Four additional former Alaska Excursions employees have publicly criticized Robert Murphy’s Alaska Excursions tour company for unsafe practices. The borough assembly will weigh the public input when it decides Tuesday whether to approve a new tour for the company.

The tour company applied for a new ATV tour permit at Glacier Point last month, which triggered at least eight former employees to lobby the assembly last week against granting the tour.

The former employees allege Murphy and upper management routinely pressure boat captains and zip line guides to operate in rough weather and unsafe conditions.

Murphy responded to complaints during a public hearing last week. He said the majority of the former guides who made complaints weren’t offered jobs again and had an ax to grind with the company. After listening to that hearing, more former employees decided to speak publicly.

Sam Edwards worked as a guide at Glacier Point for four seasons with Alaska Excursions. Edwards said he agreed with many of the concerns raised, but he initially wanted to stay uninvolved. He said he changed his mind after hearing Murphy speak to the assembly during the public hearing.

“I would have liked to have not needed to get involved, and there were things I enjoyed at Alaska Excursions,” Edwards told the CVN. “But some of the things they said during that first (assembly) meeting were so blatantly untrue I didn’t feel like I had a choice.”

Edwards said despite what Murphy said about operating safely in foul weather, the company routinely ran trips in winds above 30 knots and when winds were expected to build beyond 25 knots, wind speeds considered unsafe according to the company policy.

“There were indeed a couple of instances that stand out because they were particularly dramatic, including two where we almost called the Coast Guard and one where it took a boat an hour to get from Glacier Point to Seduction Point due to heavy seas, but these were not crazy outliers,” Edwards wrote to the assembly.

Edwards also said weeks, and sometimes months, went by when their two skiffs were inoperable. The guides used the skiffs to make runs to Haines to resupply food and other equipment. Murphy described the skiffs as a convenience for the guides who used them when they wanted to travel to town to go to a party. He said guides had an opportunity to use larger boats when they needed supplies. Edwards disputes that claim.

“I have personally raced a fellow guide to town who was approaching anaphylaxis so I understand the importance of the skiffs,” Edwards said. “I have also spent hours manually holding a boat off of the rocks near Letnikof Point while waiting for a tour boat to tow me because the outboard was broken. That time I was getting food and drinking water for the camp, not going to a mythical party.”

Despite those issues, Edwards said he wouldn’t discourage a friend or family member from taking a tour at Glacier Point with Alaska Excursions. “Some of the days they ran the boats they should not have been on the Lynn Canal, but I wouldn’t say day-in or day-out people were in mortal danger out there,” Edwards told the CVN. “It has been run better. It could be run better.”

Bud Rauscher worked for Alaska Excursions as a transportation manager and filled in as a naturalist on the boat rides to Glacier Point last summer. Rauscher said he was confused by the allegations against the company.

“I’ve never heard of somebody pushing to go when it was unsafe,” Rauscher said. “Captains have not only the right but the obligation to call it in bad weather. There were a lot of trips that were cancelled.”

Alaska Excursions boat crew manager Conner Dawson said he’s worked for the company for two seasons and is returning for a third. He said boat captains, along with upper management, are thorough when assessing weather conditions. Conner said a friend and peer recommended he work for Alaska Excursions.

“Word of mouth recommendations amongst friends would not happen if this was an unsafe or bad company to work for, especially among captains who value their captain license and lives,” Dawson said.

Rauscher, Dawson and more than 20 other current and former employees, have since written letters in support of Alaska Excursions, although most of them never worked at the Glacier Point tour.

In a special meeting with the assembly on Monday, Murphy acknowledged there was a disconnect between the offices in Skagway and his employees at Glacier Point.

“We also know now that our staff isn’t happy with the maintenance level out there. If the outboard aren’t running on the canoes or they’re down to one and they don’t have a spare, that creates stress for them,” Murphy said. “The lesson we learned is the lines of communication have to be better.”

Edwards told the CVN that communication isn’t the problem, but upper management’s failure to address the staff’s issues. “The lack of communication is that we would go to meetings and we would clearly outline our concerns and things wouldn’t get done,” Edwards said.

Assembly member Tom Morphet told Murphy he’ll likely vote against granting Murphy a permit, but also wants to look further into the “holes” of Murphy’s current tour.

“I’m disinclined to grant you a permit for this new tour because there have been specific and credible and very damning accounts of your safety record,” Morphet said.

Two other former employees said the company overbooked zip line tours, allowed guests to ride the zip line who, according to manufacturer’s recommendations, were too heavy or large and didn’t properly train the guides.

Murphy said the debate is about the “perception of safety” and not his actual safety record, which is strong.

The assembly will vote on the ATV tour permit application at its March 13 meeting. The tour would include 15 ATVs with a maximum capacity of 48 guests per tour.

Lynn Canal Conservation also wrote a letter to the assembly opposing the permit. In the letter, LCC president Eric Holle cited concerns about ground-nesting birds— specifically Arctic and Caspian terns. He cited a 2007 United States Geological Survey study of the Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve that recommends closures in nesting areas during chick-rearing periods.