the war come along and I joined the U.S.. Air Force. When I got out of the service, the jobs weren’t really plentiful, but I got a job with Sears Roebuck. One day the big boss come and he said, “Sheffield I’ve been looking for you.” He said, “I want you to go to Alaska next month and start TV sales and service in the territory.” And I said, “I don’t know.” And he said, rather gruffly. “What do you mean, ‘You don’t know?'” And I said, “I’ll go.” So that’s how I got here in 1953. Come by steamship from Seattle to Seward, rode the train up to Anchorage, never turned back.

Grove: You know, we had this big earthquake the other day [Nov. 30, 2018] and I gather that that was something you went through in [Alaska’s Good Friday earthquake in] 1964, and I just wondered, how did this one compare to 1964?

Sheffield: Yeah, I had just come back to Anchorage from Palm Springs, where I was for a couple of weeks, and the next morning the earthquake come. And, boy, my house was swaying from right to left and around.  And the one in ’64 lasted 5 minutes. I had a lot of memories that day. A bunch of us were in the Travelodge at 3rd and Barrow, this brand new hotel, and we’re going to open up the next day, and we’re getting the whiskey and the bar set up, the tables and had people still laying carpet upstairs. And the earthquake started and the thing started to go crazy. And so my pregnant bookkeeper and myself, we crawled out to the sidewalk on Third Avenue, and the rest of the crew went out to the alley but they come back and joined us because the alley gave way. And then the street opened up right in front of us. And so I’ve been through two of them now and — It’s not fun. I think the worst part of it is when it’s all over and we get those aftershocks, you know, you don’t know if this is going to do it again.

Grove: What’s your sense of how being the governor of Alaska has changed from when you were doing it to now?

Sheffield: Well when I was elected governor the money in those years was just pouring in. And the Legislature was spending the money as fast as they could. So when I got there, the first thing was the Legislature said, ‘Well governor, this is how it is: For the budget or the capital budget, the Senate gets a third and the house gets a third, and you get a third if you’re there in time.” And I said, “I I don’t think so.” I always tell my friends I would like to vote for somebody once again that made a payroll. You think different, you know, you’ve got to protect your employees and you can’t fool around with the money. And so in ’86 my re-election year. The oil prices went to eight dollars a barrel. So I cut the budget. And I got fired but that’s okay. You got to do what you got to do to protect Alaskans and being governor. You can help somebody every day, help people, and so it’s a great job. It’s the best job in the world being governor of Alaska, and I miss it. Sometimes I tell my friends I think I’ll run again, but of course I’m not going to do that. But because it’s a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week job if you do it, right.

Grove: Forgive me for asking this but I just wanted to ask you what did you put in the book about the the grand jury recommendation that you be impeached and any of that stuff?

Sheffield: Yeah, that’s a sorry part of my life, but one day in Fairbanks about 7:30 in the morning, and in those days, I was trying to combine services like in Anchorage and Fairbanks, sort of one-stop shopping you don’t have to go here, over here, to deal with the state of Alaska.  So I said well we ought to take a look at that building, so we so we did, we took a look at it, and we thought we would lease that building. Well, I didn’t know — and I didn’t care if I’d have known, but some people had donated money to my campaign owned that building, a piece of it. Well, I never thought anything about it. So what? I mean. I made my money before I ran for governor. I didn’t need any more, so– and I wasn’t a crook. So it was all about– that’s how it started and it got away, got away from me. I didn’t pay enough attention to what was going on because I had other things to do in government. And so a lawyer got active on it,. and then that didn’t work so he turned it over to the state and we went through that process and nothing happened and got out of it and everybody spent a lot of money and a lot of time on it. And and so that’s a sorry, sorry spot and in my life, but looking back, I don’t know what I could have done about it.

Grove: What do you think was your greatest accomplishment when you were governor?

