Tourism

Haines has some of the lowest cruise ship moorage fees in Southeast Alaska. And last month the borough assembly approved further lowering those fees for three summers. The assembly accepted a resolution that would give 50 percent off waivers to all cruise ships for a three-year time period. It’s part of a marketing plan to draw more ships to Haines.

This summer, Haines sees about one or two cruise ships each week. Depending on their size, the vessels pay around $3,000 to pull into port. The resolution the borough assembly passed would give a 50 percent discount on that fee in the summers of 2017 to 2019.

“We need a stronger incentive package to attract ships,” said Haines Tourism Director Leslie Ross. “Why a waiver? We have an empty dock.  We have one ship per week; we have this gorgeous dock that we sunk $6 million dollars into. It’s not just going to affect tour operators; it affects our businesses, our restaurants. It’s a business expansion that goes across the entire town.”

Ross said Haines has tough competition for cruise ship traffic, with Skagway and Juneau nearby. Both of those towns are ‘tier one’ ports. They have destinations like Skagway’s White Pass and Yukon Railroad that financially benefit cruise lines. Ross says going to cruise lines with a moorage discount will strengthen her pitch for Haines and hopefully boost cruise ship traffic long-term.

In 2012, the borough assembly approved waiving docking fees for two new ships for the 2015 season – the Golden Princess and the Celebrity Infinity. Ross says those ships gave evidence the cruise ship waivers pay for themselves in sales tax.

“When the Golden Princess came in this year, they sold 1,200 tours,” Ross said. “And I know that for a fact. We can estimate an average of $75 per tour. So that’s what we get sales tax off of. So that estimates $4,950 in sales tax just from the tours sold.”

Assemblyman Dave Berry pointed out that the Princess and Infinity only scheduled one or two dockings in Haines this summer. He said in order to make the economy strong enough to support new businesses here, he would want to see the ships come in on a regular basis – more like once a week, not once a summer.

“I need to see where ship number one is not going to come in once, but it’s gonna come in 15 times, ship number two is not going to come in once, it’s gonna come in 12 times,” Berry said.

He suggested a tiered incentive that would motivate cruise ships to schedule multiple dockings. Tour company owner Sean Gaffney responded. He said cruise lines have been reluctant to come to Haines in the past 15 years.

“We’re moving to a place that they’re willing to try, but to give them room to do it, without trying to bind or commit them.” Gaffney said. “And the onus is still on us entirely to show them. I think we’re doing it, but I don’t think we’re a place to demand it.

Gaffney is on the tourism advisory board, which recommended the 50 percent, three-year incentive over two other options because they thought it was the simplest one.

Another question that came up was whether ships that already come to Haines will get fee waivers as well. Assemblyman Ron Jackson said waiving fees for the current ships would mean an estimated $40,000 loss in revenue for the borough.

“I think we need to word this so that it’s about the new ships coming in, not about giving a gift to the ones that are already coming in,” Jackson said.

Assembly member George Campbell disagreed. He said offering the waiver to new ships only could aggravate the current ships and encourage them to dock somewhere else.

Campbell recognized that if the incentive doesn’t draw any new ships to Haines, the borough would suffer a financial loss.

“It has potential to fall on its face and it has great potential to help our economies,” Campbell said.

The majority of the assembly seemed to think the positive potential outweighed the negative. No one moved to change the waiver proposal. The assembly approved the resolution in a 5-1 vote, with Jackson opposed.

That question of whether the 50 percent off deal will actually work won’t be answered for some time. The incentive starts in 2017, because cruise lines have already set their schedules for next summer.

 

For the past seven years, a mosaic of organizations including Bristol Bay Land Trust, Trout Unlimited, and BBEDC have run the Bristol Bay River and Guide Academy to train local kids in the art of fly fishing. The students spend a week at a lodge learning to be guides.

Jet boats hydroplane up the Kulik River and floatplanes skip across Lake Nonvianuk as Kulik Lodge comes alive for a day of fishing. David Parks Jr. of Iliamna is one of the 15 students at the academy. He stands in the crystal clear water of the Kulik with Sarah Pearl.

Sarah: “Could we possibility catch something right now?” David: “Well, I am trying to teach you how to cast first.”

