Transportation

The road out of Juneau is getting a little longer this summer. Crews are extending Glacier Highway, the capital city’s northernmost land route. It’s a step in what officials hope will be an approximately 50-mile highway, to the north and west along Lynn Canal.

Transportation Commissioner Marc Luiken told the Juneau Chamber of Commerce on Thursday that construction is ongoing.

“We are well on our way to being able to complete that about 3-mile extension this fall. It’ll be a gravel road out there initially; we’ll eventually get out there to probably put a chip seal on it. And then eventually we’ll improve it beyond that,” he said.

The work involves widening and upgrading an existing gravel road from Glacier Highway’s current end to Cascade Point, on Berners Bay. Miller Construction won the contract for the $2.5-million-dollar project.

Plans for the longer road, to the Katzehin River, are less clear. A new ferry terminal would be built, connecting drivers to Skagway and Haines.

Environmental groups sued to block the road. Two federal courts have ruled that planners should have considered improved ferry service as an alternative to laying down pavement. That’s blocked plans to begin construction.

Luiken says his staff, the governor’s office and the Federal Highway Administration are still considering what to do next.

“Really, it boils down to two options. We can either appeal to the Supreme Court. Or we can conduct a supplemental environmental impact statement that addresses the issues that the Ninth Circuit (Court) brought up in their ruling,” Luiken says.

He says either option would take up to two years. Both could take place at the same time.

The Juneau Chamber of Commerce and 13 other Southeast businesses and organizations will join in the state’s lawsuit against a federal rule that prevents road construction in certain areas of the Tongass National Forest.

The Parnell administration in June appealed a federal district court decision setting aside an eight-year-old policy that exempted the Tongass from the so-called Roadless Rule. The organizations plan to file as interveners in the case next week in federal district court in Washington, D.C.

The conservation policy was implemented in 2001, as President Clinton was leaving office. Then Gov. Tony Knowles sued the federal government. The state argued that the 1980 Alaska National Interest Land Conservation Act – which preserved 115-million acres – also decreed that no more land could be protected in the state.

Two years later, the Murkowski administration negotiated an out-of-court settlement.

Jim Clark was Gov. Frank Murkowski’s chief of staff. He says under the settlement the Tongass was exempt from application of the roadless policy via a 2003 interim rule, with a final rule to come at some point after that.

Clark is now the attorney for the group that will file as interveners in the Parnell lawsuit.

He told the Juneau Chamber of Commerce yesterday (Thursday) the rule could prevent development of hydroelectric and other renewable energy projects, as well as mining and timber in Southeast Alaska, and even the proposed Lynn Canal Highway out of Juneau.

A number of utility companies have joined the case, including Alaska Electric Light and Power, Alaska Power and Telephone and Inside Passage Electric Cooperative.

“There’s no mention in the Tongass portion of the Roadless Rule about the impact that prohibiting road or reconstruction in the inventoried roadless areas would have on hydro power construction, transmission line construction from hydro sites to communities, or the maintenance of either one,” Clark says.  “All that’s said is existing authorized uses would be allowed to maintain and operate within the parameters of their current authorization, including any provisions regarding access.”

Federal District Court Judge John Sedwick in May approved a list of energy and mining projects already underway as not subject to the Roadless Rule. Clark says all the projects are important, but he can find no authority in the rule that exempts them.

Environmental attorneys read the law differently. Buck Lindekugel of the Southeast Alaska Conservation Council says the rule does not prevent other projects from going forward. SEACC and the U.S. Forest Service helped negotiate the list with the Justice Department. Lindekugel says it doesn’t need to be comprehensive.

“If you read the rule, the rule does not prohibit mining in roadless areas,” Lindekugel says. “It does not prohibit renewable energy development. And the court made that very clear when it issued its proposed order. And the reason we listed the projects in that proposed order was to clarify the flexibility of the rule.

Lindekugel calls the interveners’ argument “a lot of scare tactics.”

But First Things First Alaska Foundation President Neil MacKinnon says organizations that join the lawsuit are “trying to right the roadless wrong.”

“We see this Roadless Rule as probably the biggest economic impediment to the future of Southeast and it’s got to change or we don’t have a future,” MacKinnon says.

The foundation donated $5,000 to the litigation fund and is asking for other contributions. First Things First is a non-profit formed in 2009 to support resource development in Alaska.

Other companies joining the state’s case include Alaska Marine Lines, Southeast Stevedoring, Alaska Miners and Northwest Miners associations.

Clark, the interveners’ attorney, expects it will take 12 to 18 months before a decision comes from the federal court.

The fast ferry Fairweather ended its Sitka sailing today (Wednesday) due to problems with its automated engineering system.

The ship left Juneau for Sitka in the morning, but turned around before entering Sergius Narrows, which can have strong currents. It returned to Juneau for repairs.

The ferry’s engine room is un-staffed, and the equipment is controlled and monitored via computer. Ferry chief Mike Neussl says the problem is with that system, not the engines.

He expects the Fairweather to be ready in time for its Thursday sailing to and from Sitka.

The City and Borough of Juneau is getting a new eight cubic yard, vacuum street sweeper.

But as City Manager Rod Swope explains, it can only be used in the Mendenhall Valley.

“Funding for this was acquired through a federal government congestion mitigation/air quality program transferred through the Department of Transportation and Public Facilities to us,” said Swope at Monday’s CBJ Assembly meeting. “And the funds are to be used to improve air quality in federally designated non-attainment areas, of which the Mendenhall Valley is one.”

Assembly members appropriated a 250-thousand dollar grant for purchase of the street sweeper.

Woodstoves are the main contributor to the valley’s air quality problem. That’s why the city periodically prohibits their use when the level of fine particulate matter in the air is high. But CBJ Lands Manager Heather Marlow says dust is also a factor, which the vacuum street sweeper should help mitigate.

“These street sweepers have a particular design to them where they don’t kick up as much dust if you will as they go through and clean the street. It’s more of a contained cleaning, rather than the exterior broom type that you typically see,” says Marlow.

Other factors that contribute to particulates in the air include vehicles and power plants.

The city and state Department of Environmental Conservation monitor air quality in the Mendenhall Valley from atop Floyd Dryden Middle School.

Juneau’s Planning Commission last night recommended the CBJ Assembly extend the city’s downtown Parking District 1 throughout the entire Willoughby District.

The move would reduce the amount of required off-street parking in the neighborhood by 60 percent. Retail and office buildings would go from having to provide one space per 300 square feet to one space per 750 square feet.

CBJ Community Development Director Dale Pernula says the goal is for property owners in the area to consolidate parking.

“Trying to become more of a pedestrian oriented area, like the core of downtown,” said Pernula. “Rather than all the parking be on all the individual lots that it be more often than not provided by public parking lots.”

Parking District 1 currently includes the downtown core, as well as Willoughby Avenue and Whittier Street around the JAHC and Centennial Hall. If the Assembly adopts the recommendation it would encompass the rest of Willoughby all the way to Gold Creek.

Pernula expects the Assembly to hold a hearing in about two months.

The change is recommended in the city’s Willoughby District Land Use Plan.

The community of Hoonah will be without ferry service for two weeks in June as renovations are made to the transfer bridge and dock at the terminal.