Transportation

The ferry LeConte is ready to carry paying passengers again.

State transportation officials say the Juneau-based ship will leave Friday morning, Dec. 6, for Haines and Skagway. It will return to its home port later in the day.

They say repairs on the ship’s bow thruster are complete. The LeConte went into drydock in Ketchikan for repairs.

The vessel has been off its schedule since the day before Thanksgiving.

Sailings go to Angoon and Tenakee on Saturday. Sunday is another Haines-Skagway run. And its Monday sailing is to Gustavus and Hoonah.

The bow thruster is scheduled to be replaced next winter.

Brace yourselves for higher airline ticket fees, maybe. In Congress, budget negotiators are trying to craft a deal that would keep the government running and avoid automatic spending cuts without raising taxes. But lawmakers say the deal may include higher user fees, among them, a doubling of the security fee air passengers pay – from $2.50 per flight segment to $5.

Alaska Congressman Don Young says it’s not fair to his constituents:

“We don’t have any highways.  We fly more. There’s really no way we can get around without air, so we’ll be the heaviest taxed, and by the way, again I think that’s unconstitutional.”

He says such an increase should go through the normal congressional committee process, not come locked in as part of a budget bill.

“I’m inclined not to vote for it now [if] that type thing is in the bill,” Young said.

It’s unclear whether negotiators will be able to reach a budget agreement, without or without the air travel fee hike, but the airline industry is fighting back hard. They had leafleteers at the airport nearest the U.S. Capitol this week, handing out airsickness bags with their message on them.

“Are higher taxes on air travel making you sick?”

They say taxes on a typical $300 round trip fare already come to more than $60.

Update: The ferry LeConte will return to service at least a day later than expected. 

Alaska Marine Highway officials say Thursday sailings have been canceled due to ongoing bow-thruster repairs. That was the day it was expected to sail again.

The LeConte is scheduled to complete sea trials late Wednesday, Dec. 4.  

If it passes, the ferry will then head back to Juneau, where it’s based.

Officials say service could begin Friday.

The vessel has been off its schedule since the day before Thanksgiving. 

The LeConte is the only ferry serving Gustavus, Hoonah, Tenakee Springs and Angoon. It sails to Haines and Skagway, which are also served by the ferry Taku. 

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Earlier report: The small ferry LeConte will remain out of service until Thursday.

The Alaska Marine Highway vessel has not sailed passenger runs since the day before Thanksgiving. The problem is a broken bow thruster, which maneuvers the front of the vessel during dockings.

Alaska Transportation Department spokesman Jeremy Woodrow says the LeConte is in drydock at the Ketchikan Shipyard.

“The repair plan is a little more extensive than maybe they originally thought before putting it in drydock. They realized there are some issues where they’re trying to solve the roots of the problem so this doesn’t recur before replacing the entire bow-thruster system,” he says.

Similar breakdowns last summer cancelled several days of sailings. The full thruster replacement is scheduled for the winter of 2014-2015.

The LeConte is the only vessel running to Gustavus, Hoonah, Tenakee Springs and Angoon. The Juneau-based ferry also sails to Haines and Skagway. The ferry Taku serves those communities too and added runs to help fill in the gaps.

An updated schedule is online at FerryAlaska.com. There’s a link on our website.

Woodrow says it’s no surprise the unit is having problems.

“The bow thruster is original to the ferry. And so it is an old part, or old unit,” he says.

The LeConte is nearly 40 years old. It can carry up to 35 vehicles and 300 passengers.

The City and Borough of Juneau has bought three more months to avert a fecal cliff.

The city has extended its contract with Waste Management to dispose of processed municipal sewage through March. It was previously set to expire with the new year.

“I guess the cliff has been stayed,” said City Engineering Director Rorie Watt.

Waste Management has been shipping the partially processed sludge to a landfill in Oregon. It’s been reluctant to continue doing so indefinitely because of odor and shipping issues.

Now, city staffers are working on a proposal that would improve processing at the Mendenhall Valley Wastewater Treatment Plant and buy even more time. Most of Juneau’s sewage passes through that facility.

About $3 million in upgrades there would let the plant turn sewage into biosolids that meet the Environmental Protection Agency’s minimum level for recycling as fill or fertilizer, Watt said.

“It wouldn’t be the final thing that we do, but it would give us stability in the short run in our shipping, it would lower our volume that we produce, and it would hopefully feed into what our long term solution is,” Watt said.

Disposing of the stuff has been problematic since the city’s sewage sludge incinerator went offline in 2010.

A broken bow thruster has put the ferry LeConte out of service through at least Monday.

Sailing cancellations could disrupt several hundred northern Southeast residents’ Thanksgiving plans.

The small, Juneau-based ferry runs to and from Gustavus, Hoonah, Tenakee Springs, Angoon, Haines and Skagway.

The bow thruster is needed to maneuver the front of the vessel during dockings. Similar breakdowns last summer cancelled several days of sailings. The ferry is scheduled to get a new bow thruster next winter.

Transportation Department spokesman Jeremy Woodrow says the LeConte is headed to the Ketchikan Shipyard on Friday for examination and repairs.

He says around 90 people were scheduled to sail to either Hoonah or Gustavus today. Another 70 were set to sail to Tenakee or Angoon on Thursday, with about 80 returning on Saturday.

Other ferries will sail from Juneau to Haines and Skagway on Thanksgiving and Monday. No other ships stop at the rest of the small communities.

Woodrow says the marine highway tried to arrange for another vessel to fill in, but it didn’t work out. He says officials regret the breakdown and the impacts it will have on Thanksgiving and other travel plans.

The LeConte can carry up to 300 passengers and 35 vehicles.

Governor Sean Parnell has appointed Juneau resident Dick Knapp to the state’s Marine Transportation Advisory Board, which makes recommendations to state officials on the Alaska ferry system.

Knapp is a retired Coast Guard admiral and former Alaska Department of Transportation commissioner. He also served as vice president of the Alaska Railroad Corporation, and senior vice president of Harbor Enterprises, Inc.

He has a bachelor’s degree in engineering from the U.S. Coast Guard Academy and an MBA in financial management from George Washington University.

More recently Knapp has been chairman of Citizens Pro Road, a group pushing for the Juneau Access project. Environmental groups have criticized the plan to build a Lynn Canal Highway north of Juneau. They argue the state should dedicate more resources to the Alaska Marine Highway System.

Knapp was appointed to a seat reserved for a captain or engineer. He joins Juneau Chamber of Commerce Director Cathie Roemmich as Capital City representatives on the Marine Transportation Advisory Board.

Governor Parnell also appointed Kodiak Mayor Pat Branson, Unalaska Mayor Shirley Marquardt, and Haines resident Robert Venables to the MTAB. Marquardt and Venables were reappointed. It’s the first appointment for Branson.