Alaska and Hawaii

A Senate hearing tomorroow looks at a dispute over native claims and logging of old-growth timber in Alaska's Tongass National Forest.

"A Seattle-based seafood company that operates mostly in Alaska will pay $1.9 million in penalties as well as cleanup costs for the ammonia and other waste it discharged from its processing plant in the Aleutians."

"The federal rule protecting the nation's last remaining stretches of roadless wilderness will apply now to the largest and grandest of the national forests under a court ruling in Alaska, which threw out the exemption granted to the Tongass National Forest."

"A U.S. government investigation of the Trans Alaska oil pipeline has found potentially major safety issues on the line that ships 12 percent of domestic oil supply, making its operation risky until repairs are made, according to a letter sent by regulators to the operator and viewed by Reuters on Friday."

"The federal Environmental Protection Agency said Monday that it will review the consequences of large-scale development projects, such as the proposed copper and gold Pebble mine, in [Alaska's] Bristol Bay watershed."

"Royal Dutch Shell is scrapping plans to drill an exploratory well in the Beaufort Sea near Alaska this summer, after failing to secure key permits for the project."

EPA has ordered Waste Management Inc. to clean upwaste and contaminated stormwater from a landfill that fouled Oahu beaches after heavy rains earlier this month.

"Formerly rare beak deformities are spreading rapidly among crows in southwestern B.C. and Puget Sound, according to researchers from the U.S. Geological Survey."

"To protect the declining population of the western Steller sea lion, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will restrict commercial fishing for Atka mackerel and Pacific cod, the animal’s main source of food, off parts of the Alaska’s western Aleutian Islands."