Sheffield: The first thing I did was change the time zones in Alaska. So we had one time zone. We had three. People liked that. We bought the Alaska Railroad from the federal government. That’s a major piece of legislation that we had to work, within Alaska and the federal government a lot of trips to Washington D.C. Willie Hensley was a state senator at the time. He and I spent three years getting monuments changed and things to happen and so we could start the Red Dog Mine. As of maybe six months ago, the Red Dog Mine has sifted off well over a billion dollars to the other native corporations. I’ve had a good life. I I have a lucky life and, lucky enough to have my parents would come up and visit me from Bremerton, Wash., and they knew I was doing well and they were, they were proud of me. They had a nice wife, Leigh, and she died of cancer. Our daughter died of the same thing a couple years later. So I’ve been through all of that and I’ve made some mistakes in my life and– Grove: Haven’t we all. Sheffield: I guess so, yeah, to be normal I suppose you have to do that. Anyway, Alaska’s been good. It is good. We’re lucky we live here.

“Rockfish Recompression” — it’s a song and a soon-to-be required Southeast Alaska fishing regulation. As part of CoastAlaska’s “Alaska Made” series, here’s an easy-to-build gadget that’s a simple solution and good fishing karma.

Ketchikan-based band Ratfish Wranglers has a rap all about rockfish recompression.

Rockfish live in deep water. When they’re caught and brought to the surface, they can’t swim back down on their own.

“So they float on the surface, generally, until an eagle picks them up,” said band member and fisherman Brian Curtis.

He doesn’t fish to feed eagles. So he built a simple gadget.

“This is a rockfish recompressing device,” he said, holding up a hook attached to a line and a weight.

And what is a rockfish recompression device?

“It will take a rockfish from the surface suffering from barotrauma back down to the depths (from) where it came, and recompress him in so doing,” Curtis said.

Barotrauma is damage caused by a quick change in pressure. Rockfish have a swim bladder that’s filled with gas, and that helps them stay in deep water.

“When a non-pelagic rockfish is brought to the surface, the gas in the swim bladder expands, resulting in pressure-related injury referred to as barotrauma,” explained Kelly Reppert, a biologist for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. “This includes bulging eyes, a protruding stomach and other unseen internal injuries.”

Starting in 2020, fishers in Southeast will be required to return unwanted rockfish to deep water.

“All anglers fishing from a vessel that are releasing rockfish will be required to have in possession — and (will be required to) use — a deep-water release device,” Reppert said.

Charter fishing boats must have and use recompression devices already. The new rule expands the requirement.

There are a number of deep-water release devices that meet that requirement. But Curtis thinks his is probably the simplest.

“You can find all of these materials in the average tackle box,” he said.

Those materials are: A barbless hook and 20-ounce weight attached to a fishing reel on a sawed-off rod. That’s it.

Curtis keeps it on his boat, ready to use. If he reels in a rockfish he doesn’t want — or can’t keep because he’s reached the bag limit — he puts the barbless hook on its lower jaw and throws it back head-first.

“You don’t backlash or anything at that point,” he said. “And it goes all the way to the bottom, dragging the rockfish headfirst by the barbless hook. By the time it gets to the bottom, all you really have to do is reel up, and now the hook is pulling out. You don’t have to jerk, just reel up.”

Those instructions, and other options, are detailed in the Ratfish Wranglers’ rap.

“I like to think that every time we sing that song and we talk about it a little bit, we actually save the lives of little fishies,” said band member Ray Troll.

He said the song and accompanying music video were commissioned by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. There are two version of the YouTube video. The short version is just the song.

“One is longer and walks people through the steps,” Troll said. “By the end, you will be a barotrauma specialist.”

Curtis has sold his recompression kits at Ratfish Wranglers’ shows.

“They were popular,” Curtis said. “I wanted people to see how simple they were: ‘Oh, I could make that.’ Yes, you can make that.”

Recompression will earn fishermen some karma points, Curtis said. And pretty soon in Southeast, it also will be the law.

