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Ketchikan: TRUST LAND OFFICE 2020 LAND SALE  NOW UNDERWAY - The Alaska Mental Health Trust Land Office’s 2020 Fall Land Sale Auction is underway, with final bids due November 16, 2020 at 4:30 p.m. 

This year’s land sale auction includes 47 parcels in locations across Southeast, Southcentral, and Interior Alaska that will be sold to the highest bidder. Revenue generated from land sales will help fund programs and services that support Trust beneficiaries across the state.

The 2020 sale includes unique parcels on the road system and in remote locations, as well as island, river, ocean, and lakefront parcels - including 3 parcels in Ketchikan in the Upper George Inlet Subdivision.

Photos, maps, survey details, parcel access, and additional information including the minimum bid is available for each parcel on the Trust land auction webpage.

“The Trust’s annual land sale auction not only generates revenue to support Trust beneficiaries, it provides an opportunity to own a piece of Alaska,” said Wyn Menefee, Trust Land Office Executive Director. “Each year our Lands team puts forth some great offerings for the sale, and this year is no different. We have parcels conducive to uses ranging from recreational, to residential, and commercial.” - More...
Friday PM - September 18, 2020

Alaska: Additional Unemployment Payments for Alaskans to be Distributed Soon - Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy and Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development Commissioner Dr. Tamika L. Ledbetter announced today that $62 million in funding, provided by President Donald Trump’s executive order, will be allocated to Alaska from the FEMA Lost Wages Assistance program.

“I want to thank President Trump for his executive order directing FEMA to assist displaced workers, including self-employed workers, through the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance Program,” said Governor Mike Dunleavy.

Dunleavy said, “Financial assistance to Alaskans now, who are ready and waiting to go back to work when their jobs return, will help protect Alaskan families and the overall economy.” 

“The unemployment insurance program has provided critical replacement wages for Alaskans impacted by COVID-19. We are grateful to our federal partners for the additional resources provided to Alaskans during these challenging times,” said Commissioner Dr. Tamika Ledbetter. - More...
Friday PM - September 18, 2020

Fish Factor: Fishermen’s relief funds welcomed as unfair trade deals drag on By LAINE WELCH - Alaska fishermen can increase their federal trade relief funds by adding higher poundage prices for 15 fish and shellfish species. While it’s welcomed, the payouts are a band-aid on a bigger and ongoing problem.

Through December 14, fishermen can apply to the U.S. Department of Agriculture Seafood Trade Relief Program (STRP) if their bottom line has been hurt by the Trump Administration’s ongoing trade standoffs, primarily with China.

“STRP is part of a federal relief strategy to support fishermen and other producers while the administration continues to work on free, fair and reciprocal trade deals to open more markets to help American producers compete globally,” said a USDA fact sheet.

The damages to fishermen are calculated as the difference with a trade tariff and the baseline without it based on 2019 catches.

For cod, for example, that adds up to an extra $.14 a pound.  So, a fisherman who had cod landings last year of 375,000 pounds would multiply that by $.14 for a trade relief payment of $52,500.

Salmon fishermen can add $.16 per pound across the board. For Alaska crabbers, $.47 a pound can be added to 2019 catches for Dungeness, king crab, snow crab and Tanners.

Geoduck divers can add $.76 to their total poundage. It’s $.10 cents for sablefish, Atka mackerel and Pacific Ocean Perch, $.15 for flounders, sole and turbot, $.04 for herring, and an extra one penny a pound for Alaska pollock.

Eligible fisherman can fill out a “2020 Seafood Trade Relief Program (STRP) Application,” found at www.farmers.gov  and at USDA Farm Service Agencies. In Alaska there are three locations at Homer, Kenai and the statewide office in Palmer.

The money will be provided on a first come, first served basis. Fishermen who have applied reported it was a fairly easy process and took about an hour to complete, according to a statement by the Bristol Bay Regional Seafood Development Association.

While the money is a welcomed inclusion for U.S. fishermen, the relief payments do little to advance the administration’s “free, fair and reciprocal trade deals.”

Since 2018, for example, the U.S. has paid a 38% tax on average for seafood products going to China, previously Alaska’s biggest buyer. - More...
Friday PM - September 18, 2020

Fisheries: Rare Albino Fur Seal Pup Stands Out - An albino fur seal on a recent research trip by NOAA Fisheries Affiliate Vladimir Burkanovto the remote island of Tyuleny in the Sea of Okhotsk, Russia.

The reddish-gold pup has very light colored eyes and pink flippers. It was born in July on the island, which supports a large fur seal colony. 

