Alaska Dispatch's Best Stories: Jan. 21-27

Jan 28, 2012

Our week in Anchorage began with the opening of Olive Garden, while at the top of the world Barrow residents welcomed back the sun.

The feds went after some militiamen. Meantime, there was much discussion about the state of Alaska's halibut fisheries.

We took a closer look at whether the 800-mile trans-Alaska oil pipeline is really in jeopardy, as proponents of cutting oil taxes have suggested. We also explored claims that North Slope producers aren't maximizing potential of state's propane resource for consumption by Alaskans.

And to close the week, we took a look at some of the worst movies ever associated with Alaska. Enjoy our best stories of the week!

In Alaska, oil companies keep 2 sets of books on pipeline's value
Longtime Alaskans may remember a commercial featuring three school-aged boys in a kitchen. They're making a box cake and following the directions. Then one of them has a brilliant idea: if you turn up the heat, the cake will be done in half the time! Cut to the smoke billowing out of the oven, the boys coughing, the cake burnt. The concerned announcer tells the viewers: "A quick fix for today's desires could ruin a promising future for everyone."
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Sunshine returns to Arctic Alaska and banishes perpetual dusk
Barrow's first sunrise of the new year occurred Monday afternoon at 1:11, according to calculations by the U.S. Naval Observatory. The first gleaming of direct solar energy since mid-November lasted about 57 minutes by Naval estimates, with the sun finally slipping back beneath the horizon at 2:08 p.m. AST.
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Olive Garden opens its doors in Alaska. Expect company records to fall.
For a decade now, driving around Anchorage, it’s been a whispered secret, a rumor so flighty saying it at full volume might scare it away. Passing a vacant lot, anywhere in town, a friend, family member, or even yourself might point at the empty space and say:

“I heard there’s an Olive Garden going in there.”

The rumors never came to anything, though, as the lots filled up with other businesses -- sometimes local businesses, sometimes other chain stores arriving from the Lower 48 -- or continued to sit empty.
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Immense 'dome' of fresh water bulging atop Arctic Ocean off Alaska
Enough extra fresh water to just about fill lakes Michigan and Huron to the brim has collected in the top layers of the Arctic Ocean northeast of Alaska during the past decade, according to new research published in the journal Nature Geoscience.

Driven largely by strong winds and an immense circular current, some 8,000 cubic kilometers of fresh water have bulged up into a widespread dome since the 1990s.
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5 worst 'Alaskan' movies
In a two-week span, two movies about Alaska will make their big-screen, big-budget debuts. "The Grey," starring Liam Neeson, comes out nationwide Friday and tells the story of oil workers who become stranded when their plane crashes in the Alaska wilderness. 16 Comments
State investigates whether oil companies waste Alaska propane
Claiming one of the world's largest oil companies has refused to support an effort that could lower soaring energy bills across Alaska, a former oil company executive has taken his argument to state oilfield regulators.

Now the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission has launched an investigation into whether BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc. is wasting a resource that some believe could drive down costs for electricity, heat and diesel-fueled vehicles.
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Alaska militiamen slapped with new federal murder-conspiracy charges
As a two-day-long hearing began Monday to determine whether the evidence and charges against three Fairbanks militiamen would hold up in federal court, the trio was handed bad news. In addition to the laundry list of weapons charges they're accused of, they are now also accused of plotting to murder federal officials.

The murder-conspiracy charges expose the men to potential life sentences. Alaska Peacemakers Militia leader Schaeffer Cox is also accused with soliciting two of his followers, Coleman Barney and Lonnie Vernon, to kill.
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Commission: Pacific halibut by-catch a serious problem for Alaska fishery
Alaska halibut fishermen of every sort could face fishing cuts this summer because "retrospective bias" compounded by "structural uncertainty" has led the "WobbleSQ assessment model" to adjust the "CEY" for the Pacific halibut fishery, the staff of the International Pacific Halibut Commission told a packed meeting room at the Anchorage Hilton Hotel on Tuesday.

The comments were almost enough to make reasonable fishermen wonder if a new species had invaded the North Pacific. Say hello to the dreaded "stifling bureaucratese."
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Recap: ‘Flying Wild Alaska -- One Flying Family’
Well, another season of “Flying Wild Alaska” -- the Discovery Channel’s reality TV show about Bush pilots working for Era Alaska in some of the most remote parts of the Last Frontier -- has come and gone.

This second season had more storylines than the first, with Jim Tweto, Era COO, keeping tabs on a group of mountain climbers scaling an unnamed rock face in the Arrigetch Peaks, his daughter Ariel Tweto buckling down to pursue her private pilot license, and several deliveries to the winter-only sea ice runway at Little Diomede.
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What cheats Alaska hunters of more moose: Wolves and bears, or insects and hares?
For years now, the Palin/Parnell Board of Game has been trumpeting the claim that moose and caribou populations across Alaska are being kept below carrying capacity by predation. They’ve ignored rebuttals by numerous biologists that some of our moose populations are actually at or above optimum density, and are suffering as a consequence from malnutrition, pathogens, and increased vulnerability to harsh weather and predation. Recent newspaper articles by retired agency biologists Rick Sinnott and Vic Van Ballenberghe are particularly informative.
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Alaska Dispatch's Best Stories: Jan. 21-27

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