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State deferred maintenance now totals $1.87 billion Deferred maintenance on public buildings in Alaska, state, university and schools, is on the rise again, with the total increasing $60 million last year to $1.87 billion, state officials told a legislative committee in Juneau. About $1 billion of the total is within the University of Alaska system. UA is budgeting $50 million a year against the backlog but the state itself is unable to do much with its minimal capital budgets. Gov….

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Juneau wants to expand to Admiralty The City and Borough of Juneau has led a request with the state Local Boundary Commission to expand its boundary and annex four areas on Admiralty Island and an area near Tracy Arm that borders the Petersburg Borough. If the boundary commission approves the request it will go to the Legislature for approval. Funter Bay, Glass Peninsula and Pack Creek on Admiralty Island would be annexed under the proposal. There are only recreational cabins…

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New report on health effects The state Division of Public Health has released a statewide assessment of the effects of climate changes, which are felt more in Alaska because of its northern location. One key effect is the threat to subsistence foods for rural Alaskans, where 34 million pounds of wild foods are harvested annually. Climate change has led to poor ice conditions for overland travel; thawing permafrost that affects food storage, and changing bird and animal migrations. Other impacts…

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Inventory underway on Inlet pipelines The Cook Inlet Regional Citizens Advisory is working with state and federal agencies to inventory the Inlet’s pipeline network, much of which dates from the 1960s and 1970s, to determine what pipelines carry and the history of leaks. The Nuka Research and Planning Group is working with the CIRCAC. Draft reports are due to the CIRCAC board in May. *** A new look at Nome for Arctic port The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is…

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Goldman Sachs values ML&P A Goldman Sachs analysis has valued Anchorage’s city-owned Municipal Light & Power at between $707 million and $1 billion, indicating that the proposed sale of ML&P to Chugach Electric Association for $1 billion would be in the upper ranges of the calculated value. The analysis had been kept con – dential by the Municipality of Anchorage until it was obtained and published by the Anchorage Daily News under the Freedom of Information Act. Chugach officials had…

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Construction spending to rise 4 percent in 2018 Construction spending will rise 4 percent in Alaska in 2018 to $6.6 billion, pushed up by a recovery in capital spending by oil and gas companies. However, with oil taken out of the total, all other construction will be down 2 percent, to $4.1 billion, according to the latest annual construction forecast prepared by the University of Alaska Anchorage’s Institute of Social and Economic Research. ISER does the work yearly for the…

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