Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, right, listens as the Senate Appropriations Committee marks up the FY2026 spending bill for the Department of the Interior, the Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Transportation, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, July 24, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, right, listens as the Senate Appropriations Committee marks up the FY2026 spending bill for the Department of the Interior, the Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Transportation, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, July 24, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
AP- Republican U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, speaking with Alaska reporters Monday, toyed with the idea of running for governor and defended her recent high-profile decision to vote in support of President Donald Trump’s tax breaks and spending cuts bill.
Murkowski, speaking from Anchorage, said “sure” when asked if she has considered or is considering a run for governor. She later said her response was “a little bit flippant” because she gets asked that question so often.
“Would I love to come home? I have to tell you, of course I would love to come home,” she said. “I am not making any decisions about anything, because my responsibility to Alaskans is my job in the Senate right now.”
Several Republicans already have announced plans to run in next year’s governor’s race, including Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom. Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy is not eligible to seek a third consecutive term. Alaska has an open primary system and ranked choice voting in general elections.
Murkowski is not up for reelection until 2028.
A centrist, Murkowski has become a closely watched figure in a sharply divided Congress. She has at times been at odds with her party in her criticism of Trump and blasted by some GOP voters as a “Republican in name only.” But her decision to support Trump’s signature bill last month also frustrated others in a state where independents comprise the largest number of registered voters. She previously described her decision-making process around the bill as “agonizing.”
On Monday, she said it was clear to her the bill was not only a priority of Trump’s but also that it was going to pass, so it became important to her to help make it as advantageous to the state as she could.
“So I did everything within my power — as one lawmaker from Alaska — to try to make sure that the most vulnerable in our state would not be negatively impacted,” she said. “And I had a hard choice to make, and I think I made the right choice for Alaskans.”
The State Office Building in Juneau is seen on Thursday, Feb. 20, 2025. (Photo by James Brooks/Alaska Beacon)
By: James Brooks, Alaska Beacon
The State Office Building in Juneau is seen on Thursday, Feb. 20, 2025. (Photo by James Brooks/Alaska Beacon)
In a new administrative action, Gov. Mike Dunleavy is ordering “efficiency reviews” of state agencies and asking departments to use artificial intelligence software as part of an effort to identify budget cuts.
The reviews will take place annually, according to Dunleavy’s new administrative order, published Monday, and would become part of the state’s annual budget process.
The reviews will initially focus on “grants to non-State of Alaska entities” and “accounts payable,” according to a copy of the text available online.
The reviews are intended to “identify potential savings” and “improve efficiency of operations” but also will include recommendations for the state to contract out services rather than performing them in-house.
“Alaskans expect their government to deliver essential services in the most efficient and responsible way possible,” Dunleavy said in a written statement announcing the administrative order. “This order ensures we prioritize critical needs, eliminate waste, and safeguard the state’s financial stability.”
Some prior outsourcing efforts by the Dunleavy administration have seen state services assigned to call centers outside Alaska, drawing opposition from union officials and legislators.
A second order, also released Monday, calls for the state to significantly reduce the number of regulations it has on the books.
Notably, the order says that the state should speed permitting for projects regulated by the Alaska Department of Natural Resources, Department of Environmental Conservation and Alaska Department of Fish and Game.
That could mean automatically approving projects even if their environmental review hasn’t been completed according to timelines required by the state, the order says.
Dunleavy leaves office on Dec. 6, 2026. The order says that the state should “reduce the number of regulatory requirements by 15% by Dec. 31, 2026, and 25% (cumulative) by Dec. 31, 2027.”
A liaison with each state department will be required to provide quarterly updates on that goal to the governor’s office.
The Mendenhall River, which flows out of Mendenhall Glacier, is seen on May 14, 2025. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
When water from melting glacier inundated her Juneau neighborhood last August, Danielle Lindoff made a hasty escape through a front window in her living room, her two unhappy cats in tow. She climbed onto a boat mobilized by her husband, and as he steered, she held a flashlight to scout in the dark for submerged mailboxes that they might bump on their way to safety.