Pearl works as a housekeeper at the Kulik Lodge but today she’ll pretend to be a client so Parks can test out the fly fishing and customer services skills he’s learned this week.

Before this week, Parks had never fly-fished. He always liked fishing but grew up only with a typical rod and reel.

“It was either that or ice fishing,” added Parks.

The first time he had ever picked up a fly rod was the first day of class.

“The next day we had to come out here and fish so I spent like half the time just swaying my rod back and forth just trying to get that perfect swing,” said Parks.

The students had a weeklong crash course in fly-fishing and what it takes to be a guide.

“Like tying flies, and making leaders, and making sure we had all out customer service skills down,” said Parks. “Making sure we got it down in our heads.”

Sonny Peterson is the owner of Kulik Lodge. He currently doesn’t have any Bristol Bay locals working for him but says they add a great value to services that a lodge like his can provide.

“People come up there and ask where you’re from and your guide says he’s from New York or Florida, you know, it doesn’t sound as good if he says he’s from Igiugig or Nondalton,” said Peterson.

The Bristol Bay River and Guide Academy was founded in part by Tim Troll. He also is the head of the Bristol Bay Land Trust. Troll says the time is about right for locals to play a bigger role in the lodge industry.

“It took 70 years in the commercial fishery before locals really broke into the commercial fishery and now the lodge industry has been here about 70 years,” said Troll.

Troll also used to be the President of Chogguing Limited in Dillingham. The native corporation owns a sport fishing lodge and he says shareholders would often ask him why no locals worked in the lodge.

“And I asked the operator that and he said, ‘Well, I need guys who fly fish.’ And Bristol Bay wasn’t producing any local fly fisherman,” said Troll. “There were maybe a handful. So that sort of planted the idea in the back of my head that if we are going to serve the industry, we have to produce somebody who can fly fish.”

In 2008, Troll was finally able to see that idea come to live with the first guide academy. This is the 7th academy and roughly 80 students have gone through the program and 4 have been placed as permanent employees and a few other internships at sport lodges in the region.

Troll says that even if most of the students don’t get jobs at a lodge, they can learn about an industry that is all around them. He says many of these students may someday be leaders in their native corporations, which often own or lease land to lodges.

“Just understanding the industry, how it works, how it operates, and also lodges from the other side understanding what village corporations are all about,” said Troll. “And trying to deal fairly with everybody and make it work.”

He also says it’s a way for the kids to get exposure to people from all over the world.

“The business leaders of the world come here. You get to mingle with these people. And who knows where that could take somebody,” said Troll.

Troll doesn’t think the lodge industry will ever be a major employer in the region but it could be a significant one.

Sonny Peterson, owner of Kulik Lodge, says a major hurtle to hiring locals as guides is that the work is only seasonal.

“You know, a local kid here, it’s tough for them because once this is over, that’s it. And unless they can figure out something to do the rest of the year,” said Peterson.

“It’s hard to have just a seasonal jump with a box of Tide costing 30 or 40 dollars,” echoed David Parks.

Parks will be starting a new job at the post office when he gets back to Iliamna but he would love the chance to work at a lodge if he could.

“If I had a job that would allow me to take a month off in the summer. Maybe I’ll work in the schools. Work at the schools in the winters, be a guide in the summer,” said Parks.

Whatever career path lays ahead for Parks, it’s evident that this academy has left an impression on him. He smiles wide as he talks about his experience at the camp.

“The best part about it was catching that fish with that fly rod with a fly that I tied myself,” said Parks.

Each student at the academy gets a fly rod to take home. Even if it doesn’t work out that Parks can be a guide someday. He says fly-fishing is a new skill he’ll enjoy showing off to his friends at home.

 

This story was updated at 5:04 p.m. to reflect that the victims’ bodies have been recovered.

The bodies of all nine victims of a floatplane crash near Ketchikan have been recovered. The floatplane, which was carrying eight cruise ship passengers, crashed into the side of a steep mountain in Misty Fiords National Monument Thursday

 

The deHavilland Otter lost contact about noon that day with its home-base at Promech Air, a Ketchikan-based tour company. The authorities immediately were contacted to start searching.

The plane soon was spotted on a cliff, about 800 feet uphill from Ella Lake — a popular recreation spot with a U.S. Forest Service-maintained cabin. That became the base of operations for the rescue effort.

