Juneau

A top British Columbia official is meeting with owners of the Tulsequah Chief Mine, which is leaking pollution into a river that flows into Alaska.

During a recent visit to the state, B.C. Minister of Mines Bill Bennett said his province should deal with the problem.

The mine, which closed more than 50 years ago, is leaking into a tributary of the Taku River. The fisheries-rich waterway empties into an ocean inlet about 25 miles northeast of Juneau.

Bennett Chief of Staff Cynthia Petrie says the minister has had several conversations with Tulsequah owner Chieftain Metals since his Alaska visit. She says no solution has been agreed upon.

She says discussions are ongoing and will include British Columbia’s Environment Ministry.

Chieftain Metals plans to reopen and expand the gold, zinc and copper mine. It says it’s put more than $100 million Canadian into the project.

Chieftain built and briefly used a water treatment plant at the site about three years ago. But the company shut it down, saying it was too expensive to operate.

Bennett and Chieftain cite studies saying the mine leakage is doing no damage. Critics say the studies were inadequate.

The Toronto Stock Exchange lists Chieftain’s value at 5½ cents per share. That’s about 1/100 of when it went on the market almost five years ago.

Eaglecrest Ski Area held the grand opening of the Porcupine Lodge on Saturday during its 7th Annual Discover Eaglecrest Day.

Construction on the $2.7 million lodge started in the summer of 2014. City sales tax paid for it.

“This building basically houses our lift ticketing, our snow sports school, our rental, the repair departments, as well as the children’s area, the adaptive area and some offices,” said Matt Lillard, general manager of Eaglecrest. “In the summer it is also the home to the Alaska Zipline Adventures.”

Inside, the new building is bright and spacious with cedar lined walls. There are more ticketing windows. Upstairs, rental equipment is stored in a new rack system. Skiers and snowboarders can exit from the second floor, which leads directly to the Porcupine chairlift. Large windows overlook the area.

“This is just the general milling area for people that want to watch their kid learn to ski and ski. Before we didn’t have a very good viewing area, but we’ll have benches set up in here and just a great view of the whole Porcupine chair,” Lillard said.

In the old lodge, Eaglecrest has added 80 more lockers and expanded the space for the Juneau Ski Club.

Lillard is excited for the winter season, despite the El Niño forecast predicting a warmer winter.

“We think there are a lot of different things going on in the climate and the atmosphere, and every year is different. That line could set up just south of us and we could be in the cold and it could be amazing, and it could go the other way,” Lillard said. “We’re always optimistic in the ski industry and we’re looking forward to a good winter.”

Last year, Eaglecrest had its worst winter in almost four decades. Lillard says the ski area will be prepared if it gets similar conditions. It recently added a fourth snowmaker.

“Previously, we’d open the Porcupine area with manmade snow, then try to fill in some areas near the base of Ptarmigan,” Lillard said. “This year, we’re going to blow snow on Sourdough Trail, so if something like last year were to happen again, we want to try to open up the Sourdough Trail and the Hooter chairlift on manmade snow, which will be the first time in a really, really long time – if ever – they’ve tried to do that.”

Eaglecrest has started selling season passes. Through Oct. 11, an unlimited adult pass costs $399, the lowest it’s been since 2009.

While Juneau waits for snow at Eaglecrest, people can check out the new mountain bike trail. A third of it is complete and open. Eaglecrest and the Juneau Mountain Bike Alliance hope to have the intermediate level flow trail finished by next June.

The Juneau Empire and Capital City Weekly recently told five of its employees they were being laid off. Three people in the business office and two graphic designers are losing their jobs by the end of the year. Those duties will be done either in Anchorage or outsourced to another country.

The Juneau Empire’s parent company is Georgia-based Morris Communications. In Alaska, the media company also owns the daily Kenai Peninsula paper Peninsula Clarion, The Alaska Journal of Commerce, Homer News and The Alaska Star.

“In the past, they’ve operated like islands,” said Juneau Empire publisher Rustan Burton. “We’re working to try and get them to work together a lot more and share more resources.”

An example of that is the business office. Instead of having different business offices for different papers, they’ll all be consolidated in Anchorage.

“This is one of those moves that’s going to help us become more efficient and we save some expense,” said Burton.

Burton said another move is laying off graphic designers. Morris Communications is part owner of NIIT Technologies, which is headquartered in India. Besides telemarketing and IT, the company builds ads.

“They have people on the ground here stateside, they have people in India and they have people in the Philippines. So basically it’s a 24-hour shop,” Burton said.

The other Morris newspapers have already undergone consolidation and outsourcing, said Burton. It’s now possible at the Alaska papers after a software update. Burton said the papers have already made efforts to share more content and help each other out.

