Alaska

Opinion: Don’t trade salmon wealth for timber pennies

Published

3 months ago

November 29, 2025

Opinion: Don’t trade salmon wealth for timber pennies

Pink salmon swim in the Tongass National Forest. (Joe Serio / U.S. Forest Service)

As the U.S. Forest Service considers the future management of the Tongass National Forest, I hope that Alaska’s congressional delegation will listen to what Southeast Alaskans already know: Wild salmon are one of the Tongass’ most valuable resources. If we leave the trees standing and protect the habitat that fish need, the Tongass will continue to generate billions of dollars in natural dividends, in turn supporting thousands of fishing jobs and providing millions of pounds of nutritious seafood year after year.

Southeast Alaska, where I live and fish, runs on seafood. Seafood is the bedrock of our local economy and supports our intergenerational way of life. The economic output of Southeast’s seafood industry exceeds $800 million annually, accounting for 15% of regional employment, with 4,400 resident commercial fishermen and 2,900 processing jobs across more than 30 coastal communities. Salmon are a key driver of our region’s fishing industry, accounting for more than half of Southeast’s total commercial catch most years while also supporting significant subsistence harvests, tourism and sport fisheries. Salmon keep Southeast’s fishermen employed year-round, which is critical in our rural communities where employment options are limited.

Southeast Alaska’s salmon abundance is not an accident — and it also cannot be taken for granted. Hundreds of intact and diverse watersheds around the region form a complex mosaic of prime salmon habitat. The Tongass’ watersheds, which are globally unique in their water quality and productive capacity, pump out 50 million salmon per year. With the largest tracts of undisturbed coastal temperate rainforest in the world, the Tongass is unmatched in its biological diversity and productivity.

For decades, Southeast Alaska’s communities and fishermen have fought industrial logging in the Tongass. Despite the recorded ecological degradation, dwindling economic return, and growing local opposition, there are a few decision-makers who remain committed to subsidizing industrial timber extraction. We know where that leads. In the Pacific Northwest, industrial logging and road construction have destroyed salmon spawning and rearing habitat. Taxpayers have spent billions of dollars trying to recover local salmon populations through hatcheries and habitat restoration — with limited success. Why would Alaska repeat that mistake, especially when timber, in recent sales, is going for less than the price of a Big Mac at $2 per thousand board feet? Alaska has the chance to get it right, to protect the natural capital that supports our fisheries and sustains our local economies. We can harvest the rewards of bountiful salmon runs and save money on habitat restoration — it’s a win/win.

The harmful impacts of industrial logging on Southeast Alaska’s salmon watersheds and our natural dividends are not hypothetical. The timber industry has caused extensive damage to some of Southeast’s most productive salmon watersheds through decades of old-growth logging and the construction of 5,000 miles of roads around the region. These activities have resulted in barriers to salmon passage, with failed culverts blocking over 240 miles of spawning streams and costing fishermen an estimated $2.5 million per year in forgone catch. Past logging has also driven changes in adjacent areas to stream flow and temperature, sedimentation, water quality, and the risk of landslides and floods. By allowing industrial logging to continue in the Tongass, we are undermining Southeast’s economy and future.

Protecting the Tongass is not a charitable act; it is the most cost-effective way to improve ecosystem productivity and ensure the prosperity and well-being for all who call Southeast home. We need our lawmakers and the Forest Service to prioritize protection of the natural capital that sustains our rural communities and local businesses. Our livelihoods depend on it.

Linda Behnken resides in Sitka, where she has commercial fished for over 40 years. She is the executive director of the Alaska Longline Fishermen’s Association and president of the Alaska Sustainable Fisheries Trust.

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Alaska

Over $150K worth of drugs seized from man in Juneau, police say

Published

32 minutes ago

February 27, 2026

Press Room

Over 0K worth of drugs seized from man in Juneau, police say

JUNEAU, Alaska (KTUU) – An Alaska drug task force seized roughly $162,000 worth of controlled substances during an operation in Juneau Thursday, according to the Juneau Police Department.

Around 3 p.m. Thursday, investigators with the Southeast Alaska Cities Against Drugs (SEACAD) approached 50-year-old Juneau resident Jermiah Pond in the Nugget Mall parking lot while he was sitting in his car, according to JPD.

A probation search of the car revealed a container holding about 7.3 gross grams of a substance that tested presumptively positive for methamphetamine, as well as about 1.21 gross grams of a substance that tested presumptively positive for fentanyl.

As part of the investigation, investigators executed a search warrant at Pond’s residence, during which they found about 46.63 gross grams of ketamine, 293.56 gross grams of fentanyl, 25.84 gross grams of methamphetamine and 25.5 gross grams of MDMA.

