Southcentral

A powerful state senator from Bethel introduced a bill last year for the state to take over Anchorage’s port, where most of the physical stuff shipped to Alaska arrives.

Still awaiting consideration, Senate Bill 155 would take ownership of that critical infrastructure away from the city and give it to the state, potentially through eminent domain. State Sen. Lyman Hoffman, a Bethel Democrat, is the bill’s unofficial sponsor, but he has so far not publicly talked about it.

And now about eight months later, with the Legislature gearing up for its next session, Anchorage officials are still in the dark about why state lawmakers would pick this fight.

“The state’s gonna do what the state’s gonna do and it’s gonna be the legal fight of the century when we demand that they provide consideration for the taking, if they in fact move on that goal,” Anchorage Assembly Chair Chris Constant said. “It will be a very interesting fight.”

The state Senate spent about 14 seconds last May introducing the bill for the port takeover. The Senate secretary read SB 155’s title, and the Senate President referred it to two committees.

That was the entirety of the public discussion the Legislature has had about the bill. It was lawmakers’ last day in regular session.

“This was quite a shock,” Constant said during a briefing in July.

“I was also surprised,” said Wendy Chamberlain, the city’s state lobbyist.

And, as Port of Alaska spokesperson Jim Jager put it last week, “We were as surprised as anybody when it floated up.”

(If you’re wondering, yes, for now, it’s called the Port of Alaska, but the city of Anchorage owns and operates it. By weight, about half of all goods that enter the state arrive there).

Assembly member Meg Zaletel chairs the local committee that oversees the port. She invited Sen. Hoffman to discuss it in her committee. In November, a Hoffman staffer told her in an email that they weren’t ready.

Staff in Hoffman’s office said no one would be available for an interview for this story, either, until the Legislature goes back into session.

The bill proposes creating a public corporation called the Port of Alaska Authority. It would be run by a board appointed by the governor, legislative leaders, and Anchorage’s local elected officials.

The bill also pays some special attention to an unresolved lawsuit between the city and a federal agency that was responsible for overseeing a botched port expansion project that began in the early 2000s. A trial court judge decided in 2022 that the feds owe the city more than $367 million. The feds appealed, and the parties are working on scheduling oral arguments in federal appeals court.

The bill says the cash-strapped state would pick up the legal costs to continue fighting the case, as well as whatever money the federal government ends up paying the city.

Port Director Steve Ribuffo said his office has not been contacted about the potential port takeover.

“So far, we’ve not been asked one way or another about how we feel about this,” Ribuffo said. “And because it falls into the policy category, and we don’t make policy here, I’m not going to take a position on it. We’re gonna execute whatever the powers that be say is the best way ahead.”

The next legislative session begins Jan. 16.

In the meantime, Mayor Dave Bronson’s chief of staff, Mario Bird, said the administration remains opposed to giving up the port.

“That is not something that the taxpayers of Anchorage have expected for the last 50 or 60 years,” Bird said. “And the administration’s position is that the taxpayers should be respected.”

A proposal to rename the Port of Alaska the “Don Young Port of Anchorage” had seen little public controversy, until the Anchorage Assembly’s last meeting.

That’s when the Assembly found itself wrestling with a panel’s recommendation and a proposed compromise before deciding to postpone making a decision indefinitely. There was no consensus at the Dec. 19 Assembly meeting about what, if anything, to do next.

A previous Assembly had changed the name to “Port of Alaska” in 2017 as a symbolic move, in part to convey to legislators who fund infrastructure projects the port’s importance to the entire state. Most freight, fuel and consumer goods that come to Alaska flow through the port.

When Congressman Don Young died in March of 2022, Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson proposed another renaming to honor Young.

The mayor and Assembly appointed a panel to look into it and make a recommendation. The panel unanimously recommended “The Don Young Port of Anchorage.”

Then, the night of Dec. 19, multiple issues kept the Assembly from voting.

First, some said, Don Young could behave like a jerk.

“Don Young had his day for Alaska, but he aged into someone who was insensitive, a bully and who disrespected women,” said Assembly member Karen Bronga. “Rewarding a public figure for this bad behavior because he brought the state money is not in the best interest of our city. The naming of a volcano after him is, in my opinion, way more fitting.”

The audience laughed.

Member George Martinez said he struggled with the proposal. He acknowledged that Young helped a lot of people. But Martinez, who is Afro-Latino, also said  Young denigrated people who look like him and used a racial slur for Latinos in a 2013 interview.

Second, there was debate over changing “Port of Alaska” back to “Port of Anchorage.”

