Rivers and streams in the world's premier wild salmon fishery would be greatly degraded for decades should a vast gold and copper mine be built and then see a failure in the dam holding back its mine waste, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said in a draft report Friday.

The proposed Pebble Mine in Alaska has stirred passions for and against, with fishermen and native tribes in the Bristol Bay watershed generally against the project.

If the tailings dam were to break, the draft report stated, some 20 miles "of salmonid streams would be destroyed and more streams and rivers would have greatly degraded habitat for decades."

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Other, smaller failures could put contaminants into the streams if water from the mine is not properly managed. In addition, the native cultures that rely on salmon for food could see a significant change in their lifestyles, the report said.

Even without any failures, the EPA said, there would still be an impact on fish, including eliminated or blocked streams, removal of wetlands and a reduction in the amount and quality of fish habitat because of water use by mine operations.

The annual probability of failure for a tailings dam was estimated in the range of 1-in-10,000 to 1-in-1 million.

Project backers note that the deposit is one of the largest of its kind in the world and could produce 80.6 billion pounds of copper, 107.4 million ounces of gold and 5.6 billion pounds of molybdenum, used in steel-making, over decades.

The EPA, which said it would solicit public opinion through July 24 before issuing a final report, summarized the significance of the area this way:

The Bristol Bay watershed in southwestern Alaska supports the largest sockeye salmon fishery in the world, is home to 25 Federally Recognized Tribal Governments, and contains large mineral resources.The potential for large-scale mining activities in the watershed has raised concerns about the impact of mining on the sustainability of Bristol Bay’s world-class fisheries, and the future of Alaska Native tribes in the watershed who have maintained a salmon-based culture and subsistence-based lifestyle for at least 4,000 years..

Alaska Attorney General Michael Geraghty has called the EPA's involvement premature and an overreach, The Associated Press reported.

In a March 9 letter to the EPA, he said that if it were to use the Clean Water Act to block the Pebble mine, that could have the potential to "extinguish" the state's mineral rights and leases held by others. In that case, he warned, Alaska would explore "all available legal options."

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said Friday that while she was "pleased this draft assessment does not contain a preemptive veto" she worried that could still happen before a permit is even sought for the project.

"I have consistently been clear about two things concerning the Pebble project: I will not trade fish for gold, but I oppose a preemptive veto prior to proper evaluation of an application and actual project description," she said in a statement.

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A plastic card dropped into the ocean 33 years ago has been found on the coast of Alaska, after a potential 88,000-mile journey.

The drift card was one of thousands put into the Bering Sea by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration staff in the late 1970s and early 1980s, as part of a project to find out where oil would go if there was a spill.

About the size of a postcard, it offered a reward of $1 for its return in three languages: English, Japanese and Russian.

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It was found on a beach at Sealion Cove, near Sitka, Alaska, last month by 12-year-old middle school student and keen beachcomber Emmitt Anderson. "We never know what we're going to find ... I just like to find stuff. When I don't find stuff, I'm not very happy," Anderson told the Daily Sitka Sentinel newspaper.

'Amazingly good condition'
His father Steve contacted NOAA and was put in touch with oceanographer Curtis Ebbesmeyer, who tracks flotsam as it rides the world's currents.

Ebbesmeyer told msnbc.com that Anderson's drift card had likely been caught in the Aleut gyre, circulating ocean currents that take three years to make an 8,000-mile orbit.

"The question is how many times did it go around? I think it's likely it went around once, it could have gone round 11 times. It's possible it went 88,000 miles. It could have short-circuited the gyre … we'll never quite know," he said.

"Everything in the ocean, particularly plastic, can travel great, great distances," he added.

Ebbesmeyer said the drift card was in "amazingly good condition."

"After 33 years in the ocean, [it] is in quite readable condition," he said. "Plastic doesn't degrade very fast."

Much of the plastic that finds its way into the sea will travel the world for years to come.

"Half of all plastic cannot sink because of its specific gravity. It's as if it was in prison in Flatland [a fictional two-dimensional world]," Ebbesmeyer said.

Study: Plastic in 'Great Pacific Garbage Patch' increases 100-fold

While Anderson's drift card did not make landing very far from where it was released, others have ended up in Europe.

"Across the North Pole, down past Greenland, down to almost New York City, over to the vicinity of London, then turn south to France. That's probably the longest certifiable drift," Ebbesmeyer said.

