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The single busiest spot in Juneau during the summer cruise ship season may be South Franklin Street in front of the Mount Roberts Tramway building. Up to five of the massive ships can be in town at once, each unloading and reloading thousands of crew and passengers in a few hours. There are buses, container trucks, float planes, and aerial tram cars all coming and going within a few hundred feet of each other.

And, it’s surprisingly orderly.

On Friday, there was also a ribbon cutting ceremony there attended by about 45 city and state officials, contractors and local business owners. They celebrated new pedestrian and parking improvements on the busy cruise ship waterfront.

The tourists footing much of the bill went about their sightseeing and shopping, while liberal thanks were paid to the officials and workers involved.

“As an engineer, I do really appreciate concrete, asphalt, curb and gutter,” said Juneau Rep. Sam Kito III. “I mean, the things that people might not necessarily appreciate have a lot of aesthetics to me. The efficiencies of moving pedestrians and moving vehicles is underappreciated. I’m enjoying being here, on concrete, near asphalt seeing this whole project work.”

It wasn’t always so orderly. Kirby Day remembers back in 1993, before much of this stuff was here.

“Looking out here, this was all just dirt. There was no tram, there was not much anything. And at that time when we lined buses up, we tried to lime the lines, and then it’d rain, and, you know, it disappeared. And then we put (out) barrels,” said Day, who is the director of shore operations for Princess Cruises and longtime point man for cruise ship relations in Juneau. “We’d come out at night and set the barrels up, and that’s where the buses were supposed to go, and then they’d come the next morning, and the operators really didn’t like it there, so they’d just move them. So, this will be a little bit better for all, I hope.”

The improvements are part of a long-term city plan to create a continuous, mile-and-a-half long seawalk from the Juneau-Douglas Bridge to the AJ Dock, the cruise ship berth farthest from downtown.

Patricia Stancil, visiting from Pensacola, Florida, was sitting on a bench nearby during the ceremony. She wasn’t sure what the ceremony was about, but was in the ballpark.

“It sounds he was trying to raise funds to improve the city or whatever it is,” Stancil said.

Stancil, and millions of other visitors like her over the years, have paid millions toward Juneau’s public waterfront infrastructure through cruise ship passenger fees the city and state collect.

Friday’s ribbon cutting specifically celebrated the completion of a $3 million contract for reconfiguring a bus and pedestrian staging area, and a nearly complete $3.4 million contract to extend the seawalk.

Update: Saturday, May 10:

It’s still unknown what caused three large waterfalls to emerge Friday evening near the west flank of the Mendenhall Glacier, but by Saturday evening all had disappeared.

The waterfalls prompted warnings Friday night from the U.S. Forest Service to expect increased calving and higher lake levels.

But by Saturday, Mendenhall Lake had risen only three inches and no new ice calves were reported.

Naturalist Laurie Craig says she issued the alert because “we don’t know how this affected the ice cave, the west glacier trail, any of the margins of the glacier where people are likely to hike or be putting kayaks in.”

The flow could have existed for days, instead it was only hours. She says it’s typical for warm spring weather.

“We have such warm temperatures, the water will just melt into a pool, a natural pool on the ice, and then something will give way and it lets loose and just goes away,” she says.

“In this case, it went “from a gusher to a goner,” she says.

Original story, Friday, May 9:

U.S. Forest Service officials are warning Mendenhall Glacier visitors to expect increased calving, which will result in waves on Mendenhall Lake, colder lake temperatures and higher water levels. Hikers and  kayakers should be especially cautious.

The alert was issued at 8 p.m. Friday. In a news release, naturalist Laurie Craig said an unusual event about 5 p.m. resulted in three large waterfalls discharging sediment-laden glacial water onto bare rock near the west flank of the glacier.  The site is near the ice cave.

Craig said waterfalls are cascading down a deglaciated ridge of Mount McGinnis adjacent to the glacier.

While the water appears to be flowing under the glacier, that may not be the case, and the effect on the glacier, lake and trails is unknown.  Craig said the glacier and ice cave may become unstable due to the flow of water.

Craig said a cause could be discharge from meltwater lakes that form along the margins of the glacier, increasing water volume.

Update, Monday, May 12, 2014:

Despite cooler weekend temperatures and some rain, Juneau residents should continue to conserve water, especially in the Mendenhall Valley.

