Word: alaskas
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Theo Chesley Noses his six-seat turboprop into a drizzly wind and levels off, soaring above the rich, silty veins of the Nushagak River in southwestern Alaska. The Nushagak is a salmon highway. To the west, its waters flow into Bristol Bay, home of the richest commercial-fishing grounds left in the U.S. About 40% of the wild seafood caught in the U.S. is fished right here...
...most of Alaska's history, the environment has been an afterthought on the road to exploitation. From the arrival of Russian fur trappers in the 1780s, the Last Frontier has been a rich trove of resources. Today oil and natural gas provide more than 85% of the state's revenues, along with a royalty check for nearly every one of Alaska's 686,000 residents. "Being against development here is literally the third rail of politics," says Bryce Edgmon, an Alaska state representative from Bristol...
...SARAH PALIN, on risking her political future by announcing on July 3 that she would resign as governor of Alaska at the end of the month...
While Alaskans may find the algal blob unusual if not frightening, scientists say they are nothing new in Arctic Ocean waters, though the blob itself might be a little weird. Brenda Konar, a marine biology professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, says algal outbreaks can and do occur even in icy Arctic waters. It just takes the right combination of nutrients, light and water temperature, she says. "Algae blooms," she says. "It's sort of like a swimming pool that hasn't been cleaned in a while." The blob, Konar says, is a microalgae made up of "billions...
...Alaska, nothing suggests that the Chukchi Sea blob is toxic, though the Coast Guard's Hasenauer says toxicity tests are planned. In any case, virtually no commercial seafood production comes from the waters along Alaska's northern coast, but residents do fish, hunt whales and harvest other animals as part of a traditional subsistence lifestyle. In the meantime, the blob for the most part is staying away from the shoreline and slowly drifting farther away...