Month: May 2008

Tongass visitor survey goes far afield

The US Forest Service is midway through a multi-year study to determine how many people visit the nation’s forest, and what they do once they get there. On the Tongass, the nation’s largest forest, this seemingly straightforward work is complicated by the fact that there is not a single turnstile or ticket booth on any of its seventeen million acres. In the Sitka and Hoonah Ranger districts, recreation planners instead are relying on statistical modeling – and old-fashioned legwork – to find and interview visitors on any of two-hundred bays, lakes, cabins, and trails.

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All but one city enterprise fund budget in black for '09

With the exception of Sawmill Cove Industrial Park, the city’s enterprise funds are all budgeted in the black next year. The Sitka assembly Thursday night (5-1-08) took their first look at the '09 budgets for the electric and water departments, solid waste, harbors, the airport, and the marine services center.

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Yakutat spring troll fishery cancelled – again

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game has canceled the Yakutat Bay spring troll fishery for the third year running. As Melissa Marconi Wentzel reports, low king returns to the Situk River are again standing in the way of this fledgling commercial fishery.

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Charlie Walls: Plan now for Sitka's oil-less energy future

Sitka electrical director Charlie Walls has observed that only a fraction of the energy consumed in Sitka is produced by our two hydro plants. The lion's share of energy, by far, comes from oil -- as fuels for homes, cars, and boats. During an assembly budget meeting Thursday (5-1-08) Walls defended his department's research budget for wind and geothermal power, arguing that the time is now to plan for life with less petroleum. An excerpt from his assembly presentation.

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Sitka, state embark upon summer ferry campaign

Beginning May 11th and continuing through the summer, Sitkans will be able to ride the fast ferry Fairweather to and from Juneau 5 days a week. People are calling this summer’s ferry schedule one of the best to hit Sitka in years. But city officials fear, if Sitkans don’t use the improved service, they may just lose it. So, the City is kicking off an intensive marketing campaign to encourage ridership. It just happens to coincide with a similar effort on the part of the Alaska Marine Highway.

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Sitka joins national ranks of "bike friendly" communities

One year after launching a community-wide effort to raise awareness and improve safety, Sitka is officially a bike-friendly community. The Washington DC-based League of American Bicyclists today (5-1-08) awarded Sitka, and seven other communities around the country, a bronze designation for bike friendliness. The awards increase the number of official bike-friendly communities nationwide to eighty-four, in thirty-one states. Sitka is the first community in Alaska to win the designation.

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