Last week’s warm, dry weather has taxed the city’s sources of drinking water.

As KTOO reported on Friday, Public Works Director Kirk Duncan was urging water conservation, with Juneau’s reservoirs at 30 percent capacity.

As of Sunday evening, reservoirs were about 42 percent of capacity, but Salmon Creek has been off-line for a week, due to turbidity in the water.

Salmon Creek reservoir is Juneau’s secondary water source and is often unusable for drinking water this time of year. But the water level in Lemon Creek reservoir is also low, and Duncan says that could be a problem for the Mendenhall Valley. Lemon Creek is a 31-foot reservoir and was down to 8 feet on Sunday.

He says he gets nervous when reservoirs are that low.

“We’re at 42 percent, normally we’d be at 100 percent,” he says. “We’re  not asking anybody not to use their washing machine, or not do domestic water uses, but if you could water your lawn for 10 minutes instead of 20 that would be good. If you could wash your boat down in 5 minutes instead of a half hour, that would be good.  Just be aware of the water use.”

Juneau’s primary water source is Last Chance Basin, in the mountains above downtown. He says downtown and Douglas have plenty of domestic water and fire protection, but the basin has been “pumping for all it’s worth” in recent days.

Duncan says CBJ is not selling water to cruise ships.

The city has plans and funds to build a Salmon Creek filtration plant and expand Last Chance Basin, but both projects are two years away.

Original story, Friday, may 9, 2014:

The City and Borough of Juneau is asking residents to temporarily conserve water. The warm, dry weather is taxing the city’s sources of drinking water.

While there is water in storage, Juneau reservoirs are about 30 percent below normal capacity and Salmon Creek is completely offline, says Public Works Director Kirk Duncan.

The Salmon Creek reservoir is Juneau’s secondary water source.

“When the reservoir replenishes from all the rain and snowmelt it brings dirt into the reservoir, or turbidity in the water, so it’s been offline for a week,” Duncan says.

Normally that’s not a problem, but Lemon Creek reservoir also is down and Juneau is using a lot of water right now.

“Lemon Creek reservoir, which is a 31-foot reservoir, is down to 6 feet,” he says.

Juneau’s primary water source is Last Chance Basin, in the mountains above downtown.

The draw on Last Chance Basin late Friday afternoon was about 2,100 gallons a minute.

“It’s putting out almost 3-million gallons a day right now, so it’s pumping for all it’s worth.”

The city is not selling water to cruise ships, he says.

The city plans to build a Salmon Creek filtration plant and Last Chance Basin will be expanded in the future, but right now is the time to conserve.

Don’t wash cars or boats, water lawns and gardens until the rains come.  Duncan says the conservation measures will remain in place until the weather changes.

(Full disclosure: Kirk Duncan is a member of the KTOO Board of Directors.)

Five Juneau police officers will represent the department at the memorial service of Sgt. Patrick “Scott” Johnson and Trooper Gabriel “Gabe” Rich, the two Alaska State Troopers killed last week in Tanana.

Chief Bryce Johnson, Dep. Chief Ed Mercer, Lt. Kris Sell, Officer Jeff Brink and Officer Kathy Underwood will attend the service Saturday in Fairbanks.

Lt. David Campbell says it’s important for members of Juneau Police Department to attend.

“Even though it’s a big state, it’s a small community of law enforcement officers. We work with people, we know people. And it just kind of serves as a wake-up call to the people here that you just never really know when you might go to a situation that might escalate into a life or death struggle,” Campbell says.

Peace Officers Memorial Day is May 15 and Juneau held its first event in honor of the week yesterday.

Around 50 people – officers and civilians – attended the ceremony at Evergreen Cemetery. It took place at the gravesite of Richard Adair, a Juneau police officer who was killed in the line of duty April 1979.

The second ceremony is today at 5:30 p.m. at Thunder Mountain High School.

The ceremony will recount the lives of three enforcement officers who were killed on duty in 2013. They were Alaska State Trooper Tage Toll, Village Public Safety Officer Thomas Madole, and Coast Guard Petty Officer Travis Obendorf.

Trooper Sgt. Johnson and Trooper Rich also will be honored.

NOAA special agent Frank Bonadonna organized the event. He says we need to remember that officers are real people.