“Ports and airports are named after cities, not states,” said Jim Jansen, chairman of the Lynden transportation companies and a member of the port renaming panel. “Alaska has 17 active ports, with Anchorage being the largest, handling about 50% of all of Alaska’s maritime cargo. But it is not the port for all of Alaska. It is disingenuous to name the port after our state.”

City code also discourages renaming a public place within 20 years of the last renaming.

Several Assembly members were frustrated by how singularly focused the renaming panel had been. Assembly member Anna Brawley said the recommendation seemed like a foregone conclusion from the outset.

“Practically speaking, it is impossible to say no to the members of a grieving family once the name is out in public,” Brawley said. “That is the reality.”

The process highlighted flaws of the city’s old ad-hoc renaming process, Brawley said.

The Assembly adopted a new process in September intended to create a more deliberate, fair, thoughtful and consistent process for naming requests like this one. Now, requests are supposed to be run through a new Public Naming Commission.

The latest port renaming proposal began before the new process was created, though. And the new commission only exists on paper. Its members haven’t been picked yet.

Bronson’s Chief of Staff Mario Bird argued that abandoning the panel’s proposal discounted its work, as well as Young’s 49-year run of election wins and Alaska’s current congressional delegation’s wishes.

“Love him or hate him, Don Young achieved an order of magnitude as a statesman in Alaska that should be recognized,” Bird said.

The mayor’s office did not respond to a request for comment about its next step on the renaming effort. The Assembly plans to reconsider its vote to postpone indefinitely at its next meeting on Jan. 9. If the reconsideration goes through, Assembly Chair Chris Constant says he intends to hold a work session to review options before a final vote in February.

Young was 88 when he died. He was the most senior member of Congress at the time, representing Alaska in the House of Representatives continuously since 1973.

Before the days of a reliable road system, much of the Kenai Peninsula could only be accessed via boat. A popular but challenging entry point from Cook Inlet is the Kasilof River, which has been used by mariners since the construction of the peninsula’s first salmon cannery in the late 1800s. With an increase in vessel traffic, the Coast Guard added two navigation beacons in the form of kerosene lanterns near the mouth of the river in 1929.

Light from the two-foot-tall lanterns could be seen up to five miles away. They operated seasonally, and were maintained by local citizen lamp lighters until they were replaced by electric beacons in 1962. They are believed to be the last oil-burning lanterns used for navigation purposes on the American coast.

“The river channel is pretty squirrelly, because Cook Inlet has so much sediment, and it has such huge tides that there’s no direct line from offshore into the mouth of the river,” said Catherine Cassidy, secretary of the Kasilof Regional Historical Association. “Even today, on charts, they said that local knowledge is very important for navigating into the river.”

After the lanterns were retired, the Coast Guard offered them to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C. Kasilof Regional Historical Association President Brent Johnson orchestrated bringing the artifacts back home. He suspects they were never put on display at the institute.

“I thought ‘I’ll bet you they’re sitting in a backroom that nobody ever looks at at the Smithsonian, when they could be here in our museum where they belong,’” Johnson said.

Johnson, who now sits on the Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly and serves as its president, says he remembers seeing the lanterns in use while duck hunting as a child. Cassidy says she was unaware of the existence of the lanterns, and was doubtful they could be located at the Smithsonian.

“They not only could locate them in their storage right away, they said they would be happy to have these lanterns back in Kasilof where they are meaningful to people,” Cassidy said. “They were really delighted to give them to us, it’s so cool.”

The Kasilof Historical Museum acquired the kerosene lanterns this fall and is working to create a display for the artifacts. Historical association members believe these lanterns are a symbol of the peninsula’s maritime history that is still relevant today.

“This is old history encapsulated in these lanterns,” Cassidy said. “It’s an ongoing part of our community to have access to this river.”

“History changes,” Johnson said. “One thing that is super important at one point in history becomes less important at another point. I think those navigational lights are still important because people are still using the Kasilof River.”

The Kasilof Historical Museum is located on Kalifornsky Beach Road in Kasilof, a half mile north of the Sterling Highway. The museum is open 1 to 4 p.m. every day Memorial Day through Labor Day. You can view the lanterns beginning this summer.

An unusual offering of royalty-free oil and gas leases in the Cook Inlet basin drew a few bids, with state officials this week describing the experiment as successful.

Bids for six tracts were submitted in the annual lease sale for the Cook Inlet region, Alaska’s oldest producing oil and gas basin, the state Division of Oil and Gas announced on Wednesday.