Even if the Sitka drift card traveled 88,000 miles that may not be the longest ever journey by a piece of plastic in the sea.

An albatross found on Midway Island in the Pacific in 2004 was found to have 512 pieces of plastic in its stomach.

One piece was discovered to have come from a downed aircraft from World War II. It was likely caught in the 12,000-mile turtle gyre, which takes about six years to make its full circle.

Ebbesmeyer said that if that piece of plastic made 10 orbits in 60 years, that would mean it traveled 120,000 miles, equivalent to about five times round the Earth.

Plastic ducks, frogs
He also tracks some 28,800 plastic bath toys called Floatees – turtles, ducks, beavers and frogs – that were lost overboard from a container ship in the mid-Pacific in 1992. 

Hundreds drifted some 2,200 miles and beached -- like Emmett Anderson's drift card -- near Sitka, Alaska.

To date, a duck was seen in Maine in July 2003, while a green plastic frog was spotted in Scotland in August 2003.

Ebbesmeyer, who usually gets one or two reports a year about the floating toys, said some of them may be approaching an epic achievement: Circumnavigating the globe.

"It's possible they have gone something like in the order of round the world," he said.

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A former U.S. Army soldier who was cleared of manslaughter for his role in the fatal shooting of his best friend during an alcohol-fueled game of Russian roulette will spend about four months behind bars for weapons misconduct.

Alaska Superior Court Judge Gregory Miller sentenced Jacob Brouch to 360 days behind bars on Wednesday but suspended 240 of them for time served, NBC station KTUU-TV reported.

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Jacob Brouch, 27, was acquitted of manslaughter on April 26 but found guilty of fourth-degree weapons misconduct.

On March 6, 2011, Brouch had been drinking for some 36 hours with Sgt. Michael McCloskey, 26, when McCloskey asked him for a Ruger revolver as well as one bullet, KTUU reported. McCloskey then loaded the bullet into the gun and fatally shot himself in the stomach.

Prosecutors argued that Brouch was criminally negligent for handing over the gun to McCloskey, and that he enticed his roommate into playing Russian roulette. But the jury disagreed, finding Brouch only guilty of the misdemeanor weapons charge.

Both men had been stationed at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Alaska.

According to the Anchorage Daily News, McCloskey, a New Jersey native, had survived two tours of duty with the Army.

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A volleyball and soccer ball that washed ashore on an Alaskan island may be the first pieces of debris to arrive in the United States from last year's tsunami in Japan.

The sports balls were spotted by radar technician David Baxter on treeless, windswept Middleton Island in the Gulf of Alaska, Doug Helton of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Seattle said in an agency blog post.

Baxter’s wife translated writing on the soccer ball and traced it back to a Japanese school in an area hit by the tsunami, Helton said.

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He told the Anchorage Daily News the balls were the first tsunami debris retrieved in Alaska.

 

"There have been other items that were suspected, but this is the first one that we're aware of that has the credentials that may make it possible to positively identify it."

Helton, in the NOAA post, said the agency, the State Department and the Japanese Embassy and its Seattle consulate are working to confirm details and set up the return of other debris that comes ashore.

A magnitude 9.0 earthquake off Japan's northeast coast on March 11, 2011, triggered a 75-foot wall of water that flattened waterfront towns, killing 16,000. Three thousand people are still unaccounted for. The tsunami triggered a crisis at Tokyo Electric Power's Fukushima Daiichi atomic power plant, forcing tens of thousands of people to flee in the world's worst nuclear accident in 25 years.

U.S. authorities were immediately aware that the clockwise circulation of the Pacific's northern waters would deliver some remnants of that destruction to American shores.

A Japanese ghost ship Ryou-Un Maru turned up earlier in the Gulf of Alaska off Southeast Alaska after a 4,500-mile journey. The U.S. Coast Guard ended sank the vessel April 5.

In January, a half-dozen large buoys suspected to be from Japanese oyster farms appeared at the top of Alaska's panhandle and may be among the first tsunami debris.

State health and environmental officials have said there's little need to be worried that debris landing on Alaska shores will be contaminated by radiation.

This article contains reporting by Reuters and The Associated Press.

