Author: kfskadmin

Petersburg’s city council is asking Alaska’s congressional delegation to postpone action on a Sealaska lands bill. The legislation would allow the regional Native corporation to select its remaining land entitlement from acreage outside of boundaries specified under the 1971 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. Corporate officials, local shareholders and other members of the public testified before the city council Tuesday night. The council ultimately passed a resolultion calling for public hearings on the legislation in southeast.

The commercial halibut season starts in early March and this is the fifth year in a row that Southeast Longliners will have fewer fish to catch. Stock declines and a change in assessment methods have prompted US and Canadian regulators to reduce the region’s catch limit by a total of roughly 60 percent since 2006. This year’s cut was smaller than proposed, but longliners say the downturn continues to impact their businesses. Matt Lichtenstein produced this economic snapshot:

A team of Petersburg high school students took first place with a research paper they wrote for this years Tsunami Bowl in Seward. Overall, “Team WOAA” took eleventh out of 22 teams in the statewide competition. The Tsunami Bowl challenges students to improve their research skills and knowledge of ocean sciences – from plants and fish to geology and climate. They prepare papers and projects, give presentations, and they try to be the first at hitting the buzzer to answer quiz questions.
This was the second year Petersburg participated, and the school sent two teams to the event, which took place earlier this month. Matt Lichtenstein asked several of the students and their coaches to talk about the Tsunami Bowl experience

US fishery managers are working on new rules to control the halibut catch by guided anglers in Alaska. A charter fleet catch-sharing plan was approved by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council two years ago but the actual regulations have not yet been published. Charter fleet representatives say the plan will hurt their industry and needs to be reworked. However, the regulations can’t come soon enough for the International Pacific Halibut Commission. If the US doesn’t put its charter plan into action soon, the commission may propose its own set of rules:

Some elected leaders in Petersburg say they want to look into dissolving the joint Petersburg-Wrangell authority that operates the main electrical power source for the two communities. That was one topic of discussion at this week’s meeting of the Petersburg City Council.