Danille Lindoff, a resident of Juneau’s Mendenhall Valley, points on March 13, 2025, to her front door to show the level that water reached during the record 2024 outburst flood from Mendenhall Glacier. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon) Danielle Lindoff, standing in front of her Mendenhall Valley house on March 13, 2025, shows how high water rose during the record glacial outburst flood of August 2024. On that night, as her husband steered the boat they used to escape, Lindoff held out a flashlight to look for submerged mailboxes so they could avoid bumping into them. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
Though the Mendenhall River flowing by their backyard had been swollen with floodwaters in past years – and though the Lindoffs had taken precautions last summer like sealing doorways and stacking sandbags – the Aug. 5-6, 2024, event was the biggest Mendenhall Glacier outburst flood ever measured. The water that rushed out of a breached glacial ice dam brought the river to a record crest of 15.99 feet, inundating about 290 homes and stunning much of the community.
A drone image shows widespread flooding in the Mendenhall Valley in Juneau on Aug. 6, 2024. The flood was from an outburst at Suicide Basin, part of the Mendenhall Glacier complex. A similar glacial outburst flood struck the same area in 2023. (Image courtesy of Rich Ross) The streamflow at Mendenhall Lake during two glacial outburst floods is shown. The previous record-high outburst flood, in 2023, is shown in blue. The new record flood, in2024, is shown in orange. (Graph provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, based on data from the U.S. Geological Survey)
“No one expected it to be this big,” Lindoff said months later in an interview at her freshly repaired and refurbished house.
The community is no longer likely to be caught by surprise.
“It’s probably likely that the floods could get larger in the future,” said Eran Hood, an environmental science professor and glacier specialist at the University of Alaska Southeast.
Hood is part of a broad effort mounted by scientists, government agencies, the local Tribal government, nonprofit community groups and individuals to limit the damage that may result from future floods.
Residents of the Mendenhall Valley shovel and load sand at a sandbag distribution event held on July 26, 2025, by the City and Borough of Juneau and the Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska. By 1 p.m. that day, more than 100 cars had checked in at the Dimond Park Field House, according to city officials. Each household was allowed to fill 75 sandbags. The event, one of several held by municipal and Tribe officials, was in anticipation of another glacial outburst flood. (Photo by Corrine Smith/Alaska Beacon)
A first step is ensuring that the public knows the risks. To that end, Hood and others at UAS and partner organizations have created an online resource, the Juneau Glacial Flood Dashboard, launched in May.
Though the floods glaciers produce can happen quickly, there can be early warnings of water releases. The Juneau Glacial Flood Dashboard gives real-time information on water levels pooled above the ice dam that forms each year at one of the glacier’s basins. It has weather data, aerial images and other up-to-the-minute information. One of the most important features is a detailed flood-inundation map; users can type in their addresses and get predictions for flood impacts, depending on river-level scenarios and other conditions.
The dashboard idea came up as an answer to a basic question, Hood said: “What are the best ways to communicate hazards?”
Lawmakers consider an only-in-Alaska flood insurance programWork by Hood and his colleagues is supported by a National Science Foundation grant. The foundation funded a project to do detailed studies of Mendenhall Glacier and the flood risks it poses, hone systems for predictions and warnings and apply those tools to other flood-prone glaciers in Alaska and possibly beyond.
Outburst flooding is a natural phenomenon in glaciated areas, sometimes referred to by an Icelandic name: jökulhlaup. They occur from the Andes to the Arctic. Their suddenness can make them dangerous to people in certain parts of the world, like the Himalayas; overall, about 15 million people in the world are at risk of such floods, according to a 2023 study published in the journal Nature.
The risks are increasing with climate change and glacial melt, studies have shown. Globally, glacial lake volume increased by 48% between 1990 and 2018, according to a 2020 study by Canadian, U.S. and British scientists who used satellite imagery to make the calculations.
Alaska outburst floods
Glacial outburst floods are also natural in Alaska, though the trends are a bit different.
There were 1,150 of these outbursts released from 106 ice-dammed lakes between 1985 and 2020, according to a study published in 2023 by scientists from Colorado State University, the University of Alaska Fairbanks and other institutions. The frequency of such events was unchanged over that period, they found. But there was a big change in timing, with most of the sites flooding earlier in the year, likely the result of warming temperatures and faster melt, the study found. Rapid changes in glaciers’ structures also means that new water-filled dams — and new flood risks — are emerging at individual sites, the study said.
