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Wednesday
August 07, 2013
Slug Race: 38th Annual Blueberry Arts Festival
The ever-popular annual slug race was held at the Methodist Church parking lot on Saturday. The slug race was sponsored by Alaska Department of Fish & Game. The slug race was just one of many events of the 38th Annual Blueberry Arts Festival from August 2-4, sponsored by the Ketchikan Area Arts and Humanities Council.
Front Page Photo By ETHAN CASTLE ©2013
(Please respect the rights of photographers, never republish or copy
without permission and/or payment of required fees.)
Alaska: Judge Rules Shell Spill Response Plan Meets Laws - The U.S. District Court in Alaska ruled the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement complied with the law when it approved Shell Oil’s plans for preventing and cleaning up an oil spill in the Arctic Ocean’s Chukchi and Beaufort seas.
U.S. District Judge Ralph Beistline ruled the DOI’s approval process of Shell’s oil spill response plan wasn’t flawed or based on erroneous assumptions and that they did not violate the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act.
In February of 2012, the Department of Interior’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) approved Shell’s Oil Spill Response Plan (OSRP) for the Chukchi Sea. Approval of the Plan was a major milestone on the path to drilling in the Alaska offshore for the summer of 2012.
Specifically, Shell’s Oil Spill Response Plan (OSRP) included the assembly of a 24/7 on-site, nearshore and onshore Arctic-class oil spill response fleet, collaboration with the U.S. Coast Guard on both assets and response planning, and newly engineered Arctic capping and containment systems that will be tested before drilling commences.
“We recognize that industry’s license to operate in the offshore is predicated on being able to operate in a safe, environmentally sound manner. Shell’s commitment to those basic principals is unwavering. Our Alaska Exploration Plans and Oil Spill Response Plans will continually be guided by our extensive Arctic expertise, solid scientific understanding of the environment and world-class capabilities,” said Pete Slaiby, VP Alaska. - More...
Wednesday PM - August 07, 2013
Alaska: Revenue Commissioner Resigning to Head Alaska Housing Finance Corporation - Governor Sean Parnell (R) announced yesterday that Revenue Commissioner Bryan Butcher has resigned his position to become the CEO and executive director of Alaska Housing Finance Corporation (AHFC). Dan Fauske, who currently heads AHFC, has taken the position of president and executive director of the Alaska Gasline Development Corporation (AGDC).
“Under Commissioner Butcher’s outstanding leadership, the More Alaska Production Act became a reality, Alaska achieved and maintained a AAA+ credit rating, and Revenue put in place a more reasoned and accurate long-term oil production forecast,” Governor Parnell said. “I look forward to working with Bryan in his new role as he takes the helm of one of the most important state agencies.”
Butcher has led the Alaska Department of Revenue since November 2010. Prior to his work at Revenue, Butcher worked as the director of governmental relations and public affairs at AHFC. He also worked as a finance aide for the Alaska House and Senate Finance Committees for 12 years.
The Alaska Democratic Party says Butcher was lead spokesperson for the Parnell/Treadwell oil giveaway and a leader in the transition to state deficits. quoting a news release from Zack Fields, Communications Director Alaska Democratic Party, Butcher became Revenue Commissioner in 2010 and has overseen a transition from a multibillion dollar state budget surpluses to a $667 million deficit while state operating spending grew approximately 20%. For the first time in years, Alaska is in massive deficit spending as a direct result of the Oil Giveaway for which Butcher was a lead spokesperson.
"Bryan Butcher was the salesman peddling an Oil Giveaway that even Republicans called ‘half-baked.’ Alaskans should be very concerned about his ability to manage the Alaska Housing Finance Corporation,” said Mike Wenstrup, Chair of the Alaska Democratic Party. - More...
Wednesday PM - August 07, 2013
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Ketchikan: Tammy Earnest, Family nurse practitioner joins Creekside Family Health Clinic - Tammy Earnest has joined Creekside Family Health Clinic as a Family Nurse Practitioner effective August 5th, 2013.
