Environment

Environmental groups and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have reached an agreement that settles one of two active lawsuits aimed at forcing the agency to take overdue action on Fairbanks-North Pole area air quality. Localized, but extreme wintertime episodes of fine particulate pollution due to wood and fossil fuel burning emissions have long plagued the communities. Clean air advocates see the legal action as a small win in a long-running effort to reduce pollution. Listen now

A group of Ketchikan good Samaritans banded together last week to help a humpback whale that had become tangled in a barge anchor cable off Prince of Wales Island. Listen now

2016 was the warmest year in Alaska since the National Weather Service began keeping records in the state more than a century ago. Two weather-service climate specialists say that’s mainly because of extraordinarily warm ocean water, which in turn helped generate above-normal precipitation – especially in the Interior. Listen now

Yellow cedar trees grow from the top of California, all the way to Alaska, and according to a recent study, the Southeast part of the state could be the hardest hit with yellow cedar’s decline, due to the planet heating up. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has been petitioned to put yellow cedar on the endangered species list. The wood is commercially valuable. It’s culturally valuable, too. Listen now

The Statewide Trails Conference opens Thursday in Anchorage and will focus on issues such as making trails sustainable and active transportation. It brings together land managers, trail users, and trail builders for a three-day event.

About 2,000 people participated in the March for Science in Anchorage on Saturday. Participants carried signs talking about scientific contributions to medicine, such as “Got the Plague?! Ya, me neither! Thank a scientist!” Other signs addressed the impacts of climate change saying “There is no Planet B” and “The oceans are rising and so are we.” Listen now

A Dillingham beekeeper is working with the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, to determine what it will take to help honeybees overwinter in the Bristol Bay community.

The Kenakuchuk Creek fire northeast of Okstukuk Lake likely started by lightning, and first reported by area pilots. State firefighting assets out of McGrath will monitor fire that is in a "limited protection zone."

Wildfire season is off to a slow start in Alaska. But that could change very quickly. That’s because predicting how severe a wildfire season will be in the state is so tricky. Alaska’s Energy Desk is checking in with climatologist Brian Brettschneider each week as part of the segment, Ask a Climatologist. Brettschneider says over the entire season, which runs through the end of July, no wildfire forecast is useful for Alaska.

The study says wild red salmon are affected more by adult hatchery-raised pink salmon that compete with reds or eat them when they're small. And the research also says herring declines are more related to increased fresh water from melting glaciers, rather than oil inundation after the spill.

Abraham Ellis is with the Sandia National Labs in New Mexico. “We are interested in those technologies to figure out ways to improve the energy resilience for cities,” he said. “For defense applications, and things like that, that really need to keep on going with electricity supply, even if the normal grid fails for whatever reason.”

Fairbanks hit 90 degrees last week for the first time in four years. The heat was very localized to the Tanana and Yukon river valleys. We asked Brian Brettschneider, with our Ask a Climatologist segment, which areas of Alaska usually see the hottest temperatures in the summer. He says the warmest temperatures are almost always found in the Interior.

A sewer replacement project in Sitka has turned up more evidence that one of Alaska’s oldest cities has been inhabited for a long, long time.

There was a bit of a victory Monday for supporters of a proposed road in Southwest Alaska that would connect the village of King Cove to an airport at Cold Bay via the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge. Listen now

Diane Schenker had recently graduated from Reed College and was living in Fairbanks when she heard a rumor that Welding Union 798 had been forced to hire women to help build the trans-Alaska pipeline. A 21-year-old with no experience in construction, Schenker convinced the union office manager to let her work with an all-male crew of welders from the South. Listen now

With gillnet fishing limited to only a few days on the Kuskokwim for most of June and July, some people on the river turned to alternative ways of filling their smokehouses. In Sleetmute, Barb Carlson and Maggie Bobby ran a fish wheel to get their season's catch of red salmon and to help their neighbors. Listen now

For the last century, reindeer have roamed St. Paul Island without much oversight. But now, the tribal government is stepping up its management style to boost subsistence options and the local economy.

Community members in Anchorage rallied together recently to help protect one of the most popular birding spots in the city. Listen now

The Trump administration has proposed a vast increase in offshore waters available for oil drilling nationwide. That could mean that more waters off Alaska’s shores will be offered for oil and gas development than ever before. Listen now

Across the globe, 2017 was the second hottest year on record, just behind 2016, according to a European Union monitoring center. Temperatures in Alaska last year were a bit more moderate. 2017 was the 13th warmest year on record. Listen now