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

Despite shutdown, Trump administration continues work to begin oil drilling in ANWR

Elizabeth Harball, Alaska’s Energy Desk – Anchorage

As the partial government shutdown drags on, the Trump administration is making sure some Interior Department employees continue work on one of its biggest, most controversial priorities: opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling.

Legislation would put 90-day legislative session, PFDs in Alaska Constitution

Andrew Kitchenman, KTOO – Juneau

Two constitutional amendments were among the first batch of legislative proposals released before the Alaska Legislature convenes on Jan. 15.

Bill proposes federal aid to replace wood-burning stoves

Associated Press

Two U.S. senators have proposed legislation that would give federal aid to help Alaska residents and others across county to replace inefficient wood stoves.

Bethel’s first cannabis shop is closer to opening – if it gets its paperwork done

Krysti Shallenberger, Alaska’s Energy Desk – Bethel

Anchorage’s recreational marijuana shop, ALASKAbuds, is inching closer to its first expansion in Bethel.

Moose wanders into Alaska hospital

Associated Press

A moose wandered into a hospital building Monday in Alaska’s largest city, and Stephanie Hupton was ready with her phone camera.

Bonuses of nearly $300,000 paid to pipeline corporation head

Associated Press

The president of the state-sanctioned Alaska Gasline Development Corp. has received performance bonuses totaling nearly $300,000 for work the past two years.

Navy destroyer to be named after Ted Stevens

Associated Press

Alaska’s congressional delegation says the U.S. Navy plans to name a new destroyer after the late former U.S. Senator Ted Stevens, who died in a plane crash in 2010.

Winter salmon trolling starts slow in Southeast Alaska

Joe Viechnicki, KFSK – Petersburg

From October through the end of December, winter trollers had caught only around 5,500 king salmon. That’s almost 2,000 fewer kings than last winter’s catch during the same time period.

Alaska Made: A new rule makes this easy-to-build gadget a required kit for the tackle box

Leila Khiery, KRBD – Ketchikan

A Ketchikan band has a rap song about rockfish recompression. And you’d better listen up, because their easy-to-build gadget will soon be required by regulation in Southeast.

Names of Native teens added to plaque marking Denali summit

Associated Press

The names of two Alaska Native teenagers have been added to a plaque commemorating the first summit of North America’s highest mountain more than a century ago.

An elementary school program is growing gardeners in Juneau

Zoe Grueskin, KTOO – Juneau

Cold, gray winter may be settling on Juneau, but kids at Riverbend and Glacier Valley elementary schools are still talking about the rainbow of fruits and vegetables they helped grow this summer.

Minnesota adventurer Lonnie Dupre sets sights on Mt. Hunter

Casey Grove, Alaska Public Media – Anchorage

Dupre became the first person to solo climb Denali during January, back in 2015. He now has his sights set on Mount Hunter, 14,000-plus feet of what, Dupre says, is the steepest and most technical of the three great peaks in Denali National Park.

Commercial salmon trolling in Southeast Alaska had a slow start to the winter season. That’s likely to mean another year of restrictions for both commercial and sport fishing for king salmon in 2019. Recently-adopted guidelines in the Pacific Salmon Treaty link the success or failure of winter fishing to the numbers of salmon available for harvest the rest of the year.

The winter troll season opens in Southeast Alaska in October. Through the end of December, trollers had caught only around 5,500 kings.

Grant Hagerman, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s troll fishery biologist for Southeast, said that catch is down quite a bit from last year.

“Last year through the same time period we had over seven thousand, we were about 7,400, so we’re almost a couple thousand fish below where we were last year,” he said. “And that’s quite a bit below a five- or ten-year average. The early winter fishery, basically October through December, the five-year average is just about 16,000, and a ten-year or longer average is about 12 and a half thousand (12,500), so we’re down substantially from that.”

Normally, catches in the outside waters near Sitka make up a big portion of the winter catch. Those catches were low this year. And there was some stronger early-season fishing in Frederick Sound near Petersburg. Hagerman said that led to some of the fleet heading inside to fish.

