Izembek National Wildlife Refuge lies north of Cold Bay, Alaska
Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar has decided to reevaluate a Fish and Wildlife Service decision to prevent construction of a road through the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge.
The Interior Department will send its next secretary and undersecretary for Indian Affairs Kevin Washburn to King Cove.
They’re expected to meet with local leaders who want the Interior Department to reverse the Fish and Wildlife decision.
Senator Lisa Murkowski says this is the first step to overturning that ruling:
“Fact of the matter is, this process that the secretary has laid out, doesn’t get the residents of King Cove their road tomorrow. But it was does allow for is a reassessment, a re-look, of what Fish and Wildlife did with their assessment.”
And this new assessment could take months, if not years, to complete.
The Alaska Railroad passenger train in Whittier, Alaska. (Photo by Ron Reiring/Wikimedia Commons)
The Alaska Railroad is cutting more than 50 jobs in an effort to trim the corporation’s costs as federal grants and revenue decline sharply.
About half of the jobs are already vacant. Christopher Aadnesen is President of the Alaska Railroad. He says the cuts will come from all areas of the company, but more than 1/3 of the jobs lost are in management.
“Maybe the best way to explain it is to give you an example, my direct reports have gone from 13 to 6 and we’ve taken out lots of management positions, many of them senior management positions,” Aadnesen said.
Aadnesen says one of the company’s main revenue sources comes from shipping coal, but the railroad is operating just two coal trains a week, down from four last year, because the international coal market has weakened. Grant funding from the Federal Transit Administration has also declined sharply. Combine that with an unfunded federal mandate to implement a new safety system and Aadnesen says it adds up to a $45 million hit to the corporation.
Besides the job cuts, Aadnesen says the railroad is trimming millions of dollars by conserving fuel, changing the way it maintains vehicles, and reforming other out of date practices.
“So we have changed the company so it looks very different from the inside, but shouldn’t look different from the outside, to passengers, freight shippers, the public, hoping that as we go forward we will be nimble enough and lowered the cost base of the company enough where we can weather additional storms that may come along while we look for and hope for revenue increases to come back to get us out of this challenge,” Aadnesen said.
Since 2009, the railroad has cut nearly 300 positions out of a workforce of about 900 employees.
New shuttle ferry plans were roundly criticized during a legislative hearing Tuesday, though there was some support.
The plan calls for building a pair of 280-foot, 300-passenger, 53-vehicle vessels.
The day-boats would connect Juneau, Haines and Skagway, operate no more than 12 hours a day, and have no staterooms or cafeteria. No unaccompanied vehicles would be allowed.
Some of the testimony before the House and Senate Finance Committees criticized plans to leave part of the car deck uncovered:
Ferry officials said the design is preliminary and changes will likely be made. For example, they’re considering a system for allowing unaccompanied vehicles, including container vans, on board.
The fast ferry Chenega pulling into Whittier. Photo by Ed Schoenfeld.
The lawsuit over allegedly defective engines for the state’s fast ferries has come to an end.
A settlement was announced in Juneau Superior Court Friday afternoon after nearly three years of litigation and just before the start of trial.
Senior Assistant Attorney General Dana Burke said the Alaska Marine Highway System will get eight new diesel engines provided by the German manufacturer MTU Friedrichshafen. There’ll be an option for the state to purchase two spare engines nearly at-cost.
Burke said the settlement also calls for a maintenance agreement and new five-year extended warranty on the newer model 4000 series V engines for the fast ferries Fairweather and Chenega.
We’ve built into this settlement agreement an improved mutually beneficial working relationship that’s going to allow these engines to continue to operate in ferry service from here on out. And it’s not just a rhetorical flourish with respect to an agreement to do that. We have binding commitments that make us do that.”
Value of the new engines was not immediately available, but Burke said that MTU could deliver and install them – four for each of the ferries – starting in the fall. Current plans calls for a staggered installation with the engines installed in one vessel during next fall’s off-season and the other vessel to have its engines replaced in the subsequent year. Burke said they’ve all committed to keeping the current 595 series engines operating in both vessels until they have been replaced by the 4000s.
Burke promised that the settlement agreement will be made public as soon as all the parties sign off on it. That may happen early next week.
Doug Serdahely, the Alaska attorney for MTU, said it has taken the parties and counsel working full-time nearly three weeks to develop the settlement agreement.
A lot of thought and effort has gone into it. Both sides think it is a very fair and very reasonable agreement for both sides.”
During Friday’s court hearing, both Burke and Serdahley asked that the trial scheduled for April 8th be vacated or taken off the calendar.
The state’s case against MTU and its affiliate Tognum America will be dismissed while the state hopes to preserve its interests against Robert E. Derecktor, Inc., the Connecticut builder of the ferries and the other defendant in the case. That company is currently mired in bankruptcy court and is not currently part of the state’s lawsuit.
More recently, the fast vehicle ferry (FVF) Fairweather has served Southeast Alaska while the Chenega has served Prince William Sound.
Attorneys for both sides say they have been working for the last two weeks to reach an agreement. But on Monday they asked the judge in the case not to take the trial off of the court calendar yet.
The State of Alaska alleges that the high-performance diesel engines for the ferries Fairweather and Chenega were defective. That has been disputed by the German manufacturer MTU Friedrichshafen and its American subsidiary MTU Detroit Diesel, now known as Tognum America.
Another court hearing on the potential settlement agreement is scheduled for Friday, March 1st.
The settlement is being described as very complex and not just payment of a lump sum to the State of Alaska. It’s also expected to define the future relationship between the State and MTU for continued maintenance and repairs of the engines.
The Malaspina returns from Skagway. (Photo by Gillfoto/Flickr Creative Commons)
The ferry Malaspina will take a celebratory trip through Southeast Alaska in early May.
Spokesman Jeremy Woodrow says it’s one of the Alaska Marine Highway’s 50th anniversary events.
“This is to celebrate in part its inaugural run in 1963. And that will include community events in Ketchikan, Wrangell, Petersburg, Juneau, Haines and Skagway,” Woodrow says.
Woodrow says the Malaspina will make extended stops in each community and be open for tours. Local celebrations are also being planned during port calls. One will also take place this fall in Sitka.
He says the ferry will make special excursions in the gateway and capital cities.
“One will be sailing through Misty Fjords National Monument. They’ll start in Ketchikan and do a day trip through Misty Fjords and back to Ketchikan. And the other, when it’s in Juneau, will sail from downtown, not Auke Bay, to Tracy Arm fjord and back,” Woodrow says.
What’s called The Golden Voyage will run May 1st to May 5th.
More details on the sailings and community celebrations are on the website www.FerryAlaska.com.
Close
Update notification options
Subscribe to notifications
Subscribe
Get notifications about news related to the topics you care about. You can unsubscribe anytime.