Chris John is incident commander with Ketchikan Volunteer Rescue Squad. He said weather conditions worked against them the day of the crash, plus the crash site was challenging. They used a helicopter to get as close as possible, then started hiking.

“It took them nearly an hour the first time because of conditions, but also finding the best route across, because the terrain varies from forested area to slides to slippery, muddy slope,” he said. “So, where you’re going across there, you have to gear up for the conditions as you walk along, including sometimes roping up.”

They got to the plane nearly six hours after the initial call, and discovered that everyone on board had been killed.

At that point, it was still raining and starting to get dark. So, rescue crews pulled back and went home to rest and regroup for a recovery effort the next day.

John said crews were back on the scene mid-morning, following a briefing with various response agencies. The weather was better and they already had a route to the site, so this time, it only took about half an hour to hike over to the plane.

Now that the bodies have been retrieved, John said they’ll be taken to a U.S. Coast Guard boat, and then brought to Ketchikan. From there the bodies will be flown to Anchorage for examination by the state Medical Examiner.

Alaska State Troopers and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the crash. An NTSB team has traveled to Ketchikan, but Spokesman Keith Holloway said it will take a while to determine the cause of the crash.

There is a lot of information that needs to be gathered first.

“Looking at the aircraft, looking to see if there are any fractures on the metal, looking for navigational equipment, to see what the instruments were reading at the time of the accident, any clues that we can gain to find out what may have caused this accident,” he said.

Holloway said the Otter is too small to have a flight data recorder, or black box, on board. But NTSB will look into communications between the plane and any air traffic control service on the ground.

He said weather is a possible factor in the crash.

At deadline, the crash victims had not been named. Alaska State Troopers Spokeswoman Megan Peters said their names will be released as each body is positively identified and after next of kin have been notified.

The Sitka Assembly on Tuesday night directed the city to explore how it might take on the functions of the Sitka Convention and Visitors Bureau.

The SCVB has been operating under a cloud of uncertainty since February. That’s when the assembly voted to dissolve the bureau and issue a bid for an outside entity to do its work marketing Sitka and coordinating visitor services.

That request for proposals was issued, and there was only one bid — from the bureau itself, in the process of transforming itself into an independent nonprofit.

But city administrator Mark Gorman said the bid was “non-responsive.” The budget was too high, and the bureau didn’t have its nonprofit status in order.

So the assembly faces several options. It can seek other bids, continue on as-is or absorb the bureau’s functions into city government.

Gorman said he reluctantly supports that last option.

“I think status quo is not good,” he told the assembly. “The current situation is not functioning well. That’s why I was directed several months ago to try to find a new option. And so to continue the current system, knowing that there is dysfunction, in terms of it being a quasi-government service, but I don’t have oversight of what’s happening there, is problematic.”

Several local business owners spoke against dissolving the bureau, saying it provides a crucial service in advertising Sitka and connecting visitors with their businesses. Bureau director Tonia Rioux warned the assembly against putting the bureau’s work at risk.

“Once you start outsourcing things like this, or if you split it up, you lose the momentum that’s been happening through the visitors bureau,” she said. “Destination marketing is something that you can’t understand unless you work in it a lot.”

But assembly members said they are uncomfortable dedicating city money — about $300,000 in bed taxes in the current fiscal year — to an organization over which they have little oversight or control.

“Now, almost finishing my third year on the assembly, I still don’t really understand how the money gets spent at the SCVB,” said member Matt Hunter. “I don’t know how much people make, I’ve not seen a line-item budget … I don’t understand how the city money is getting spent.”

The assembly asked city staff to return at the July 14th meeting with a plan to absorb some of the visitor services into Harrigan Centennial Hall while contracting out most marketing. In the meantime, the bureau will be funded through September 30th.

 

Did you know some cruise ships are allowed to discharge wastewater while anchored or tied up in port? State officials and industry representatives say it’s safe. But critics fear it’s fouling local harbors.

The Norwegian Pearl pulls up at one of Ketchikan’s cruise ship berths. Many of its nearly 2,400 passengers head out onto the docks.

Toby Hatcher of Portland, Oregon, is one. He says the ship encourages environmental awareness through recycling, low-flush toilets and other means.

“You have to request for your sheets to be changed or reuse your towel, so I hang up my towels and my washcloth. So you just save one for the whole week,” he says.

