KNBA Morning Newscast for Tuesday July 28, 2015
Mine Meeting
By Ed Schoenfeld, Coast Alaska
Alaska critics of British Columbia mines probably won’t get any help from a cross-boundary panel they’ve been lobbying to take on their concerns.
The International Joint Commission addresses U.S.-Canada water conflicts. Critics say it should take up the possibility that mines near the border will pollute rivers key to Southeast Alaska fisheries.
Lieutenant Governor Byron Mallott says he spoke with officials during a recent trip to Washington, D.C.
"It was clear in my meetings with the State Department and the Canadian counterpart that they view this as a relatively local issue. They said that certainly the federal governments have a role, but essentially it is Alaska-B.C,” said Mallot.
Mallott heads up a multi-agency task force considering the state’s response to transboundary mine concerns.
He traveled to British Columbia in May to meet with provincial officials, as well as tribal and business leaders. Mines Minister Bill Bennett committed to a Southeast Alaska trip.
Mallott says that will be Aug. 24th-26th. He plans to school Bennett in regional economic and environmental issues.
“And to impress on him even more firmly the requirement that these transboundary rivers never have issues of downstream pollution and other degradation resulting from development on the B.C. side of the border,” said Mallot.
The lieutenant governor and his transboundary mines task force will also host meetings of tribal, fisheries, tourism and other groups Aug. 5th and 6th in Juneau.
Chevak Murder Arrest
By Daysha Eaton, KYUK
Alaska State Troopers say a Chevak man has admitted to killing Roxanne Smart last summer. The announcement was made Saturday through an online dispatch that they had arrested 20-year-old Samuel Atchak, of Chevak. Megan Peters, a spokesperson for the Alaska State Troopers says investigators were waiting on lab result.
"After almost a year-long investigation we got some lab results back that had to be analyzed and after we got those results we were able to go back into the community of Chevak and do some follow-up interviews. Once we were done with the interviews we were able to make an arrest in the Roxanne Smart Homicide. I'm sure it's been a very hard time for friends and family as they've waited through the course of it, but with these types of investigation we need to make sure that we're doing everything the right way,” said Peters.
The arrest took place Friday just before 1 p.m. It followed an interview by investigators on Thursday. 19-year-old Smart was found dead outside the Chevak Health Clinic last August, with multiple stab wounds to her chest and neck.
Smart’s family and friends had been campaigning online since the time of her death to keep her case from getting cold.
During a follow-up investigation this past Thursday Troopers with the Alaska Bureau of Investigation interviewed Atchak in Chevak. Troopers arrested Atchak Friday on charges of first-degree sexual assault and second-degree assault. Atchak now also faces a charge for first-degree murder.
Atchak was arraigned Saturday. He's being held at the Yukon-Kuskokwim Correctional Center in Bethel without bail. His arrest comes eleven months after Smart was found dead in Chevak on August 27th, 2014.
PSP Behind Marine Mammal Deaths
By John Ryan, KUCB
Scientists have been receiving reports of dead and dying whales, birds and small fish in the Aleutian Islands. They think it might be from toxic algae proliferating, thanks to unusually warm ocean temperatures. John Ryan reports.
Bruce Wright with the Aleutian Pribilof Islands Association says all the signs point to the region having a major outbreak of harmful algae.Wright says it could be the algae that cause paralytic shellfish poisoning.
The algae that generate domoic acid are another possible.
Melissa Good with University of Alaska Fairbanks has been looking for the microscopic green suspects around Unalaska.
“They’re a suspected cause for some of the mass deaths we’ve bn seeing . the 10 fin whales spotted off Kodiak, I know Adak, King Cove, False Pass, we don’t know the cause of that either. In past, we’ve seen incidences where sand lance, a little plankton-eating fish was accum hi toxins from these algae, The birds were eating sand lance and were dying and no one I know of is sure what happened,” said Good.
This week, Good has been taking water samples around Unalaska and shipping them off to labs for full analysis.
Even just looking in her microscope on Thursday, she found large numbers of the domoic acid algae in one of her recent water samples.
She’s also sampled the stomach of a Steller Sea Lion that washed up dead recently on Unalaska’s Summer Bay. That’s after she shooed away the eagles feasting on the remains.
She thinks toxic algae might have killed it. A sea lion that washed up dead last year near here had very high levels of PSP.
Standing next to this fresh, 10-foot-long carcass, she says people in the Aleutians should be wary of eating clams or mussels right now.
“I wouldn't suggest people harvest mussel or butter clams…don’t know if toxic, they are taking a lot of risks there,” said Good.
Crabs don’t keep the toxins in their meat, but in their digestive tract. Scientists warn people to remove the dark viscera from crab before cooking it. Shellfish in King Cove and False Pass recently have tested for twice the level of toxins that the FDA says is safe.
Potentially harmful algae are always present in sea water, but it’s only when they bloom into dense concentrations that they can cause much harm to the things that eat them.
One of the largest harmful algal blooms ever recorded has been taking place this year from California up through British Columbia. Officials in three states have closed beaches to razor clamming and other types of shellfish harvesting.
Researchers think the West Coast bloom, and recent events in Alaska, are related to unusually warm water temperatures.
Good says paralytic shellfish poisoning appears to be getting more common in the Aleutians due to increasing water temperatures.
She’s waiting for results on her samples for more conclusive answers.