KFSK - Petersburg

The U.S. Forest Service is proposing to offer trees for commercial firewood sales on Mitkof Island.

Personal use firewood cutting already is allowed. But commercial sale of that wood is something that local residents have sought on Mitkof.

“The people in Petersburg and really all over Southeast are allowed to take a tree or couple trees, small volumes of firewood for personal use but the public in Petersburg has expressed an interest in being able to harvest firewood and sawlog material for commercial purposes and they told us that during some public meetings for the Central Tongass Landscape Level Analysis,” said Paul Robbins, a spokesman for the Forest Service on the Tongass National Forest. “In order to be responsive to their requests, the ranger district is seeking a categorical exclusion in order to allow for the harvesting for commercial use within a 70 acre area.”

Federal law requires the agency to analyze impacts from timber cutting and other uses of the forest.

Forest Service will be looking into whether the program can be done without causing a significant impact on the forest land on the island, Robbins said.

“If we can establish that then we don’t have to go through a full environmental analysis or environmental impact statement and we can just move forward with the process of trying to get folks out there getting the wood that they need,” he said. “What’s happening right now is we’ve got all of our, not all of ‘em but we’ve got silviculturists, wildlife biologists, hydrologists and bunch of other experts out there in the field going over these acres to analyze and make sure that if we allow this activity that there will be no significant impact.”

A program of commercial use firewood permits already is offered on the Wrangell District.

Robbins said other micro timber sales have been offered in the Petersburg area before but the volume has been larger than the firewood cutting that residents have asked for.

It’s possible the firewood program could be in place this year, depending on whether a larger analysis is needed.

The proposal could mean harvest of both live and dead trees on an area no larger than 70 acres.

The agency is also considering individual tree sales on the Mitkof road system.

There are five areas on the island proposed for firewood cutting, although the 70 acres extends beyond those five areas.

One site is near Frederick Point. Others are near the 40,000 Road, off the Three Lakes Loop Road and near Woodpecker Cove.

The largest ship in the Alaska Marine Highway fleet is expected to resume service Friday between Bellingham, Washington, and Southeast Alaska.

The 418-foot ferry Columbia has been undergoing repairs at a Bellingham shipyard.

Sailings the past two weeks were cancelled after the Marine Highway discovered a damaged exhaust system and turbo charger.

The ship was evacuated because of exhaust onboard shortly after docking in Bellingham in late June.

“The Columbia repairs are going well and the Coast Guard is looking like it’s going to be certifying the vessel to leave Bellingham on its Friday July 13 sailing,” said ferry spokeswoman Aurah Landau. “So we’re looking good for our next sailing.”

Repairs have included fabricating some new sections of the engine’s exhaust system.

Landau said there will be more work to do in the winter.

“The Marine Highway System was able to do some repairs at the shipyard in Bellingham and further repairs to do overhaul work on the exhaust system will happen this winter when the Columbia goes in for regular lay up and maintenance,” she said.

No word yet on the cost of that repair work.

The mainline ferry has been out of service for two weeks during its peak summer season.

The ship is scheduled to leave Bellingham at 6 p.m. Friday, headed for communities in Southeast Alaska.

Southeast Alaska’s Dungeness crab fishery had a strong first week and will not have a shortened season like last year.

The summer season for most of the region started June 15.

Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced in late June that crabbers would have a full two-month summer season.

Fishermen caught more than 871,000 pounds during the first week.

The agency uses the first week’s catch to estimate how many crab will be harvested during the season.

Tessa Bergmann with Fish and Game in Petersburg said this year’s estimate is the third highest on record.

“Our harvest estimate for the 2018 season is just over 3.7 million pounds,” Bergmann said.

That is well above the 2.25 million pound estimate required for a full season in Southeast Alaska. It will mean crabbers can keep fishing through Aug. 15.

This despite the fact that there are slightly fewer fishermen participating in the Dungeness crab fishery compared to last year.

Biologists estimated in 2017 that the total season harvest would be just over 1.6 million pounds. That number triggered the regulation requiring shorter seasons in the summer and fall. Bergmann said this system is useful for managers.

“It’s basically just using the precautionary approach, since we don’t have a stock assessment survey,” she said. “Just making sure the stocks are healthy and over that threshold.”

After a slow summer in 2017, harvest numbers improved during a shortened one-month fall season.

Bergmann said she does not know why last summer’s harvests were so low.

