KSTK - Wrangell

With the Alaska State Legislature reconvening next week, southern Southeast Alaska Rep. Dan Ortiz has pre-filed two bills in the House.

The Ketchikan independent admits he’s much more focused on one of the bills than the other. His pre-filed mariculture bill is top of mind as the legislature comes back into session. The bill would do a few things. Namely it would allow for “shellfish enhancement projects.”

Flip Pryor is with the aquaculture department at the Alaska Department of Fish & Game. He explains that the bill would basically let farmers of shellfish like oysters or crab do what salmon hatcheries already do.

Pryor elaborated on the idea, using the example of king crab: “You take crab, stick them in a hatchery setting, spawn them, raise the little ones out. And then the idea would be go back into the wild and release the little ones. So hopefully, down the line, you can have larger quotas of king crab,” he said.

The mariculture bill would also allow the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute to boost mariculture products like oysters, change around the way permitting fees are calculated for hatcheries and allow existing salmon hatchery nonprofits to apply for mariculture permits.

A nearly identical version of the bill sponsored by Rep. Ortiz during the last session, expired after the COVID-19 pandemic ended the legislative session early.

Ortiz — who represents Wrangell, Ketchikan, Metlakatla and the southern half of Prince of Wales Island — has consistently backed mariculture as an area for economic growth in the state.

“I just see it as a step in the process of making mariculture be a real added benefit to the economies of coastal Alaska, and particularly southern Southeast Alaska, and places like the District 36 community,” Ortiz said. “[It’s] a jobs provider, producing food for the world to eat, it’s going to continue to be — somebody needs to fill that gap as Asia’s population grows.”

Asian markets are some of the biggest buyers of shellfish.

Ortiz continued: “It’s an environmentally friendly thing, and renewable, it’s all good. No downside that I can see, and this bill helps that industry move along towards that goal of becoming a real producer.”

The other pre-filed bill, Ortiz says, is somewhat of a placeholder. It would be the first step towards ending Alaska’s twice-yearly time changes by keeping the state on daylight saving time all year.

Congress would also need to pass legislation allowing states to remain on daylight saving time year round.

Ortiz also says he’s not sure how much backing there is for the idea of ending the spring forward, fall back cycle.

“I have to really do some strong constituent assessment as to the level of support for something like this,” Ortiz explained.

The bill is not new — Rep. Ortiz sponsored almost the same exact bill last session. He says a constituent in Wrangell requested it.

It would also need a companion bill in the state Senate, but so far, that hasn’t happened.

An elderly Wrangell man escaped serious injury after driving his truck past a barrier wall and into Heritage Harbor on Saturday afternoon.

Wrangell Police Chief Tom Radke says the unidentified man drove his Ford pickup past a barrier of boulders and down into the water, completely submerging the vehicle.

“My understanding is that he inadvertently stepped on the accelerator instead of the brake and went up and over [the rock wall],” Radke said Monday.

An eyewitness told KSTK that bystanders pulled the driver from the truck’s cab before the vehicle was completely flooded. An ambulance took the 87-year-old man to Wrangell Medical Center for evaluation.

An update on his condition was not available.

Radke says that while the Ford truck is a total loss, the city-owned harbor was largely unscathed.

“It’s superficial damage,” Radke added. “We just moved some rocks. Some grass was torn up. That was it, there’s no huge bill or anything like that.”

The truck was towed out of the water a few hours later with the help of harbor workers. The extended cab pickup was in the harbor parking lot as of Monday morning.

Wrangell’s first ferry in more than two months passed through on Friday, after weather delayed its scheduled arrival by more than a day.

It’s the only marine highway ferry that will stop in Wrangell in January.

Wrangell’s two ferries this winter — one in early November of last year and one on Friday — weren’t because of a complete lack of ferry service in Southeast. Marine highway ferries sailed within 20 miles of Wrangell Island at least eight times in November and December.

Commercial fisherman Ben Hastings says it’s frustrating to watch a state ferry bypass Wrangell Island.

