The full US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals will not take up the State of Alaska’s latest petition in the Juneau Access case.
In May, a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit upheld a lower court’s order for a new Environmental Impact Statement for the road project. The state petitioned to have all 11 members of the appeals court hear the case, but not one judge asked for a hearing.
In light of this latest defeat, Alaska Department of Transportation Spokeswoman Brenda Hewitt says the state is looking at its options.
“We’ll be meeting with the Federal Highway Administration, because they’re actually key in this,” said Hewitt. “So, we’ll be meeting with them and discussing alternatives. So, we’re not giving up.”
In 2006, the highway administration issued a record of decision approving the project. But in 2009, the federal agency declined to participate in the state’s appeal over the EIS decision.
Juneau Access would extend the road north of the Capital City to a ferry terminal at the Katzehin River, where a boat would shuttle passengers the rest of the way to Skagway.
A citizens group is already urging the state to appeal to the US Supreme Court. Citizens Pro Road Chairman Dick Knapp says the project has been studied enough, and a new environmental impact statement would be a waste of time and money.
“Let’s be realistic. You’re going to go back and do a supplemental EIS, okay? That takes time, probably more time – running through the hoops again – than it would take to go to the Supreme Court,” Knapp said. “Not only that, we’ve been at this now, for what? Twenty years. What do you think has been happening to the cost of construction with all the delays?”
The Southeast Alaska Conservation Council challenged the original EIS, saying it didn’t adequately consider improvements to existing Lynn Canal ferry service. SEACC Communications Director Dan Lesh says if the state wants to move the project forward it should do another EIS.
“What we want is investment in the ferry system. But if the state thinks the road needs further study and wants to a full Environmental Impact Statement that looks at all the options, that’s fine with us. I think it’ll show that ferries are a cheaper and better way of moving things around in Lynn Canal and throughout Southeast Alaska,” Lesh said.
The latest estimates put the project cost at 500-million dollars. It’s been a regional transportation priority of the past three state administrations.
Juneau Police say an 18-year-old woman made up a story about being abducted and sexually assaulted because she was having problems in her personal life.
At about 2:45 last Saturday morning, the woman’s mother called police saying her daughter had reported being abducted at knifepoint by three men. The girl said she was taken to an unknown location and sexually assaulted by one of the men.
On Tuesday, she confessed to making the story up because she was upset by relationship issues.
Juneau Police Lieutenant Kris Sell says filing a false report is a Class A misdemeanor. But in this case investigators didn’t feel it was necessary to charge the girl.
“We’re hoping in this case that it’s a young girl who learned her lesson from this experience,” said Sell. “Of course, as a police department we really hate to see false reports about sexual assault, because it damages then the credibility of women reporting legitimate sexual assaults.”
The girl’s name is being withheld, because she wasn’t charged. Sell says the investigation is now closed.
The man found dead Tuesday from an apparent fall on the Herbert Glacier Trail was a nursing supervisor at Bartlett Regional Hospital.
Forty-two year old James “Steven” Reese had worked at the hospital about ten years. Bartlett Spokesman Jim Strader says he was popular with both patients and staff, and the whole hospital is shaken by his death.
“They’re talking today about his sense of humor, his sense of caring, his sense of giving,” Strader said. “A lot of people consider Steve to be so typical of the best quality in nurses, a person who thought more about other people than he did himself.”
Strader says Reese had two children.
He helped out with the annual Project Homeless Connect event put on by the Juneau Economic Development Council, and was a member of the Juneau Human Rights Commission from 2005 to 2007.
Reese was reported missing at about 1:30 Tuesday morning when he failed to show up for work. Juneau Police found his car at the Herbert Glacier trailhead and notified Alaska State Troopers. Searchers from Juneau Mountain Rescue and SEADOGS found his body eight hours later in the Herbert River, below the glacier.
The body is being sent to the state medical examiner’s office in Anchorage for an autopsy.
Reese is the second person to die on the Herbert Glacier Trail this summer. In June, 30-year-old Adam Webb of New York was found dead, also from an apparent fall.
A former congressional aide may spend as much as ten months in prison for a fishing violation while was a member of the North Pacific Fishery Management Council.
