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Petersburg is one big step closer to receiving $8 million in federal funding to engineer the disinfection upgrades to the wastewater treatment plant. The funding was included in a spending bill that passed the Senate on Jan. 15 and the House a week earlier, according to U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s office. The bill now awaits President Donald Trump’s signature. The $8 million will fund a disinfectant study, engineering work and plant design for the facility, which discharges into Frederick Sound. The total project was initially estimated to cos...
As Petersburg residents are all too aware, it was exceptionally rainy last year. 133.90 inches of precipitation fell in 2025, making it the fourth-rainiest year since records began in 1924. Last year's total fell just short of the all-time record of 136.88 inches set in 1991, according to data from the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Juneau. The second-wettest year on record was 2015 with 135.98 inches, followed by 1987 with 134.32 inches. "Based on the data we have, Petersburg was...
The Wild Fish Conservancy’s use of the Equal Access to Justice Act is alarming the small-boat fishermen who fought the conservancy’s lawsuit that sought to close the Southeast Alaska Chinook troll fishery to preserve migratory Chinook as prey for the endangered Southern Resident Killer Whales that feed in waters near Puget Sound. WFC, a membership-based nonprofit with offices in Duvall, Washington, filed that lawsuit against the National Marine Fisheries Service in U.S. District Court in Washington in 2020. For months in 2023, a District Cou...
On January 9, heavy snow melt and rain saturated outdoor electrical panels at the Petersburg Aquatic Center, causing a failure of the main electrical breaker. Borough staff and local contractors quickly responded and restored electricity within three days, averting what could have been a costly, extended closure. "It was [around 4:14 p.m.] on Friday, and Julie texted me that the power on just the Aquatic Center had gone out," Parks and Recreation Director Stephanie Payne said. Payne immediately...
Petersburg utility customers will see a small surcharge on their January bills to cover the cost of running diesel generators during December’s extreme cold snap, following a 6-1 vote by the Borough Assembly at its Jan. 20 meeting. The diesel generation adjustment charge of 0.32 cents per kilowatt will apply to all electricity used in December and is expected to recover about $24,000 in unbudgeted expenses for fuel, lubricating oil and overtime, according to Utility Director Karl Hagerman. “The extreme cold temperatures experienced in Dec...
Meeting in Wrangell’s Nolan Center over the weekend, the seven-member Alaska Board of Game heard testimony from Southeast Alaska hunters and trappers, and made decisions on proposed changes to state regulations that govern the harvest of deer, bears, mountain goats, birds and other animals in Southeast Alaska. On Monday, the seven-member board voted 5-2 to reject Proposal 23, which would have increased the bag limit for non-Alaska residents hunting deer in the greater Sitka-area Game Management Unit 4, which includes Baranof, Admiralty and C...
Subscribers can use the link below to access this week's PDF Edition, or use the E-Editions button on the homepage for all of our current and archived PDFs. Click here to view this week's PDF. Thanks for subscribing!... Full story
An ordinance introduced at Tuesday’s Petersburg Borough Assembly meeting proposes a 10 percent increase in harbor moorage and use fees. Petersburg Harbormaster Glo Wollen told the assembly the increase is needed to keep harbor revenues in line with rising expenses. Wollen said the harbor department has absorbed cost increases for four years since the last fee adjustment in April 2022. Rising utility rates, material costs and employee compensation are driving the need for additional revenue, she said. The largest expense in the harbor budget i...
The Petersburg Borough Assembly voted Tuesday to schedule two work sessions about the Tidal Network communication towers. The assembly approved a January 28, 6 p.m. work session where community members can voice concerns to the assembly about communication towers, in addition to the Monday, February 2 evening work session where Tidal Network representatives will be present and available to answer questions. Both meetings will be held in the Assembly Chambers. These meetings are in addition to a virtual community outreach event on January 27 at...
Alaska lawmakers opened the second year of their regular legislative session on Tuesday with an ambitious agenda but low expectations amid a tight budget that appears likely to draw the lion’s share of legislators’ attention. “It’s one big log jam,” said Sen. Bert Stedman, R-Sitka. The Alaska Legislature operates on a two-year cycle between elections; bills are carried over from the first year to the second, but if they don’t pass the Legislature by the end of the second year, they expire and must start all over again. Speaking Tuesday, me... Full story
The annual Project Connect resource fair returns to Petersburg on Tuesday, Jan. 27 to provide resources to community members experiencing housing insecurity, including free clothing and winter gear, cleaning supplies and hygiene products, medical resources, and a warm meal. The event will run from 2 to 6 p.m. at the John Hanson Sr. Hall, with the first three hours intended for those who identify as housing insecure. From 5 to 6 p.m., the fair opens to the entire community. “I don’t want anyone to be hung up on not knowing if they’re housi...