Crab biologists use commercial harvest numbers to watch the Dungeness population, and that leaves a lot of uncertainty about what’s happening to crabs in the region.

Fish and Game takes samples at the docks and interviews fishermen about what they are seeing.

“What we do know is that fisherman are seeing good numbers of legal crab and good numbers of pre-recruits in females, and port samplers’ dockside interviews are quantifying legal-sized light crab that aren’t being brought in for sale,” Bergmann said.

Pre-recruits are crab that are too small to legally harvest.

Commercial crab fishermen in Alaska and several other states can only keep male crab that are above a certain size.

Though fishermen are allowed to harvest light or soft-shell crab, they generally don’t because these crab don’t sell for much.

Crab molt sometime between July and February, and they are more sensitive before their shells harden. That is why managers tread carefully during the summer season.

Some industry representatives have called for an end to the option to shorten seasons based on the first week’s harvest, arguing that fishermen are already burdened by the resurgence of sea otters, and that a set season would make it easier to plan ahead.

The issue came up at this past January’s Board of Fish meeting, but the board voted 6-1 to keep these rules in place.

Bergmann said the average price for the first week of Dungeness crabbing this year was $3.04 per pound at the docks. The total value of that first week’s catch is more than $2.9 million.

A judge ruled against two plaintiffs in a Petersburg law suit challenging the state’s rules for sealed search warrants.

Former Petersburg resident Danny Thompson and current resident Greg Richeson filed the challenge to state rules of criminal procedure for evidence seized in a criminal investigation that doesn’t result in any charges.

The plaintiffs likely will appeal the ruling by Superior Court Judge William Carey but the Petersburg borough and a former local police officer won’t be a defendant in the case anymore.

In separate investigations involving marijuana in 2013, law enforcement obtained search warrants and seized personal property from the men.

“Both suffered delays of over four years before their stuff was returned,” said attorney Fred Triem, who represents the two men. “One guy has still not gotten his stuff back but the police have offered to return it to him recently. And four years is way too long to keep things of this nature without bringing a criminal complaint.”

Officers seized cell phones, coins, guns, computers, electronics, cameras and other private property as part of criminal investigations.

Police found marijuana plants in a home in one case and marijuana in the mail in the other investigation, but prosecutors ultimately decided against bringing any charges.

State rules say search warrants, affidavits, receipts and inventories must be kept sealed until charges related to the warrant have been filed or four years have elapsed. A court can release those documents earlier for good cause.

The plaintiffs don’t dispute the validity of the search warrants, but they argue the length of time their property was held as potential evidence violated their constitutional rights.

Carey ruled against the plaintiffs at the end of April and again in July.

He wrote that the plaintiffs have shown no constitutional violation let alone any flagrant violation.

Carey also ruled in January against the plaintiffs’ motion to expand the case into a class action.

Triem sought to bring more plaintiffs into the case and expand the list of defendants to include drug task forces around the state.

He’s now expecting to appeal the judge’s rulings to the state supreme court.

“In any other court in the country in an enlightened court in an urban area with a court that has experience in class action litigation this case would have been certified as a class action,” Triem said. “There are numerous cases similar to this one that were certified as class actions. But it’s my dumb luck that I brought the case in Petersburg, Alaska, and the court here does not understand the fundamental principles of class action litigation and therefor denied the motion.”

Triem argued that the seizure and holding of property is a way for police to punish people outside of the court process.

Defendants in the civil suit were the Petersburg borough, a local police officer and the regional drug task force Southeast Alaska Cities Against Drugs, or SEACAD.

A state trooper and a former head of the regional task force also were named as defendants along with the Department of Public Safety and the Statewide Drug Enforcement Unit for their involvement with SEACAD.

Assistant Attorney General Marianna Carpeneti represented state law enforcement in the case and was pleased with the court’s ruling.

“Our position is that suing the Department of Public Safety and particularly individual state troopers is not the way to effect the change that plaintiffs seem to be trying to effect with this lawsuit, which is to say they’re looking for a change in the criminal rules, specifically criminal rule 37 and how search warrants are treated and the fact that they’re sealed,” Carpeneti said.

Carey found in an April ruling for the defendants in all but one argument, the dispute over whether there was an improper taking of property by the state in the time before that property was returned.

On that point the case almost went to trial. However, Triem ultimately wanted to appeal the entire case in a higher court and didn’t oppose the state’s motion to rule against him in that argument as well.

Tim Bowman represented the borough in the case. His legal fees are being paid by the borough’s insurance carrier.

