Free Republic

KETCHIKAN -- Mike Salazar, the Ketchikan borough mayor, had just fielded a call from Reader's Digest. Another reporter wanting to talk about "the Bridge to Nowhere." The proposed $315 million bridge from this small Alaska city to a neighboring, nearly uninhabited island, has become a sensation. It's made Ketchikan famous, but not in a way Salazar likes. "It makes me frustrated that we haven't been able to communicate our need well enough for the rest of the United States to understand it," said the mayor, who was first elected to the town council in 1976. Salazar said, "Everybody calls it...

Tuesday, May 10, 2005; 12:57 AM KETCHIKAN, Alaska -- A jury found Greenpeace guilty Monday on two misdemeanor criminal negligence charges that were filed after the group's ship entered Alaska waters for an anti-logging campaign without required paperwork. Greenpeace's ship came to Alaska to conduct an anti-logging campaign in the Tongass National Forest. The ship was carrying more than 70,000 gallons of "petroleum products" at the time, court papers said. Under state law, a large non-tank vessel must file an oil spill response plan application five days before entering state waters. Greenpeace had not,...

<p>TONGASS: Former logging town says it can't find dock space for greenies' ship.</p> <p>JUNEAU -- A Greenpeace ship heading to protest timber issues in Southeast Alaska has hit a bureaucratic storm with the former logging town of Ketchikan.</p> <p>The environmental group will not be able to dock in the Ketchikan port when it arrives next week, city officials said.</p>