WRANGELL - The borough has officially partnered with a growing cruise line to bring a new dock to the community. The borough assembly voted unanimously on Jan. 7 to approve a 40-year tidelands lease for American Cruise Lines (ACL), which will build the dock. The decision followed months of negotiations and a public work session. The lease allows the company to build and operate a floating dock on the downtown waterfront. Borough Manager Mason Villarma described the deal as a "custom fit" for...
A comment period is open until Feb. 13 as part of a program review that could change the way subsistence hunting and fishing is managed on federal lands in Alaska. On May 5, 2025, Safari Club International filed a petition with the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) asking for significant changes to the Federal Subsistence Management Program — including the removal of all six public members from the Federal Subsistence Board, changes to how members of the Regional Advisory Councils are selected, and elimination of the board’s authority to ta... Full story
Leo Juel Kernin made his arrival on January 5 at 1:53 p.m., claiming the title of Petersburg's first baby of 2026 and earning his family a bounty of gifts from local businesses. Each year, Petersburg businesses donate gifts to be collected by the family of the first baby born to local parents. This year's gifts were published as the centerspread in the Jan. 8 edition of the Pilot. Sam Kernin said she got a kick out of how the community kept tabs on the pending arrival. "I had [a friend] at the...
Living in a small town like Petersburg often means traveling to Anchorage or Juneau for specialized healthcare. Medical travel can be inconvenient and costly, which means some people delay seeking important preventative care, like colonoscopies. For years, colonoscopy clinics were few and far between in Petersburg. But the cancer-spotting procedure will be returning in February on what's expected to be a quarterly basis. During a colonoscopy, a doctor uses a camera on a flexible tube to look... Full story
Petersburg Medical Center's long-awaited MRI project has reached its final regulatory hurdle, with the state accepting the facility's Certificate of Need application and scheduling a public hearing for Feb. 4. The Alaska Department of Health declared the application complete and is now seeking public input on the proposed project, which would bring MRI services to Petersburg for the first time. "We're cautiously optimistic," said PMC CEO Phil Hofstetter. "This is really the last step." The...
A Petersburg man arrested in 2024 for felony charges related to child sexual abuse material has pleaded guilty. Over a year ago, Alejandro “Alex” Melendez Aguilar, age 46, was indicted on 10 felony counts for possession and distribution of the material, which he initially pleaded not guilty to. Prosecutors and the defense made an agreement to dismiss most of the charges, with Aguilar pleading guilty to one count of possession. Aguilar would serve the minimum sentence allowed by state law for the offense: four years — two in prison and two s... Full story
The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected the state of Alaska’s latest attempt to alter Alaska’s decades-old system of subsistence fishing management. In a one-sentence order Monday, the court said it will not review a decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled in August that Alaska cannot manage fishing on a stretch of the Kuskokwim River that flows through the Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge. If the Supreme Court had taken up the case, it could have redefined Alaska’s unique system of hunting and fishing management, which... Full story
Former U.S. House Rep. Mary Peltola, a Democrat, has announced her candidacy for the U.S. Senate, challenging Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan. Republicans control the U.S. Senate by a 53-47 margin, including two independents who caucus with Democrats. If Peltola were to defeat Sullivan, it would contribute to Democrats' efforts to retake the chamber. While Alaska voted for President Donald Trump by a 13-point margin, an indication Sullivan is favored, public opinion polling has shown Peltola i... Full story
Wrangell’s economic development board, which advises the assembly, has raised several questions about a possible borough land lease for a California-based company to build and operate a small-scale data center. The board voted 5-0 on Jan. 5 to recommend the assembly move forward with the lease for one or two acres at the former 6-Mile Mill property, but not until board members added several issues that they believe the assembly needs to consider. Those include any water discharge from the data center, the potential for noise and light p...
Though the state will have two ferries that could operate next summer on the popular route between Bellingham, Washington, and Alaska, it will park the Kennicott at the dock in Ketchikan, keeping it out of service for the fourth summer in a row due to a persistent crew shortage. The Alaska Marine Highway System has suffered from chronic crew vacancies ever since it tried to resume full service in 2022 after deep cuts to its schedule — and staffing — in 2021-2022 when the COVID-19 pandemic shut down travel. Crew layoffs, resignations and ret...
The Petersburg Borough Assembly has approved having temporary sales tax exemption cards available for seniors with pending eligibility. Petersburg voters passed a proposition this fall that limits the town’s senior sales tax exemption to only seniors who qualify as low-income. That eligibility is determined by the state’s income-based Senior Benefits Payment Program. As the Borough’s qualification change goes into effect in January, seniors applying for an exemption card need to show the Petersburg Borough’s finance office proof of eligibi... Full story
Some Petersburg residents spent the day in single-digit temperatures and several feet of fresh snow Dec. 20 to participate in the annual Christmas Bird Count, documenting 57 species and a total of 7,318 birds around Mitkof Island. "The Christmas Bird Count weather this year provided a snow challenge unlike any we've had for many years," said Brad Hunter, who coordinates the Mitkof Island bird count which has been conducted annually since 1989. "Most people involved commented that there didn't...