“You are virtually within sight of the dock at Wrangell,” Hastings explained, “and to not stop there — it’s really jeopardizing your shipyard as far as people being able to come to your community.”

He’s used to traveling to from Ketchikan, where he lives, to Wrangell for work on his 36-foot fishing boat.

“Without ferry service, my days of coming to the Wrangell shipyard are over. Because I don’t have the ability to be able to, to come and go when my vessel is up in the yard,” Hastings said. He estimates he has spent more than $100,000 dollars in Wrangell, taking into account everyday expenses and work on his vessel.

He says he believes other Southeast fishermen are in the same boat. The lack of ferry service means the Wrangell boat yard isn’t attractive any more.

“I’m really frightened for what the future is coming is going to bring as far as that shipyard Wrangell because that’s something you can’t lose,” Hastings added.

He’s not alone in his concerns. In a business survey late last year, the City and Borough of Wrangell found that more than 40% of local businesses said the lack of ferry service was hurting their bottom line. That response was unprompted — the survey didn’t have a question about the marine highway.

Service is scheduled to improve next month. The ferry Matanuska is slated to provide regular northbound sailings on Sundays. It’ll head south from Wrangell on Wednesdays.

Wrangell’s first state ferry since last November has been delayed for more than 24 hours due to stormy seas in the Gulf of Alaska.

The Kennicott is now scheduled to depart Juneau this evening and arrive in Wrangell at 9 a.m. Friday. This will be Wrangell’s only ferry connection this month.

Starting in February, Wrangell is scheduled to get a northbound ferry on Sundays and a southbound ferry on Wednesdays.

The U.S. Congress has appropriated more than $3.6 million to monitor transboundary watersheds and for diplomatic efforts in cross-border negotiations with Canada.

The lion’s share will go to the U.S. Geological Survey for pollution monitoring and cleanup projects. The money is not exclusive to Alaska transboundary watersheds or mining concerns but is spent at the discretion of the federal agency.

The funding also stipulates greater coordination with Native tribes in Southeast Alaska and northern Montana, where most transboundary watersheds lie. The Central Council of Tlingit and Haida has been collecting baseline water quality data since 2015 on the Taku and Stikine rivers, as well as sampling of other Southeast rivers that are downstream from mines in British Columbia.

Appropriations for water quality monitoring have been a regular feature of Congressional appropriations bills since 2016, when Congress set aside $120,000 for water quality monitoring on the Unuk River.

New to the 2021 appropriations bill is $500,000 for the U.S. State Department to address outstanding transboundary watershed and mining concerns. Environmental groups have been pushing for federal involvement in international transboundary watershed negotiations and monitoring.

The funding was approved as a part of the larger appropriations bill passed by Congress on Dec. 21. It awaits President Trump’s signature.

Wrangell’s tree lighting ceremony is back on, this time with a 30-foot conifer in its traditional place of honor between the Elks Lodge and downtown gas station.

The spruce replaced a stand-in tree of a few sticks, safety cones and a large red ornament ball. The stand-in was well loved while it lasted.

Wrangell Light & Power superintendent Rod Rhoades said his crew enjoys the annual tradition of picking out the town’s tree and there was a window of opportunity on Wednesday morning.

“I told them really this was our only opportunity before we get started on the meter route and so I think they really just redoubled their efforts to try to get it done,” he said.

The crew jumped at the task, felling a tree and carting it through town.

Video taken by Wrangellite Danny St. John shows Wrangell’s 2020 town Christmas tree being uprighted in its tree stand.

The tree lighting ceremony had been canceled last week after the electric crew spent the week battling outages and downed trees during Southeast Alaska’s spat of stormy weather.

The orange safety cones that had decorated what has been dubbed “Wrangell’s Grinch Tree” now ring the official Wrangell 2020 tree.

The Wrangell Chamber of Commerce said the tree lighting will take place at 6 p.m. Friday. It’ll be streamed live on the Chamber of Commerce Facebook page for those who prefer to watch the festivities from a distance.