Tammy Earnest, Family nurse practitioner joins Creekside Family Health Clinic
Earnest was born and raised in Ketchikan, and is a true local talent. Completion of her clinical studies as a Nurse Practitioner fulfills a life-long dream to work with individuals and families to help manage their health care needs. “It is really satisfying to recruit local folks who have worked so hard to advance their careers and serve their community”, says Lani Hill, Family Nurse Practitioner and clinic owner.
Earnest earned her Master of Science in Nursing from Frontier Nursing University in June 2013. She will provide acute and primary health and medical care to children, adolescents, and adults. Besides her interest in family care, she is especially interested in working with teenagers and adolescents. “The health care needs of teenagers aren’t really childhood or adult but a combination of the two. They struggle with their own unique needs and it often takes more time during office visits to often simply listen and offer a different perspective and guidance”, she says. - More...
Wednesday PM - August 07, 2013
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Nancy Christian recently graduated from the Western CUNA Management School
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Ketchikan: Christian graduates from the Western CUNA Management School - Nancy Christian recently graduated from the Western CUNA Management School (WCMS), a leadership program for credit union professionals, at Pomona College in Claremont CA. The class had 88 graduates.
Christian became the Business Loans and Services Manager for Tongass Federal Credit Union in late 2010. She has had a career in financial services.
The WCMS program prepares managers and upper level employees to keep pace with the rapidly changing environment and developments in the credit union industry. The three –year program includes an annual two-week on-campus program plus required extensive projects in the interim. Class subjects include marketing, technology, economics, business law, communications, leadership, strategic planning and much more. Non-academic activities help students develop credit union friendships and professional networking, Christian said. - More...
Wednesday PM - August 07, 2013 |
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Alaska: North America's Largest Glacier is Melting Away, Says Experienced ex-USGS Glaciologist; Shrinkage of Bering Glacier attributed to Earth's rapidly warming climate - North America's largest glacier is rapidly wasting away. Bering Glacier, which flows from the vast ice fields of Alaska's St Elias and Chugach Mountains toward the Gulf of Alaska, covers 1700 square miles, an area larger than the state of Rhode Island. Indications are that the glacier has been there throughout the Wisconsin Glacial Epoch, which began over 100,000 years ago.
Bering Glacier, which flows from the vast ice fields of Alaska's St Elias and Chugach Mountains toward the Gulf of Alaska, covers 1700 square miles, an area larger than the state of Rhode Island.
Photo By
Wendell Tangborn
Bering Glacier surges every ten to twenty years. During each surge flow rates increase up to 100 times normal and transport large volumes of ice to lower elevations where it melts more rapidly. Based on temperature and precipitation data from nearby coastal weather stations in Yakutat and Cordova, Alaska, a computer model developed by Wendell Tangborn -- an 85-year-old retired US Geological Survey (USGS) glaciologist who works out of a small home office on Vashon Island, Washington -- has simulated the timing and magnitude of these surges using weather data that starts in 1951. Tangborn's model combines data that uses the glacier area as a function of the altitude of a glacier's surface with daily temperature and precipitation from coastal weather stations to simulate the glacier's "mass balance"; that is, whether it is gaining or losing ice. - More...
Wednesday PM - August 07, 2013
Alaska: National Aviation Day – August 19th - National Aviation Day is observed on August 19th each year to celebrate the history and development of aviation. It was December 17, 1903 when Wilbur and Orville Wright made four brief flights at Kitty Hawk with their first powered aircraft. Ten years later, Alaska saw its first flight.
James V. and Lilly Martin brought a “Martin Tractor Aeroplane” to Fairbanks for a demonstration flight on July 4, 1913. The Martins shipped their crated airplane from Seattle to Skagway by ocean steamer and from Skagway to Whitehorse to Fairbanks by steamboat. Once at Fairbanks, Martin and his wife, who was England's first aviatrix, assembled their airplane. On the evening of July 3, Martin took off from a ball park and flew the plane over Fairbanks at an altitude of 200 feet and speeds of up to 45 miles per hour. During that time they tried unsuccessfully to sell their airplane. Since it could not be sold, they crated it up again and shipped it via St. Michael to their home in San Francisco. - More...