“It was interesting to see some of the Sitka fleet actually fishing in Frederick Sound,” Hagerman said. “You know, we get fish tickets in, and seeing some of the Sitka boats where normally we have 100 boats here fishing and catching — you know, like I mentioned 40 to 50 percent of that early-winter harvest — we had a fair amount of permits who ran into the inside to fish. Very different.”

Last year’s total winter catch season was shortened by six weeks to conserve the fish returning to Southeast rivers. This year’s winter season is also expected to end March 15.

The troll catch takes on added significance this year. That’s because the Pacific Salmon Treaty signed in 2018 links management measures for all fisheries to the winter season catch rates. Specifically, estimates of king salmon abundance will be based on power troll catch rates in waters near Sitka for the first month and a half of the season.

The numbers are still preliminary, and harvest restrictions and fishery closures are not yet finalized. But Hagerman does expect more restrictions to commercial and sport fishing.

“Following the 2018 Alaska Board of Fisheries meeting, we had a number of restrictions that were implemented in troll fisheries, gillnet — well, all commercial fisheries, really, and the sport fisheries — and I believe those would continue,” Hagerman said.

King stocks in the western U.S. are listed under the Endangered Species Act, and some in Canada are thought to be at an increasing risk of extinction. In Alaska, some runs are at historically low levels. The fishery restrictions are aimed at helping stocks recover.

A huge donation to the Fairbanks North Star Borough School District will spread new musical instruments among 18 elementary schools. The board accepted the anonymous donation last fall and the order of new instruments came in over the winter break. A dozen music teachers and staffers opened the crates Monday at a work party, ahead of kids coming back to school today.

Each case was carefully opened at the district’s shipping warehouse as the instruments were inspected and inventoried. Gwendolyn Brazier, who teaches general music at Barnette Elementary and Band and Orchestra at North Pole High School, engraved a number on the flutes and brass.

Theresa Van Hyning teaches at Ben Eileson Jr./Sr. High and Crawford elementary.

“This is an alto saxophone, and I’m just taking all the little pieces of cork out of it, making sure it is all greased-up and ready to go to a student,” Van Hyning said. “We have a lot of saxaphones right now, but unfortunately, most of them are damaged, so I know the student that gets this instrument is going to be so pleased because they will finally have a saxophone that works absolutely flawlessly.”

Sue Waltman, who teaches strings at University Park, Woodriver and Anne Wein Elementary schools, tunes up a cello, while Sunifa Dheer checks through a violin.

“When you have an instrument that is set up correctly, you can learn so much faster,” Waltman said. “If they’re not going to get a good sound, why would they be encouraged to continue playing? So, it really makes a huge difference. Yeah.”

Sharice Walker, the district’s Public Relations Director, says the district put out a bid in the fall to make the best use of the money.

“We received a $110,000 anonymous donation for new musical instruments for our students,” Walker said. “Which is amazing, and nobody remembers a donation like this before. We are very, very grateful for this. It’s incredible.”

Donations to the schools are certainly not unusual, but the size of this one – $100,000 – is very unusual. Walker swears she doesn’t know who the donor is. But she says having it designated for younger students will likely change some lives. “18 elementary schools that will be receiving instruments from this donation. The music teachers are thrilled. We are very excited that there is a member of our community who values music at our elementary age, so much, that they would make this possible.”

Nearly two dozen teachers, parents and community members dominated public testimony at Monday night’s Anchorage School Board meeting, asking the school district to set aside more time for lunch and recess in elementary schools.

More than 5,000 people have signed an online petition asking the district to require no less than 30 minutes a day for lunch and equal time for recess. The proposal was put together by a group called ASD60.

“We make time in our schedules for the things that are important,” said Carey Carpenter, one of the organizers of ASD60. “The health and wellness of our kids is as important as their reading scores, and we need to make time for it.”

Carpenter’s children go to Sand Lake Elementary. She says the school recently shortened their lunch and recess period from an hour to 45 minutes. Last year, the district mandated that all elementary schools must allocate at least 45 minutes to recess and lunch. Two-thirds of the schools in the district had less time before the mandate.