The six leases sold cover about 15,000 acres, and bids submitted totaled $599,934, according to results released by the division. Hilcorp Alaska LLC, the dominant Cook Inlet region operator, acquired three of the leases. The other three were acquired by HEX Cook Inlet LLC, an Alaska-based independent energy company that became a natural gas producer in 2020 when it acquired bankrupt Furie Operating LLC.

Unlike past lease sales, which stipulate that production from acquired leases pay state royalties generally ranging between 12.5% and 16.67%, terms in this annual Cook Inlet sale skipped the royalty requirements. Instead, they have requirements for profit-sharing from future production. Another unusual feature of the sale was the fixed rate of $40 per acre.

The terms were designed to induce more natural gas production in the aged Southcentral Alaska basin to supply a population center, which includes the state’s largest city, that is facing a potential shortage in the future.

The number of bids received was similar to those received in recent years’ state Cook Inlet lease sales. The last big showing for a state Cook Inlet areawide lease sale was in 2014, with 32 tracts leased.

In a statement, Department of Natural Resources Commissioner John Boyle said the unusual lease terms for Cook Inlet are part of a wider strategy that includes legislation proposed by Gov. Mike Dunleavy that would cut Cook Inlet royalty rates more broadly.

“Taking an innovative approach with these new Cook Inlet lease terms is one of the levers that DNR can pull to help make oil and gas production more attractive, so we hope it will gather increasing interest as producers have more time to evaluate this opportunity,” Boyle said in the statement. “We will continue to pull every lever we can, and to advance the Governor’s proposed legislation and other initiatives, to help meet our in-state energy needs.”However, some lawmakers have expressed skepticism about the royalty-free leasing and other Cook Inlet incentives.”

State Sen. Scott Kawasaki, D-Fairbanks, said that past Cook Inlet-focused legislation did little to stimulate production.

“I would have expected much more at this point,” he said Thursday. He noted that he “wasn’t too enthusiastic” about the royalty-free lease idea and that the sale results were in line with that impression. “I don’t think we should pat ourselves on the back at this point,” he said.

Sen. Bill Wielechowski, D-Anchorage, had a similar assessment of the royalty-free terms.

“It didn’t look like it had much of an impact,” he said.

Wielechowski said an emphasis on reducing royalties appears to be misguided in Cook Inlet. Companies are already allowed to request reductions in royalties, but they have not opted for that relief, so “it doesn’t seem like it’s the problem,” he said. Rather, the main obstacle to more Cook Inlet natural gas production appears the isolated nature of the market, which makes any big increase in supply uneconomic, he said.

The annual North Slope lease sale, held at the same time, produced a sale of 92 tracts comprising 173,000 acres and yielded over $6.1 million in bids. The annual Beaufort Sea lease sale, for offshore acreage within state territory, sold 12 tracts comprising about 36,000 acres and yielded $1.3 million in high bids.

Smaller independent companies, led by Great Bear Petroleum Ventures II LLC, dominated the bidding.

No bids were submitted for tracts in the North Slope Foothills, the higher-elevation region south of established oil fields, or for the Alaska Peninsula, the division reported.

This story originally appeared in the Alaska Beacon and is republished here with permission.

On normal days, Jim Jager works as a high-level city employee at Anchorage’s port.

But earlier this week, he was doing manual labor along the cross-country ski trails at Kincaid Park, on the western edge of town. Snow was piling up on the course markers, so Jager pulled a leaf blower out of his car.

“I was blowing snow off the v-boards, so that the skiers could see where the trail was,” Jager said.

Jager is one of dozens of Anchorage residents who are volunteering at Kincaid during the ongoing week-long, national-caliber cross-country ski race series, known as the SuperTour. The events, which continue Saturday and Sunday, have drawn Olympians, top-level junior athletes and a contingent from Canada for some of the highest-level races in North America this year.

Good results could help racers qualifying to compete at the World Cup in Minneapolis in February, on the top-level circuit’s first swing through the U.S. in two decades. Typically, World Cup races are held at Scandinavian and Central European venues.

“I mean, it would be a surreal experience to get to race a World Cup on home soil,” said Sammy Smith, 18, a talented Idaho junior who won both Tuesday and Wednesday’s races at Kincaid. “It’s hard for a lot of American racers — they spend their entire winters in Europe, so not a lot of opportunity for family or relatives to come watch.”

The Anchorage cross-country races wouldn’t be happening without volunteers like Jager — one of many city residents with strong ties to the highest level of the sport.

