The Haines Borough Assembly plans to take up a resolution in support of a ferry terminal at Cascade Point, 30 miles north of Juneau’s Auke Bay terminal, at its next regular meeting April 13.

“As we’ve seen with our winter ferry service the last couple of years, there’s a lot of drawbacks to the current ferry system,” Mayor Douglas Olerud said, describing the proposal at last week’s assembly meeting.

He said he had been contacted by those involved with Alaska Department of Transportation’s Juneau Access Improvements project, who pitched the terminal as a more economically feasible way to improve transportation between Juneau and upper Lynn Canal communities.

“They were talking about the economic benefits of moving the terminal thirty miles north and allowing the day boats, the Alaska class boats that were just built, to start running that route without any additional modifications,” Olerud said.

While this is the hope, there are many questions DOT will need to answer before it moves forward with the project, according to Haines’ legislative representatives, Sen. Jesse Kiehl and Rep. Sara Hannan.

“If it works, you could put (either the Tazlina or Hubbard) to work on the regular run in Lynn Canal, and really increase ridership and revenue and commerce among (Haines, Skagway and Juneau). That’s the dream of this project, but until the analysis is done, it’s just a dream,” Kiehl said. “I have been pushing on the department to really dig in and get all their homework done.”

For Kiehl, unanswered questions include whether the Tazlina and Hubbard can complete a Lynn Canal run from Cascade Point in a single, 12-hour timeframe, a limit imposed by the U.S. Coast Guard.

“The Alaska Marine Highway System has made the mistake before about assuming crew days, costly mistakes. They need to work with the Coast Guard on that,” Kiehl said.

Other considerations include ground transportation for crew and passengers between the Cascade Point and Auke Bay terminals, and negotiations with Goldbelt, the Alaska Native corporation that owns the land at Cascade Point.

Hannan said another consideration is whether ferries could access the terminal in the winter. “Because of the tides and the winds, without a huge breakwater, this is all just a seasonal dock,” she said.

Utilities are another logistical obstacle.

“There’s no power out there right now, no place to pump out black water, or add potable water,” Kiehl said. “Maybe they could empty tanks in Skagway and add potable water, one day a week, in Auke Bay, but they need to run the numbers.

If the project turns out to be feasible, its advantage over the controversial Juneau access road is its price tag, Kiehl said. “This notion doesn’t cost three-quarters of a billion.” Instead, it will likely cost tens of millions of dollars.

An alternative proposal under consideration is the renovation of the Tazlina and Hubbard, installing crew quarters to allow the vessels to complete runs that last more than 12 hours. The renovations are estimated to cost $15 million per vessel.

Even if the Cascade Point project gets a green light tomorrow, it would likely be two years before the terminal could be operational due to the complex engineering required, Hannan said. In the meantime, she said the current state of the ferry system is a reminder of why improved service is necessary.

On March 27, DOT announced that the sole ferry serving the upper Lynn Canal had broken down for the third time this year, leaving passengers stranded in Juneau, Haines and Skagway.

“Here we are on a snowy day where the planes aren’t flying, there are no reserve vessels, and the two new vessels can’t serve routes as they exist. This is an example of government at its worst,” Hannan said in an interview Monday.

The decision of whether to move forward with the Cascade Point terminal will ultimately fall to DOT. Kiehl said he thinks the department is showing more interest in the project than it has in recent years.

DOT didn’t respond to a request for comment by press time.