This week, keeping the boats moving safely in and out of alaska’s many harbors. Communities all along Alaska’s coasts are joining in the call for help funding local infrastructure projects. Both the borough and the city of Kenai recently adopted resolutions urging legislative action.
Harbors, docks, ports and other maritime infrastructure are critical to modern life in Alaska. According to the Alaska section of the American Society of Civil Engineers, the state as a whole gets a grade of D when it comes to the 72 harbors and ports in Alaska. That grading is consistent for the state’s 125 small boat harbors, as well. Improving and repairing those facilities is costly, especially in rural areas. To help address those problems, the Alaska Municipal League is lobbying the legislature to approve putting general obligation bonds on the fall 2020 ballot. Nils Andreassen is the executive director of the Alaska Municipal League.
“The majority of ports and harbors in the state are managed by local governments. A lot of them were transferred by the state to local governments in need of repair and they’ve been kept up and operated since then by those local governments and often still need continuous repairs.”
Those needs exist, at various levels, all over the Kenai Peninsula, from Seward to Kenai to Seldovia and Port Graham. But as has been a recurring theme the last few years, big time state money for big time projects isn’t what it used to be, continuing a trend of shifting operating, maintenance and capital costs down to municipalities.
“It’s true for so many things, including coastal infrastructure, port and harbor issues. So I think when we recognize we’re in a situation where you’ve got a declining state budget, especially for general funds, something like bonds might make sense to spread costs out over time and include a variety of partners in moving those forward. But it is dependent, too, on what kind of debt load the state is able to carry, and we’d work through their debt management to determine best use of that debt and what that looks like.”
The effort to get a general obligation bond started in Anchorage, where 85% of the goods imported into the state first land, then the AML picked up the torch and other cities and boroughs have signed on. Andreassen says it represents a shift in how Alaska does business.
“I think we’re in this transition point between a state that has the resources to invest in those kinds of projects and a state that, at least currently, doesn’t. I know that revenue is another topic that will be addressed by the legislature and the governor in the coming years. But until we’ve rounded that corner, there’s definitely going to need to be, and there is being had, a conversation within municipalities about how to make sure that their communities have the infrastructure in place that’s necessary to keep residents healthy and safe and prosperous.”
Since statehood, more than $2 billion in general obligation bonds have been issued to cover capital costs. This one could appear on the fall ballot next year, if approved by the legislature.
Now time for this week’s number: 169,000, as in acres. That’s how much area will be added to Cook Inlet gas lease sales next year following a determination from the Department of Natural Resources that substantial new information for next year’s area wide lease sales. That area in particular is mostly on and around the Iniskin Peninsula, about 120 miles south of Tyonek. Southwest Cook Inlet was the target for DNR’s request for information back on September 10th.
