Tim Ellis

The Interior Gas Utility’s board of directors continues to wrestle with a company’s proposal to supply natural gas for Fairbanks, as an alternative to the IGU’s plan to spend $46 million to upgrade an aging LNG plant at Point McKenzie. The board’s been considering the offer by Siemens Government Technologies since company officials first pitched the idea to the IGU in May. But on Tuesday, the board voted to demand answers to their questions about the proposal before they spend any more time on it.

Officials with the University of Alaska Fairbanks and more than a hundred invited guests gathered Wednesday at UAF to celebrate completion of the $245 million power plant. The coal-fired facility will generate 17 megawatts of electricity and produce enough steam to heat the campus. It’ll replace the 56-year-old power plant that was becoming increasingly undependable.

Four Fairbanks-area high-schoolers got a chance to get down and dirty last month as part of a class that helps them learn how archeologists uncover the past. The students spent a week excavating artifacts at a dig near Quartz Lake as part of a University of Alaska Fairbanks program that gives young people hands-on experience with  science-,  technology-, engineering- and math-related activities.

Republican voters in House District 9 will consider three familiar candidates when they go to the polls in Tuesday’s primary election. Incumbent George Rauscher will again face Jim Colver, a fellow Mat-Su resident who he beat in the 2016 primary, and Pam Goode, a Delta Junction-area resident who he faced in the general election, when she ran on the Constitution Party ticket.

District 9 stretches from Delta Junction south to Valdez and west to Palmer.

There’s only one contested legislative primary-election race that Fairbanks-area voters will weigh-in on this coming Tuesday. That’s the House District 1 seat left vacant by Rep. Scott Kawasaki’s decision to challenge incumbent Sen. Pete Kelly to represent state Senate District A. The matchup features two candidates with very different campaign pitches.

Moose-hunting season begins in just over two weeks, and hunters are up in arms over restrictions on access through military-training ranges that will make it hard for them to get back into their favorite camps. Fort Wainwright officials say they’ve tried to accommodate hunters’ concerns. But they say the restrictions are needed because the ranges around Fort Greely will be busy for the next few weeks with Air Force Red Flag training exercises.