I’ve been very disturbed to read that the assembly put the Lutak Dock project at the top of our funding list. Shouldn’t we be having a public discussion on this before jumping in?
Consider: World oil supplies are now known to have peaked in 2006. We are living in a post-cheap oil world, with prices for everything skyrocketing, including fuel and road maintenance supplies. A mine in Canada trucking raw ore hundreds of miles sounds like a shaky partner to me, especially with funding for the highway in question.
The assembly should not have rushed into putting it onto the current list, bumping important school and other projects. It should be withdrawn until after we get some answers. For instance, how many trucks are proposed, what are they hauling, what would we get out of it? What would the Lutak dock facility look like, how much will it cost, who pays, what about maintenance (including for the road)? What effects will there be on tourism and fisheries and people living along the road?
Debra Schnabel is quoted as saying “…to prioritize it as highly as it is right now implies we kind of know where we’re going with that. And it’s still in such a conceptual phase for me that I think we can afford to move it down the list.”
She should have been talking about the dock project. Can we have some answers please?
Sally McGuire