Wednesday PM - August 07, 2013 |
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the editor at editor@sitnews.us or call 617-9696
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 No Bridge By Samuel E. Bergeron -
I was a proponent of the bridge to Gravina back when the bridge made sense; today it’s laughable to consider putting $250-300 million, or more, into a project of that magnitude.
Think about the cost and the need. Do we need to spend an average of $21, 450 per person on a bridge? Do we need a bridge to get to the airport? Consider the fact that 46 cents of every dollar the federal government spends is borrowed and go back to the necessity of this project. It does not pass the best-interest test or the red-face test to spend this amount of money on a project that is so far down the list of things we actually could use here in Ketchikan. These could include: repairing and resurfacing every road we have on this side of the proposed bridge, more hydro-electric projects (raising Swan Lake, building the Mahoney project, etc.), remodeling and modernizing our aging hospital and replacing all the water and sewer lines in the City. Keep in mind Ketchikan is one of the oldest cities in Alaska and we have the oldest infrastructure too. It’s all far overdue for repair and replacement. Funding the bridge is competitive with funding for the things we actually need and quite possibly never get because we wanted and got a $250-300 million bridge. - More...
Wednesday PM - August 07, 2013
Highway Robbery? By Chris Elliott -
My daughter, her husband and my two grandsons recently visited Ketchikan. After driving from Phoenix to Bellingham, they arrived on the M/V Columbia with a camper on their truck and a dog. The round trip cost on the AMHS? I was shocked and appalled. $3,831.00. Thank goodness the driver rides free. Individual fares were $239.00. The dog was $25.00. The camper was $994.00. - More...
Wednesday PM - August 07, 2013
FALSE PROFITS - In the nineteenth and the early twentieth century we brought the “chink” and the “wetback” to the factory via massive in-migration. In the early twenty-first century we have reversed the process and now via outsourcing bring the factory to the “wetback” and to the “chink.” The intent in both instances is, nonetheless, the same, to degrade labor to the point of a peonage as close to slave labor as is humanly possible. - More...
Wednesday PM - August 07, 2013
Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortia By Barbara Haney -
Please contact the Governor's Office and your state legislators and ask the State to cancel the agreement with Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortia (SBAC). While appearing to be a mere vendor for a test, the consortium is a governance structure that ends state sovereignty over educational issues. - More...
Wednesday PM - August 07, 2013
Business deal By Dominic Salvato -
Sealaska's land allotment isn't a Native rights issue. It is a business deal with the intent to make millions for the executives of the Sealaska Corporation. Tlingit,Haida and Tsimshian citizens of the United State already own the land. - More...
Wednesday PM - August 07, 2013
Odds and Ends... By Joey Garcia -
Quoting Mr. Kiffer re Ketchikan as a Fantasy Island is quite absorbing and educational. It doesn't matter who came and visited our Salmon Capital of the World or Gateway City, I already belonged to the group of this Fantasy Island...- More...
Wednesday PM - August 07, 2013
Stand your ground By Duane Hill -
The last letter I sent was on the subject of the murderous thug Trayvon Martin and only incidentally about Stand Your Ground. The editor changing the subject line from "Trayvon Martin" to "Stand your ground" really confused what I was talking about. - More...
Wednesday PM - August 07, 2013
Dr. John McMichael Sloan By Janis Morritt Vodden -
I am seeking information about Dr. John McMichael SLOAN who went to Nome, Alaska in the early days and was there for many years. He was the son of Andrew.W. & Agnes SLOAN. A.W. was an prominent apple grower in the Blyth, Huron Co., Ontario area of Canada. It is my understanding that he went to Nome, Alaska, probably around the 1890s and lived there for many years. - More...
Wednesday PM - August 07, 2013
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