Economy

National Transportation Safety Board investigators have started piecing together the cause of the weekend helicopter crash that killed William Zeman, of Juneau.

Bad weather prevented a visit to the accident site until Tuesday. Senior Air Safety Investigator Clint Johnson says the ERA helicopter went down about six miles southwest of Iliamna.

“We spent most of the day there, documented the accident scene and we are in the process of working with the operator to get all the parts and pieces and the wreckage moved back into Iliamna,” Johnson said. “Then the engine and some other parts and pieces will be shipped to Anchorage and we will be doing more testing as time goes on.”

He says the helicopter engine will eventually be sent to an NTSB lab in Texas for testing of possible mechanical issues.

The 66-year-old pilot was the only person onboard the helicopter. Johnson said Zeman had been headed to Anchorage and had made refueling stops in Unalakleet and Bethel. He planned to spend the night in Iliamna.

ERA’s GPS and web-based tracking system received a final signal from the helicopter about 8 p.m. Saturday. Searchers found the wreckage on Sunday. Zeman’s body was sent to the state medical examiner’s office in Anchorage for an autopsy.

While the weather at the time of the crash is not known, Johnson says snow showers had been moving through the area. He says NTSB meteorologists are doing a weather study.

Johnson expects to issue a preliminary report in the next few days, but the cause of the crash likely will not be known for several months.

Zeman was the company’s most senior pilot and had been with ERA Helicopters for 39 years.

Shareholders for Southeast’s regional Native Corporation can look forward to another dividend payment next month.

Sealaska’s board of directors has approved a dividend distribution of nearly 12-million dollars to the corporation’s more than 20-thousand shareholders.

It’s the second payment this year and will mean $1.02 per share for village and descendant shareholders, and twice that for elders.

Sealaska Chief Investment Officer Anthony Mallott says the dividend reflects losses from the economic downturn.

“The operations distribution and the permanent fund distribution have been in the just over a dollar range, we have now for a couple years, mainly affected by the fact that we average our distributions over a long time period and we’re still averaging the negative effects of 2008 where there were significant losses within our investment portfolio and there were some operational losses as well,” Mallott says

Urban and at-large shareholders also receive $6.12 per share under revenue sharing among Alaska’s regional corporations, required by section “7-i” of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act.

Additional payments are made to the various village corporations that can pass the money on to shareholders or use it for operations.

Dividends are paid from revenue sharing, earnings from a corporation permanent fund as well as earnings off investments and Sealaska’s subsidiary companies. The corporation owns timber, construction and environmental services businesses. It also has invested in plastics manufacturing and information technology.

Mallott anticipates payments could increase as the economy improves.

“One of the long term goals of Sealaska is to create and provide meaningful distributions to their shareholder base and we continually strive for that,” Mallott says. “The amounts recently are probably under our goal if you don’t count the 7i but again we’re working out of the great depression and great recession and we’ll continue to build those distributions to a point where both the winter and spring distributions are meaningful to those shareholders that are in our villages and elsewhere.”

Including last spring’s payment, the corporation’s total dividend this year will be nearly 24-million dollars. Fall dividend payments will be made by direct deposit or U.S. mail around December 8th.

The Parnell Administration is trying to explain a proposed 249 percent increase in licensing fees for real estate professionals.

The Division of Corporations, Business and Professional Licensing plans to raise the license fee from $275 to $685.

Legislators have been getting lots of complaints about the increase. In a House Finance Commerce Subcommittee hearing yesterday (Monday), lawmakers pointed to a recent audit of the division that found about $500,000 in expenses incorrectly charged to professions.

The audit also showed income to boards and commissions had not been properly credited. Alaska Association of Realtors past president Jerry Rice said the real estate industry has overpaid more than $3 million in professional services that were not credited in the analysis used to set the new fee.

But Division Director Donald Habeger says the current increase followed a spike in the number of complaints about real estate transactions that left the board with a deficit of a $150,000.

The subcommittee has asked the administration to respond to the audit and questions from the industry.

Juneau’s Docks and Harbors Board has approved a permit for the Kensington Mine to launch and moor employee commuter boats at Echo Cove this winter.

Kensington’s parent company, Coeur Alaska, asked for and received the permit last year as well. It allows the mine to use Echo Cove as a backup to the company’s private dock at Yankee Cove when weather creates unsafe conditions in Lynn Canal. It’s good from November 14th through April 30th.

CBJ Port Director Carl Uchytil told the Docks and Harbors board that the mine pays the city for using the dock.

“It’s about 12-thousand dollars for Docks and Harbors,” says Uchytil. “Not a great amount of money, but certainly it’s something that helps the mine and helps Juneau’s economics to provide this service.”

Kensington plans to beach load and offload passengers on the north side of the Echo Cove boat launch. The number of employees commuting to and from the mine and the schedule for Kensington’s shuttle buses will not change. The company will also plow the Echo Cove parking lot on days that it’s used by the mine.

The permit request was approved unanimously at last night’s Docks and Harbors board meeting.

Two Vancouver-based mining companies say they’ve finished this year’s test drilling for gold and silver deposits at Herbert Glacier. Both companies have also finalized their joint venture agreement for development of a mine.

Quaterra Resources in June of last year partnered with Grande Portage for exploration and development of the area. Grande Portage committed to spending $1.25 million dollars in exploration costs before next June in exchange for a 65-percent interest in the project.

