The Weekend Off – News You Missed
Alaska ADN – Locals, biologists free polar bear caught in fishing net in Arctic Alaska Kaktovik residents and visiting biologists worked together to free a large polar bear that became entangled in a fishing net near a Beaufort Sea barrier island Saturday night. Smithsonian – Denali and America’s Long History of Using (or Not Using) Indian Names For American Indians, place names always tell something about the location, they aim to express the essence of the place, or its dominating characteristic or idea. As Europeans settled on the continent and early pioneers explored, they often gave places new names…
The Weekend Off – News You Missed
Alaska ADN – Study envisions possible fallout from a Canadian Beaufort oil spill A well blowout, pipeline breach or vessel accident in the Canadian Beaufort Sea could spew spilled oil westward for months, polluting waters off Alaska and soiling habitat used by whales, seals and migrating seabirds, according to a study released Friday by the World Wildlife Fund. Fairbanks Daily Miner – Pro-marijuana legalization group urges opponents not to get all drunk at fundraiser The Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol today urged attendees of the anti-legalization group’s Anchorage fundraiser to “exercise caution” because the event is co-hosted by a former…
The Weekend Off – The News You Missed
Alaska Anchorage Daily News – John Devens, mayor of Valdez at time of oil spill, dies at 74 “On the eve of March 24, 1989, John Devens was living what was, for him, a near-perfect life. He was serving as the mayor of Valdez and as the president of a community college he’d expanded. He had also gained a license to operate a charter boat, and was running a small audiology practice on the side.” Fairbanks Daily News-Miner – ‘Alaska Agreement’ good theory, flawed practice: The campaign funding reform issue shouldn’t be tackled piecemeal “Called the “Alaska Agreement,” the pledge’s…
Bridge The Gulf with Alaska’s Riki Ott
Ed. Note: Please check out the wonderful work that’s being done at Bridge The Gulf. They’re one of the few groups really looking into the long term effects of BP’s oil spill and much more – witnessing what happened in Alaska thanks to Exxon unfold in the Gulf. Interview by Bridge The Gulf’s Cherri Foytlin “I will share my personal story of flying over the Exxon Valdez and seeing this little three-football-field-long tanker in a sea of oil, and going, ‘Okay, I am going to spend the rest of my life working on this and I am not going to go…
Exxon Spill – 25 Years of Tears
Time has a strange affect on events in our lives. I feel I’m looking through a glass of water when I look back 25 years to this day, March 24, 1989. I’d left Seattle University and the Ballard Lochs on the M/V Westward heading north through the Inside Passage of British Columbia for the sac roe herring fishery in Sitka. No time in my life is etched as clearly as that spring. There is a certain magic about following Spring to Alaska. Per my not so scientific study, I’ve determined Spring moves at about 9 nautical miles an hour, about…
Gulf Shrimper Sets the Record Straight About BP’s Failed Cleanup – from Julie Dermansky
Gulf Shrimper Dean Blanchard of Grand Isle Sets the Record Straight About BP’s Failed Cleanup (via Desmogblog) The second phase of hearings in the legal battle over the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico ended on October 17th. Following two weeks of testimony by the U.S. Department of Justice and BP, U.S. District Court Judge Carl Barbier will determine…
Mobile Alabama: A Tar Sands Mecca in the Making – Julie Dermansky
Mobile Alabama: A Tar Sands Mecca in the Making (via Desmogblog) It took a while for the Alabama public to understand that their state is being transformed into a tar sands Mecca. Proposals for rail and pipeline transport and tar sands storage facilities were first presented in 2010, and by 2012, most were rubber…
UPDATE: Exxon Wins Safety Award. No, Really.
In this weeks “No really, this is not an Onion article,” Exxon Mobil proudly announced that the National Safety Council awarded it the “Green Cross for Safety medal at its annual fundraising dinner in Houston last night. The dinner honored ExxonMobil for its leadership and comprehensive commitment to safety excellence.” While the award winner was decided earlier last year – one might question the safety record of Exxon after the growing Mayflower oil/tarsands spill. But to the National Safety Council I guess that’s not a safety issue. The award was given at a fundraiser for the National Safety Council sponsored by UPS,…
Good Riddance Exxon Valdez
Some time this week, the ship formerly known as the Exxon Valdez (now the Oriental Nicety) will come to a controversial end. We would expect nothing less of the vessel, now known as the Oriental Nicety, that spilled in excess of 11 million gallons of oil into the formerly pristine waters of Alaska’s Prince William Sound. Its final resting place? As reported by Bloomberg News: …an oil-stained beach in Alang, India, where it’ll be recycled in the world’s largest and most notorious shipbreaking yard. The ship was sold for $16 million, and will be dismantled piece by piece. The ship is more than 70%…
It Can’t Happen Here – The Costa Concordia
By Wickersham’s Conscience The Costa Concordia still lies on her side off the Tuscan coast, with 16 confirmed dead and many still missing. Alaskans know, to their sorrow, that not all ship’s captains are scrupulously careful, not all crew members fully qualified, and not all accidents truly accidents. A Dutch salvage company is struggling to off load the half million gallons of fuel still on the ship, before something fails and another of the world’s pristine marine environments falls victim to industrialization. In this case, industrial tourism. But as sad as the Costa Concordia’s story is, as tragic as the…