A chunk of ice that calved from Mendenhall Glacier floats in Mendenhall Lake on May 14, 2025. Melt is causing ice chunks to drop from the glacier, including into Suicide Basin. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
Alaska’s glaciers are melting faster than those elsewhere in the world. The melt has varied and sometimes contradictory impacts on outburst floods, the 2023 study explains. Less ice overall has meant a reduced supply of meltwater. But accelerated melt can also increase the size of glaciers’ basins and weaken the ice dams that hold their meltwater. Rapid melt can also cause huge chunks of ice to calve away from higher elevations into the basins, boosting volume quickly.
The terminus of Exit Glacier, seen here on July 5, 2022, has slipped well uphill from where it was in 2010 — and farther away from the end of the hiking trail. The glacier, in Kenai Fjords National Park, is one of the most visited in the state and an example of Alaska’s rapid glacial melt. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon}
The broad valley was carved into the landscape over millennia by its namesake glacier. It is a major suburb of Alaska’s capital city, home to about 12,000 of Juneau’s 31,200 residents. It holds neat neighborhoods where houses are more spacious than in the city’s upscale but tightly packed downtown district. It also holds abundant parks and trails, scenic views of mountains, meadows and coastline; and conveniences like shopping malls and commuter bus service. And, within the Tongass National Forest that surrounds the city, the valley is known for the big glacier that looms over it and draws hundreds of thousands of tourists each year.
Mendenhall Glacier has ebbed and flowed over thousands of years, but it has been in retreat ever since the Little Ice Age ended in the mid-1700s. As the climate has warmed — a trend amplified in far-north latitudes — the retreat has accelerated. That is the case not just for Mendenhall but for the other glaciers connected to the vast Juneau Ice Field that caps the mountains spanning Southeast Alaska and adjacent parts of Canada. The Juneau Ice Field lost a tenth of its glacier area from 2005 to 2019, according to NASA.
This melt created a relatively new gap within Mendenhall’s ice called Suicide Basin, reportedly named after the drop that ice above the basin would experience. Retreat of the smaller Suicide Glacier, which had been connected to Mendenhall, created the gap.
As glacial ice melts over each summer, the basin fills with water. As the water within the basin rises, it breaks through the ice dam and rushes down into Mendenhall Lake, Mendenhall River and, sometimes, over the riverbanks. The process is repeated year-to-year as ice dams are formed and then breached, though water amounts and speed of releases can vary.
Had modern technology and alertness existed in the past, the risk to the Mendenhall Valley could have been identified many years ago, Hood said.
Ice, bedrock and surface debris at the Gilkey Glacier interact in 2017. The glacier, like Mendenhall Glacier, is part of the Juneau Icefield. From 2005 to 2019, the icefield lost 10% of its glacier area, according to NASA. (Photo provided by the U.S. Geological Survey)
“Twenty years ago, someone could have looked at Mendenhall and looked at the side basins and said there could definitely be a problem in the future. Nobody did that,” he said.
The first Suicide Basin outburst flood was in 2011. “That pretty much caught people by surprise, although in hindsight, it shouldn’t have,” said Jason Amundson, a UAS geophysics professor and the principal investigator for the National Science Foundation-funded project.
Since then, floods have occurred almost annually, though at varying levels and intensities. Recent floods were big. A record 2023 flood, with a maximum crest of the Mendenhall River measured at 14.97 feet, was followed by the even-bigger 2024 flood.
Though it caused more damage, last year’s flood came and went quickly. “The whole thing lasted maybe 12 hours,” Amundson said..
Jason Amundson, a professor of geophysics at the University of Alaska Southeast, stands outside his office on March 11, 2025. He is leading a research project to better understand outburst floods at Mendenhall Glacier and elsehere. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon) Jason Amundson, a professor of geophysics at the University of Alaska Southeast, pulls up the Juneau Glacial Flood Dashboard at his office on March 11, 2025. The dashboard, still in development at the time, shows how far floods waters would reach into neighborhoods, depending on different scenarios. The dashboard went online in May. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
There is not yet enough data to identify a clear pattern, making predictions difficult for now, Hood and Amundson said. But there is a good chance that Suicide Basin will continue emptying out huge amounts of water.
“If we keep having full drainage like we did last year, then I would expect that we would keep having big floods,” Amundson said.
Local officials, meanwhile, are looking beyond Suicide Basin as they consider future risks, said Robert Barr, Juneau’s assistant city manager.
“There very well could be other basins behind Suicide that will form as Mendenhall Glacier retreats,” he said.
