Recent News

A Juneau-based nonprofit that aims to curb the use of plastic shopping bags in the Capital City won’t be deterred by voters’ rejection this week of a citizen’s initiative to tax those bags at certain retailers.

The group’s director says the measure raised awareness of the pollution and environmental damage caused by plastic bags, and members will look for ways to keep the conversation going.

Turning the Tides Director Dixie Belcher wasn’t surprised that voters rejected the group’s plastic bag tax initiative by more than two to one.

“Plastic bags are either banned or taxed in two-thirds of the world, but that has never come from a vote,” Belcher says. “It has always come from a city council, or from a legislature, or from the country. When it goes out to a vote, it’s always voted down.”

Opposition came from people who disagreed with the structure of the tax, levied only on large stores like Fred Meyer, WalMart and Safeway with average annual gross sales of 15-million dollars or more over the last five years. Most people thought the tax would be passed on to consumers.

“There’s a lot of people that just plain don’t want a tax,” says Belcher. “And I think that they didn’t like that it would just apply to four stores – which really wasn’t our idea – that came from the business community.”

Belcher says just having the measure on the ballot raised awareness of the pollution and environmental harm caused by plastic bags, especially on oceans. Turning the Tides regularly sponsors movies and speakers on the issue, and gives away free reusable bags at events around town. Belcher hopes they can build on the momentum of the campaign.

“I think we’re going to be talking to teachers, to school teachers, with the possibility that some children could make bags in the schools that they could take home and their families would use,” she says. “We’re just going to continue to do that sort of thing and also try to reach people that we haven’t reached.”

That includes public officials and the business community.

“There are definitely people in the business community who are 100 percent behind it, and there are definitely public officials who are interested, and I think we have more now,” says Belcher.

Randy Wanamaker, who was re-elected to the assembly on Tuesday after a year-long absence, says he met a lot of people during the campaign who opposed the bag tax. But he says the same people were concerned about the city’s ever expanding landfill.

“This is something that helped people talk about solid waste in the broad, strategic sense,” Wanamaker says.

Belcher thinks some voters who opposed the tax would have supported a ban on plastic bags. While Turning the Tides probably won’t attempt another citizen’s initiative, she says it will continue to push for change on the grassroots level.

“It’s a huge problem, and I think plastic bags’ days are numbered,” she says.

Most Alaskans are $1,174 richer today (Thursday).

Permanent Fund Dividends are now in the bank accounts of 535,000 Alaskans, who checked the “direct deposit” box on their 2011 PFD application. Ninety-three-thousand paper checks also go in the U.S. mail today.

The total 2011 distribution is more than $760.22-million, distributed among 647,549 eligible Alaskans. Statutes require a year residency in Alaska to be eligible, with the intent to remain in the state indefinitely at the time of the dividend application.

According to the state Revenue Department, 676,000 Alaskans applied for this year’s dividend, a one percent increase over 2010. Hundreds of PFD applications are still pending, and they will be paid when the applicants are determined to be eligible.

This is the 30th Permanent Fund Dividend. The first check was $1,000 in 1982. The Revenue Department estimates $19-billion dollars have been paid out to Alaskans since then. That includes the 2008 Resource Rebate of $1,200.

An Arrow Refuse proposal to offer curbside recycling in Juneau and barge trash to the Lower 48 has come as a surprise to city officials. The city and borough has issued a request for proposals for recycling services and has been negotiating with another company on a major facility.

Alaska’s Director of State and Federal Relations in Washington, D.C. is resigning.

After more than 40 years as the lead advocate for the state, John Katz says it’s time to leave the nation’s capital.

Early in his career Katz worked for the late Senator Ted Stevens and in 1979 became the first special counsel to the governor, working on the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act.

Since then he has worked for eight Alaska governors in Washington and received several awards for his service.

In a letter to Governor Sean Parnell, the 68-year-old Katz says he wants to spend more time in Alaska and with his family.

He also says he’s become increasingly discouraged by what he sees as the “polarization and deterioration of the public policy process at the federal level.”

