The Haines Borough is considering a partnership with freight company Alaska Marine Lines, which would construct, operate and own a new roll-on/roll-off barge ramp on leased borough land at the Lutak Dock.

Engineers have told the borough that the municipally owned freight dock at Lutak is in poor shape and in danger of catastrophic failure.

Borough manager Debra Schnabel introduced a memorandum of understanding between AML and the borough at Tuesday’s assembly meeting, with plans for more public input at the July 10 meeting.

“I think that (more public input) is fair to the community because this would be a departure from how we have handled our port facilities so far,” Schnabel said. “This would be the first time that we would allow for a privately owned facility on our waterfront.”

Alaska Marine Lines owns and operates their own freight facilities in other Southeast communities.

The draft agreement says AML would lease the borough’s tidelands for 35 years, and lease uplands space for up to 30 years.

After an assembly question on whether AML would allow other freight companies to use the ramp, Schnabel said the company had “no apparent problem” offering the ramp for other users.

Separate from the AML development, the borough is in the process of applying for a $25 million federal grant to rebuild the Lutak Dock face, which would allow for improved barge and ship access.

Assembly member Heather Lende she was slightly apprehensive about the agreement with AML but felt the borough should be “courageous and do it.”

“It seems like this is helping the community. It’s a creative solution, a practical solution. We have a dock that needs to be fixed quick and they have the resources to do that,” she said.

Assembly member Brenda Josephson said she wanted to make sure that freight rates are not set so high in the future that they would drive away possible competition from serving Haines.

“At first blush I think that this is a good and unique idea to handle it, but the devil is in the details. We need to make sure that we protect the community long term, and we don’t put our community in a worse situation because of our short-term challenge,” Josephson said.