Holding waters back
The municipal government, a partner in the flood dashboard, has embarked on another short-term response to the flood risk.
A military-grade barrier, seen May 14, 2025, lines the Mendenhall River in the neighborhood inundated by the record 2024 outburst flood from Mendenhall Glacier. The barrier, from a company called HESCO, was recommended by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as a temporary protection for the Juneau suburb. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon) A military-grade barrier, seen May 14, 2025, lines the Mendenhall River in the neighborhood inundated by the record 2024 outburst flood from Mendenhall Glacier. The barrier, from a company called HESCO, was recommended by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as a temporary protection for the Juneau suburb. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
It spent nearly $8 million on a flood barrier erected this year along the Mendenhall River. The barrier, a stout sandbag structure originally designed for military use, was recommended by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as a short-term fix. To recoup part of the cost, the local government is assessing a fee on the 466 property owners in the river area. The fee, about $6,300 per household, is to be paid over 10 years.
The Lindoff home is among those behind the new barrier, which bears the brand name HESCO. Danielle Lindoff, who has watched river waters rise and churn over the years, eroding the far bank and felling huge trees, said she is grateful for the protection. But her feelings are mixed.
“We bought this house because of the view,” she said. “Now we won’t even be able to see it.”
Barr, at the City and Borough of Juneau, concedes the barriers are not particularly pretty. But he said most homeowners accept their presence.
“I wouldn’t say the question was, ‘Do you find the HESCO barriers attractive or not?’” he said. “But they are our best effort, in consultation with the Army Corps and all the other experts that we’re talking with, to keep water in the river.”
Robert Barr, deputy city manager for City and Borough of Juneau, pulls up a screen on May 13,2025, to show plans for HESCO flood barrier in along the Mendenhall River to protect against glacial outburst flood. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
The barriers are temporary, Barr said.
For the longer term, the Army Corps of Engineers might design a bigger flood-control system, he said. That could be something as substantial as the diversion project installed in Fairbanks after a devastating 1967 flood. The Fairbanks system is large, subject to ongoing maintenance, and has cost $220 million to date. The Corps has already embarked on a technical study for the Mendenhall Valley, a project supported by $4.75 million in federal funds.
A sign at the Fairbanks North Star Borough office, seen on Feb. 5, 2025, shows how high water rose during that city’s devastating 1967 flood. In the aftermath, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers created a major project to protect the city from future Chena River floods. It is possible that the Corps will create something similar for Juneau’s Mendenhall Valley. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
Whatever is done will depend on scientific research.
The University of Alaska Southeast-led team, which also includes scientists from the University of Alaska Fairbanks and Carnegie Mellon University, is using field and remote-sensing data to better understand how the glacier has changed in the past and to create models for how it will change in the future. Technologies used include LiDAR, which measures elevations and features through light beams; radar, which employs soundwaves to measure the thickness of glacial ice over bedrock; and drones, which capture aerial images that can be compared over time.Weather and tide data is important, too. The record 2024 outburst flood came on a night after a gloriously sunny and warm summer day. Things could be much worse if an outburst flood happens during a rainstorm or when tides in the adjacent Gastineau Channel are exceptionally high, experts say.
Beyond Juneau
The Mendenhall work being led by Amundson is about more than Juneau’s famous glacier. The risk-analysis systems the team develops for Mendenhall are intended to be applied to other glaciers in Alaska.
Beyond Mendenhall, Hood said, the second-highest priority for risk analysis is probably Snow Glacier on the Kenai Peninsula south of Anchorage and just north of the coastal town of Seward.
The glacier-fed Snow River, seen on June 21, 2025, flows under a highway bridge north of Seward. The Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities and the Alaska Railroad are making changes to protect the Seward Highway and the rail line against future Snow Glacier outburst floods. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
Though the Snow Glacier’s periodic floods have not reached communities beyond a popular campground and a smattering of nearby houses, they do threaten infrastructure. The Seward Highway, a major state thoroughfare, and the Alaska Railroad run right along that flood zone. The railroad is planning to raise the elevation of a bridge at the trouble site, and the Alaska Department of Transportation plans a related elevation rise to the highway. The estimated cost of the road project alone is $20 million.
