Dear Haines Community, Including Mayor Morphet, Borough Assembly Members, and Borough Administration: Please choose a scaled-down Lutak Dock alternative 3B that will provide continued freight and fuel service to Haines, without throwing open the door for large-scale ore export. We are tired of over-built infrastructure projects based on predetermined designs in search of after-the-fact justifications. […]
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Posted inLocal News, News
Deadline for Lutak Dock project pushed back three years
This story has been updated. A looming deadline to sign a grant agreement for the controversial Lutak Dock project has been pushed back by three years. The news could upend debates about the need to make a quick decision to approve the $25 million project to shore up the aging dock that is the entry […]
Posted inLocal News, News
Southeast Road Builders appeals permit remand for Lutak Road project
Southeast Road Builders is appealing a November assembly decision to add more requirements to a permit to extract and store gravel on Lutak Road. In its appeal, the company argues the assembly overstepped its authority by sending a permit back to the planning commission to rehear. Among other points, the company says the assembly didn’t […]
Posted inLetters, Uncategorized
Assembly, scale back the Lutak mega-dock
In Charlie Chaplin’s 1936 silent film Modern Times, he is sucked through the conveyor belt and giant gears of industry. 25 years later Republican President Eisenhower issued the same warning about the military-industrial complex. Today in Haines, public funds still feed gigantic gears of private extractive industry — the Haines Highway, Porcupine/Constantine Road upgrades, Palmer […]
Posted inLocal News, News
Feds won’t allow $10 million steel purchase; are ‘extremely concerned’ borough won’t meet Lutak Dock deadlines
This story has been updated. A representative from the U.S. Transportation Department said he’s “extremely concerned” Haines won’t meet a deadline for completing environmental reviews required to move forward with its $25 million Lutak Dock rebuild project. The news came in a Friday letter from David Bohnet, a grants supervisor for the Transportation Department. He […]
Posted inLetters
Keep Handymax cargo ships out of Lutak
Lutak Dock and the plan we choose for it will affect the sustainability of our food basket of hooligan, salmon, halibut, shrimp, and crab from our local watersheds. The plan we choose will impact whether or not we will have humpback whales, orcas, sea lions, seals, otters, bald eagles, multiple species of migratory birds coming […]
Posted inLetters
Tone down Lutak Dock rhetoric
Let’s tone down the rhetoric. Assembly member Natalie Dawson has a great idea — let’s plan discussions about the challenges that we are faced with. Is the freight dock an ore terminal? Are environmentalists the only folks that speak the truth? Should we fear multinational corporations like DOWA or Patagonia? Let’s do what assembly member […]
Posted inLocal News, News, Politics, Southeast
Haines leaders pitch public vote on future use of Lutak Dock
During the yearslong fight over what should happen to Haines’ cargo dock on Lutak Road, one theory keeps coming up – the idea that the city may be coordinating a $20 million project to overhaul the dock at the behest of local mining interests that want a port to store and offload ore. Regardless of […]
Posted inNews, Southeast
Here’s where Lutak Dock stands after revelations of steel order
By Lex Treinen and Rashah McChesney Borough officials are on edge waiting for news from the federal government about where the $25 million Lutak Dock replacement project stands after revelations that its contractor ordered millions of dollars worth of steel before getting approval. “We really don’t know anything until MARAD responds to us,” said borough […]
Posted inNews
‘They did this at their own risk’ Borough officials say Lutak Dock contractor spent $10M on steel without approval
The contractor tasked with rebuilding Lutak Dock spent nearly $10 million on steel without authorization from the federal government. Haines Borough officials say they didn’t authorize the purchase either. But, documents shared with CVN raise questions about what borough officials knew and when. They include a Nov. 17 email from Turnagain informing the borough that it had spent millions […]