KMXT 100.1 FM Public Radio in Kodiak, Alaska

Jay Barrett/KMXT Alaska’s new legislative districts will stay in place for this year’s elections unless a new legal challenge succeeds or the U.S Justice Department doesn’t agree. Kodiak Senator Gary Stevens says it appears there are a number of instances with two good candidates – sometimes both incumbents – being forced to run against each other.

Maggie Wall/KMXT Coast Guard aircrews and a Good Samaritan fishing vessel crew responded to a 70-foot landing craft taking on water more than 100 miles south of Cordova early Wednesday morning. A Coast Guard MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter crew, forward deployed to Cordova from Kodiak, and an Air Station Kodiak HC-130 Hercules crew arrived on-scene at 6:30 a.m. The helicopter lowered …

Associated Press via KYUK Some residents in Bethel, may have thought their pleas of, "Yo quiero, Taco Bell!" had finally been heard. Yellow flyers announcing the opening of the fast food restaurant started showing up in this southwest Alaska community of 6,200 people last week, complete with instructions of how to apply for a job. KYUK reports that it turned …

Jay Barrett/KMXT Kodiak Senator Gary Stevens was in Dillingham last week for a hearing by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on its Draft Bristol Bay Watershed Assessment concerning the potential effects of large scale mining in Bristol Bay. He said the testimony there was different than that heard in Anchorage the day before. The public comment period on the EPA’s …

Jay Barrett/KMXT The Kodiak commercial salmon season kicked off on Saturday. Fish and Game’s Kodiak Area Management Biologist James Jackson says it’s still too early to tell what’s hot and what’s not, and he describes a lot of the fishing at this point in the season as "average."

Jay Barrett/KMXT There was a huge effort by commercial and charter fishermen from one end of the Gulf of Alaska to another to convince the North Pacific Fishery Management Council that bycatch of halibut needed to be reduced. Alaska Marine Conservation Council Kodiak Outreach Coordinator Theresa Peterson – who is also a commercial fisherman with halibut quota – says the …

Jay Barrett/KMXT The Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation has revised downward the amount of diesel fuel spilled from the U.S. Army Reserve landing craft Monterrey, which was intentionally grounded late Friday night after hitting a charted rock, just off shore of downtown Kodiak. Steven Russel, the ADEC’s on-scene coordinator for Central Alaska, says at least 8,000 gallons were spilled from …

Jay Barrett/KMXT It’s going to be a quiet primary season in the newly re-platted Senate District R, but there will be a challenger to incumbent Republican Gary Stevens come the general election. Sixty-nine-year-old Robert Henrich, a life-long Cordova fisherman, has filed to run as a Democrat. Henrich was between fishing periods when KMXT caught up to him at his home …