“It I think was difficult for them to face this kind of a lawsuit where they’re being accused of some rather salacious things that simply weren’t true,” Bowman said. “This was a dedicated police department doing its best to effectuate the law within its jurisdiction. We’re just pleased now that we have this matter behind us.”

The plaintiffs and the borough have come to agreement on a settlement that will end the borough’s involvement in the case.

The borough will pay $6,000 to the two men, the equivalent of the value of property held during the investigation.

Bowman said the borough isn’t admitting any wrongdoing and calls the settlement a business decision to get out of the case rather than continue to defend it.

“The borough certainly has done the best that it can with the resources that’s available to it,” he said. “They reach out to other agencies for assistance in this matter. And frankly sometimes these kinds of cases are difficult for small town police departments to investigate and prosecute.”

Attorneys for the defendants and the judge pointed out that the plaintiffs didn’t pursue the existing process in criminal rule for earlier return of their property.

The plaintiffs’ attorney said they did seek to unseal the search warrants before the four years elapsed but were denied.

The suit had been scheduled to go to trial in superior court this month.

The Alaska Marine Highway has cancelled another week of sailings on the 418-foot ferry Columbia. The ship was evacuated because of exhaust onboard after the ship had docked in Bellingham on June 29. This past week and this coming week’s sailings are cancelled as the ferry system works to repair a damaged exhaust and turbo charger.

Ferry system spokesperson Aurah Landau called the repairs challenging and said the Columbia needs to move to the Fairhaven shipyard in Bellingham.

“The vessel needs to move to shipyard for support,” Landau explained. “Another sailing is going to be cancelled. All the port dockings between July 6 and July 12 are cancelled for the Columbia and the vessel’s projected to resume its schedule upon leaving Bellingham on July 13.”

The repairs will include fabricating new sections of a large, 1980s-vintage exhaust system for the bow thruster. Passengers for the July 6 sailing were contacted to reschedule. Landau said the impacts are big from two weeks of cancellations.

“The Columbia has been cancelled all the way up through Southeast Alaska in and out of communities during the busiest time of the year,” she said. “We’ve got very heavy passenger loads and car loads during that time with no ships to take up the slack and the impacts to passengers and communities and revenue certainly is big.”

The Columbia makes a weekly round-trip run between Bellingham and Skagway, with stops in Ketchikan, Wrangell, Petersburg, Juneau and Haines. It also stops in Sitka on the return trip south.

The Alaska Marine Highway cancelled this week’s sailing of the state ferry Columbia. Repairs are underway following damage discovered after docking in Bellingham, Washington, last Friday.

The 418-foot ship was evacuated of passengers and crew Friday morning after black smoke was discovered in the bow thruster room.

“Investigation found that the vessel had mechanical damage to the turbo charger and the engine exhaust system and the black smoke was exhaust that had back flowed into the system,” said Aurah Landau, spokesperson for the ferry system.

The ferry system has a spare turbo charger to replace the damaged one but other parts had to be flown in for repairs.

Terminal agents in Auke Bay and Skagway on Friday and Saturday contacted passengers booked to ride the ferry out of Bellingham. About 300 people had booked tickets and it was to carry a nearly full load of vehicles. Laundau said some of the passengers booked for later trips. Others canceled.

“It’s over a holiday week,” Landau said. “It was a very heavy load of passengers and cars and it is such a shame that the mechanical issue happened and there’s impact on the passengers.”

The canceled sailing also means lost revenue to the Marine Highway System during its peak season, although no word yet on how much. The Bellingham-to-Southeast Alaska route in the summer is a moneymaker for the state ferries.

Landau said repairs on the damaged equipment are turning out to be challenging. Ferry officials hope to know by the middle of this week whether the ship will be able to sail north from Bellingham on Friday, July 6. They’ll be contacting passengers if that isn’t the case.

The Columbia was out for repairs following a mechanical problem in January. It returned to service last fall after being sidelined for nearly a year as the Marine Highway worked to repair a damaged propeller.

Two years ago, passengers were stranded in Petersburg in the middle of summer because of engine problems. Other problems with its exhaust system and propeller damage also ended the summer season early for the vessel in 2015. It underwent a major overhaul for new engines and propellers in 2013.

It suffered generator fires in 2008, 2006, 2003 and 2000. A turbo charger problem also left the Columbia without the use of one of its engines in 2007. The ferry is 45-years old.