Hundreds of millions of federal dollars for the Alaska Marine Highway System held up for months are now being awarded as the final installment of a five-year allocation in the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, state and federal officials announced on Friday, Aug. 21.
The $410 million includes $153.4 million to replace the 52-year-old ferry LeConte; $37.6 million for the Cascade Point ferry terminal 42 road miles north of downtown Juneau; $33.4 million to modernize the Kake ferry terminal; $20.6 million to build a new ferry terminal at Saxman, just a few miles south of Ketchikan; and $4 million to modernize the ferry system’s reservation and other customer service functions, according to a press release issued by Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s office.
Also included is $161.2 million for state ferry operations, a use that in the past has been heavily criticized by Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who played a key role in securing the five years of funding she said was intended to upgrade and expand aging ships and shoreside facilities.
“Until you have it you don’t have it and that’s where we were sitting last year,” Murkowski said. “That’s why there was a great deal of anxiety about whether or not we would be able to count on the (federal) grants coming forward at all.”
The 2021 bill signed by President Joe Biden established the Federal Transit Administration’s rural ferry program with nearly $1 billion, with Alaska set to get most of that during the five-year span. The Trump administration failed to open the program’s annual grant process last year for reasons that went unexplained.
That triggered concerns Alaska’s ferry system might run out of funds this summer since the federal program was paying nearly half of the system’s operating expenses.
In April the federal agency announced $454 million in grants were being offered, with Alaska officials anticipating the $410 million intended for the state would be part of that funding.
The $410 million announced Aug. 21 brings total federal funds for the Alaska ferry system to $1.1 billion, according to Murkowski. A portion of the total amount comes from sources besides the FTA’s rural ferry program.
While most of the projects listed in the press release are noncontroversial, the Cascade Point Ferry Terminal has been subject to considerable opposition by people who say it will make travel to and from Juneau more difficult.
Questions are also being raised about whether the Dunleavy administration is pushing the project to benefit a mining company that wants to use the site for an ore shipping terminal.
Construction that was supposed to start this year is on hold due to questions raised by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Murkowski in February said the Dunleavy administration has “all but ignored the opportunity to save our marine transportation system” by diverting much of the federal funding to operations — allowing him to spend fewer state dollars on that expense — rather than system improvements.
When asked about the plan to again use a significant portion of the final allocation of federal funds for operations, Murkowski said “I would like to see the vast majority of these funds go toward making sure that we have the ships that can show up on time to meet the needs of Alaskans.”
“The operating funds don’t do us any good if we don’t have the ships in the water,” she said.
Ryan Anderson, commissioner of the Alaska Department of Transportation, earlier at the press conference, highlighted projects including a planned replacement vessel for the 62-year-old Tustumena and repairs to other vessels and 10 ferry docks.