In all, it amounted to just less than a pound of drugs worth $162,500.

Investigators also seized $102,640 in cash and multiple recreational vehicles believed to be associated with the investigation.

Pond was lodged on charges of second-degree misconduct involving a controlled substance, two counts of third-degree misconduct involving a controlled substance, five counts of fourth-degree misconduct involving a substance and an outstanding felony probation warrant.

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Alaska

Sand Point teen found 3 days after going missing in lake

Published

13 hours ago

February 27, 2026

Press Room

Sand Point teen found 3 days after going missing in lake

SAND POINT, Alaska (KTUU) – A teenage boy who was last seen Monday when the canoe he was in tipped over has been found by a dive team in a lake near Sand Point, according to a person familiar with the situation.

Alaska’s News Source confirmed with the person, who is close to the search efforts, that the dive team found 15-year-old Kaipo Kaminanga deceased Thursday in Red Cove Lake, located a short drive from the town of Sand Point on the Aleutian Island chain.

Kaminanga was last seen canoeing with three other friends on Monday when the boat tipped over.

A search and rescue operation ensued shortly after.

Alaska Dive Search Rescue and Recovery Team posted on Facebook Thursday night that they were able to “locate and recover” Kaminanga at around 5 p.m. Thursday.

“We are glad we could bring closure to his family, friends and community,” the post said.

This is a breaking news story and will be updated when more details become available.

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Alaska

Opinion: Homework for Alaska: Sales tax or income tax?

Published

1 day ago

February 26, 2026

Press Room

Opinion: Homework for Alaska: Sales tax or income tax?

iStock / Getty Images

This is a tax tutorial for gubernatorial candidates, for legislators who will report to work next year and for the Alaska public.

Think of it as homework, with more than eight months to complete the assignment that is not due until the November election. The homework is intended to inform, not settle the debate over a state sales tax or state income tax — or neither, which is the preferred option for many Alaskans.

But for those Alaskans willing to consider a tax as a personal responsibility to help fund schools, roads, public safety, child care, state troopers, prisons, foster care and everything else necessary for healthy and productive lives, someday they will need to decide on a state income tax or a state sales tax after they accept the checkbook reality that oil and Permanent Fund earnings are not enough.

This homework assignment is intended to get people thinking with facts, not emotions. Electing the right candidates will be the first test.

Alaskans have until the next election because nothing will change this year. It will take a new political alignment led by a reality-based governor to organize support in the Legislature and among the public.

But next year, maybe, with the right elected leadership, Alaskans can debate a state sales tax or personal income tax. Plus, of course, corporate taxes and oil production taxes, but those are for another school day.

One of the biggest arguments in favor of a state sales tax is that visitors would pay it. Yes, they would, but not as much as many Alaskans think.

Air travel is exempt from sales taxes. So are cruise ship tickets. That’s federal law, which means much of what tourists spend on their Alaska vacation is beyond the reach of a state sales tax.

Cutting further into potential revenues, state and federal law exempts flightseeing tours from sales tax, which is a particularly costly exemption when you think about how much visitors spend on airplane and helicopter tours.

That leaves sales tax supporters collecting from tourists on T-shirts, gifts for grandchildren, artwork, postcards, hotels, Airbnb, car rentals and restaurant meals. Still a substantial take for taxes, but far short of total tourism spending.

An argument against a state sales tax is that more than 100 cities and boroughs already depend on local sales taxes to pay for schools and other public services. Try to imagine what a state tax piled on top of a local tax would do to kill shopping in Homer, already at 7.85%, or Kodiak, Wrangell and Cordova, all at 7%, and all the other municipalities.

Supporters of an income tax say it would share the responsibility burden with nonresidents who earn income in Alaska and then return home to spend their money.

Almost one in four workers in Alaska in 2024 were nonresidents, as reported by the state Department of Labor in January. That doesn’t include federal employees, active-duty military or self-employed people.

Nonresidents earned roughly $3.8 billion, or about 17% of every dollar covered in the report.

However, many of those nonresident workers are lower-wage and seasonal, employed in the seafood processing and tourism industries, unlikely to pay much in income taxes. But a tax could be structured so that they pay something, which is fair.

Meanwhile, higher-wage workers in oil and gas, mining, construction and airlines (freight and passenger service) would pay taxes on their income earned in Alaska, which also is fair.

It comes down to what would direct more of the tax burden to nonresidents: a tax on income or on visitor spending. Wages or wasabi-crusted salmon dinners.

Larry Persily is a longtime Alaska journalist, with breaks for federal, state and municipal public policy work in Alaska and Washington, D.C. He lives in Anchorage and is publisher of the Wrangell Sentinel weekly newspaper.

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