The only information about how rare this sighting is comes from literature published in 1958.  At the time, Scientist Vic Scheffer reported that the chances of encountering a fur seal with this coloration is one in 100,000. - More...
Friday PM - September 18, 2020

Alaska: Alaska Minimum Wage will increase 15¢/hour in 2021 - The Alaska minimum wage will increase from $10.19 to $10.34 effective Jan. 1, 2021. Voters passed a ballot initiative in 2014 to adjust the minimum wage annually for inflation.

Alaska Statute 23.10.065(a) requires the Alaska minimum wage to be adjusted using the Consumer Price Index for urban consumers in the Anchorage metropolitan area (Anchorage CPI-U) for the preceding calendar year. The Anchorage CPI-U increased 1.4 percent in 2019. As a result, the minimum wage will rise from $10.19 to $10.34 effective Jan. 1, 2021. By law, Alaska’s minimum wage must remain at least $1 per hour over the federal minimum wage.

The Alaska minimum wage applies to all hours worked in a pay period, regardless of how the employee is paid - whether by time, piece, commission or otherwise. All actual hours worked in a pay period multiplied by the Alaska minimum wage is the very least an employee can be compensated by an employer unless the employer can clearly show that a specific exemption exists. - More...
Friday PM - September 18, 2020

Alaska: HELP Committee Hears Testimony on Simplifying Federal Student Aid Application - U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) took part in a Senate HELP Committee hearing focused on fixing the burdensome and complicated Federal Student Aid Application (FAFSA), which students utilize to apply for federal student financial aid to help pay for college.

The hearing explored legislative solutions to simplify and shorten the Federal Student Aid Application (FAFSA), including making it easier for low-income families to qualify for federal Pell Grants. 

“We must do a better job of not only communicating to high school students what grants and loans might be available to them to go to college, but also improve the process on how they go about accessing that aid. The reality is, Alaskan students and families have missed out on federal aid because the process to get there is unnecessarily complex and onerous. It’s important that we work to simplify this process and better equip student to make these important decisions. There are a number of challenges in pursuing a higher education - the application process for student aid shouldn’t be one of them,” said Murkowski. - More...
Friday PM - September 18, 2020

Alaska: Partnership brings 49,000 pounds of  donated salmon to Southeast Alaskan families - This month, a regionwide effort to help Southeast Alaskans reliant on subsistence salmon fisheries is culminating in the distribution of 49,000 pounds of wild salmon to families from Yakutat to Hydaburg. The distribution is the result of the cooperation of dozens of individuals, tribes, businesses and communities in Southeast Alaska to help both local residents and commercial fishermen reeling from a difficult summer season. 

The coronavirus pandemic’s impacts on Alaska’s seafood markets and fish prices coupled with lower-than-expected returns for several species of salmon has been devastating for Southeast Alaskans, in particular commercial and subsistence fishing families. Pandemic precautions have forced closures and strict limits on capacity at restaurants, resulting in plummeting fresh seafood demand. According to the Alaska Sustainable Fisheries Trust 2019 SeaBank Annual Report, seven of the top 100 fishing ports by value in the entire country are in Southeast Alaska, so the impacts on fishing families and communities are being felt widely throughout the region. Meanwhile, salmon returns this season were among the lowest recorded in more than 40 years. Pink salmon have not had a worse year since 1976, and the Alaska Department of Fish & Game reports sockeye catches at 70 percent below 2019 – among the lowest ever. Coho is 50 percent behind last year, and king salmon are 14 percent below 2019. 

Given Southeast’s low salmon returns, Alaska Longline Fishermen’s Association (ALFA) through its community supported fishery program, Alaskans Own, identified communities where families were unable to put up fish for the winter. They successfully secured $250,000 in funding to distribute salmon to Angoon (8,000 round pounds); Hydaburg (8,000 round pounds); Kake (5,000 filleted pounds); Klawock (5,000 filleted pounds) and Sitka (5,000 filleted pounds). The salmon will be processed by Seafood Producers Cooperative and Northline Seafood and delivered to outlying communities by ALFA member fishermen with freezer trollers. - More...
Friday PM - September 18, 2020

Ketchikan: September is National Suicide Prevention Month - September is National Suicide Prevention Month. Local agencies use this month to reach out to those affected by suicide, promote awareness, and connect our community to the resources they need. One local resource is the Ketchikan CARES Crisis Line providing 24/7, free support to people in distress. Supportive counselors can be reached at 907-225-2273 (CARE).

Suicide is among the nation’s leading causes of death, taking more than 31,000 lives each year. In our community we see suicide prevention as an immediate and necessary effort. A 2019 Youth Risk Behavior Survey showed one in four Ketchikan teens seriously considered attempting suicide while 14% of Ketchikan high school students have attempted suicide. Nearly half of the survey respondents indicated they felt alone in their life and that they do not matter to people in their community. So many in our community have been impacted by suicide, suicide attempts or suicide ideation. - More...
Friday PM - September 18, 2020

Alaska: The Blessing Loom is an Illegal Pyramid Scheme - The Alaska Department of Law warns Alaskans not to participate in a growing pyramid scheme called “The Blessing Loom.” The scam is currently believed to be operating in multiple communities across the state. The scam often uses a multi-layered octagon board called a “loom.”  The layers of the “loom” are sometimes associated with earth, wind, fire, and water.

