ORPC plans Cook Inlet tidal energy pilot 03/07/2010
Company wants to install four turbines north of Fire Island in 2011 to test its concept for harnessing the inlet's huge tidal range
In the latest step in its initiative to harness the swiftly moving tidal currents that sweep up and down Alaska's Cook Inlet, renewable energy firm Ocean Renewable Power Co. has applied to the Federal...

Exxon oil persistence may be explained 01/24/2010
Study finds crude from Exxon Valdez oil spill trapped in layer of compacted beach sediment which prevents it from easily degrading
For nearly a decade, scientists have puzzled over the persistence of oil from the Exxon Valdez oil spill. A pair of Lower 48 researchers on Sunday published the first study to attempt an explanation...

NOAA extends beluga comment period 01/17/2010
At the request of Alaska's congressional delegation the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has extended by 30 days the public comment period on the proposed designation of 3,000 square mi...

Anchorage to assess Beluga whale listing 01/10/2010
The Municipality of Anchorage has hired attorney William Stelle of law firm KandL Gates LLP to coordinate the municipality's response to the National Marine Fisheries Service designation of critical hab...

Time to take a stand on climate change? 01/10/2010
Alaska legislators want information to determine a strategy on responding to climate change actions and the use of the ESA in AK
The stakes are high and the rhetoric climbing in the debate between those who want to apply the Endangered Species Act for the protection of wildlife potentially threatened by a warming climate, and t...

Beluga territory 12/06/2009
NMFS designates 3,016 square miles of CI beluga whale critical habitat
While controversy has reigned over the National Marine Fisheries Service October 2008 listing of the Cook Inlet beluga whale under the Endangered Species Act, NMFS has moved ahead with making a determ...

Shell puts Burger at top in Chukchi 11/01/2009
Company want to drill up to three wells in three prospects, but known Burger gas pool will get priority treatment in 2010 program
With $105 million placed on the table at the Chukchi Sea lease sale in February 2008 for just one of the tracts around the old Burger well, some 80 miles offshore the western end of Alaska's North Slo...

State of Alaska sets ESA issues strategy 10/25/2009
The State of Alaska is taking a three-pronged approach to wildlife protection and development issues: It will intervene in court cases where the state has issues at stake and it will work more closely...

NMFS survey shows low beluga count 10/18/2009
Fisheries Service says Cook Inlet population still not showing signs of recovery despite subsistence hunting quotas since 1999
The latest NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service annual survey of Cook Inlet beluga whales, carried out in early June, has estimated a whale population of 321. This figure is lower than the count of...

Belugas on decline after 2 steady years 10/11/2009
NOAA reports count of 321 of endangered whales in Cook Inlet this year; down from an estimated 375 in 2007 and 2008
A government study found that a group of endangered beluga whales in Alaska is declining, raising concern that bolstered protection for the animals is not coming quickly enough. The downward trend co...

Tidal power for all of Southcentral AK? 09/06/2009
Anchorage company says tidal fence structures in Turnagain Arm could meet the whole of the Alaska Railbelt's electricity needs
Anchorage-based Little Susitna Construction Co. says that it wants to partner with Blue Energy Canada Inc. to build a tidal power system in Turnagain Arm, the sea inlet off Alaska's Cook Inlet, to gen...

MMS: Shell's new Beaufort plan complete 08/16/2009
The U.S. Minerals Management Service has determined that Shell's new Beaufort Sea exploration plan is complete, thus starting a 30-day period during which the agency must carry out an environmental as...

BP in Alaska: Evolving oil field technology 07/12/2009
Technology, innovation on the North Slope has helped reduce environmental impacts, reducing industry's footprint
Through decades of oil production at Prudhoe Bay and other North Slope oil fields, producers have significantly advanced technology in drilling, Arctic engineering, waste disposal and environmental ma...

NMFS questions CI tidal power impact 06/07/2009
The National Marine Fisheries Service has sent a letter to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, questioning the adequacy of proposed environmental studies for a pilot tidal power system that Ocea...

Obama administration revokes Bush rule 05/03/2009
Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar and Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke announced April 28 that their departments are revoking an Endangered Species Act regulation change published in December, in...

NOAA asks for Cook Inlet beluga info 04/26/2009
Inlet population declared endangered last year; agency now seeking information in making its determination of critical habitat
NOAA Fisheries has published an advanced notice concerning critical habitat for Cook Inlet beluga whales, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Alaska regional office said April 14. "...

Changing Arctic challenges the whalers 04/26/2009
Spring ice has become more dangerous for subsistence hunters, while storms and high winds can lead to rough seas in the fall
As the bowhead whales migrate north in the spring from the Bering Sea, through the Chukchi Sea and east across the Beaufort Sea to their summer feeding grounds, and then return south in the fall ahead...

Hoping to drill 04/12/2009
Shell and ConocoPhillips outline Beaufort and Chukchi Sea offshore plans
Rumor has it that geologists involved in the Chukchi Sea exploration of the late 1980s named the prospects to be drilled - Burger, Popcorn, Crackerjack and so on - after their favorite fast foods. But...

Polar bears and the Endangered Species Act 03/29/2009
The May 2008 listing of the polar bear as threatened marked a pivotal point in the use of the U.S. Endangered Species Act as a tool to address the conservation of a species whose possible demise would...

Next steps for the Cook Inlet beluga 02/01/2009
NMFS starts ESA consulting and moves towards completion of a recovery outline, while wastewater utility takes stock of its position
While the elusive beluga whales of Alaska's Cook Inlet overwinter in the inlet's grey and murky waters, oblivious to the war of words surrounding their future well being, the U.S. National Marine Fish...

Arctic Directory: Going for Liberty 01/25/2009
BP board gives green light for Beaufort Sea development; world's biggest rig being built for project
After years of debate about how and whether to develop the Liberty oil field in the Beaufort Sea, in federal waters about 5 miles offshore Alaska's North Slope, the BP board finally gave the go ahead...

AAEP to hear talks on beluga listing 01/18/2009
The Alaska Association of Environmental Professionals will hear two speakers at the group's Jan. 21 meeting at 11:45 at the BP Energy Center. Brad Smith of the National Marine Fisheries Service will...

AK-WA Connection 2008: Firm offers reliable high-tech solutions 11/30/2008
Wostmann and Associates systematically develops innovative IT services that apply across government, industry and regions
Recognizing the growing technology needs and increasing complexity of Alaska businesses, Bob Wostmann and other information technology (IT) professionals in Juneau, Alaska started Wostmann and Associa...

No to drilling 11/30/2008
9th Circuit Court says that MMS assessment of Shell's plan was inadequate
Nearly a year after it heard oral arguments in the appeals against the U.S. Minerals Management Service approval of Shell's Beaufort Sea exploration plan, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit...

The Explorers 2008: Shell still positive on Alaska 11/23/2008
Massive lease purchase in the Chukchi supplements Beaufort holdings; drilling remains on hold
Commitment to an exploration strategy doesn't come much stronger than the $2.1 billion payment that Shell sent to the U.S. Minerals Management Service for oil and gas leases that the company bought in...