Interior Ferry Bill Moves out of House Transportation Committee
4-27-07
Tim Bodony (KIYU)
 

Yesterday (Thursday), the House Transportation Committee discussed, and ultimately approved, a bill calling for a feasibility study on running state-owned ferries on the Yukon and Kuskokwim Rivers.   

House Bill 80 is sponsored by Representative Woodie Salmon, whose district covers most of the villages that would be served by the river ferries.   

Salmon believes that an interior ferry system would provide cheaper energy and cheaper transportation to the villages.  As he told fellow members of his committee Thursday, ferry service would encourage more resource development along the rivers, and could be a route for delivering North Slope natural gas to Interior and Western Alaska. 

The bill does not commit the state to actually expanding the marine highway system to the Interior – it only calls on the Department of Transportation to study the costs and benefits of such an expansion. 

And the cost of the feasibility study itself alarmed some of the members of the House Transportation Committee.  The most recent fiscal note attached to House Bill 80 estimates a cost of 1 million dollars over two years for the study. 

Committee member Anna Faircloth from Anchorage said that she is sympathetic to the fact that villages don’t have the transportation options that urban Alaska enjoys.  But she stated that the Department of Transportation has more pressing needs, like fixing the existing marine highway system – which loses tens of millions of dollars per year. 

Faircloth: "I am concerned that we would go study something for another million dollars.  We have a system right now that is bearing incredibly on state DOT's budget, and we are having trouble maintaining the road system with the maintenance dollars that are allowed to it. So I am hard pressed to ask the Department to study something [after] they have pretty much presented that we need to make a policy decision on whether or not to maintain the current ferry system."

Anchorage Representative Mike Doogan agreed that the million dollar price tag is too high, given all the knowledge about operating on the rivers that already exists. 

Doogan: "We're not talking about running the rivers on Mars here. It seems to me like it would take a million dollar feasibility study to figure out if we can do 105 years later what people were doing before we have a lot of the technology that we have now."

DOT was represented at the hearing by Director of Program Development Jeff Ottesen.  Responding to a question about why DOT can’t do the feasibility study in-house, relying on existing expertise, Ottesen explained that a river ferry system would be something new and different for DOT to manage. 

The amended version of House Bill 80 that moved out of the transportation committee requires that a feasibility study examine some emerging technologies, which could overcome some of the challenges of river operations.  One such technology is the E-craft.   

Short for Expeditionary Craft, the E-craft is a propeller-driven ship that can change its shape depending on its intended purpose. By raising or lowering a middle deck, it can function as a high-speed catamaran on the ocean, or a low-speed, shallow-draft freight hauler in shallow water.  

The Navy's Office of Naval Research ordered a prototype, which is currently under construction at Alaska Ship and Drydock in Ketchikan.  Expected to be complete next year, for a total cost of around 50 million dollars, the prototype will go into commercial service as a ferry between Anchorage and the Mat Su Borough, crossing the shallow and muddy stretches of Knik Arm.   

Alaska Ship and Drydock Director of Business Development Doug Ward testified before the committee, and noted that the E-craft has some features that would lend themselves nicely to the Yukon and Kuskokwim – including a draft as low as 3 feet. 

Ward: "It will be the world's first high strengthened, twin hull vessel. It also has a variable geometry which allows it to have variable draft.   In this type of river application, that can be very handy. But perhaps the most useful aspect of the vessel is its ability to land passengers and vehicles on nothing more complex than an unimproved beach or even a boat ramp."  

Using a vessel that wouldn’t require the state to build docks and other facilities in the villages could potentially lower the start-up costs of an Interior Ferry system – depending on the eventual price tag of the E-craft or similar type of vessel.   

The state experimented with hovercraft on the Kuskokwim River in the 1970s, without success.   

Public testimony on the bill came from two well-known residents of the middle Yukon area.   

Richard Burnham from Kaltag expressed his support for a ferry system, along the lines of improving transportation. 

Burnham: "It's a idea whose time has come. The present systems of transportation have gotten to be, especially in this area, sporadic at best, and very expensive.  And for a lot of purposes that people have needs for, it is very difficult to use the present systems." 

And George Attla Jr. from Huslia called in to speak in favor of a river ferry system, which he regards as a good way to ensure the survival of the villages. 

Attla: "We can't have any economy out here, as long as the freight is as high as it is. We are supporting the barge lines out here. If they weren't making money, they wouldn't be here. But as a people have to have some way to bring the cost of living out here down."  

The House Transportation Committee’s endorsement of the bill is only the first step in a process that could bring the measure to a vote on the House floor.  The bill now goes to House Finance Committee, where a closer scrutiny will occur on the costs associated with the bill. 

An earlier version of the bill got to the House Finance Committee last session, but didn’t move past that.