“We’re in a climate where you got to do that more often. You got to find ways to be more efficient, especially with the way things are going with the state. We’re feeling the effects of that as well and people pulling back, businesses pulling back on advertising. We want to be sure that we’re ahead of that and ready to be able to weather that storm if it gets worse,” Burton said.

The newspapers have already weathered significant ups and downs. In 2010, Morris Publishing Group, a division of Morris Communications, declared bankruptcy. Within a month, Morris Publishing came out of bankruptcy court with an agreement to keep the company together while writing off hundreds of millions of dollars in debt. By 2014, the company’s head said Morris Publishing was debt free.

The Juneau Empire gave out five layoff notices earlier this month, but Burton said most of the employees will work through the end of the year. After the layoffs, Burton said the paper will have a staff of around 35. He said the Peninsula Clarion is losing two to three positions.

As the papers find ways to become more efficient, Burton said more layoffs are a possibility.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski on Thursday challenged National Park and Forest Service officials about the fees they collect from visitors.

At a Senate hearing, Murkowski said she “generally” supports the law allowing the agencies to collect fees.  The 10-year-old law requires that most of the revenue is spent on things like visitor services, maintenance and public safety. But then Murkowski homed in on the Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center.

The Forest Service is raising the entrance fee at the visitor center from $3 to $5 starting in May. Murkowski said the increase is reasonable, but was leery of plans to expand the fee area beyond the visitor center.

“If you want to bypass the visitors center, you don’t want to go to the restroom, you don’t even want to park your car, if you just want to go to – and I’m just reading the article from the Juneau Empire here – if you just want to go to the Photo Point Trail, we’re going to charge the $5,” she said.

The senator says she worries the agencies are making public lands “uninviting.”

“I don’t want to go to my Mendenhall visitors center and go hiking on the great trails that we have out there and feel like I’m going to have somebody from Forest Service who’s going to chase me down the trail to pull up my multiple rain jackets to see if I’ve got a wristband on,” she said.

“Um, yeah, not only are we not going to chase them down trails but our real focus is going to be on trying to get our community to support us more in the future, by delivering things for this fee that they’ll support,” said John Neary, director of the visitor center.

Neary wasn’t at the hearing, but he says he’s concerned about preserving the visitor experience, too. He says 90 percent of the 500,000 visitors the park expects next year will have already paid their fee through a commercial tour operator. For those who arrive on their own, enforcement will be sporadic and Neary doesn’t envision asking hikers to roll up their sleeves.

“In the past we’ve used wristbands. We’d like to get away from that, for a variety of reasons … and I think a lot of people find them annoying,” Neary said.

Neary says visitors won’t be charged to use most trails, only those the Forest Service has invested money in, like Photo Point Trail, which is paved. User fees help maintain those improvements, and the center director says it needs more amenities.

“Right now, women that come out on a cruise and take a bus out here on a Monday afternoon typically have to wait 15 or 20 minutes on line to use the restroom block. And that’s unacceptable.”

Neary says the visitor fees will help pay for new bathrooms, since they can’t rely solely on funds from Congress.

On Thursday, Juneau police detained four men, ultimately arresting one in connection with a Switzer Village shooting.

A tipster identified the man as the alleged shooter in an incident where several shots were fired. In that Sept. 13 incident, police attempted to capture the suspects but two escaped after crashing a vehicle.

“We did find a couple of guns in the area that had been ditched prior to arrival and evidence that gunshots in fact did happen,” said Juneau police Lt. David Campbell.

Campbell said the reason the gunshots were fired is still under investigation. When the men arrived at the gas pump, police conducted a “high-risk stop” to avoid another pursuit.

“A high risk stop is one where we have our weapons drawn. We don’t point it at people,” he said. “We have it as low-ready. In case something happens, we can react quicker.”

They arrested 24 year-old Erick Waters, the owner of the vehicle. Waters was arrested for a probation violation. His original charge was robbery in the second degree. He was taken to Lemon Creek Correctional Center and held without bail.

The three other men were released after police questioning.

The body found in the Mendenhall Wetlands on Wednesday has been identified as Juneau resident John Ross Knudson.

When the 56-year-old was discovered by two duck hunters, Juneau police said his body appeared to have been in the water and exposed to the elements for at least several days.

Lt. David Campbell said Knudson was wearing a neck brace that led the police to guess who he was.

“Mr. Knudson’s body was sent up to the medical examiner’s office in Anchorage along with his dental records to do an identification,” Campbell said.

Next of kin has been notified. Campbell said there was no obvious trauma to Knudson’s body and the medical examiner is still working to determine a cause of death.