In late 2007, Quaterra Resources acquired the 1700 acre property, now with as many as 91 federal mining claims either staked or leased from three local prospectors. There are at least four to five significant veins that strike east-to-west and dip sharply to the north around the Herbert Glacier about 18-miles north of downtown Juneau.

In a statement issued Wednesday by both companies, the agreement appears to differ little from when it was first announced last year. It includes a new provision that if any party does not contribute their proportionate share of development costs, then a dilution formula will be invoked if any party’s interest is reduced to 10-percent or less. The partner’s interest will be automatically converted into a 1-percent net smelter returns royalty, which may be acquired by the other party for $1 million.

Field test drilling at Herbert Glacier is now over for the season. Both companies announced that they completed 46 drill holes from 9 platforms totaling 6532 metres of diamond drilling.

Some of that drilling has included high-grade concentrations of gold from 2- to 6-ounces per ton. One test drill revealed nearly 39-ounces of silver per ton.

Assays from the latest set of test drilling are still pending from a laborartory.

Grande Portage President Ian Klassen said in a printed statement that they’re delighted with the significance of the results. He says they intersected five separate high grade bodies, four of which are new discoveries.

“A new vein which was previously only hypothesized now shows as much potential for gold as our other big veins,” wrote Klassen.

A test drilling schedule for 2012 that will help define the ore bodies is expected to be submitted for permitting during the last quarter of 2011.

Admiralty Enviromental of Juneau has been hired to do baseline water studies that are required under State of Alaska’s Large Mine permitting requirements.

It looks like the Sealaska land-selection legislation will become part of a larger bill that could be easier to pass. At least that’s the case in the U.S. Senate. Meanwhile, opponents continue lobbying against the measure.

There are a couple of ways to get a bill through Congress.

One is to push the measure through on its merits or its sponsor’s connections – or both. Another is to combine it with similar legislation.

That’s what Senator Lisa Murkowski is trying to do with the Sealaska legislation.

“Historically what the energy committee has done is taken a whole package of lands bill, roll them into what is called an omnibus public lands bill, and then advance them to the floor that way,” she says.

The Alaska Republican is working on such a bill with Natural Resources and Energy Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman. Murkowski says the New Mexico Democrat expressed some concerns she’s trying to address.

She says the timber acreage to be selected is pretty much set. Sections addressing cultural and economic-development areas are more flexible.

“Still some questions remaining on the sacred sites and some of the futures sites. But I would suggest that after years of input from Alaskans and those that have an interest we have gotten to a point where we’ve got a final bill that we can put before the committee,” Murkowski says.

“The idea of the Sealaska land bill being part of an omnibus bill in the Senate has really always been our expectation,” says Rick Harris, executive vice president of Sealaska.

He says bill changes mostly have to do with the futures sites, which could be used for ecotourism or energy development.

“I think they just want to confirm that we’ve done as good a job as we can in the selections to avoid conflict, but to still craft a suitable solution,” he says.

But there’s still plenty of conflict.

“I think it’s a bad idea,” says Davey Lubin, who runs a sea-taxi and ecotourism business in Sitka. He’s opposed to the omnibus approach, or any version of the bill so far.

“There’s some sense that some of the senators from certain states who stand to gain small wilderness areas are willing to throw the Tongass under the bus,” he says.

Lubin traveled to Washington, D.C., last month to lobby against the legislation. He’s concerned about impacts on wildlife, tourism, subsistence, and the overall future of the Tongass National Forest, where the land would be selected.

He says he tells people in Washington that the legislation is a corporate land grab.

“I was giving them a frontline view of what the sentiment here is about privatizing some of the most significant, important, beautiful gems of the Tongass. Most of the time the response was ‘Wow, we didn’t realize that this was anything other than a Native rights bill,” he says.

He’s not alone. Some environmental, tribal and outdoors groups, plus small Southeast communities, have also come out against the measure.

One of the latest to join is the Alaska Outdoor Council. The Fairbanks-based group includes seven Southeast affiliates and is the official state association of the National Rifle Association.

“We’re still battling here in the Interior to try to keep the easements across corporation lands to public lands behind them. And we have not been that successful at keeping that access,” says Rod Arno, the council’s executive director.

He’s among those worried that hunters, hikers and fishermen will be limited by the corporation’s new land ownership.

“The main concern is having more federal Alaska lands legislation when there should be adequate lands in the original withdrawals from ANCSA to meet the needs of the Sealaska Corporation,” he says.

Sealaska could select land now from areas of the Tongass near Southeast communities. Officials say much of that acreage should be protected as fish and wildlife habitat, or community watersheds.

Instead, the corporation wants Congress’ permission to select other lands in the region, much of it valuable timber property. Officials say they will maintain access and be environmentally sensitive.

Murkowski points to support from timber industry, economic development and Native groups, and businesses. She says she hopes the omnibus bill, cosponsored by Alaska Democrat Mark Begich, will move soon.

Meanwhile, Alaska Republican Representative Don Young’s version has cleared its only committee. It could head directly to the House floor, or, like the Senate, also be wrapped into an omnibus lands measure.

Earlier reports:
— Both sides prepare for Sealaska bill’s next stop
— Murkowski, Young post new Sealaska bills
— Sealaska lands bill passes House committee