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Updated at 4:43 p.m. ET: FBI agents have been flown to Kodiak Island on Alaska’s south coast to try to find out who shot and killed two Coast Guard members inside a communications station.

The victims were found dead at their work areas inside the station on Thursday by another Coast Guard member. They were identified Friday as Petty Officer 1st Class James Hopkins, an electronics technician, and Richard Belisle, a civilian employee and retired Coast Guard chief petty officer.

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"As an organization with roots in saving lives and a focus on protecting people, this tragic event has shocked us all," said Rear Adm. Thomas Ostebo, commander of the 17th Coast Guard District, said in a statement."My thoughts and prayers are with the victim's families, their loved ones, and the entire Kodiak community."

There is no evidence to suggest the deaths are the result of a murder-suicide, the Coast Guard said. No arrests have been made and no suspects have been publicly identified.

Coast Guard spokeswoman Sara Francis said late Thursday that all the roughly 60 enlisted personnel and civilians working at the station had been accounted for, and officials believe a third person was involved in the shootings.

Capt. Jesse Moore, commanding officer of the base on Kodiak, said the victims likely were shot soon after they arrived for work Thursday morning.

The station monitors radio traffic from ships and planes. It is equipped with security cameras, but it wasn’t yet known if they captured any evidence, Moore said, according to The Associated Press.

The FBI said agents flew to Kodiak from Anchorage, about 250 miles away. They are working with the Coast Guard Investigative Service, Alaska State Troopers and the Kodiak Police Department to investigate the shootings.

According to the AP, the shootings happened almost 11 years after another fatal shooting involving the Coast Guard on another Alaska island, St. Paul Island, which is about 660 miles west of the city of Kodiak.

A man killed a Coast Guard officer whom he believed was having an affair with his estranged wife, according to AP.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Two U.S. Coast Guard members at a communications station in Kodiak, Alaska, were found shot to death on Thursday, officials said, leading to a lockdown of the base and nearby schools.

It was not clear if it was a murder-suicide or double homicide.

"It is possible that the suspect remains at large," Capt. Jesse Moore, the base commander, said in a statement.

---

"Since we don't have all the details, we strongly advise that all Kodiak residents to remain vigilant and to report any suspicious activity to local law enforcement officials," he added.

The base and nearby schools were on lockdown "until we can ensure no threat exists," the Coast Guard stated.

The communication station, which monitors May Day air and maritime traffic, is about two miles from the main base, Coast Guard spokesman Grant DeVuyst told msnbc.com. He wasn't sure if ID is required to enter the station, which has about 60 people working there, but noted that ID is required to enter the base and that only military police on the base are allowed to carry firearms.

FBI, state and local police were assigned to investigate, the Coast Guard said.

The names of the two dead were being withheld until notification of their families, and their genders were not immediately released.

Kodiak is an island about 250 miles southwest of Anchorage. About 6,300 people live on the island's main town of Kodiak, where the base is located. The base has about 1,000 Coast Guard personnel and several hundred civilian employees.

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Anchorage on Saturday surpassed a 57-year-old record for snowfall in one season, the National Weather Service reported.

The old record of 132.6 inches in Alaska's largest city occurred in 1954-1955, it said. But 3.4 inches of snow that fell from midnight to 4 p.m. local time pushed the season total to 133.6 inches -- more than 11 feet, the National Weather Service said.

The total is nearly double Anchorage’s normal amount, The Associated Press said.

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The city was 2.5 inches short of the record going into Easter weekend, NBC station KTUU said.

Snow began falling Friday morning, with 0.8 inches accumulating. More fell overnight Friday and throughout the day Saturday.

The season got off to a slow start, KTUU said.

The first snow didn't arrive until the Oct. 30. But each month from November to February there was above-normal snowfall, KTUU said. November saw the greatest snowfall, with 32.4 inches, close to three times the average for the month.

By March, Anchorage was on pace to shatter the record, but a slightly below normal month seemed to dim the chances of breaking the 1954-55 record, KTUU said.

No snow fell from mid-March until Friday, The Associated Press reported. Going into April, 3.3 inches were still needed to break the record.

Records have been kept at or very near the current location near the Ted Stevens International Airport since 1953.

City snow removal crews have hauled more than 2.5 million cubic yards of snow to the city's six snow disposal sites, which are close to capacity, The Associated Press reported. Maintenance and operations director Alan Czajkowski said that volume would almost fill the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans.