Mark Stock is the deputy superintendent for the district. He says Sand Lake Elementary used to be an outlier, with more time for lunch and recess than other schools.

“So there was a period of several years where they lengthened it from the normal 40-45 minutes to 60,” Stock said. “And then there was a change in principals who looked at it and realized they were an outlier, and realized that with all the pressure and everything going on, he shortened it to be what the district guidelines were.”

ASD60 wants the mandate to be at least an hour.

The group says research from the Centers for Disease Control shows extra time for lunch and recess leads students to engage in healthier lifestyles.

Carpenter’s third grade daughter Anya testified that once you factor in standing in line and cleaning up, lunch is only 13 minutes.

“I need food for energy and I need energy to concentrate at school,” Anya said. “During lunch, kids like me do not eat very fast, so they do not finish their entire lunch, whether they packed it from home or they got the hot lunch.”

Stock says the district agrees that there are lots of benefits to increasing lunch and recess time, but if that were to happen, the time would have to come from somewhere else — most likely, reading class time.

“I know people are saying that the more recess we have, the better students will do in their reading,” Stock said. “That’s only true when you’re also getting the reading as well. You can’t just do physical activity and expect reading skills to go up.”

Stock says he’s happy that there’s a discussion over the benefits of recess and lunch, and that the district is working with the petition advocates to find a solution. At the end of the school board meeting, Board member Mark Foster volunteered to look into the next steps for how to address the concerns of ASD60.

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

Build a wall with military funds? Murkowski says no

Liz Ruskin, Alaska Public Media – Washington D.C.

Trump has been floating the idea of building a wall using military construction dollars. Sen. Lisa Murkowski isn’t on board with that. With 5,700 Alaskans unsure whether they’ll miss a payday, she wants to see Congress pass the less controversial bills to at least shrink the number of workers affected.

Renegade Alaska House member makes his case: ‘This partisan thing has been killing us’

Nathaniel Herz, Alaska’s Energy Desk – Anchorage

After the fall election, Alaska House Republicans thought they had 21 votes — barely enough to form a majority in the 40-member chamber. But Kenai Rep. Gary Knopp abandoned the group and has been pushing for a coalition balanced between Democrats and Republicans.

Alaska resumes online applications for PFDs

Associated Press

The state has resumed accepting applications online for checks from Alaska’s oil-wealth fund after resolving what the Department of Revenue described as “software kinks.”

Anchorage’s inspection backlog numbers 1,200 properties

Associated Press

Officials say about 1,200 properties in the Anchorage area are waiting for damage inspections more than a month after the magnitude 7.0 earthquake shook south-central Alaska.

Alaska calls for less federal control of wildlife management

Associated Press

Alaska officials are calling for less intrusion into wildlife management by agencies within the U.S Department of the Interior.

Alaska guide pleads guilty to herding bears toward clients

Associated Press

A 57-year-old master hunting guide had his license revoked for life after pleading guilty to using employees to herd grizzly bears toward clients.

Anti-discrimination ordinance supporters tell Fairbanks council about harassment during hearing

Tim Ellis, KUAC – Fairbanks

The Fairbanks City Council convened the first of three work sessions today to consider revisions to a proposed ordinance that would bar discrimination against the LGBTQ community and other groups.

After years of loss, state economists forecast modest job growth in 2019

Abbey Collins, Alaska Public Media – Anchorage

In 2019, state economists think Alaska could finally start gaining a modest amount of jobs.

Fairbanks organizers work to restore historic SS Nenana

Robyne, KUAC – Fairbanks

A Fairbanks community effort is aimed at preserving an historic steamship. The SS Nenana has been dry-docked at the North Star Borough’s Pioneer Park for over fifty years and was renovated in the 1980’s, but has fallen into disrepair, and was closed to the public last year.

