Alaska Digest
Coast Guard suspends search for missing plane
JUNEAU - The Coast Guard has suspended its search for an airplane missing since Sept. 20 from Sitka.
The Harris Air floatplane, a DeHavilland Beaver, carried pilot Eric Johnson of Sitka and four tourists on their way to Warm Springs Bay on Baranof Island.
The passengers were Jim Murphy of Sequim, Wash; his twin brother, Joe Murphy of Bremerton, Wash; Jerry Balmer of Auburn, Calif.; and Lloyd Koenig of Pleasanton, Calif.
The Coast Guard, Civil Air Patrol and Harris Air participated in the search. The Coast Guard said Wednesday that crews had completed searches from Sitka to Baranof Warm Spring Bay and through the most likely routes the pilot may have flown the aircraft to reach its destination. Other searches examined the shoreline, nearby forests, Kruzof Island, Salisbury Sound, Chatham Strait, Peril Strait, Takatz Bay, Point Elizabeth, Rodman Bay and Ushk Bay to Hoonah Sound.
As of Wednesday morning, rescue crews had searched for more than 191 hours, officials said. The Coast Guard said it used all its available crews and aircraft, including night-vision equipment and forward-looking infrared, in the search.
The Coast Guard cutter Maple and its crew, home-ported in Sitka, were called out to search above and below the water's surface in Peril Strait, officials said.
No one found any signs of the plane or its passengers. The search was called off around 4 p.m. Wednesday.
Jets carrying Alaska prisoners abort flights
ANCHORAGE - Two jets flying Alaska prisoners to an Arizona prison on separate days this week had to abort the flights.
One lost power while attempting takeoff. The other cracked its windshield at 20,000 feet, officials told the Anchorage Daily News.
Both aircraft, an McDonnell Douglas MD-82 and a Boeing 727, were operated by the U.S. Department of Justice and were flying out of Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport, according to Clint Johnson, an investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board.
No one was injured on either flight, said Johnson and Portia Parker, deputy commissioner of the Alaska Department of Corrections.
Parker said her department contracts with the U.S. Marshals Service to transport large groups of prisoners to a private prison in Arizona used because there is not sufficient space in Alaska.
The MD-82 flight occurred Sunday. Johnson said the plane was speeding down a runway at the airport with 112 prisoners and 17 crew members on board, going about 90 knots. Just before lifting the nose, the pilots heard a thump and the aircraft veered slightly to the left and lost partial engine power. The captain aborted the takeoff.
Fairbanks wins change in air quality status
FAIRBANKS - Federal regulators have rewarded air cleanup efforts in the Fairbanks North Star Borough by changing its status from "non-attainment area" to a "maintenance area."
The change means Fairbanks is less likely to be hit with federal penalties for not meeting Clean Air Act standards. The change also could lead to scrapping the inspection and maintenance program for vehicles.
The Environmental Protection Agency announced the change Monday.
"It's a good thing," said Max Lyons, director of the borough's transportation program. "It's been a long time coming."
The change means EPA officials believe future air-quality problems will be a fluke rather than a normal or preventable occurrence.
The designation signifies the borough has been and will continue to be successful in combating its carbon monoxide problem, said Connie Robinson, an environmental protection specialist in the EPA's Seattle office.
"Fairbanks has been fighting this problem for a long time," Robinson told the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner.
Pioneer relinquishes coal bed methane leases
ANCHORAGE - Pioneer Natural Resources Co. has agreed to return the shallow natural gas leases that were bitterly opposed by residents in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough.
The leases, covering more than 250,000 acres in the borough north of Anchorage, had been held by Evergreen Resources, a company acquired by Pioneer in a merger this week. They include 74,000 acres formerly held by Evergreen Resources and 150,000 individual leases to which Pioneer had access.
Pioneer will also drop exploration applications on 30,000 acres it recently converted from shallow natural gas lease applications.
Pioneer gave up the leases after "considering the contentious nature of these leases" and because coal bed methane isn't part of the company's strategy in Alaska, said spokeswoman Susan Spratlen in Dallas.
Evergreen had paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in rental fees on the Mat-Su leases, plus $1.5 million for exploration activities, but chose to walk away from them without compensation, said Mark Myers, head of the state Division of Oil and Gas.
"We didn't put any value on it in the merger," Spratlen said of the leases. "We don't feel like we paid for it in the merger."
The leases were obtained under procedures of the Shallow Gas Leasing Act, a fast-track law for shallow-gas development that the state Legislature repealed this year.
The act was intended to provide low-cost, three-year leases for gas reserves found as deep as 3,000 feet from the surface.