Alaska News Daily Brief, Sunday, October 25

This is Alaska News for Sunday, October twenty-fifth. A lighter Sunday brief, so take your time with it, but one piece runs on a clock: state regulators will hear from the public on a winter gas deal only until Thursday afternoon. Stay for what you'd be weighing in on. A lawsuit over Alaska's Senate count picked up its first opponents in court, and a Northwest Arctic village spent the night sleeping in its new school.

0:26Peltola and voter groups move to fight DOJ's suit to block Alaska certification

Mary Peltola's Senate campaign and a group of voter organizations want in on the Justice Department's lawsuit over Alaska's Senate race. On Friday, they asked a federal judge in Anchorage to let them help defend against it. The suit asks U.S. District Judge Sharon Gleason to block certification in one specific case. That's if Senator Dan Sullivan loses, and the senator would have won had every vote for Daniel J. Sullivan, the other Sullivan on the ballot, gone to the senator instead. The department argues the second name threatens to mislead voters. Daniel J. Sullivan lives in Petersburg and has said he decided to run on his own. Attorney General Todd Blanche said yesterday the department isn't trying to stop certification. Blanche wrote that the real goal is making sure ballots are preserved. But the complaint doesn't mention preserving ballots. It asks the court to hold certification while someone investigates what voters meant. It doesn't say who would do that, or how. President Trump has said he directed the department to sue. Peltola's campaign and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee say the federal voter registration law behind the suit has nothing to say about how names appear on a ballot. They say that's state law. They also worry the state's elections director, Carol Beecher, won't fight hard, since Carol Beecher tried and failed to disqualify Daniel J. Sullivan. If the judge lets them in, they'll move to dismiss. The League of Women Voters of Alaska, Common Cause and two Fairbanks voters filed separately, backed by the American Civil Liberties Union. They call it a frivolous, election-eve lawsuit. One of those voters says she's already voted, and it was clear on the ballot which Sullivan was the incumbent.

2:09Wind cuts power to much of Kivalina, and restoring it may take up to a week

Up in Kivalina, most of the village has been without power since Friday evening. Gusts up to about 60 miles an hour damaged a power line, and it may take up to a week to get the lights back on. Residents were shuttled to the new school, and about 175 people stayed there Friday night. That's a big share of a village that counted 444 people in twenty twenty. Medical supplies were being readied in case anyone hurt had to be flown to Kotzebue. That school was built with a night like this in mind. The state finished an evacuation road in twenty twenty-one so people could get off the island in a storm, and that road leads to the school site. The state transportation department said back in twenty twenty-two the school would serve as a full emergency shelter. The utility is the Alaska Village Electric Cooperative, which serves 58 communities from Kivalina down to Old Harbor. The weather isn't done. Gusts up to 40 miles an hour should continue through the weekend. A high surf advisory runs until 4 a.m. Tuesday. A coastal flood watch warns water could rise 3 to 5 feet from late Monday night into Tuesday. Friday's storm was the first of five forecasters expect in western Alaska through next week. They're also watching what's left of Typhoon Champi, which could arrive Thursday into Friday.

3:37ENSTAR asks regulators to fast-track a deal to borrow MEA's gas for this winter

In Southcentral, ENSTAR wants to borrow natural gas from Matanuska Electric Association to get through this winter. The gas utility has asked state regulators to approve the deal fast. The amount is about 1.2 billion cubic feet. Without it, ENSTAR expects its storage to hit about 3.7 billion cubic feet by New Year's Eve. Its usual target is 6 to 7 billion. ENSTAR says it serves about 157,000 customers. Several things drained the tank. Last winter brought the region's longest cold stretch in more than 40 years, and demand ran about 3.1 billion cubic feet over forecast. One producer, BlueCrest, pushed its drilling to 2027. Another, HEX, stopped delivering in July, and that summer's gas never made it into storage. Matanuska Electric has contracted gas it won't need until twenty twenty-eight, and it's the one that came to ENSTAR with the idea. ENSTAR would have to pay it back by March twenty twenty-eight. Customers would cover the cost. By the filing's prices, about 14.1 million dollars would be charged when the gas arrives. About 10.8 million would be credited back when it's returned. That leaves a net of about 3.3 million, plus transport and storage. The filing doesn't say what that means for a monthly bill. The commission is taking comments through Thursday afternoon. ENSTAR wants the deal in effect Friday, because the gas can only be injected so much each day. The commission hasn't said whether it will act by then.

5:10Seward proposes a 6% summer-only sales tax and a property tax cut for fiscal 2028

Quickly, around the state. Seward's proposed budget for fiscal twenty twenty-eight would drop the year-round 4 percent sales tax. Instead, shoppers would pay 6 percent in summer and nothing in winter. Property taxes would come down by 1 mill.

5:29Sitka planners recommend banning data centers in every zone, not by permit

Sitka's planners want data centers banned in every zone of town, with no permit route at all. Most people who testified agreed. The Assembly gets the final say.

5:41Alaska DEC proposes letting some construction start before air permits are issued

The state Department of Environmental Conservation wants to let companies start building industrial sites before their air permits come through. The idea is aimed at the North Slope's short building season. Comments are due December eleventh.

5:55Trump calls Murkowski a disgrace and urges Alaskans to repeal ranked-choice voting

President Trump called Senator Lisa Murkowski a disgrace for criticizing the Justice Department's Alaska lawsuit. Trump also told Alaskans to vote yes on repealing ranked-choice voting.

6:07Petro Marine wants a new Wrangell fuel dock, saying its floats nearly touch bottom

In Wrangell, Petro Marine says its fuel floats nearly touch bottom at low tide. That's a problem for the fuel barges that tie up there. The company wants to tear the floats out and build new ones.

6:19Skagway planners weigh where to claim the borough's last 118 acres of state land

Skagway has 118 acres of state land left to claim. Planners are weighing whether to take 55 acres along the highway, which the borough has had its eye on since nineteen ninety-seven, or pick land somewhere else.

6:33Wrap-up

ENSTAR customers, your comments to the state utility commission are due Thursday afternoon. On the western coast, the flood watch begins late Monday night. Elsewhere, Nome's council votes Monday on asking Congress to restore harbor dredging money, and household power prices across Alaska have reached their highest in well over a decade. That's all for this edition of the Alaska News daily brief. The full stories are at Alaska News dot com. And that's the way it is, Sunday, October twenty-fifth, twenty twenty-six.