A resident carrying groceries and wearing rubber rain boots wades through floodwaters covering the road to the Primrose Campground north of Seward on Aug. 24, 2019. A glacial outburst flood on the Snow Glacier innundated Kenai Lake and the Primrose campground in the Chugach National Forest. The annual Lost Lake Race, which starts at the Primrose campground, was to have been held that day but was canceled because of wildfire smoke and glacial flooding. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
Hood and Amundson pointed out another spot where glacial outburst floods are threats: the Prince William Sound port town of Valdez, home to 3,900 people and site of the terminal where oil that passes through the Trans Alaska Pipeline System is shipped out.
In the mountains outside of town, the Valdez Glacier has been damming and releasing meltwater every year or two. Some years, releases are relatively slow and small; some years’ releases cause problems. An outburst flood in 2018 inundated part of Valdez.
Weakened federal partners?
Continued work to understand glacial outburst floods and the risks they pose to Alaskans depends on partnerships with academic institutions and agencies at various levels of government.
But federal agencies that are important partners have been weakened by deep budget cuts and abrupt firings that could hollow out scientific programs.
One partner is the U.S. Geological Survey, a branch of the Department of the Interior that has been doing both long-term monitoring of Mendenhall Glacier’s changes and collecting day-to-day data and imagery from Suicide Basin. The Trump administration is proposing slashing total USGS spending by nearly 40%, including an approximately 30% cut to the agency’s natural disaster programs.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which houses the National Weather Service, is another key partner that has already been targeted for deep cuts and likely faces more. The administration’s budget for the coming fiscal years proposes eliminating all funding for NOAA research.
The U.S. Forest Service is another partner. It manages the Tongass National Forest, which covers most of Southeast Alaska, and Southcentral Alaska’s Chugach National Forest. Both are heavily glaciated.
Tourists view Mendenhall Glacier from the U.S. Forest Service visitor center on May 14, 2025. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon) Tourists take in the view at the Mendenhall Glacier visitor center on May 14, 2025. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
Among the Forest Service duties in Juneau is delivery of warnings and, at times, evacuation notices to tourists and campers at the Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center. Mass firings by the Trump administration left the visitor center nearly unmanned earlier in the year, with only two employees still on the payroll there in February. Several workers have been rehired since, but staffing levels remain uncertain.
Barr said Juneau officials worry about losses at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, an important partner even though its general definition of flood zones does not consider glacial outburst floods.
The agency in April canceled its Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities grant program, and halted work on all pending grant applications, even though the program has won praise for helping communities reduce costs of disaster emergencies.
Several states are pushing back against the program’s termination; 20 filed a lawsuit in mid-July challenging the administration’s decision.
“We are potentially concerned about hazard-mitigation grants and those going away,” Barr said. And along with loss of financial aid is the concern about “losing expertise” as veteran emergency and risk-assessment experts are pushed out of the agency, he said.
Uncertainty also affects the National Science Foundation, which is funding the Mendenhall research project. The Trump administration is proposing a 55 percent cut for the coming fiscal year.
The grant money was already paid, and so far, the project has remained intact, Amundson said. “As far as I know, everything is going forward,” he said.
Suicide Basin is seen on July 31, 2025, with rising meltwater and ice chunks. The image, provided by the U.S. Geological Survey, was among the real-time information provided by a new online dashboard that alerts residents to pending risks from Mendenhall Glacier outburst floods. (Image from Juneau Glacial Flood Dashboard)
This story has been supported by the Solutions Journalism Network, a nonprofit organization dedicated to rigorous and compelling reporting about responses to social problems, http://solutionsjournalism.org.
Pacific Halibut out of water, photo courtesy of Alaska Fish and Game
Five commercial fishermen from Alaska and Washington have been indicted by a federal grand jury, accused of conspiring to illegally harvest more than 10,000 pounds of halibut over a four-year period near Yakutat.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the fishermen, Jonathan Pavlik, 43, of Yakutat; Vincent Jacobson, 51, of Yakutat; Kyle Dierick, 36, of Yakutat; Michael Babic, 42, of Cordova; and Timothy Ross, 58, of Washington, each face federal charges under the Lacey Act, a law that prohibits illegal wildlife trafficking.
Prosecutors say the five men, all experienced commercial fishermen, took part in a conspiracy between 2019 and 2023 to violate halibut fishing rules tied to Individual Fishing Quotas, a system designed to sustainably manage halibut harvests in Alaskan waters.
The indictment alleges that Pavlik conspired separately with each of the other defendants to land halibut without being on board their vessels for the full duration of the fishing trips, a violation of federal regulations.