Over 5,000 people have signed a petition, asking for longer lunch and recess in Anchorage elementary schools

Wesley Early, Alaska Public Media – Anchorage

An online petition asking the Anchorage School District to require no less than 30 minutes a day for lunch and equal time for recess.

Fairbanks elementary schools receive massive donation of musical instruments

Robyne, KUAC – Fairbanks

A huge donation to the Fairbanks North Star Borough School District will spread new musical instruments among 18 elementary schools.

When Chelsea Ayars’ 8-year-old daughter boarded a plane in Portland on Dec. 30, the final leg of her journey from Anchorage to her home in Dillingham was already cancelled. In fact, it had been cancelled more than a week prior. But neither of her parents were notified until the unaccompanied elementary schooler was arriving in Anchorage.

“Twenty minutes before her flight was scheduled to arrive in Anchorage, I got a call from Alaska Airlines, saying that her flight to Dillingham had been cancelled, and I needed to find somebody to come pick her up immediately or she would be flown back to Portland. However, when they looked at the Portland flights, she wouldn’t even have made it back in time. She would have either been stuck in Seattle or stuck in Anchorage,” said Ayars.

A family member who lived in Kodiak was able to pick up the young girl and bring her back to the airport for her flight to Dillingham the next day. Ayars called the experience terrifying, both for her and for her child.

Ayars’ daughter was among many passengers on flights between Bristol Bay and Anchorage whose flights were cancelled without notification in recent weeks.

Laurel Sands sat at the Anchorage airport, trying to get a standby flight, for three days after her flight to Dillingham was cancelled without her knowledge.

“There’s another couple with Togiak who are in the same place with me, and we have been meeting every morning, and we get to hang out all day together, and they are just as frustrated. I mean this is going to be incredibly disruptive,” said Sands. “This is no longer just my issue. It’s a community issue at this point.”

Adam Meade arrived at the Ravn terminal in Dillingham on Christmas Eve only to find the flight was cancelled, and he was scheduled to leave an hour earlier on a PenAir flight.

“When I got to PenAir, they told me the flight was leaving in 5 minutes and that I had to go park my truck at long-term parking and they weren’t going to hold the plane for me,” said Meade. “And so I drove out and parked, but I broke my ankle about a year ago, so I’m still recovering from that, and I had to run back from long-term parking to get on that plane. Kind of screwed up the rest of the vacation, my ankle was just swelled up and pretty sore from that run. It was pretty frustrating.”

So why weren’t passengers notified? According to Alaska Airlines’ spokesperson Tim Thompson, at least some of the trouble goes back to a glitch in a third-party computer system called Sabre.

“That keeps all code shares and all airlines connected so that we can see what other airlines are doing, and they can see what we’re doing,” Thompson explained.

After PenAir became a part of Ravn Air Group at the end of December, both PenAir and Ravn Alaska’s flight schedules were reduced.

PenAir is now flying between Anchorage and Bristol Bay once per day on Sunday, Monday and Friday. It flies twice on Wednesdays. Ravn is flying once per day on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.

Ravn spokesperson Debra Reinwand told KDLG in an email, “At this time, Ravn and PenAir are trying to match the service level to meet market demand. The intent and schedule provides for daily service to the region.”

That means that some flights booked prior to the schedule change were cancelled, including PenAir and Ravn flights booked through Alaska Airlines.

“When we did get the information from PenAir for the schedule change, that was forwarded to Sabre, which is the typical process,” said Thompson. “But for some reason, and it’s unknown how that occurred, that information did not make it fully through the Sabre system. At that point Sabre would have notified all passengers that had booked on AlaskaAir.com that there had been a schedule change. Unfortunately, that did not happen.”

Sabre and Ravn Air Group confirmed that there was a glitch in the computer system.

“It was an issue with a third party that delayed customer communication,” said Sabre.

Ravn added that passengers were provided with hotel rooms and meal vouchers and that “the airlines are actively working to keep passengers informed moving forward and address the situation.”

According to Alaska Airlines, the problem persisted from Dec. 26 until late last week, when the glitch was discovered and fixed.

