Transportation

Pavlof Volcano isn’t showing signs of slowing down. It erupted all through the weekend, though not at levels that disturb international air traffic. The volcano’s done enough to stop regional air service to western Alaska.

Bryan Carricaburu oversees operations at PenAir. He says on Monday morning, the airline grounded flights to:

“Dutch, King Salmon, Dillingham, and the Pribilofs.”

There’s also Sand Point, which hasn’t had air service since Thursday. Overall, PenAir has completely shut down its Alaska operations. A representative for Grant Aviation says cancellations are also possible for their service to King Salmon.

The problem is that the volcano’s ash cloud is being blown into the flight path between Anchorage and southwest Alaska. It’s not a threat to navigation, but as Carricaburu from PenAir says:

“Well, it’s very damaging to the engines if you ingest ash.”

Planes won’t fly again until the low-pressure system over the region lifts, and the ash dissipates.

Down on the ground, the Aleutian fishing town of Sand Point has been getting the brunt of the ash fall for the past few days.

The wind shifted Sunday, giving Sand Point a break. But according to the Alaska Volcano Observatory, Pavlof hasn’t let up at all — it’s still shooting large jets of ash and steam.

So the only difference is that now, the more northern villages of Nelson Lagoon and Port Moller are in the line of fire instead.

Merle Brandell lives in Nelson Lagoon. He says ash is falling there, mixed in with rain.

“I see it in the bottom of the window sill outside there, it’s black. It’s a black ash. And it’s real sticky.”

Brandell says most people in Nelson Lagoon are trying to stay inside to avoid contact. They’ve stocked up on food and fuel, along with water.

That last part has been a bit tricky. Brandell operates the village’s water treatment plant, and he says he’s stopped pumping fresh water into the storage tanks since the eruption started to protect the supply.

For now, Nelson Lagoon is getting by on its reserves.

“Hopefully, you know, within a week or two weeks or a month or whatever, we can top the tanks back off comfortably without putting any ash in our holding tanks.”

If they’re careful, Brandell says Nelson Lagoon should have enough water to last through another two months of volcanic eruptions. By that time, though, he says he hopes life will have gotten back to normal.

CBJ Harbor officials, assemblymembers, and state lawmakers on Wednesday celebrated the near-completion of the first phase of the Statter Harbor renovation project in Auke Bay.

Existing floats were repaired and new concrete floats were built to replace the old wooden ones.

Deputy port engineer Erich Schaal says the floats are moored by piles as long as 240-feet that are inserted into the bedrock by a custom-built drill assembly.

The system is unique in the fact that we took an existing harbor that was held in place by anchors and created a pile-moored system. We have signifcant tidal ranges in this facility and, so, you’ll see very large metal structures that are atop these piles that have to resist those huge forces.”

Schall says the floats also feature a fire suppression system and an efficient LED lighting system that should reduce light pollution outside the harbor area.

Anita Statter, who helped cut the ribbon, says her husband Don D. Statter would have liked the improvements.

“Auke bay is a gem,” said Statter. “We are so lucky to have Auke Bay harbor and the whole location all around Auke Bay. This is a beautiful, beautiful place that the Capital City can be proud of.”

May 15th was the original schedule completion date when $8.5 million project was to be turned over to the CBJ.

Port director Carl Uchytil says contractors will continue working on punch-list or final cosmetic items for the project.

Phase two of the Statter Harbor improvement project includes a new boat haul out facility and trailer parking lot near the old DeHart’s Marina.

Statter Harbor is named after Don D. Statter, the former state public works employee and city docks and harbors boardmember who advocated for development and improvement of Juneau’s harbors.

 

Say so long to summer drivers riding the ferry for free.

Wave goodbye to the winter roundtrip discount.

And printed schedules? Those are on their way out too.

They won’t happen for a while. But the changes are some of the ways the Alaska Marine Highway will address a $3.5-million spending cut mandated by the Legislature.

Ferry Business Enterprise Director Dick Leary described the cuts at Tuesday’s Marine Transportation Advisory Board meeting.

He said managers won’t cut sailings where tickets have already been sold. That means no reductions to the summer schedule that runs through September.

“We also feel very strongly that the winter schedule as it now exists is a bare-bottom service level and so if possible, we don’t want to cut any of the winter schedule,” Leary said. “And that takes us from October first to April 30th. So, of course, you put one and two together and you’ve only got May and June left.”

Managers also agreed that none of the system’s 35 port communities should lose service for an extended amount of time.

But there will be some cuts.

Link to a PowerPoint presentation describing budget changes. Scroll down to the fifth page.

The Taku will not operate on its Prince Rupert-to-Juneau run in June of 2014. That reduces sailings to Ketchikan, Wrangell, Petersburg, Kake and Sitka. Another ship, the Malaspina, will continue to offer that service.

The Juneau-based fast ferry Fairweather will sail less often during the first two weeks of next May. That affects Sitka and Lynn Canal routes.

Advisory board member Gerry Hope of Sitka said that hurts his hometown.

“It seems like we’re a frequent visitor to your cut-budget system. I want to support you; I want to back you up. But it feels at this point that I can’t get fully on board, no pun intended,” Hope said.