The indictment alleges that Pavlik, Jacobson, Dierick, Babic, and Ross intentionally falsely reported that the halibut caught was creditable to their respective Individual Fishing Quota (IFQ) permit balances, which is a permit any individual commercially fishing for halibut in the waters off Alaska is required to have. Pavlik and the three co-conspirators are responsible for over 10,700 pounds of illegally harvested halibut.
In a separate incident last fall, Pavlik allegedly sold over 9,600 pounds of illegally caught halibut that was fished aboard a vessel called the Bad Intentions and then transferred to another vessel, New Era, in an effort to conceal its origin before landing it for sale.
Pavlik faces 14 felony charges, including four counts of conspiracy, five counts of unlawful sale, and five counts of false labeling under the Lacey Act. Jacobson, Dierick, Babic, and Ross each face one count of conspiracy.
If convicted, each defendant could face up to five years in prison and fines of up to $250,000 per count. Court appearances are scheduled in the coming weeks before U.S. Magistrate Judge Matthew M. Scoble in Anchorage.
The investigation was led by NOAA Fisheries’ Office of Law Enforcement, Alaska Division, with support from the Alaska Wildlife Troopers. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Seth Brickey and Mac Caille Petursson are prosecuting the case.
An indictment is a formal accusation and not evidence of guilt. All defendants are presumed innocent unless proven otherwise in a court of law.
Treadwell Ditch Trail Saturday Ceremony, photo courtesy of Juneau Parks and recreation.
Trail Mix, the nonprofit trail stewardship organization based in Juneau, celebrated the long-awaited reconnection of the historic Treadwell Ditch Trail over the weekend.
The 13.3-mile trail now stretches continuously from Eaglecrest to South Douglas, featuring 65 bridges and 25 culverts.
A ribbon-cutting ceremony was held Friday from noon to 1 p.m. at the Blueberry Hills Dan Moller Trail parking lot, featuring remarks from agency partners and Trail Mix staff.
A larger public celebration happened Saturday at Savikko Park’s log shelter, with exhibits discussing the trail’s history and the work that led to its restoration.
“Last year, we installed the final bridge as part of this grant that we have through Alaska Department and fish and game, and it reconnected the Treadwell ditch for the first time in over 100 years.” said Trail Mix’s executive director Meghan Tabacek “it’s, it’s really a huge milestone, and the community loves the ditch. It feels really good to build a trail that we know people in Juneau love”
The Treadwell Ditch Trail was originally used to divert water for mining operations.
Trail Mix manages over 250 miles of trail in the region, with only three crews to maintain them.
“One of the biggest challenges, is logistics.” Said Tabacek “You know, you can’t drive a truck with all the pieces you need onto a trail.”
Volunteers play a crucial role in supporting Trail Mix’s mission. The organization has hosted near-weekly volunteer events throughout the summer and recently surpassed 1,200 volunteer hours. Their goal is 2,000 hours by season’s end.
“We are just so blown away with our volunteers, it’s just been really, really incredible watching people in Juneau show up.” Tabacek said.
Low clouds hang over Kodiak’s St. Paul Harbor on Oct. 3, 2022. A Coast Guard response to a distress call from a fish tender sinking in the Kodiak harbor led to the discovery that oily bilge water was being discharged from the vessel, in violation of the Clean Water Act. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
A longtime Alaska fisher who was sentenced in May to a year in jail for illegally exporting crab, much of it disease infected, has now been ordered to pay $1.18 million in penalties for unrelated water pollution charges.
Corey Potter and the companies he managed — the vessel Knot EZ, Aleutian Tendering LLC and the Alaska Tendering Company LLC — were ordered to pay the combined penalty in a default judgment issued on Thursday by U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason.
The penalty was for repeated discharges of oily bilge water, which violated the Clean Water Act, according to court documents.
Potter had not responded to the charges, which were detailed in a complaint filed on Oct. 24, or appeared in court on the case, according to the U.S. Coast Guard and federal prosecutors. That triggered the default judgment by Gleason.
Potter’s previous case concerned thousands of pounds of king crab he and his partners harvested in Southeast Alaska and took directly to Washington state. Alaska law requires that all crabs commercially harvested in waters off Alaska be landed and processed within the state. Part of the reason for that is to ensure quality and marketability.
