(Courtesy/Sam Cargill) Haines harbormaster Henry Pollan and Takshanuk Watershed Council executive director Derek Poinsette pose for a photo with the borough’s new bilge pump cleaner on Jan. 28, 2026, in Haines, Alaska.

Mystery sheens on the water are a perpetual problem in many harbors, Haines’ included. 

Often, when those sheens can be traced back to their point of origin, harbormaster Henry Pollan said, it’s fuel or oil in someone’s bilge and the water level gets…

Rashah McChesney is a multimedia journalist and editor who has reported and edited newsrooms from the Deep South to the Midwest to Alaska. For the past decade, she has worked in collaborative news as the...