The Valdez Star - Serving Prince William Sound and Copper River Basin

The US Coast Guard has disputed last week’s report from the Valdez Fire Dept. that stated a large amount of oil-contaminated water had overflowed into the waters of Port Valdez when the crew of the...

The Valdez City Council voted 4-2 last Thursday to raise the property taxes to 20 mills. The move came during a special meeting held Thursday, June 6. Last year, council lowered the rate to 18.3 mills for 2012. Council members Donna Schantz and...

Hospital hires new administrator Barbara Bigelow has been named new administrator of Providence Valdez Medical Center, PVMC. Bigelow will take the reigns over the hospital in Valdez August 5...

The tenth installment of the Valdez Relay for Life was colorful. Teams and individuals didn’t just walk the traditional track in the effort to raise money for cancer research under the umbrella of the American Cancer Society; this year, some...

The trans-Alaska pipeline system (TAPS) has been accessed at a taxable value of $11,874,014,300. Yes, that’s in billions. And well over $2 billion of that property is located within the city limits of Valdez. Oil property taxes pay for the...

Old man winter is not yet done frustrating Alaskans; ice conditions upstream from the Miles Lake was blamed for a low salmon count late last month for sockeyes returning to the Copper River. This caused a one-week delay in the long-anticipated openin...

The Friends of the Valdez Animal Shelter (FVAS) had been planning to hold a much-needed mobile clinic to spay and neuter dogs and cats in the Copper Basin for a long time. The need was there, but...

Early season halibut fishing will get a boost late next week as anglers converge on Valdez in hopes of being the angler to catch the largest halibut June 14-23. The Halibut Hullabaloo winners will be in the running for special prizes that week, in...

Every summer, Alaska’s glaciers melt and send vast quantities of water gushing through silty gray rivers, past towns and villages and finally into the sea. Some glaciers calve directly into the...

Valdez police chief Bill Comer said he does not believe the student accused of bringing a loaded handgun to Gilson Middle School earlier this month intended to harm anyone. “I don’t think there was a lot of malicious intent,” he said, noting...

The competition to win the weekly prizes in the Valdez Halibut Derby is already quite stiff going into the second week of the season, with a 106 pound flat fish taking first place the first week, and...

When the Valdez High Scholl Class of 2013 picked Adam Sharrai as this year’s commencement speaker, they expected one last quiz before they were done with school for good. The academic decathlon coac...

Now into its third decade, the Last Frontier Theatre Conference continues to grow and thrive under the guidance of the event’s host, Prince William Sound Community College. The fact that each year veteran attendees call each conference 'the best...

Calm prevailed during a lockdown of all three schools in Valdez a week ago Tuesday after a loaded handgun was found in a student restroom at Gilson Middle School. “It was discovered by a student,” Jacob Jensen, district superintendent, confirmed...

So, the miles and piles of snow lingering in town might not realize the calendar says it’s spring, but anglers in the Valdez Halibut Derby do. Justin Hoppe of Valdez is one such man; he hit Prince...

Japanese natural gas consortium eyes Valdez Valdez Mayor Dave Cobb said representatives from the Japanese natural gas buying consortium REI will be visiting Valdez this coming Tuesday. The visit is...

The trick to getting a good ice core is to drill straight down into the sea ice, continually clear the slush gurgling up from the ocean, correctly reassemble the core fragments on the tray, take its...

Valdez police will be spending a night searching all three Valdez schools tonight after a loaded hand gun was found in a student bathroom at Gilson Middle School earlier this afternoon. As a...

High School lunch cut to half hour Students at Valdez High School will have to make due with a shorter lunch period when they return to classes next school year after the board of education approved...

Late last night, Valdez police reported that a student who brought a loaded firearm to Gilson Middle School Tuesday has been identified and interviewed. All three schools in Valdez were put on a lockdown status around 2 p.m. Tuesday afternoon after...

After years – some say decades – of planning, delays, and two municipal votes, the project that will result in a new middle school in Valdez has taken on a sense of urgency, as school officials begin scrambling to prepare to hand the keys of the...

(AP) Sixty-six years after Bill Egan retired from military service, his family finally received his discharge papers. Egan, who hailed from Valdez and later became Alaska’s first governor after stat...

Valdez man Nicholas Huff was arrested by Anchorage police last Wednesday following his release from Alaska Native Medical Center where he had been hospitalized since April 22, receiving treatment for a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Huff had been in...

Devon Totemoff was indicted by the Palmer grand jury after Valdez police filed formal drug charges against the 28-year old woman following a police investigation that began when large quantities of cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine were found in a...

Anyone that has started but not finished the rounds of testing needed to earn a general education diploma, commonly called the GED, should get back on track and finish the testing well before the end...