The Knot EZ, seen in this undated photo, had been illegally discharging oily bilge water over multiple fishing seasons, federal prosecutors said. The vessel operated as a tender, delivering harvested fish from catcher vessels to processors. It was owned by Corey Potter, a longtime Alaska fisher sentenced in May to jail time for illegal out-of-state shipment of king crab, much of which was infected with bitter crab syndrome. (Photo provided by the U.S. Coast Guard)
Instead, a significant percentage of the catch that Potter and his associate brought to Washington state was infected with bitter crab syndrome. The parasitic disease, which is linked to warming waters, kills crabs and makes their meat unpalatable, though not toxic to humans.
The water pollution case against Potter is separate. It stems from a Coast Guard rescue of the Knot EZ, which was sinking in Kodiak Harbor in July of 2022. The Knot EZ operated as a tender, a vessel that delivered fish from harvesters to processors, according to court documents.
Guardsmen who responded to the Knot EZ’s distress call discovered that the vessel had an illegal discharge system that was pumping oily bilge water directly into the sea, according to the complaint. Crew members hired by Potter admitted that the illegal bypass system was used daily, according to the complaint.
The vessel was declared to be unfit for service, and subsequent investigation discovered a long-running pattern of such violations in past fishing seasons as well, according to the complaint.
While neither Potter nor his companies responded to the Clean Water Act charges, a public defender representing him in the crab case asked for leniency, based on his age and on the financial hardships he has already endured. Potter, 64, “has been reduced to relying upon family for assistance and has no viable means to support himself,” said the defense presentencing memorandum in that case, which was filed on May 6.
NOTN- The last two defendants in a six-person drug trafficking conspiracy pleaded guilty last week to charges stemming from a multi-state operation that funneled fentanyl and heroin into Alaska, federal prosecutors said..
According to court documents, Semaj Brown, 34, and Brandon Garrett, 46, both of Anchorage, pleaded guilty to conspiring with Julio Juarez, 32, of Anchorage, Marcelino Juarez, 30, of Anchorage, Shane Murphy, 43, of Wasilla, and Gustavo Sebastian Lopez-Chavez, 24, a Mexican national illegally residing in the U.S., to purchase fentanyl and heroin in California and transport the substances to Alaska through the mail or in checked airline baggage.
According to officials, the group trafficked at least 36 kilograms of fentanyl and about 10 kilograms of heroin.
The investigation culminated on Aug. 22, 2024, when U.S. Postal Inspection Service agents intercepted a suspicious parcel in Anchorage. A search warrant revealed more than two kilograms of fentanyl powder inside.
Days later, law enforcement conducted a controlled delivery, ultimately arresting Marcelino Juarez and Brown after observing them collect and transport the package. Garrett was detained in a separate vehicle nearby.
Authorities later linked Brown and Murphy to a July 2024 trip to Los Angeles, where they allegedly sourced additional fentanyl and heroin, including from Lopez-Chavez.
On July 6, airport security at Los Angeles International Airport seized a suitcase bound for Anchorage containing about one kilogram of heroin and two kilograms of fentanyl, when Murphy and Brown arrived in Alaska, they noted that the suitcase did not arrive.
Lopez-Chavez was arrested in Los Angeles on Nov. 14, 2024. At the time, he was carrying roughly 23 kilograms of fentanyl, along with cash and counterfeit immigration documents.
The Juarez brothers and Brown were identified as known gang members by the Stockton, California, Police Department.
All six defendants have now pleaded guilty. Marcelino and Julio Juarez entered pleas in July; Murphy pleaded guilty in April; Lopez-Chavez pleaded guilty in June; and Garrett was indicted in March before pleading last week.
The defendants are scheduled to be sentenced within the next three months. Marcelino Juarez, Brown, Murphy, Lopez-Chavez and Garrett face between 10 years to life in prison. Julio Juarez faces between 15 years to life in prison due to a prior conviction in California for attempted murder, for which he served 11 years in prison.
The case was investigated by the FBI Anchorage Field Office and the Alaska High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) task forces, with assistance from multiple agencies across Alaska and California.
U.S. Attorneys Tom Bradley, Jack Schmidt, and Bill Reed are prosecuting the case.