Jager is an accomplished long-distance ski racer himself; his son Luke is an Olympian who is currently racing in Norway on the World Cup.

Other retired Alaska Olympians were scattered all across Kincaid Park as volunteers and race officials: Adam Verrier was doing play-by-play announcing on the stadium intercom, and Tyler Kornfield was helping to run tests for traces of banned chemicals that, if rubbed onto skis, can help them slide faster.

Also present Tuesday was Kikkan Randall, who won a gold medal at the 2018 Olympics and now heads the Nordic Ski Association of Anchorage, which is organizing the events.

“It takes a big team,” she said. “But thankfully, we’ve got a good group here in Anchorage that just reflexively comes out and does this.”

Randall added that she was a little jealous that her job kept her from spending her day on skis. But, she said, she also remembers how much racing hurts, “so it’s kind of nice to watch.”

Many of the visiting athletes were experiencing Anchorage for their first time, and reviews were positive — even from racers who have competed at scenic European mountain venues.

“I was not expecting this big of a town, at first,” said Liliane Gagnon, a Canadian national team member. “Skiing here at Kincaid, seeing the oceans and the mountains when it’s sunny, it’s really nice, honestly. The trails are awesome. I’m loving it here, so far.”

Befitting Anchorage’s informal status as Cross-Country Ski Town USA, more than a dozen locals are competing this week as part of two Alaska club teams.

Those Alaska athletes usually spend much of the winter on the road, living out of suitcases at Airbnbs in ski towns across the country.

But it turns out that sleeping at home and racing at Kincaid were not as much of an advantage as some expected. Michael Earnhart, a 21-year-old U.S. Ski Team member who trains with the Alaska Pacific University club, said he was initially excited to race in Anchorage.

“But it ended up being kind of weird to not go somewhere else and get that whole lock-into-the-race feeling,” he said. “It’s finals week for me — I was kind of thinking about other things. Normally, you go on a ski trip and it’s just skiing. You can tell teachers, ‘Sorry, I was out skiing.’”

Earnhart still managed a third place in the week’s opening event, a three-minute-long sprint race.

His father, William, was watching from the side of the trail. He’s the board president of the Anchorage ski association, and said that beyond the SuperTour races, he’s looking forward to next winter, when his organization will host the national championships at Kincaid.

“Nordic skiing in Anchorage started with volunteers and racers,” he said. “And that’s what continues it.”

After a two-year-long lawsuit, personal watercraft like Jet Skis are once again banned on Kachemak Bay. An Alaska Superior Court judge ruled against the Alaska Department of Fish and Game in a case earlier this month.

Back in 2020, the Fish and Game repealed a jet ski ban that had been in place for nearly two decades. The ban extended through the Kachemak Bay and Fox River Flats Critical Habitat Areas, This spans nearly 230,000 acres, which covers most waters of the bay, as well as mud flats and marshlands on its northeast section.

Fish and Game Commissioner Doug Vincent-Lang argued that the department had the authority to repeal the ban because since 2001, jet skis changed to where they wouldn’t be more damaging than watercrafts allowed in the bay.

“We didn’t see any potential impact from allowing jet skis,” he said.

The Alaska State Legislature established these areas in the early 70s as especially important for fish and wildlife.

In response, Cook Inletkeeper, Kachemak Bay Conservation Society, Friends of Kachemak Bay State Park and the Alaska Quiet Rights Coalition filed a lawsuit against the department in 2021 to reinstate the ban.

Cook Inletkeeper co-executive director Sue Mauger said they filed the lawsuit over concerns about the jet ski’s impact on the bay compared to other watercraft.

“Just the way that it moves in shallow waters, typical behavior that’s used on those is very different,” she said. “They don’t tend to be a transport from A to B, and they tend to be in groups, and they tend to, again, be in shallower habitats that are really critical for, juvenile fish or nesting birds.”

Judge Adolf Zeman ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, basing the decision on two reasons.

First, the statute establishing critical habitat areas to repeal the jet ski ban did not give the commissioner the authority to repeal the ban.

Second, the order stated repealing the ban was inconsistent with the statute’s intent. In this case, the department has the authority to create and repeal regulations with protecting fish and wildlife in the area as its primary goal. The court decided repealing the ban did not align with that intent.

However, Vincent-Lang still disagrees with the decision.

“We’re very perplexed with the judge’s ruling,” he said. “We seem to have the ability to adopt a regulation that prohibits jet skis, but we don’t have the ability to revisit that regulation based on current science.”

Moving forward, he says the department plans on filing a motion for reconsideration, or to appeal the decision in a higher court.