Fri., March 10 and Sat., March 11

7:30pm • At the Big DipperIce Dogs vs Minnesota Magicians

ICE DOG HOCKEY

Come watch the Dogs battle for a playoff spot!

The Fastest Game in town...

Friday sponsored by:Renewable Energy SystemsSaturday sponsored by:Gene’s Chrysler

Tickets available at Eielson Community Center, Ft. Wainwright- ASYMCA, Play It Again Sports, Sport King, Fairbanks

Community Museum, Gene’s Chrysler

F12516906

SOURDOUGH JACK:

“I could stop one kind of pollution by just not talking.”

The weather.

Today: Partly sunny

with a slight chance

of snow. Highs in the

teens. Tonight: Most-

ly cloudy. Lows zero

to 15 below.

High today .............. 14

Low tonight ............ -9

WEATHER » A5

GOODMORNING

Classified » C1-4 | Comics » C6 | Dear Abby » C5 | Faith » B3 | Markets » B4 | Obituaries » A3 | Opinion » A6 INSIDE

• • •

Economic summit participants address housing for inlux of Air Force personnel. » A4Inside Today

PREP HOOPSHigh schools begin

conference tourneys

SPORTS

Page D1

• • •

This information is provided

by aurora forecasters at

the Geophysical Institute

at the University of Alaska

Fairbanks. For more infor-

mation about the aurora,

visit http://www.gi.alaska.

edu/AuroraForecast

One dollar newsminer.comFRIDAY, MARCH 10, 2017

T H E V O I C E O F I N T E R I O R A L A S K A

Auroral activity will

be moderate. Weather

permitting, moderate

displays will be visible

overhead from Utqiagvik

to as far south as Talk-

eetna and visible low on

the horizon as far south

as Bethel, Soldotna and

southeast Alaska.

Firms report major oil find on North SlopeBy Matt BuxtonMBUXTON

@NEWSMINER.COM

Spanish oil compa-ny Repsol and explor-er Armstrong Energy announced Thursday the discovery of what they said was the biggest onshore oil discovery the United States has seen in 30 years.

The find on state oil leases in the Nanushuk play on the North Slope

could hold as much as 1.2 billion barrels of recov-erable light oil, according to a Repsol news release.

The finds came after this winter’s drilling of Horseshoe wells east of the Colv i l le Riv-er and about 20 miles south from the Beau-fort Sea coast. The well is an extension from the existing Pikka unit on the coast that the two had been exploring.

Repsol has been active-

ly exploring in Alaska since 2008 and began drilling with Armstrong in 2011.

The announcement notes that the first pro-duction from the find could make its way into the trans-Alaska oil pipe-line system in 2021, with a rate near 120,000 bar-rels of oil per day.

Throughput in the pipeline system has been on a long decline but saw an uptick in 2016 to

average about 517,000 barrels of oil per day. The greates t throughput occurred Jan. 14, 1988, when 2,145,297 barrels moved through the pipe-line.

The announcement was met with broadly positive reactions from Alaska’s elected officials.

“ I a p p l a u d t h e announcement by Rep-sol and its partner, Arm-strong, on their Horse-shoe wells discovery,”

Gov. Bill Walker said in a statement. “This is also great news for the state of Alaska, which yielded $ 17 m i l l i o n i n o u r December lease sales.”

The issue announce-ment will factor into the legislative debate on the state’s oil tax credit system, which has been criticized for costing the state too much with little guarantee of production.

Members of the bipar-tisan majority in the

House also welcomed the announcement but stressed that it makes it even more important for the state to rework the tax credit system.

“These new oil dis-coveries also have the potential to devastate the budget if we contin-ue a system that requires the state of Alaska to pay billions of dollars in costs with no assurances

OIL » A3

Borough debates smoke pollution measureBy Amanda BohmanABOHMAN@NEWSMINER.COM

The assembly spent late

Thursday picking apart an ordinance aimed at making stricter rules for burning wood and coal in the Fair-banks North Star Borough.

Assembly members took up numerous amendments to borough Mayor Karl Kas-sel’s ordinance, but the panel did not get to a final vote by press time.

Ordinance 2017-18 is Kas-sel’s latest attempt at com-batting the ongoing problem of smoke pollution.

The measure removes exemptions from wood- burning rules and lowers the threshold for when the bor-ough calls air quality alerts, which trigger burn bans.

A reclassification of the borough from a “moderate” to a “serious” smoke pollu-tion nonattainment area by the federal Environmental Protection Agency is pend-ing, and the municipality has been put on notice to do more about the problem.

The measure drew criti-cism from most of the res-idents — fewer than 10 — who testified.

The main complaint was that it is too punitive.

US ARMY ALASKA WINTER GAMES

Above: Soldiers try to keep their balance while being

pulled by a track rig during the skijoring competition as Fort Wainwright hosts

the annual U.S. Army Alaska Winter Games

on Thursday morning, Battalions from Fort

Wainwright and Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage are competing

in this year’s games, which include downhill ski

racing, live-fire biathlon, stress shooting, Arctic tent erection and cold-weather

casualty aid.

Soldiers strap their bunny boots into ski bindings, above, and pound stakes into the frozen ground while setting up a 10-person tent, left.ERIC ENGMAN/

NEWS-MINER PHOTOS

Assembly rebuffs change to zoning buffers, relaxes tax-break rulesBy Amanda BohmanABOHMAN

@NEWSMINER.COM

The assembly rejected a proposal to increase the buffer distance between marijuana businesses and technical and trade schools that draw minors.

Also on Thursday, the panel approved a revamped economic development tax break for the Fairbanks North Star Borough.

The marijuana propos-al was brought forward by Assemblymen Matt Coo-per and Lance Roberts.

They aimed to raise the buffer distance from 200 feet to 500 feet for techni-cal and trade schools that attract students 18 and younger.

T h e a s s e m b l y m e n wanted to put the buffer distance in line with what is in place for elementary,

middle and high schools.“We should be treating

K-12 program for stu-dents the same way we are treating schools,” Coo-per said.

Assemblyman Guy Sat-tley joined the sponsors in favoring the measure, but it failed in a 3-5 vote.

Every person who testi-fied about the ordinance — fewer than 10 — was against it.

Daniel Peters, who owns the marijuana retail store GoodSinse, said approval of the measure

ZONING » A3

POLLUTION » A5