The Port of Nome: rescoping and moving forward: Value and potential as a deep-draft port remains intact.

• Author: Anderson, Tasha
• Position: Transportation SPECIAL SECTION

Much like the Port of Anchorage services more than the Municipality of Anchorage, the Port of Nome is vital infrastructure for Western Alaska. It was a particular disappointment for the region when Shell ceased exploration activities in the Chukchi Sea and the subsequent suspension of the Alaska Deep-Draft Arctic Port System Study, a multi-year examination of various options for port development in the Arctic.

Rescoping and Moving Forward

But the Port of Nome's value and potential as deep-draft port remains, regardless of oil and gas exploration or production in the Chukchi. Richard Beneville, Mayor of the City of Nome, says that when Shell pulled out the community expected that further development of the port would never happen. "Such is not the case," Beneville says. "The future has not changed; what is happening has not changed."

Port Director Joy Baker explains that two new pieces of legislation have revitalized plans for the Port of Nome. The first is the Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation Act (WIIN) passed in January 2016, which, through modified language, allows development of a port to be justified by benefit to a region, not just a specific community. The second is the National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2016, which "Requires DOD to submit to Congress an updated military strategy for the protection of US national security interests in the Arctic region."

Baker explains, "Both of those bills provide additional justification for picking up the Nome portion of the existing regional study and moving forward to further investigate the development of Nome as an Arctic deep-draft port."

The Port of Nome has been and remains an optimal choice for an Arctic deep-draft port. "Towards the end of the three-and-a-half-year period, [the US Army Corps of Engineers] had determined that Nome was the most economically feasible to become the first site for an Arctic deep-draft port based on the existing maritime and community infrastructure," Baker explains. The community of Nome already has roads, a hospital, an airport, and existing port infrastructure and maritime operations and services.

Baker says that one benefit of the suspended study was that it assessed several site options, and now all of those sites are able to use the study results (even if they are not fully complete) for their own planning efforts. "Nome's path forward is with the Army Corps investigating all the benefits to the region and the national strategic...