At the height of the snow overload, many residential streets were rimmed by snow-walled canyons that towered over fences and shielded homes. Some roofs collapsed, mostly on older commercial buildings with flat roofs.

On Friday afternoon, falling ice outside Anchorage crushed a car, trapping a 32-year-old woman inside and shutting the Seward Highway. Rescuers and passersby freed the woman and got her to a hospital, where she is recovering with severe head and neck injuries.

This article includes reporting by The Associated Press.

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ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- Divers searching an icy Alaska lake found a body they believe is of 18-year-old barista Samantha Koenig, who was abducted two months ago from a drive-up coffee stand, authorities said Monday.

A dive team recovered the body in icy Matanuska Lake, about 35 miles northeast of Anchorage, Police Chief Mark Mew told reporters at a news conference, and will conduct forensic tests to confirm that it belongs to Samantha Koenig.

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Investigators believe she died within hours of her Feb. 1 abduction from the Anchorage coffee stand, Mew said.

"Investigators further believe that the person responsible for Samantha's death acted alone, and we're confident we have that person in custody," he said, adding that charges for Koenig's kidnapping and murder "will be forthcoming."

The sole person held in connection with Koenig's disappearance is Israel Keyes, a 34-year-old Anchorage construction contractor.

He was arrested last month in Lufkin, Texas, and charged in federal court with illegally using another person's bank card to withdraw cash in various states. He has pleaded innocent and was being held without bail.

Koenig was forced from her coffee stand at the end of her evening shift by what appeared to be an armed man, according to security-camera video. The video was not publicly distributed, but police said it showed a thin white man abducting the barista.

Self-defense lessons
The case has gained a lot of attention in Anchorage. Posters of Koenig have been prominently displayed around town and family members and friends established a reward fund for information leading to her return. Supporters have held candlelight vigils for the missing teen, and volunteers have offered self-defense lessons to other Anchorage baristas.

Mary Rook, special agent in charge of the FBI's Anchorage Division said investigators believed there was no connection between the abductor and the Koenig family, according to NBC News Alaska affiliate KTUU.com.

KTUU.com: Samantha Koenig's Body Found in Matanuska Lake

Rook credited callers and officials who provided information in the case from Alaska, as well as the Lower 48, for their role in the investigation.

"We received hundreds of phone calls from people in Anchorage and from many locations across the Lower 48," Rook said.

"Likewise, when assistance was required in Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, local, state and federal authorities moved quickly to support and move this investigation forward. In fact, were it not for the efforts of several very alert and dedicated Texas law enforcement officers, Samantha's abductor may still be at large."

NBC News and Reuters contributed to this report.

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ANCHORAGE, Alaska - A man has been arrested in Texas in connection with the disappearance of 18-year-old barista Samantha Koenig, who was abducted from a drive-up Alaska coffee stand six weeks ago, police said on Thursday.

Israel Keyes, the owner of an Anchorage construction company whose website says he served three years in the U.S. Army and moved to Alaska in 2007, was arrested on Tuesday in Lufkin, Texas.

---

He was identified as a "person on interest" in the disappearance of Samantha Koenig, who was seized from the coffee stand on February 1, the Anchorage Police Department said in a statement.

 

 

She is still missing, and police remain hopeful she is alive.

Keyes' arrest was coordinated by Anchorage police, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, local law-enforcement agencies in Lufkin and the Texas Rangers, according to the statement.

NBC News affiliate KTUU's Ted Land reports on Israel Keyes' background

He was being held at a federal facility in Beaumont, Texas, Anchorage police said. Details of the charges against Keyes were not released, and the federal arrest warrant was sealed, police said.

Koenig's whereabouts remain unknown and the public was still being asked to supply any potential information, Anchorage police said.

Koenig was abducted as she finished her evening barista shift in an incident recorded on the coffee stand's video camera.

Posters identifying her as kidnapped are displayed around Anchorage. Friends and supporters held a candlelight vigil two weeks after her disappearance, and a reward fund has been established by her father and others for information leading to her safe return.

Det. Slawomir Markiewicz told the Anchorage Daily News that two Anchorage detectives had been in Texas for several days prior to the arrest working on the case.

The Daily News reported that Markiewicz would not say if Keyes matched the description of the man seen in the video.

