Edited By MARY KAUFFMAN - Today, Senator Bill Wielechowski (D-Anchorage) introduced Senate Joint Resolution 12, joining others in urging the United States Congress to remove the Windfall Elimination Provision and Government Pension Offset clauses from the United States Social Security Act.
Both provisions affect the calculation of the Social Security benefits for individuals who also receive a state pension or one from a political subdivision. The Windfall Elimination Provision applies to direct public employees while the Government Pension Offset reduces benefits of spouses and survivors who are public employees – both of which cut benefits up to hundreds of dollars per month.
Southeast Alaskans Respond to Report Posted & Edited By MARY KAUFFMAN - According to British Columbia and Alaska s Bilateral Working Group, the four-year effort between B.C. and Alaska to examine water quality in the Stikine, Taku, and Unuk transboundary watersheds brought together government agencies, Indigenous Nations, industry, and the public to ensure the environmental, cultural, and economic values of these rivers are protected. This program has been an extraordinary partnership of many dedicated and knowledgeable people, and is a great example of what can be achieved when we work together, said George Heyman, B.C. s Minister of Environment and Climate Change Strategy. Water and wildlife don t recognize borders, and so it s up to all of us to protect our critical and priceless watersheds regardless of jurisdiction.
U.S. Congress 2019-2020: Bills Introduced (Over 5,000 in the House and over 3,000 in the Senate)
Fish Factor:Alaskans Prepare for Poor to Average Salmon Runs By LAINE WELCH - Alaskans are preparing for another salmon season of poor to average runs to most regions.
The big exception once again is at Bristol Bay where another massive return of more than 51 million sockeyes is expected. Managers predict that surge will produce a harvest of over 36 million reds to fishermen.
Bristol Bay is home to the largest wild sockeye salmon run in the world and typically accounts for 42% of the world’s sockeye harvest. Those fish and all wild salmon compete in a tough worldwide commodities market, where Alaska salmon claims 13% of the global supply.
Drency and Lillian Dudley, December 04, 1953
Photo courtesy JUDY ZENGE
If you ask most people why the field is named after Drency Dudley, they will say it is because Dudley, a local civic leader from the 1940s to the 1960s, owned the land that became Dudley Field, which is the sports area adjacent to Ketchikan High School.
Not surprisingly, that common belief is not true.
While Dudley was a leader in promoting local youth sports and led the Lions Club to build the field on Jackson Street between Fifth and Seventh avenues in the mid-1950s, the land actually belonged to several private property owners, local government and the Ketchikan Pulp Company.
(Drawn by Capt Lisiansky, engraved by I. Clark,via Wikicommons)
Southeast Alaska: Archaeologists Identify Famed Fort Where Indigenous Tlingits Fought Russian Forces By MEGAN GANNON - For thousands of years, the Tlingit people made their home in the islands of Southeast Alaska among other indigenous peoples, including the Haida, but at the turn of the 19th century, they came into contact with a group that would threaten their relationship with the land: Russian traders seeking to establish a footprint on the North American continent.
The colonists had been expanding into Alaska for decades, first exploiting Aleut peoples as they chased access to sea otters and fur seals that would turn profits in the lucrative fur trade. The Russian American Company, a trading monopoly granted a charter by Russian tsar Paul I just as British monarchs had done on the continent’s east coast in the 17th century, arrived in Tlingit territor