“We want to apologize to all of the passengers that were impacted by either missed connections, cancellations or delays in their travel, especially over the holidays because we realize that’s tough,” said Thompson. “We’ve been working pretty closely with Sabre to make sure this has been rectified.”

On top of that technical snafu, passengers say that some PenAir flights have been cancelled due to mechanical errors. Between the technical difficulties, weather trouble and reduced schedules, many people have been stuck in Anchorage for days at a time.

As an alternative to waiting for a standby seat, some people have chartered flights. Janice Andersen-Berglof said she and her husband paid $500 each for a seat on a Lake Clark Air charter from Anchorage to Dillingham with eight other passengers after they were bumped from their Ravn flight shortly after the New Year and told they could not fly home for more than a week.

Flying in and out of Bristol Bay is notoriously difficult, and residents grow accustomed to frequent weather delays. But several seasoned Bristol Bay flyers said that these travel difficulties are beyond what is normal.

“This is just drastically worse than I’ve ever experienced with them,” said Ayars, who has been flying with PenAir for about 15 years. “I understand that we have to have schedule changes because a new company is taking over. What I don’t understand is completely erasing flights with no notice to the consumer. It was so panic-inducing for me to try to figure out who I was going to get to watch my child overnight and get her to the airport, somebody I trusted. It was terrifying for her. There has to be something in place where a child is not put on a plane, knowing she’s not going to make it to her final destination.”

As of Tuesday, the next flight with open seats from Anchorage to Bristol Bay was a Ravn Alaska flight on Jan. 15.

The state of Alaska spends millions of dollars each year counting salmon. Managers need accurate numbers to decide how many fish can be caught, and how many should be allowed to escape upstream to spawn.

Much of the counting is done by state employees who watch salmon swim through specially designed stations. But what if you could count the number of fish just by testing for DNA in a bottle of river water? There’s a new technique that could make that happen, according to a just-released study in the journal Molecular Ecology Resources.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game already has several ways to count salmon, but they all depend on detecting the fish themselves. Managers use sonar in places where they can’t see through the water, they count from towers where visibility is better and they use weirs to actually stop the fish and count them individually, according to Chris Habicht, the director of the department’s genetics lab.

A lot of that counting takes people — and those people have to be paid. But what if the state could save money by counting the salmon without the actual fish?

That’s where Taal Levi, a professor at Oregon State University, comes in. Levi has spent the past several years exploring whether a new technology called environmental DNA, or eDNA, can be used to count salmon.

The technique, which is only a decade old, involves sampling water from a stream, then testing it to detect salmon DNA. DNA, Levi says, can come from “any source of cell — mucous, skin cells, feces, urine.”

“It’s a lot like a crime scene. If there was a murderer, and a murderer got cut, or left any sort of tissue or even skin cells, you could use the DNA in those skin cells or blood to identify the murderer,” he said.

As it turned out, the level of eDNA in the water closely tracked the number of salmon traveling through the stream, the study said. Levi said the results show that ultimately, the sampling technique could be an inexpensive way for managers or even citizen scientists to acquire a lot more data about salmon returns.Levi is the lead author on the new study, which relied on water samples from Auke Creek, near Juneau. Researchers were already operating a fish-counting weir there, and Levi could use the proven numbers from the weir to test the accuracy of his eDNA sampling.

“It’s essentially trivial amount of money for the amount we spend on salmon management,” he said.

There are still some potential problems with the sampling technique. For example, the eDNA is diluted when there’s more water flowing through the stream, so it’s essential to also have accurate measurements of stream flow.

The eDNA signal produced by salmon also appears to decrease the farther away the fish get from a sampling site. So Levi said he thinks that accurate counts will require water samples to be tested at least daily, if scientists want to make sure they can detect big daily pulses of fish.

Habicht, from the genetics lab, said he thinks the technology isn’t ready for use by state managers yet.

“I think a lot more work would need to be done before one could get a handle on whether this is a cost-effective alternative to the other methods,” he said.