Katz says it is the worst he has seen in his 43 years in Washington.

In statements from Alaska’s congressional delegation, all have high praise for him.

Senator Mark Begich calls Katz the true definition of a dedicated public servant, who has fought for Alaskans on every “hot button” issue. Begich says he will miss Katz calm demeanor.

Senator Lisa Murkowski says his resignation is a “shock to the system of Alaska.”

Murkowski says she cannot disagree with his frustration with the “paralysis and partisan hostility that has taken over Washington, DC.”

Murkowski says Katz lived a “bipartisan life” as he served governors from “across the political spectrum.”

Representative Don Young says Katz “never let ideology get in the way of his mission, which was to serve the state of Alaska.”

Katz resignation is effective at the end of the year. Parnell will choose his replacement.

A preliminary groundbreaking was held Monday morning for the Alaska State Museum project in Juneau. State officials, historians, and lawmakers used a golden shovel to dig up the grass sod at one of the driveway entrances to the museum.

Linda Thibodeau, director of the state Division of Libraries, Archives, and Museums, says they already have $32 million dollars for the $124.5 million dollar project. A formal groundbreaking is planned for some time next year when the project is fully-funded.

Formerly called SLAM – for State Library, Archives, and Museum – the expansion project would incorporate all of Juneau’s facilities in a single building.

Thibodeau says the current Alaska State Museum building no longer meets code and has many problems. She says they determined that it would be more practical to demolish and rebuild the structure, rather than renovate and add on to it. Space is running out on the eighth floor of the State Office Building for the Library and Historical Collections, while the Archives building located below the SOB is literally splitting in two.

An unidentified flying object over Juneau Sunday night had one Douglas couple rubbing their eyes in disbelief.

At about 10 p.m., Matt Culbreth and his wife were watching TV, when they glanced out their living room windows overlooking Gastineau Channel in time to see, “A large greenish blue fireball come down from the sky, and disappear behind Mt. Roberts.”

Culbreth says the object was too big to be a flare, and way bigger than any other shooting star he’s ever seen. It was in the air for a few seconds before disappearing, and both he and his wife were surprised that it didn’t make any noise.

“Definitely coming down to Earth, though. It wasn’t something really high in the atmosphere,” he says.

Steve Kocsis, a volunteer with Juneau’s Marie Drake Planetarium, says the Culbreths most likely saw a meteor. That’s a fiery streak of light that occurs when mineral objects from space hit Earth’s atmosphere and disintegrate. Shooting stars are meteors, but Kocsis says some look bigger than others.

“They’re called a bolide the brighter ones, and they’ll actually leave kind of like a smoky trail that will change shape from high altitude winds, just like jet vapor trails. And the really close ones, people will actually hear them. There will be a sonic boom,” says Kocsis.

He says it’s not unusual to see one, even in Juneau.

“The main unusual part is to have a clear night to actually see the meteor, but it’s not unusual to see random events,” Kocsis says.

Most meteors burn up completely when they hit the atmosphere, but if part of one falls to Earth it’s called a meteorite. Kocsis says it’s possible to triangulate the location of a meteorite, if it’s seen falling from more than one vantage point.

In January 2000, several Juneau residents saw a falling meteorite that was later found in fragments near frozen Tagish Lake in the Yukon Territory.

“A local there at Atlin was able to go out on the ice and recover it while it was still warm, and he had the foresight to send it to one of the museums,” says Kocsis. “Turned out to be a very rare one, one with organic chemicals in it.”

Matt Culbreth says his wife posted about Sunday’s celestial event on Facebook, but so far they appear to be the only ones who witnessed it. He’s hopeful that with a little publicity, maybe others will step forward.

“I hope so. I hope there was at least a few other people out there that had seen it. I don’t know how you could miss it if you were facing that direction at that time of night. It was just an amazing event,” Culbreth says.

For those who aren’t lucky enough to see a random shooting star, there are two big meteor showers every year – the Perseids in August and the Leonids in November. If the weather cooperates, you might even be able to see them in Juneau.