An early estimate of $33 million for replacement of the Lutak Dock might be shaved down considerably with further work by PND Engineers.
Dick Somerville, vice president of PND Engineers’ Juneau office, offered two estimates at the Haines Borough’s “strategic doing” planning session last week.
Replacing the existing sheet pile bulkhead dock with the same footprint would cost about $33 million, Somerville said. Building a pile-supported dock with a concrete deck in the same spot with the same footprint would cost about $57 million, he said.
Somerville put together the estimates at the request of Haines Borough manager David Sosa, who wanted to have some kind of financial perspective during the sessions. The $57 million option is pretty much out of the question, though, because Somerville said there is “really no advantage” in terms of maintenance or lifespan to the pile-supported structure.
“The whole purpose of that was to show a sheet pile bulkhead was a more cost-effective solution,” Somerville said.
After the meeting, Somerville spoke with Sosa about putting together an estimate for a smaller dock that would be able to maintain existing operations. This would allow current operations to continue but leave the possibility for future expansion open, and would cost “considerably less” than the other two options, Somerville said.
“(Sosa) likes to think big and have an expansive plan, too,” Somerville said. “He did like the idea of reducing the scale of the project so it is somewhat more affordable and still have the ability to expand in the future.”
Somerville will be working for the next several weeks on the reduced dock plan, though he doesn’t know if it will be ready by the time a “core group” assembled by Sosa meets on Jan. 18.
The group consists of stakeholders interested in closely participating in development of a Lutak Dock plan. “The core group is somewhat open,” Sosa said. “A bunch of participants volunteered and I sent invites to all to participate in the meeting. Part of the conversation last week revolved around using the people who really want to be there, so I am interested to see who of the invitees shows up.”
When looking at the estimates, Sosa said the thing to remember is what that expenditure will do for the town.
“The thing to bear in mind about cost is what we get for it,” Sosa said. “Doing the same old thing does not help provide new jobs and opportunity for the community while doing something more could potentially provide more to the community over time.”
Members of the core group were assigned a reading list of materials on the dock, including a 2012 Northern Economics report that included a look at prospective dock customers, which cost the borough about $25,000.
Norman Hughes, chair of the borough’s ports and harbors committee, said the various studies and reports will help the group establish a history of the facility.
“We’re going to hopefully digest those by the time of the meeting so we can discuss those and see if there are holes in them or if they are relevant,” Hughes said.
Several significant questions were raised during the session, including how the dock replacement would be paid for and who would be responsible for it.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers constructed the dock in 1953; the agency transferred ownership to the City of Haines in 1977. The borough is responsible for maintaining it and collecting revenue in the form of tariffs on dock customers, including fuel distributor Delta Western and shipper Alaska Marine Lines.
The borough took in about $345,000 in tariff fees last year.
Former assembly member Debra Schnabel raised the point at last week’s meeting that the borough should look into selling the dock. “I’m not saying we should put on a fire sale, but I’m saying we should look realistically if we can get from the private sector some kind of investment,” Schnabel said.
“It’s a very valuable resource, but right now it’s a bloodsucker,” she added.
It doesn’t appear that any private company has expressed interest in taking over the facility.
Fred Gray, Delta Western’s facility manager in Haines, said the fuel company doesn’t want it. “If we were interested in buying the dock, we would have bought the dock 20 years ago,” he said.
Gray said taxpayers benefit from the dock because the borough makes money through tariffs. Getting fuel via barge helps the company provide fuel to consumers for less cost than trucking it in, which costs three times more, he said.
“If Delta Western went away and AML went away, then we are down to a subsistence community. So you’ll have 600 people living here,” Gray said.
Gray wouldn’t say how much of the fuel coming over Lutak Dock stays in town and how much heads north. “That’s proprietary information.”
Most of what AML brings across the dock stays in Haines, said AML service center manager Michael Ganey. About 85 to 90 percent of it stays here in the form of groceries, lumber and other nonperishable goods, Ganey said.
As far as he knows, AML doesn’t have any interest in buying the facility, though Ganey said he has been relaying the borough’s ongoing discussions about the dock to the higher-ups in the company who would be responsible for such a decision.
“It’s a borough-owned facility now, so obviously (repairing or replacing) it kind of falls on the taxpayers,” Ganey said. “Hopefully there will be some kind of grant money that we can get from the state.”