Sen. Bert Stedman, R-Sitka, stands in the Senate Finance Committee room on April 24, 2025. Stedman is sponsoring a bill that would create an Alaska flood insurance system that would be an alternate to the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s national insurance program. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
As the Trump administration shrinks and even considers eliminating the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Alaska Legislature is considering a substitute for one of the agency’s key functions.
A bill introduced by Sen. Bert Stedman, a Republican from the Southeast city of Sitka, would establish an Alaska flood authority and an Alaska flood insurance fund. As far as he knows, it would make Alaska the only state with its own flood insurance, Stedman said.
The veteran state lawmaker said his measure, Senate Bill 11, stems from his dissatisfaction with FEMA and its flood policies, feelings that predated the agency’s possible demise in the Trump era.
The federal agency is, for now, the only source of flood insurance in Alaska, as private carriers that offer policies elsewhere in the country do not operate in the state’s small market, Stedman said.
But Alaskans overall pay much more into the FEMA insurance pool that they receive, he said.
“There’s a cost factor involved here, with Alaska residents subsidizing the Mississippi Delta and the Gulf Coast and East Coast and all that compared to our losses,” Stedman said.
FEMA’s rules about insurance and assistance, which are aimed at flood-prone flat Lower 48 areas, are another source of irritation for Stedman. In Lower 48 areas, FEMA encourages communities to avoid building along coastlines, but in Southeast Alaska, where steep mountains rise from the water’s edge, there are few options for moving inland, he said. An only-in-Alaska flood program could consider local conditions and local governments’ zoning rules rather than FEMA national guidelines, he said.
The Trump administration’s antipathy toward FEMA and its mission has given his bill more urgency, he said.
“It’s reasonably likely that there’ll be significant changes to FEMA coming out of Washington, from restructuring to possibly elimination, so the timing of this bill might be, by happenstance, timely,” he said.
The bill moved through committees this year and is due for more work next year’s session, including an examination of funding options. If a system is established, Stedman said, it could potentially be expanded to another type of disaster that is occurring with increasing frequency in warming Alaska: landslides. There is no specific landslide insurance available in Alaska, Stedman noted.
That may be of interest to Jason Amundson and Eran Hood, University of Alaska Southeast scientists who are focused on glacial outburst flood risks. Though immersed in their project at Mendenhall Glacier, they do not live in the path of the meltwater. Rather, both live in the city’s downtown area, which clings to the lower slopes of steep mountains. There, avalanches and landslides pose the most serious risks.
“There’s hazards everywhere in Juneau,” Hood said.
This story has been supported by the Solutions Journalism Network, a nonprofit organization dedicated to rigorous and compelling reporting about responses to social problems, http://solutionsjournalism.org.
The joint session voted 45-14 in favor of overriding Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s veto of public school funding. (Image courtesy Gavel Alaska)
Meeting in special session, Alaska lawmakers have overridden Governor Mike Dunleavy’s veto of more than $50 million in public school funding.
The 45–14 vote hit the exact threshold needed to override a budget veto, restoring what would have been a 5.6% cut to school districts and providing a modest funding boost.
In Juneau, the veto would have had the effect of a $1.4 million loss.
Lawmakers also overrode Dunleavy’s veto of Senate Bill 183, a measure requiring the Department of Revenue to share details of oil tax settlements with legislative auditors.
The special session was originally called by the governor to press for education reform and create a statewide Department of Agriculture, two ideas lawmakers have already rejected.
Instead, legislative leaders focused solely on the veto overrides and adjourned until August 19.
A peaceful protest was held Saturday outside Juneau Police Department headquarters, following the arrest last week of 49-year-old Chris Williams, Jr.
Williams was medevaced to Anchorage after being taken to the ground by JPD Officer Brandon LeBlanc outside the Douglas Library. Video posted on social media shows LeBlanc taking Williams down during what police say was an arrest after Williams allegedly approached officers aggressively.
Nearly 100 protesters peacefully called for accountability and systemic police reform.
Organizer Jamiann S’eiltin said the incident reflects a broader pattern of violence against Indigenous people.
“This isn’t something new,” S’eiltin said. “This has been going on since almost time immemorial, since the arrival of Western European settlers. So, just want to put that out there that we are brutally attacked 10 times more than the national average, and that’s something to bring forward here today.”
LeBlanc is on administrative leave and an outside agency is conducting an investigation into the incident.
The Central Council of Tlingit and Haida, which confirmed Williams is a tribal citizen, is demanding transparency and a full inquiry.