A regular Alaska cruiser, he’s aware of other efforts to control pollution. But he says he hasn’t thought much about how this and other ships discharge what comes out of the floating city’s toilets, sinks and laundries.

“I guess I’d prefer them not to do it in general at all. However, if they are going to do it, I’d prefer them not to do it right here, where they’re dock,” he says.

But, in fact, they do.

The Pearl is one of a dozen large cruise ships allowed to discharge treated wastewater in Ketchikan, Juneau and some other Alaska harbors this year.

Six, including the Pearl, have permits covering treated sewage, called blackwater. Those ships, plus six others, also have permits to discharge kitchen, laundry and shower runoff, also known as graywater.

The state Department of Environmental Conservation issues the permits for “stationary discharges” under new rules that took effect late last summer.

“It has to be treated wastewater through an advanced wastewater treatment system,” says DEC Environmental Program Specialist Ed White.

He says that technology makes it possible to discharge while stationary. Some ships were even allowed to do it under an older, more restrictive permit system. That measured pollutants coming directly out of the ships.

White says the new system allows samples to be taken after being diluted in what’s called a mixing zone. That was proposed by former Gov. Sean Parnell and approved by the legislature in 2013, at the urging of the industry.

“We have some additional requirements for those ships that discharge while stationary. They have to take water samples both on board the ship and also in the water (to measure) what happens in that mixing zone,” he says.

The zone for most harbors is 90 yards from the point of discharge. That’s about a third the length of the Norwegian Pearl.

White says the ships may be stationary, but tides and currents mean the water is not.

“We do have some restrictions. For example, in Skagway, there’s a dock where there would be an overlap. So they either can’t discharge there or they’d get a much smaller mixing zone if they can meet those requirements,” he says.

The dozen ships were issued individual permits while a new general permit system is on appeal.

“We feel that this new general permit does do the citizens of Alaska and the clean water of Alaska a big disservice,” says Daven Hafey of the Southeast Alaska Conservation Council, the region’s largest environmental group.

He says new wastewater treatment systems are an improvement. But they’re not good enough to fully protect fish, shellfish and people.

“Our research shows that Alaska would really be the only place in the entire world that would allow cruise ships of this size to dump those wastes and partially treated waste while tied up to a dock,” he says.

The cruise industry disagrees.

“The water really is virtually drinking water quality when it’s discharged now from the vessels,” says John Binkley, president of the Cruise Lines International Association’s Alaska chapter.

He says releasing treated wastewater in harbors poses no threat.

“It’s a pretty advanced system. The final process in there is sterilization of the water, similar to what they use in hospitals and whatnot. And so it’s really pretty pure water that comes out,” he says.

In addition to the 12 ships granted stationary discharge permits, another six are allowed to discharge while underway, which dilutes the waste further.

In all, 18 ships have the OK to release wastewater this summer. White, of the state Department of Environmental Conservation, says another 14 don’t.

“Typically about half the ships in the last few years hold their wastewater and then treat it in whatever way they have and discharge it offshore,” he says.

Beyond Alaska’s regulatory reach.

White says copper and ammonia are among the pollutants measured.

“There’s always going to be impacts of any human activity, so the goal is to minimize those impacts and to restrict any impacts that could cause significant harm,” he says.

Stronger wastewater treatment standards were part of an initiative passed by Alaska voters in 2006. The current permitting system basically replaces those standards.

SEACC appealed the general permit, though the state rejected all but one of its points. Officials say they don’t know when that will be heard. Meanwhile, individual permits allow the same thing.

 

Alaska’s former top U.S. Coast Guard official will soon head up the world’s largest cruise-industry trade group.

Rear Adm. Thomas Ostebo takes over July 6 as CEO of the Cruise Lines International Association.

Ostebo served as commander of the Coast Guard’s 17th District from 2011 to 2014. The district includes all of Alaska.

The Coast Guard oversees federal laws and regulations relating to the cruise industry.

Ostebo spent the past year as the agency’s strategic management director, based at its Washington, D.C., headquarters. The cruise association’s main office is also in the nation’s capital.

It’s a major force in maritime lobbying, representing more than 60 cruise lines, including most of those sailing Alaska waters.

Ostebo will oversee the association’s 15 worldwide offices, including one in Alaska.