Margaret Bauman

Legislation aimed at fighting the onslaught of plastic and other ocean debris has cleared the U.S. Senate, with a multi-million-dollar financial component, and it now remains for a companion bill in the House to be approved.

Impacts of some 21,000 farmed Atlantic salmon that fled a damaged British Columbia net pen in late December remain an unknown, but concerns remain over the risk of them competing with wild fish for habitat or food and spreading parasites and other pathogens.

Harvey Kitka, a retired elder who chairs the Sitka Tribe of Alaska’s herring committee, says the Alaska Board of Fisheries should...

ng-term controversy over interception of salmon stocks between Kodiak Island and Cook Inlet is expected to highlight the upcoming meeting of the Alaska Board of Fisheries meeting at Kodiak Jan. 11-14.

“The decision to suspend an active search and rescue case is never easy, and it’s only made after careful consideration of a myriad of factors,” said Rear Adm. Matthew Bell. “Our deepest condolences to the friends and families impacted by this tragedy.”

A Prince William Sound commercial state waters Pacific cod fishery opens Feb. 1 for all gear types, with a guideline harvest level of 437,425 pounds, a 53 percent drop from last year’s 936,965-pound quota.

The latest: Two crew members were rescued from the lifeboat of a 130-foot crab boat that sank 170 miles southwest of Kodiak, but the search for five other missing crew was suspended after no sign of them was found by the U.S. Coast Guard over a 1,400 square mile area.

U.S. Coast Guard officials are working with a new Alaska Native communications firm to try and reduce intermittent VHF-FM radio issues critical to mariners around Prince William Sound.

In an odd sequence of events this past week, Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy heralded November as the fourth straight month of record low unemployment in the state, while BP Alaska announced hundreds of employees lose their jobs with sale of the company to Hilcorp.

A final environmental impact statement that will determine the future of a proposed copper, gold and molybdenum mine abutting the Bristol Bay watershed in Southwest Alaska has now been delayed until the summer of 2020.