PETERSBURG, ALASKA The U.S. Air Force and a private company have returned to the area for further investigation of a former mountaintop repeater site in Duncan Canal, on Kupreanof Island about eight miles west of Petersburg. Built in 1959, the “White Alice” station was part of a Cold War radio relay system that delivered long range radar information from a base at Clear, Alaska, near Fairbanks, to the North American Aerospace Command in Colorado Springs.
The former manned relay station was demolished and had its buildings removed in 1986. The land was transferred to the U.S. Forest Service in 1987. However fuel drums and abandoned vehicles were discovered at the site in 1999 nearer to the beach, and close to several hunting cabins. In 2000, the AirForce removed over 100 dumped fuel barrels from the site. However, there may be spilled oil and fuel remaining in the area, as well as some lead and p-c-bs in the surface soil. The air force has 39 sites its cleaning it’s monitoring or cleaning up around alaska…but the duncan canal site is the service branch’s only cleanup site in southeast.
Joe Viechnicki spoke with Air Force civilians Lori Roy, the project manager, and community relations coordinator Tommie Baker about the cleanup effort.