mining

Nov. 6, 2015

British Columbia, Alaska Sign Cooperative Agreement

By Associated Press

The Anchorage assembly has passed the city budget, after a mayor's veto and a last-minute deal over money for a utility the administration has proposed privatizing.

by Ben Matheson, KYUK

Federal staff will again manage king salmon on the lower Kuskokwim River after requests from tribes. Earlier this year, a handful of tribal governments asked the federal subsistence board to implement federal management. The Federal Subsistence Board deferred last month, but at a Friday meeting of the Kuskokwim River Salmon Management Working group, US Fish and Wildlife Service leaders announced a plan for federal management.

William Walsh, age 61, is filing suit in federal court to overturn his exile from an Interior Alaska village of 240 people. The Tanana tribe banned him after two Alaska State Troopers were killed on May 1, 2014. Walsh was the leader of a small group that didn't recognize the state of Alaska's authority. He clashed with the tribal government as well. The Fairbanks Daily News Miner reports Walsh squatted on private and tribal lands, claiming ownership.

As KTOO's Lisa Phu reports, the Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium has signed an agreement to receive a $53 million settlement from the Indian Health Service for about 15 years of unpaid contract costs.

Residents of Allakaket oppose a road that would span from the Dalton Highway to the Ambler Mining District in Northwest Alaska over concerns about its impacts to already depleted hunting and fishing populations. A mining company estimates there are hundreds of millions of tons of copper, zinc, and lead in the Ambler Mining District.

As KSKA's Ann Hillman reports, about 90 people attended a Regulatory Commission of Alaska meeting to ask it to reconsider its decision to approve Enstar's request for a 50% price increase for natural gas.

As President Obama announces his intention to vastly expand a south  Pacific marine sanctuary, a scientist at a State Department conference in Washington, D.C., say ocean acidification is affecting all sea life. Ove Hoegh-Guldberg says the acidic marine climate is preventing some animals from forming skeletons and shells, and preventing reproduction. It will take 10,000 years, or 300 generations of humans, he says, to reverse the trend.