The scheme is often perpetuated on social media.  A new participant will be asked to join a “Blessing Loom” by providing a gift, blessing, or investment of anywhere from $100 to $1,500. Each participant is required to recruit two new members, and promised an eightfold return.

However, like all pyramid schemes this scam depends on continuously bringing in a growing number of new participants. Eventually, the pool of new investors dries up and the pyramid crashes, and the majority of people lose money. - More...
Friday PM - September 18, 2020

A Conversation with Hunter and Conservationist Tia Shoemaker
By BJORN DIHLE
Tia Shoemaker with a happy moose hunter on the Alaska Peninsula.
Photo courtesy Tia Shoemaker

Alaska: A Conversation with Hunter and Conservationist Tia Shoemaker By BJORN DIHLE - Hunting Guide Tia Shoemaker is fighting tooth and nail to ensure future generations will have the opportunity to experience the wilderness of Bristol Bay and the Alaska Peninsula.

“We have something incredible on the Alaska Peninsula and Bristol Bay. All we have to do is not mess it up. Millions acres of wilderness surrounded by millions acres of wilderness. John Muir and Theodore Roosevelt would be proud we still have a place like this. This place should be one of the seven wonders of the world,” Tia said this September while taking a break from preparing for moose season.

Tia grew up in the Becharof National Wildlife Refuge on the Alaska Peninsula. The closest people to her family’s homestead were around 60 miles away in the communities of Egegik and King Salmon in Bristol Bay. To say she grew up remote is an understatement. Her parents, Phil and Rocky, who both have degrees in wildlife biology, instilled a deep reverence of and stewardship for their home in Tia and her brother Taj.

“The place taught us that as much as our parents. I wouldn’t trade growing up here for anything,” Tia said.

Tia calls her home the Serengeti of Alaska, and she’s not exaggerating. This year more than 57 million sockeye salmon returned to Bristol Bay to spawn. This incredible pulse of life acts as the foundation for the densest concentrations of brown bears and one of the richest ecosystems on earth.

“Salmon are everything. It’s been said so many times, but it’s true,” Tia said.

Tia’s life is intimately tied to salmon and brown bears. Her family runs a small fishing and hunting guiding operation called Grizzly Skins of Alaska. During the summer they guide fishing excursions and during the fall and, sometimes spring, they guide hunts. She has been helping out on moose hunts since she was 10. When she was 12 or 13, she started helping on brown bear hunts. Around then, her parents, fearing Tia and her brother were becoming too “bushy,” moved the family to the tiny community of Circle Hot Springs for a couple months each year to help socialize their kids. When Tia was 18, she got her assistant guide license. She’s been working as a wilderness guide in different capacities ever since.

Most hunters visiting Bristol Bay and the Alaska Peninsula come to pursue the region’s brown bears and moose. The paradoxical nature of brown bear and other forms of trophy hunting is difficult for many to come to terms with.

“There’s a magic to brown bear hunting,” Tia reflected. - More...
Friday PM - September 18, 2020

Study to investigate melting Malaspina Glacier, potential new bay
By FRITZ FREUDENBERGER
UAF researchers and partner institutions will use computer modeling to study the impact of climate change on Alaska’s rapidly melting Malaspina Glacier, pictured here. Researchers say the loss of the ice may create a new bay in southeastern Alaska.
UAF photo by Martin Truffer

Southeast Alaska: Study to investigate melting Malaspina Glacier, potential new bay By FRITZ FREUDENBERGER - The rapidly melting Malaspina Glacier in southeastern Alaska’s Wrangell-St. Elias National Park could create a new ocean bay, one feature in what may be the largest landscape transformation underway in the United States.

To better understand these changes, the National Science Foundation recently awarded researchers from the University of Alaska Fairbanks and two partner institutions a $1.3 million grant to study its retreat.

The Malaspina is a piedmont glacier, a valley glacier that flows onto lowland plains. It’s the largest of its kind in the world — larger in area than Rhode Island — and it’s melting fast.

The researchers will collect comprehensive data on ice velocity and thickness, glacier bed conditions and other features to characterize the glacier under possible future climate scenarios. Scientists will use the data to create thousands of computer models to predict these outcomes under various conditions.

Martin Truffer, a professor of physics at the UAF Geophysical Institute, is the primary investigator on the project, which includes GI researchers Chris Larsen and Mark Fahnestock. Researchers from the University of Montana (including Doug Brinkerhoff, a former GI graduate student co-advised by Truffer), the University of Arizona and the National Park Service will collaborate on the project.