Business Director Leary said other cuts were chosen to avoid further service reductions. The roundtrip discounts will go away this fall. The drivers-ride-free program will end at the same time.

Board Chairman Robert Venables said the marine highway should prepare for further reductions.

“It was obvious that the Legislature’s squeezing all areas of the state budget and that’s going to be a trend that’s going to continue for the foreseeable future. This year’s cuts were probably more of a nick than an amputation,” Venables said.

Officials said they would consider raising ticket prices and retiring ferries if further cuts come in future years.

The Department of Administration is putting out feelers for office space for DOT headquarters in Juneau.

The lease for the Department of Transportation and Public Facilities on Channel Drive is up for renewal next year.

The Administration Department handles office leasing and has published a Request for Information.

It calls for 30,000 to 40,000 square feet of office space as well as 120 to 160 parking spaces for 10 years. The RFI is asking for letters of interest from contractors, developers or lessors.

DOT spokesman Jeremy Woodrow said the state is just being a good steward.

“The RFI  is not showing intention that the department is looking at moving out of the building, but in a time where we definitely need to crunch every penny, it’s one of those aspects of you know, are we getting the best bang for our buck in the community? And are there better options for the department?” Woodrow said.

He said leasing the existing space remains an option.    More than 200 people work in the facility.    

DOT statewide headquarters moved into the Channel Drive building in 1984, when it was new.  The state has renewed its 10-year lease three times since then.

Responses to the RFI are due May 21.

 

Juneau parking violators will soon get a “notice of violation” and those who want to appeal will appear before a city hearing officer, not a district court magistrate.

The Assembly Monday night approved an ordinance changing the way the city handles civil fines.  It comes in response to a recent Alaska Supreme Court order that nullified citations not delivered in person.

Violation notices will still be put on the vehicle windshields, but instead of being an infraction sent to district court, the city must set up a traffic court system.

Only Ketchikan and Anchorage have municipal traffic courts.  When the Supreme Court issued its order last month, most other cities were forced to throw out their traffic offense system, according to CBJ attorney John Hartle.

“In Anchorage, they have their own municipal court system and they have municipal judges to hear these things.  In Ketchikan, I understand it’s the manager’s secretary.  So it shows a rather broad continuum; I think we will fall somewhere in between those,” Hartle told the Assembly.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            City Manager Kim Kiefer said a hearing officer will initially be located in her office.  She plans to move a current city employee into the position.

“At some point we’re potentially going to set up a traffic court time and we need to determine if that’s two or three hours.  We’re looking at trying to set it up over a lunch hour to make it easy for people to come to it and not have to take off work,” Kiefer said.

The ordinance does not change current parking laws.

The state Supreme Court order that nullified traditional parking tickets was in response to a housekeeping measure approved by the Alaska Legislature in 2010.  Hartle said he hopes the legislature next year will reverse what has been called an unintended consequence.

The Pribilof Islands of St. Paul and St. George are just 45 miles apart, but getting between them can be challenging because of limited flight service and the area’s notoriously foggy weather.

This summer, a regional community development group is hoping to solve that problem by contracting a ferry to run between the islands, but finding a suitable vessel has proved challenging.

St. George mayor Pat Pletnikoff sees a whole host of benefits that could come from having a surface connection to St. Paul, starting with access to the larger community’s cargo-capable docks.

“Everything that comes into St. George comes in by air. And everybody is well aware of the costs of air service.”

Pletnikoff says a ferry would also be useful for medical emergencies if planes can’t land. But his hope for the long-term is that it would spark economic development — particularly tourism.

“Reliable surface transportation so that people can get out and get in on a time-certain basis is going to be critical to that development.”

Larry Cotter agrees. He’s the CEO of the Aleutian Pribilof Islands Community Development Association, or APICDA, one of six regional groups that were created to infuse Western Alaska villages with money from the Bering Sea fisheries. APICDA owns the fish handling facility in St. George, and like, Pletnikoff, Cotter sees the potential for tourism.

“Birders would love to come to St. George but it’s very difficult to make that happen when air service is unreliable, as it is. And it’s a lot easier to get into St. Paul. In the future, I see a lodge in St. George, and I see us routing people to our lodge through St. Paul, in one direction or another.”

That vision is still a few years off. For now, APICDA is focused on a much more fundamental task: finding a ferry. The organization’s Board of Directors has committed $600,000 to getting the project off the ground, but so far, they haven’t found a suitable vessel. Cotter says they’re looking for a delicate balance: large enough to handle the Bering Sea’s rough weather, but not so big as to be overkill.

“We’re certainly not looking at Alaska-class Marine Highway vessels or anything along those lines.”

With summer fast approaching, Cotter is still holding out hope that they can find a vessel for this year. If they can, he’d like to see daily service between the islands.

“This will give us an opportunity to evaluate what kind of costs we’re looking at, what kind of passenger service we might be able to generate, what type of revenue is reasonable to assume, and then in future years, we would either continue the relationship, if that made sense, or acquire our own vessel to provide service.”

If APICDA can’t find a vessel for this year, Cotter says they’ll keep searching over the winter, with the goal of definitely having service next summer.