July 31, 2014 – Earthquake breaks link to phone, internet
A 5.9-magnitude earthquake that rocked Southeast Alaska at about 3 a.m., July 25, cut Alaska Power and Telephone cell phone and Internet service in Haines, as well as ACS cell phone service, for nearly a day.
The break in service also affected some AT&T customers in Southeast.
The problems were attributed to a break in an underwater fiber optic cable near Juneau maintained by ACS. AP&T uses an ACS line in Juneau to connect its service to the Lower 48.
For many businesses and residents, that meant disruptions or delays. Some local stores that couldn’t process credit card payments stayed open but accepted cash or checks only.
Offices served by GCI Internet – including the bank, Haines Borough Public Library, and the local court and state offices – saw no interruption.
Janine Allen at the public library said computers there were busy Friday with a steady stream of users. The library saw 447 customers that day, compared to 280 on the previous day.
Service to the Haines Borough office was cut. “The big concern was the (assembly) meeting packet,” said deputy clerk Krista Kielsmeier, who typically emails a link to the PDF files of assembly agendas and related information to borough assembly members. “We just had (assembly members) come in and put them on (personal memory cards).”
Alaska Marine Lines terminal manager Michael Ganey said he closed the local freight office early. “We did whatever we could for the day. Shipping out is all done on computers. Without that, we’re pretty much at a standstill.”
Ganey said the office could have phoned headquarters, asked for printouts of information on the computer and had them faxed to the Haines office, but much information would still need to be entered into computers.
July 29, 1999 – Locals react to cruise ship dumping in canal
Already sensitive relations between residents and the growing cruise industry were strained this week by news that Royal Caribbean Cruises Ld. ships regularly dumped oily bilge water and other chemicals into Lynn Canal.
With revenues of $1.2 billion for the first six months of the year, RCCL is the world’s second-largest passenger cruise line and brings about two-thirds of the 150,000 cruise passengers who visit Haines annually.
Two days after a company official lobbied Haines Borough Assembly members to drop a proposed head tax, RCCL agreed to plead guilty to seven felony counts and pay $6.5 million in fines for environmental crimes in Alaska in 1994-95 that included “routinely” pumping oily bilge waste overboard between Haines and Skagway.
In addition, prior to 1996, RCCL ships Nordic Prince, Sun Viking and Legend of the Seas regularly pumped their gray water tanks into local waters, an effluent that included 50 gallons of waste weekly from shipboard photo labs and 20 gallons monthly from the ships’ dry-cleaning services.
At the time, gray water tanks on the vessels – which included washwater from sink and shower drains – had a maximum holding capacity of only a few hours.
RCCL discharged the toxic heavy metal silver perchloroethylene and other chemicals through the gray water system directly into the waters of Alaska each and every week the vessels sailed to Alaska in 1994 and 1995,” according to a statement of facts filed in federal court and agreed to by RCCL.
“RCCL knew that these harmful chemicals were contaminating gray waters…Prior to May 21, 1996, RCCL’s official policy was to discharge this contaminated gray water within U.S. waters without restriction. Individual RCCL cruise ships discharged as much as 500,000 gallons of gray water on a one-week voyage,” the statement said.
Engineers aboard the Nordic Prince and Sun Viking “routinely” pumped the ship’s bilges around midnight between Haines and Skagway in 1994 and 1995, according to the documents. The Prince’s oil-water separator was not used at all and the one aboard the Viking was not used regularly.
The revelations about local dumping came amid a larger RCCL agreement to pay $18 million in fines and plead guilty to 21 felony counts in what prosecutors called a fleetwide conspiracy to dump in U.S. coastal waters offshore Alaska, Florida, New York, California, Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico.
RCCL will operate for the next five years under a court-supervised environmental compliance plan. The company admitted at least eight of its cruise ships continued to dump oily bilge and falsify logbooks after the company was notified of a U.S. Coast Guard investigation in 1994.
Echoing Juneau mayor Dennis Egan who this week demanded a written apology from RCCL president Jack Williams, City of Haines mayor Dave Berry said a written apology was owed to Haines, as well as a letter of assurance such practices won’t continue.
“For goodness sakes, they’re selling pristine water and then they’re dumping in them,” Berry said, describing the chemicals dumped as “nasty.”
But Berry said the incidents may have been the doings of unauthorized employees and said the revelations wouldn’t change the relationship between the firm and the city.
“I’m sure it will change some perceptions, but mostly among those opposed to the cruise ships to begin with,” Berry said.
A phone message for RCCL’s John Fox wasn’t returned this week but company president Williams told other news outlets last week the dumping was done by “a group of employees who violated company policy.”
Bilge-water dumping was deliberate, but gray water violations were mistakes based on a misunderstanding of environmental laws, Williams said.
July 25, 1974 – Coho finless? Report it!
Commercial and sport fishermen in the Cross Sound, Icy Strait, Chatham Strait, Lynn Canal, Stephens Passage and offshore areas are being asked by the Dept of Fish and Game to watch for and report coho salmon with missing adipose fins.
The adipose fin is the small fleshy fin on the dorsal (top) side of the fish behind the dorsal fin and just ahead of the tail.
More than 20,000 juvenile cohos in the Taku, Berners and Chilkat river systems had the adipose fin removed in 1972 and were marked with fluorescent pigment visible only under black light. The fish from each river system were marked with a different color pigment to identify the river of origin.
Information obtained from the marking program will help determine the contribution of these rivers to the commercial fishery and will add to the knowledge of migration and timing of Alaskan coho stocks.
The cohos marked in 1972 are completing their second summer of feeding in the sea before returning to spawn. Cohos in the saltwater areas mentioned will be harvested by troll, seine, drift gillnet and sport gear.
Fishermen who catch coho salmon with a missing adipose fin are asked to save the whole fish so it can be examined with a black light for pigment color.
In Juneau, fishermen should call Phil Gray or Ken Florey at the Alaska Dept. of Fish and Game, phone 586-6618.
Other areas in Southeastern Alaska, including Pelican, Hoonah, Excursion Inlet and Petersburg, also have Dept of Fish and Game representatives looking for adipose clipped cohos in canneries and cold storage plants.
In addition to cohos, more than 10 million chinook salmon from Washington hatcheries have been adipose-fin-clipped and tagged with an internal coded wire tag. If a chinook salmon with a missing adipose fin is found, the catch location should be noted and the head containing the coded wire tag saved for examination by Fish and Game Dept. personnel.