Arne Fuglvog submitted his resignation Sunday as fisheries aide to Senator Lisa Murkowski. In a statement, Murkowski thanked Fuglvog for his years of service and said he has cooperated fully with the authorities, taken responsibility for his actions and accepted the consequences.
On Monday, federal prosecutors filed a single charge of violating the Lacey Act against Fuglvog and announced a plea deal that had been in the works since last April.
Prosecutors say Fuglvog falsely reported locations of his sablefish catches between 2001 and 2006. From 2003 until he was hired by Senator Murkowski in 2006, Fuglvog also served on the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, the panel that’s responsible for managing sablefish and other species in federal waters off Alaska.
Prosecutors single out the 2005 season in which Fuglvog allegedly caught twice his quota of sablefish in the Western Yakutat area. He allegedly covered up his illegal fishing by falsely claiming that the other half of the catch, about thirty-thousand pounds, was caught in the Central Gulf. The violations occurred when Fuglvog was owner and operator of the fishing vessel Kamilar.
Fuglvog was charged with violating the Lacey Act because the fish was valued at about $100,000 and transported as part of interstate commerce.
He’s expected to plead guilty during arraignment scheduled for August 9th in U.S. District Court in Anchorage. He declined to comment on Tuesday. Prosecutors have declined to comment until after next Tuesday’s court hearing.
As outlined in the plea agreement, the possible sentence includes a $50,000 fine in addition to ten months in prison. He must also pay $100,000 to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation for enhancing fish habitat along the Gulf of Alaska coast. He must also have an announcement acknowledging his wrongdoing published in National Fisherman Magazine.
Fuglvog grew up fishing in Petersburg and was named Highliner of the year by National Fisherman’s Magazine in 2003. He also worked as president of the Petersburg Vessel Owners Association and served on the North Pacific Council’s advisory panel for nine years before his appointment as a full member. He was also a candidate to head up the National Marine Fisheries Service, but he withdrew from consideration in 2009.
Energy consumption was down 13 percent in Juneau between 2007 and 2010, leading to a 10 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. But the city’s Commission on Sustainability has a more ambitious goal – to reduce the 2007 emissions level 25 percent in the next 20 years.
To get there the commission working on a Climate Action Plan that it hopes will be adopted by the CBJ Assembly later this year. Zoe Morrison is with Sheinberg Associates, one of two consulting firms helping the Sustainability Commission write the plan. She says the 25 percent goal is in line with other communities, as well as state and federal targets and international agreements aimed at reducing emissions.
“And it’s also a level of reduction that we think is achievable for Juneau,” said Morrison. “So, it’s something that makes sense and that over the next 20 years we can get to.”
The plan outlines more than a hundred actions the city, its residents, and businesses can take to reduce energy consumption. It also sets emissions reduction targets for things like vehicles and buildings. Morrison says the plan uses software developed by the US Environmental Protection Agency for calculating emissions with adjustments made for Juneau.
“So for transportation there’s a series of goals and for each goal we’ve done an estimate of what the reduction potential is for each goal,” Morrison said.
Morrison and Amy Skilbred from Skilbred Consulting presented the draft plan to the CBJ Assembly Committee of the Whole last night. Deputy Mayor Merrill Sanford said he’d like to more detail on how much some of the actions would cost in the final version.
“Some of these things are going to be very costly to either an individual or to business or to us as government,” Sanford said. “So somehow I would like to see some of those costs.”
But Karen Crane – the assembly’s liaison to the Sustainability Commission – said it’s important for the report to list as many action items as possible and let future assemblies decide which ones to pursue.
“Some of the recommendations may be some things in here that individual members want to do and others don’t. But to get to that 25 percent it’s really going to be a decision by decision basis, you know, as we go forward, is this economical? Does it make sense for the community?” said Crane.
The Sustainability Commission plans to hold a public meeting on the Climate Action Plan this fall. The goal is to bring it back to the assembly in December for adoption.
In 2007, the assembly passed a resolution joining the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives, or ICLEI. Adopting a Climate Action Plan is part of becoming an ICLEI member. The greenhouse gas emissions inventories conducted in 2007 and 2010 were also part of that effort.