According to Truffer, melting of the Malaspina could open up a new bay in the coastline of Alaska within this century, altering the entire local ecosystem.

Truffer compared this landscape change to neighboring Yakutat Bay, which was full of ice from the Hubbard Glacier about 1,000 years ago. Hubbard retreated over a span of about 800 years, opening up Yakutat Bay. Hubbard’s loss was similar to the volume of ice the Malaspina stands to lose.

The melting of Malaspina could have significant impacts outside Alaska, too.

“Over the next few decades, a lot of what we’re seeing in terms of sea level rise is largely influenced by nonpolar ice,” Truffer said. “Alaska is near the very top of contributors, and, in Alaska, the Malaspina is one of the largest contributors.”

The Malaspina Glacier “comes spilling out of the St. Elias Mountains onto this coastal plane and looks like a pancake,” said Truffer. “It’s really an unusual glacier because it has so much ice at a low elevation.”

Its location makes the Malaspina especially vulnerable to an accelerated cycle of melting. As the ice melts, it comes into contact with more water, which speeds up the process. However, the ice can’t retreat out of the water because the bottom of the ice is so low, at some points 1,000 feet below sea level. This causes the Malaspina to thin rapidly, in some places several yards a year. - More...
Friday PM - September 18, 2020

An unnerving earthquake jolt,
and a reassuring insect buzz
By NED ROZELL
Broken wharf pilings remain visible at the former site of Valdez.
Photo By NED ROZELL

Alaska Science: An unnerving earthquake jolt, and a reassuring insect buzz By NED ROZELL - A few nights ago, stretched in a tent on the blue-gray gravel of the Lowe River floodplain, I woke to a series of sharp jolts. It felt like the earth was a giant halibut, and I was the fishing pole.

Earthquake! The ratcheting westward lasted only a few seconds, but I felt the helplessness every human does when solid ground is no longer the truth.

My first thought was of the day before, when I had walked through the open marsh grasses at the site of Old Valdez. I could still see some of the streets and concrete foundations of the former town, not far from where I later pitched my tent.

During the Great Alaska Earthquake of March 1964, water-saturated soils beneath Old Valdez become more liquid than solid — they underwent liquefaction — during shaking that lasted for more than four minutes.

That earthly violence caused mountains of sediments beneath the ocean’s surface to slide to the depths. The moving soil shoved mountains of water out of the way, generating a great wave.

At least 30 feet high, the wall of water hit Old Valdez, rebounded off rocks across the port, and nailed the town again. Thirty-two people died there, the highest death toll for any town due to the magnitude 9.2 earthquake. - More...
Friday PM - September 18, 2020

TOM PURCELL: CHANGE VOTING AGE TO 16? TRY 80! - San Francisco residents will vote on a measure in November to allow teenagers as young as 16 to vote in local elections.
That’s according to The Hill, which also reports that in recent years, two women in Congress introduced measures to lower the voting age nationwide to 16.

One argument for doing so is that 16-year-olds are permitted to work and therefore must pay taxes – but, unable to vote for political leaders, they have no representation regarding how their tax “contributions” are spent.

Another is that young people should be able to help shape the world that they will run in the not-so-distant future.

Those are fair points. My response: We should raise the voting age to 80.

Youthfulness is wonderful – but not without its challenges where voting is concerned.

In our era of instant mass communication with millions through smartphones, the opportunity for misinformation to spread is incredible. - More...
Friday PM - September 18, 2020

Joe GUZZARDI: JUAN WILLIAMS: BLACK JOBS DON’T MATTER - With less than two months until Election Day 2020, more and more news stories are focused on the pivotal African-American vote.

In a New York Times op-ed written by Fox News contributor Juan Williams, the author boldly wrote that “the black vote now defines American politics.” Williams’ commentary went on to provide a long list of reasons that Black Americans should support challenger Joe Biden over incumbent President Donald Trump.

Boiled down, Williams contends that African-Americans dislike President Trump because they perceive him as a racist. He believes that four more years of President Trump would be bad for Black and Latino Americans. As Williams wrote, “Black Americans have had enough,” and for them defeating Trump is “personal.” Fox News viewers know that Williams can barely contain his disdain for President Trump.

On one count, Williams is spot on. The Black vote, which is 12 percent of the national electorate, could determine whether President Trump remains in the White House or whether Biden achieves his five-decade long dream of ascending to the U.S. presidency. - More...
Friday PM - September 18, 2020

Political Cartoon: Ruth Bader Ginsburg 1933-2020
By Dave Granlund ©2020, PoliticalCartoons.com
Distributed to paid subscribers for publication by Cagle Cartoons, Inc.