“They have families. They have children who are left behind who are, in many cases, irreparably scarred from their deaths. And that really just doesn’t affect the families; it affects the whole community because police officers are men and women who take an oath to protect you and me and everyone else and they do so at their own peril and many times at the risk of their own lives,” Bonadonna says.

President John F. Kennedy signed a proclamation designating May 15 as Peace Officers Memorial Day in 1962. All of next week is considered National Police Week.

Juneau’s Affordable Housing Commission plans to hire a consultant to create a housing action plan for the city. The panel says the plan will be different from past city housing reports.

The Juneau Economic Development Council has done two housing needs assessments for the capital city. The 2012 report indicates Juneau has the highest average housing costs in the state. It recommends adding more than 500 single family homes and about 200 rental units to create a more stable and affordable housing market.

Juneau Affordable Housing Commission Chair Norton Gregory says the next step is to do a housing action plan.

We believe that the housing action plan would be the road map that we need in our community to help us to provide housing for all segments of our population,” Gregory told the Juneau Assembly Committee of the Whole this week.

He says the plan would look at specific needs from the housing assessment, such as more senior housing, more buildable land and more funding. Gregory says the idea is to recommend strategies to address those needs.

“Some of the recommendations that we would hope to see include strategies to encourage development of diverse housing types and all affordability levels in our community,” he says. “Finding ways to attract funding, including state, federal and private funding that addresses housing needs and to leverage existing funds with new funds.”

A couple years ago, the assembly created a $400,000 affordable housing fund for the commission to put toward ideas and projects that address the city’s housing shortage. The commission wants to use $75,000 from the fund to pay for the housing action plan. But some assembly members worry it will duplicate already available information.

“We know we need roughly 500-700 houses across the board,” Mayor Merrill Sanford says. “I don’t think we need that information in this plan.”

Gregory is a housing services manager for Tlingit-Haida Regional Housing Authority. He says the plan will aim to complement existing reports.

“I know just from my experience in the nonprofit housing industry here in Juneau that there is a great demand for single-bedroom apartments for young, working individuals,” he says. “But what is our strategy for making that happen? How do we get that out to the builders? How do we identify the land where they can build affordably?”

Assemblywoman Karen Crane says she’d also like to see housing solutions for homeless people and families.

“There are some really creative things that are going on in other communities to start to deal with that population as well, which is also a concern in Juneau,” Crane says.

The assembly put the city manager’s office in charge of making sure the commission gets the right information from the report. After a consultant is chosen to write the plan, Gregory says public meetings will be held to identify other issues of concern and possible solutions.

A 61-year-old woman died after being found in the water off Salmon Creek Trail on Sunday afternoon. Her body is being sent to the State Medical Examiner Office in Anchorage for an autopsy.

Bartlett Regional Hospital employee Sandra Gelber was a physical therapist in the Rehabilitation Services Department.

Capital City Fire/Rescue responded at 4 p.m. to a 911 call about an unconscious woman, says Assistant Chief Ed Quinto.

“A couple hikers reported to dispatch that they were on Salmon Creek Trail, that they found a female in the water along one of the creeks along the trail. It was approximately about a mile up from the gate. She was in the water. They brought her up, started doing CPR and they called us,” Quinto says.

Quinto says Gelber was found approximately 100 yards past where the road is washed out, and about 40 feet off the trail downhill. He says she was unconscious and in critical condition.

It’s unknown how long she was in the water before she was found.

“It appears like she was either hiking or jogging up there. She was dressed in jogging clothes and we don’t know how she got into the water,” Quinto says.

An ambulance transported Gelber to Bartlett Regional Hospital. She was pronounced dead there around 4:30 p.m, according to the hospital.

Bartlett spokesman Jim Strader says Gelber arrived at work Sunday morning and was done with her shift at 3 p.m.

“We’re kind of in shell shock to be honest. She was very, very well loved by all of her coworkers and her patients as well,” Strader says.

Gelber joined Bartlett in 2009. Prior to that, she was at Sitka Community Hospital. A statement sent to hospital employees by interim CEO Jeff Egbert described Gelber as “an avid outdoors person” and “she died doing what she loved best; out on the trail, appreciating the beautiful place we call home.”

Gelber leaves behind husband Tim Riley and two college-aged children.

AEL&P closed Salmon Creek Trail at the end of January when an 80-foot section of the road was washed out. AEL&P put an orange safety barrier around the slide and reopened the trail last week.