Barge services bring it home: dependable transportation for small villages to big industry.

• Author: White, Rindi
• Position: TRANSPORTATION

In a state with more rivers than roads, Alaskans rely on barges for everything from oil industry heavy lifting to fuel delivery to construction material and equipment provision to moving things like household goods, hazardous waste, and even boats and vehicles.

Of the many Alaska barge service providers, most operate on demand, offering chartered barge service. Only a handful offer regularly scheduled sailings, and within that group, each seems to have a specific focus. Some serve a broad territory while others focus on a smaller group of communities. A few offer year-round service while others work six months a year, getting into position to await the yearly breakup of ice off Interior rivers and leaving in the fall with the ice nipping at their stern.

Created for Construction Assistance

Cruz Construction, Inc., a Palmer-based company founded by Dave and Dana Cruz, realized the importance of barges a few years ago while working on an airport extension project at Grayling. The gravel for the project was located six miles away, at Eagle Island.

The amount of material that needed to be moved was significant, and other Yukon River barge operations weren't able to commit to the project, so company officials made the quick decision to expand their company profile. They bought a 55-foot tug and a 150-foot barge and made six hundred trips between the island and the airport, hauling one thousand tons of gravel each trip, says Kevin Weiss, who was hired to oversee the project at the time and is now general manager of Cruz Marine.

Having the tug and barge on hand allowed Cruz Construction to secure a contract for work at the Fort Yukon airport the next year, Weiss says, and to secure other small contracts. But it was an in-river tug, he says, and Cruz Construction needed access to a vessel that could handle deeper water.

"We knew we had to expand outside the river to support anything else that Cruz Construction might bid on," Weiss says.

In the six years since, Weiss says the Cruz Marine fleet has quadrupled and the company's profits have tripled. Although the company still supports Cruz Construction projects when needed, most of its business is as a charter barge service, he says.

"We haul for anybody. We haul for energy companies in the Inlet; we now have a boat and barge dedicated in Cook Inlet," Weiss says.

The tug, Ari Cruz, and a 150-foot barge haul between Nikiski, Trading Bay, and Beluga, he says. This year it was used to haul Cruz Construction cranes, trucks, and trailers to Trading Bay to support Cook Inlet Energy's work there.

The company also owns the Millie Cruz, a tug with a three-foot, nine-inch draft the company had built at Fred Wahl Marine in Reedsport, Oregon, in 2011. The tug is tough--it has a double hull and can withstand Arctic barging conditions found in Alaska's oceans and rivers.

That tug, plus a two hundred-foot barge, is hauling aggregate between Nome and Unalakleet to support an erosion control project being managed by Orion Construction.

But Weiss says the tug is often called on for heavier-duty work.

"The Millie Cruz has been supporting Point Thomson with vessel assists on the heavy lifts," Weiss says.

The company's first tug, the Grayling, helps with lighterage work, transferring things like contaminated soil from cleanup sites to waiting barges or deeper docks, Weiss says.

One of the most difficult projects Cruz Marine participated on was a joint effort with Cruz Construction to lay two transmission lines across the mud flats between Anchorage and Fire Island for the CIRI Fire Island Wind project.

Following that 2010 project, CIRI became part owner of Cruz Marine. Cruz Company, the umbrella company that also owns Cruz Construction, wholly manages Cruz Marine, Weiss says.

"They were very interested in the marine business, to help support their Cook Inlet family," Weiss says. "CIRI is a very healthy...