Preparing for the Surge: Cargo hubs connect Alaskans to the world.

• Author: Joyal, Brad
• Position: TRANSPORTATION

The state's entire population relies on ports and airports to connect them to the outside world. It's Alaska's major cargo hubs that allow vital materials to enter the state and be distributed throughout it.

"The trick with Alaska cargo is Alaskans don't grow a lot of food up here, and we don't manufacture a lot of goods in the state," says Jim Jager with the Port of Alaska. "So, if you're consuming it in the state, it's probably being shipped in."

Many of the state's busiest ports and airports are undergoing changes to keep up with increased cargo traffic, which continues to steadily surge.

Doorstep to the Arctic

Nome wants a piece of the cargo action. The Port of Nome has undergone a series of projects designed to create a more efficient space for those looking to transport cargo, most notably the Arctic Deep Draft Port project. The project still has about a year remaining in the design stage, and upon completion it will extend the existing causeway by nearly 3,500 feet while adding an outer basin dredged to roughly 40 feet, which nearly doubles the current depth of 22 feet. The additional space would accommodate more icebreakers, fuel tankers, and oversized cruise ships.

Nome's Port Director Joy Baker says the project "alleviates the majority of concerns about weather," especially for the Alaska Marine Lines (AMD barges that frequent the port. "Right now, we have the large AML barges coming in, and if you've got a bump out on the water in Southeast or Southwest, it's very uncomfortable for them to get alongside the barge with the tugit's just a real challenge," Baker says. "They'll either tow in if there's minimal winds and they grab ahold of the barge so they can push it into the dock, but it'll delay."

The new project will include the addition of an "L-shape" to the existing causeway which, working with the new deep-water basins, will "break the swell so the vessels can approach from the southeast and east and be able to come in, make it up to the barge, and push it into the dock fairly easy without the impact of the current and the swell on the surface of the water making it extremely difficult," according to Baker.

"It's going to knock out, I'd say, 75 or 80 percent of the weather issues," she says. "It's an issue almost all the time now in certain times of the year, and that's going to also allow the tankers to come into the deep-water basin and offload fuel. We could probably get our entire year's fuel delivery in just about two deliveries instead of about eight to twelve, depending on the volume and whether the weather is going to let you sit there and discharge it all from a barge."

Other recent projects...