The creek slide is the latest environmental incident to strike the Kenai Peninsula this week: a massive landslide in Seward on May 7 continues to block Lowell Point Road, a wildfire broke out near Sportsman’s Landing on May 8 and a separate wildfire broke out on May 10 near Wildman’s.
The landslide, estimated to be 300 feet wide, has completely cut off the community of Lowell Point. Lowell Point Road is the only land access between Lowell Point and the City of Seward. As a result the City of Seward cannot access critical wastewater facilities.
Kenai City Council members approved the city’s five-year capital improvement plan Wednesday
No one was injured when a car hit a 6-foot-by-8-foot rock that fell from cliffs next to the Seward Highway late Wednesday.
City park staff have set up barriers in hopes of encouraging passersby to stay far away. Potential fixes could include putting up a wall and relocating the bike path or road.
Both sides of Cook Inlet are eroding near Tyonek. The erosion is reaching old and new growth trees, and causing more debris to fall in to the Inlet, which easily get caught in set nets.
At least one car was on the ramp at the time of the quake, a photo of which circulated on social media Friday morning.
Erosion of Kincaid beach bluffs accelerated compared to previous years.
Over the last two years, an outbreak has affected more than 500,000 acres of forest.
We have over two weeks of cold windy weather. It started in mid April around the time of the big wind storm. And in relation of the wind storm on April 24th, Rick Thoman wrote: "Winds this strong in the Anchorage are rare at this time of year. An unusually strong storm for the season in the southeastern Bering Sea produced southeast strong winds blowing across the Chugach Mountains. However, being April, the temperature profile of the atmosphere close to the ground was more conducive than in winter for allowing the very strong winds aloft to reach down to the ground.
Leaning utility poles in south Anchorage
Temperatures in the area were unseasonably high last week, reaching into the mid-40s, according to the National Weather Service. Then temperatures dropped below freezing Sunday and into Monday morning. "There's a lot of water flowing underground in this area," McCarthy said. The freeze-thaw "caused some instability and that made it slide."
Sport fishermen are struggling to reel in the rainbow trout and Dolly Varden that usually are so abundant in fall.
The celebrity glacier on the Kenai Peninsula, though relatively small and getting smaller, looms large in the public consciousness.
Land's End Resort was built more than 50 years ago, and during that time, the Homer Spit has changed dramatically. A change in the direction and intensity of winds may be driving the faster erosion.
A recent study estimates permafrost coverage on the peninsula has decreased by 60 percent since 1950. Permafrost is usually associated with Northern and Interior Alaska, but it also occurs in isolated pockets in wetlands on the Kenai Peninsula.
The European black slug was first introduced into Alaska in the 1980s in Cordova, Slowik said. It eventually made its way to Juneau and Ketchikan, likely hitching a ride on fishing gear, and is now prevalent across Southeast. A few years ago, people started seeing the slug in Whittier and Girdwood.
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