Homer Police Department responds to bomb threat
Homer Police Department – Today at 9 a.m. the Homer Police Department received a report from the Alaska State Troopers that an event requiring law enforcement was occurring at the Homer High School. Homer Police officers responded to the school and found that it was being evacuated by school staff. Investigation revealed that an object [...]
RVs given space of their own
Come summer, it can be challenging enough to find parking for a Subaru in Homer’s bustling, tourist-filled downtown area, let alone room to squeeze in an RV.
So this summer, community planners decided to give RV drivers space — space to park, that is. Planning sessions in recent years identified the need for RV drivers to have space to park in the downtown and Old Town areas to make it easier for those driving these larger vehicles to access Homer’s center.
“This first year is really to see if this is something that visitors appreciate,” said Katie Koester, community and economic development coordinator for the city of Homer, who helped organize the effort with the Economic Development Commission. “If we get even a few dozen more visitors, that’s more money spent here locally.”
Heliport on Spit draws debate
Eric Lee told the Homer City Council on Monday night that he never expected he would create such a stir. The fixed-wing and helicopter pilot thought his business idea was great — offering tourists quick access to a helicopter flight-seeing tour right from the Homer Spit.
“I was pretty excited about it, so I naturally assumed everyone else would be, too,” Lee said.
On the Homer Spit, landing a helicopter is legal, as long as it is done within FAA parameters. And for more than a decade, it’s even been legal to have a heliport — a dedicated area where helicopters can regularly land, be serviced and stored — out there.
Catch and release only for early-run king salmon
Ker-plunk.
Rather than that being the hopeful sound of a lure hitting the water, it more represents the sinking feeling among anglers that the king salmon fishing season on the Kenai River is already off to a poor start, before it even opens Thursday. On May 9, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced restrictions to catch-and-release and trophy fishing only in the Kenai.
According to the department, the restrictions are being put in place to conserve the early run and help it meet its Board of Fisheries-mandated optimal escapement goal of 5,300 to 9,000 fish. The preseason forecast for the early run estimates a total of about 5,300 fish, which would put it on par with the lowest runs measured in 28 years — similar in abundance to the scant 2012 early run, on which fishing was closed midseason last year. The estimate of 5,300 fish is less than half the size of the average run strength from 1986 to 2012 of 14,000 fish.
La Baleine: Eat a meal, save a whale
Is your seafood social conscience bothering you? Feel like you’re just not doing enough for the world with your dolphin-safe tuna? Executive pastry chef Mandy Dixon can help out with that. Just last Thursday, she officially opened the doors to her family’s new seaside café, La Baleine, on the Homer Spit. And, thanks to the edible pairings of Dixon and her co-owner/chef and mother Kirsten, you can enjoy a down-home gourmet meal while helping keep Cook Inlet waters pristine.
Under the umbrella “Within the Wild Adventure Company,” the Dixons own and operate the Tutka Bay and Winterlake lodges, as well as a home boutique and the Tutka Bay Cooking School. The family feels a strong need to not only serve dishes made by locally sourced and grown Kachemak Bay ingredients, but also find a way to serve the community by giving back more than just food.
Can birding save the world? Kachemak Bay Shorebird Festival keynote speaker Jeffrey Gordon thinks it can
The laundry list of complaints people tend to worry about would all go away if only they would take up birding.
They spend too much time in front of computer screens. They spend too much time indoors. People are not feeling connected to nature and communities.
“Birding is a perfect anecdote to all these things. Fishing or hunting or jogging, you can do the same things, but birding can do a few things that are really unique,” said Jeffrey Gordon, this year’s keynote speaker at the Kachemak Bay Shorebird Festival, which starts tomorrow.
What makes birding better is it’s shared. A hundred people could all look at the same bird and enjoy it equally, he said.
Birders are also a community built on trust. If a birder reports seeing a black bellied plover that day at Mud Bay, you can believe him.
Buccaneer partners with ConocoPhillips in Cook Inlet for drilling oil
Buccaneer Energy struck a deal with ConocoPhillips that greatly expands the Australian company’s holdings in Cook Inlet and moves a major back in the inlet.
Buccaneer executed an agreement with ConocoPhillips that allows it the right to earn a 100 percent working interest in ConocoPhillips deep oil rights in 23,368 acres held by the North Cook Inlet Unit.
That’s a sizable unit that provides a “huge area to explore,” said Cathy Foerster, a commissioner at the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission.
Steam helps reduce fossil fuel needs at new HEA plant
By New Year’s day next year, Homer Electric will be supplying all its own energy with new technology that partners with one of the world’s oldest energy sources, steam.
Since waste heat is being used to produce steam, the Nikiski HEA plant will see an increase from its original output of 40 megawatts to 60 megawatts without using any additional natural gas. Natural gas will be used to bring the plant up to its full 80 megawatt capacity when operated above 60.
Lose a dock? It washed ashore at China Poot
Alaskan coastal communities have seen strange things come in with the tide in the two years since the Japanese Tsunami and earthquake in March 2011 – soccer balls, slabs of roof, buoys as large as Mac truck tires. Among the strong winter storm damage in Kachemak Bay is a lone dock that likely broke lose and rode the currents out of Peterson Bay – this time not related to tsunami debris.
This substantial and reportedly well manufactured dock floated into China Poot Bay this winter, and its finders are hoping to reunite it back to its owners.
Kasilof bear necropsy shows sow was likely blinded
A brown bear killed by Alaska State Troopers Sunday on the Kasilof River’s north beach following reports of an attack and other aggressive behavior has tested negative for rabies. A necropsy revealed the bear was likely blind or partially blind.
The unprovoked attack resulted in minor injuries to Kenai resident Toby Burke. Subsequent reports of the bear’s unusual actions prior to the attack included accounts of it lashing out at a telephone pole in one instance and a moving pickup truck in another prompted Soldotna Wildlife Biologist Jeff Selinger to collect the bear’s head and spine for rabies testing.
