Ambler road approval next year? Trilogy Metals hopes for federal approvals in mid-2020 on a proposed 211-mile industrial road from the Dalton Highway to the Ambler Mining District, where Trilogy is working on its Arctic high-grade copper project. If developed, Arctic could ship 40 trucks a day, or 300 sealed containers a week, of concentrates by road to Fairbanks and then rail to the Port of Alaska in Anchorage. Kensington: 10 more years Coeur Alaska is finalizing a plan to…
Setback: Tongass sale delayed More headaches for the state’s small timber industry. U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason halted a planned federal timber sale on Prince of Wales Island in southern Southeast Alaska. Environmental groups sued the U.S. Forest Service claiming an inadequate environmental review. Gleason ordered an injunction, blocking the forest service from opening bids or taking other actions until the merits of the lawsuit were considered. Gleason acknowledged the delay could hurt local sawmills which need more timber…
Great year for sockeye fishers Harvesters with 43 million sockeyes caught from a 56-million-fish run. The initial ex-vessel value estimate (what fishermen are paid) is $306.5 mil- lion, but this is based on a “base” sockeye price of $1.35 per pound. This will increase later in the fall as supplemental bonus payments are made, such as for iced fish. A final figure will be published next spring by state fish and game officials. The total sockeye harvest is now estimated…
Oct. 15 decision, oil tax initiative Lt. Gov. Kevin Meyer will decide Oct. 15 whether a proposed citizen ballot initiative to raise taxes on oil and gas can go forward to the signature-gathering stage. Tens of thousands of signatures will be needed for the proposal to make it to the 2020 election ballot. The tax increases would be very damaging to the industry, companies say, dampen- ing efforts to develop new discoveries. BP confident, Hilcorp at Prudhoe BP senior managers,…
Cruise tourism expected to increase 6 percent in 2020 Cruise tourism to Alaska, will jump 6 percent next year, an industry trade group told Southeast Conference delegates at the regional development group’s annual meeting in Sitka. Cruise passengers increased 200,000 between 2018 and 2019 and are projected to reach a record 1.44 million in 2020, said Cruise Lines International Association. Tourists are expected to spend $793 million just in Southeast Alaska next summer. CLIA is the industry trade group that…
Legislature funded budget at $570 million above Dunleavy request The Legislative Finance Division, the state Legislature’s non-partisan finance group, is finalizing its reports for actions on the state budget, at least year-to-date. Here are some highlights: Total Unrestricted General Fund (UGF) spending for Fiscal 2020, the current budget year, is $4.18 billion. That’s $462.7 million below the $4.643 billion approved for FY 2019, the budget year that ended June 30. This amounts to a 10 percent reduction Within the UGF…
Cost reductions: Anchorage port job A group hired by Anchorage’s assembly found potential cost savings in the plan to rebuild and modernize the city’s aging port. One idea is to build one new cargo dock rather than two and to require two container shipping firms serving Anchorage to shift schedules. The consultants pointed out that the municipality’s estimates for the entire rebuild are based on an extrapolation of bids from the petroleum and cement terminal replacement now underway, an approach…
Workforce shortage in Southeast Health care providers in Southeast Alaska are having big problems filling positions with registered nurses particularly in short supply. Up to 30 percent of the professional workers employed by health providers in the region are “travelers,” or temporary staff brought up from the Lower 48. The average is 9 percent. This is an extremely high-cost answer to the workforce problem, which is also experienced in other rural Alaska regions. The University of Alaska is being asked…
Chugach rates; fire damage Chugach Electric Association will temporarily bump rates to offset costs of using more natural gas because of the shutdown of a transmission line bringing hydro power from the Bradley Lake project north from the Kenai Peninsula. The Swan Lake wildfire burned 167,000 acres on the Kenai this summer, disrupting transportation and causing a shutdown of the transmission line. Bradley Lake supplies about 10 percent of Chugach’s needs. The estimate is for a 3 percent to 6…
Here are some effects of the current organizational turmoil at the University of Alaska. Fall semester enrollment at University of Alaska Anchorage is down by 13 percent, according to the university. Enrollment at University of Alaska Fairbanks is down 2.9 percent and University of Alaska Southeast is down 5 percent. Statewide enrollment is down 9.3 percent. In Anchorage, the sharp drop is mainly in continuing students, the university told us. Ironically, the incoming freshman class at UAA is one of…