"He's the only person we charged, and the only person of interest," the newspaper quoted him as saying. "And the biggest thing at this time is that we haven't found Samantha Koenig and we don't know her whereabouts."

Missing barista abducted from coffee stand, Anchorage police say

The Anchorage detectives will remain in Texas for several more days serving search warrants, he said. When asked if the arrest meant police are closer now to finding Koenig, Markiewicz replied, "Of course."

Keyes, who has also lived in Washington state, was arrested in a restaurant parking lot in front of onlookers, according to Lufkin television station KTRE which first reported the story.

It said he was first pulled over after committing a traffic violation, following which investigators found enough evidence in the vehicle to arrest Keyes for suspected kidnapping, it reported.

Keyes' website says he moved to Alaska in 2007 and is "yet to have a dissatisfied customer". There was no answer at the Anchorage telephone number on the website when msnbc.com called.

The Anchorage Daily News said neither Markiewicz nor Koenig's father know how Keyes might have known Koenig.

"We haven't found evidence linking him to her," Markiewicz told the newspaper. "We don't know if he knew her before (she disappeared)."

He added: "As I've said before, I believe this case will be solved. This is a step toward that goal, a big step."

Reuters and msnbc.com staff contributed to this report.

A backcountry ski guide was killed in an avalanche in steep mountains near the southeast Alaska town of Haines, Alaska state troopers said.

Robert Liberman, 35, of Telluride, Colo., was buried by the slide Tuesday morning and died at the scene, the troopers said.

---

Liberman was among six people helicopter-skiing in an area known as Takhin Ridge. The region has become increasingly popular with skiers paying for helicopter services to reach undeveloped terrain.

Another of the six skiers was also buried and was "clinging to life" after being dug out, Haines radio station KHNS reported in a broadcast monitored by the Anchorage Daily News.

He was transported to a hospital in Seattle, Wash., for medical treatment. The injured person was not identified pending notification of relatives.

Liberman was a guide with Haines-based Alaska Heliskiing. In a profile posted on the company's website, he described himself as a former University of Colorado ski racer and an all-around outdoors enthusiast. "Alaska has always been the mecca and after my first pilgrimage in 2005, I have been returning more appreciative and humbled each year," he wrote.

All of the skiers were wearing avalanche beacons.

Liberman was the first person killed in an Alaska avalanche this winter, according to statistics kept by the Alaska Avalanche Information Center.

Five people died in Alaska avalanches during the 2010-2011 winter and spring season, according to the center. One of those killed was a backcountry skier near Haines, while three were mountain climbers in Denali National Park. The fifth was a hiker on a mountain in the Anchorage area.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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A 3-year-old girl from America's northernmost community died and her younger sister suffered hypothermia after their mother and her boyfriend locked the girls inside a bedroom with a window open to temperatures of 30 degrees below zero because the girls had wet their beds, authorities said.

The mother, 28-year-old elementary teacher Esther G. Edwards-Gust, was apparently on the lam Saturday, a day after she and her boyfriend, 29-year-old Richard Tilden Jr., were indicted in the child's death. Tilden was in custody.

The couple shared a home with Edwards-Gust's 1- and 3-year-old daughters in the Inupiat Eskimo community of Barrow.

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Police say the two girls last month were trapped overnight in their bedroom with a window open to temperatures that dropped to 30 degrees below zero. According to KTUU-TV in Anchorage, both children were diagnosed with extreme hypothermia and flown to an Anchorage hospital, where the 3-year-old died.

Tilden later told authorities he'd been drinking the night before and opened the bedroom window to air out the room because the girls wet their beds, according to court documents. He also said the door's latch was broken, making it impossible for anyone inside the room to open it.

A grand jury on Friday indicted Tilden and Edwards-Gust on charges including manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide. Tilden also faces second-degree murder and assault charges. He was arrested last month.

A warrant has been issued for Edwards-Gust's arrest. Police didn't immediately return a message Saturday, and a home listing for Barrow's police chief was disconnected. A person who answered the phone at the borough jail said Edwards-Gust was not in custody there.

Tilden called 911 when he discovered the 3-year-old was unresponsive and not breathing Feb. 2.

Officers said Tilden smelled of alcohol when they were at the apartment, court documents said. The news was first reported by the Anchorage Daily News.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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