Governor and DOT Commissioner Address Ferry Status & Working Group Members AnnouncedBy MARY KAUFFMAN
February 24, 2020
Currently the lack of ferry service is impacting the South Central Coastal Alaska and Southeast Alaska and impacting the lives of people. Governor Dunleavy said they are doing everything they can to work on fixing this issue and to come up with a sustainable solution that's going to take the AMHS forward for many years. For planning purposes, a working group has been formed made up of nine members tasked with providing recommendations on the future finances and service levels of the Alaska Marine Highway System (AMHS) to the Governor, using data from the AMHS Reshaping Study.
Current service issues did not happen overnight. Governor Dunleavy said the AMHS got to this point over decades because of lack of regular maintenance on some of the ships and very old ships that are failing mechanically and structurally creating a perfect storm hitting services year. He mentioned the strike in August that was unanticipated that took a good amount of revenue off the table impacting the system as well. He also mentioned last year's $1.5 - $1.6 billion budget deficit as a contributing factor as well as the legislatures agreed upon reductions to the ferry system. With the establishment of the AMHS Working Group, “We begin today the process of restructuring the Alaska Marine Highway System for the 21st century,” said Governor Dunleavy. “The challenges facing the ferry system date back several decades and solutions will require patience and compromise from all stakeholders. I want to thank the nine Alaskans who have stepped up to volunteer their time, knowledge, and wisdom to assist my administration and our fellow Alaskans that count on the system for transportation in our coastal communities.” “The AMHS Work Group is comprised of nine incredible Alaskans with unique experience and vast knowledge. Each member brings their own perspective, and I am confident this strong group will produce balanced recommendations,” said John MacKinnon, Commissioner of the Alaska Department of Transportation & Public Facilities.
MacKinnon said, “Their focus will be to deliver guidance regarding finance and service levels so the system is sustainable in the future. I thank them for volunteering for this important task.” MacKinnon said the AMHS has 12 ships in the fleet. The status of four of those ships is layup - meaning that the ships are unmanned with watch crews on them. Four of those ships are in Ward Cove about 6 miles north of Ketchikan. MacKinnon said the Malaspina is not suffering great amounts of damage from leaks and noted there was one leak that did get a little bit of water in a couple of the state rooms. The damage was minimal and regardless of what has been heard, art is not being pilfered off the ship. However, he said some of the equipment is being removed off the ship to be put on some of the other ships that are undergoing overhaul. Four ships are in layup mode and there are seven ships in overhaul in Ketchikan. Overhaul is an annual process to go through to maintain the Coast Guard certification. MacKinnon said, "We've got a number of regulatory agencies that require us to do certain things to the ship." The Coast Guard issues a Certificate of of operation so that the AMHS can run the ships under revenue service and carry passengers and the American Bureau of Shipping regulates other aspects of the ship, he said. The LeConte and her sister-ship Aurora both need a lot of steel replaced. Those particular ships - and all of the ships - are required every five years to go through a complete hull inspection of the steel. MacKinnon said, "And that's not just the outside hull that keeps the water out, it's the decks of the ship, the car deck and everything in there." He said the ships go through a very exhaustive steel inspection and the AMHS is somewhat a victim of the great technology called ultra-sonic testing, which is a non destructive method that can look through the steel on the ship and reveal if the steel has some bad metallurgy in it, or if its got some honeycomb requiring replacement. MacKinnon said when the LeConte was brought in for her scheduled annual overhaul bad steel was discovered. The estimate of replacing the LeConte's steel was somewhere in the area of $4 million. He said it made sense at that time to bring her sister-ship the Aurora in earlier than planned for inspection when even worse problems were discovered. MacKinnon said the AMHS budget was constrained with only enough money to repair one of the ships taking into consideration the other ships they already had in overhaul. The decision was made to take the Aurora and put her in lay up and put the investment into the LeConte. The LeConte was about the same age as the Aurora but had newer engines and was overall in much better shape. The other ships in their scheduled annual overhauls were scheduled about a year in advance with the shipyard in Ketchikan and are at the mercy of the shipyard's schedule and their ability to overhaul the ships for return to service. MacKinnon said the ships are put in the floating dry docks for some of the inspections at the Vigor shipyard in Ketchikan. Some are left in the water for some of the work. These overhauls involve a tremendous amount of work on both the mechanical side and the whole integrity. MacKinnon said, "It's not a simple effort and typically we spend about a million to a million and a half a ship in a normal overhaul." Half the fleet is over 44 years old and and half the fleet is under 21 years old said MacKinnon. "There was a period of time in there, where we didn't build any ships for whatever reason, and and we're kind of a victim of that problem. We're also a victim that over the years of operation we never put in a replacement fund or replacement schedule for the ships. It's been done haphazardly," he said. The DOT operates the state equipment fleet with some 8,000 pieces of road maintenance equipment, and vehicles for all the state agencies. When a state agency uses one of these vehicles or state equipment, money has been put into a fund for the replacement of that equipment as it depreciates. MacKinnon said that depreciation/replacement funding was never set up with the marine highway system. MacKinnon said, "We've been at the mercy of annual appropriations, or bond issues or other sources to replace the ships," Replacement has never been a long term plan on how the AMHS is going to utilize the ships. The Kennecott was built in 98, using mostly Exxon Valdez money. The Kennecott is a floating spill response vessel with advanced communications with a helipad on it. The Kennecott was funded in part by settlement money from Exxon. Shortly after that, the department built the two fast ferries in 2003-2004 which are now being prepped for sale. "Technologically, they were great, but you know they failed in British Columbia they failed in Puget Sound - but you know what, we can do them up here and make them work," said MacKinnon. He said, not only were they very expensive to operate but made out of aluminum which doesn't last in salt water.. Most recently starting in 2014, two Alaska class ferries were built. MacKinnon said they were built under one concept, but to make them work and more versatile in ports, they need forward side doors and possibly crew quarters. He said the department is still working those needs out. MacKinnon said, "One of the biggest challenges we have in the whole marine highway system is making our schedules and our frequency of service match the travel demand. It doesn't make sense to have a ship go to a community and run around with 10% - 15% full on a weekly basis. It makes more sense to possibly run every other week and be 30, 40, 50% full. So one of the biggest challenges we have with this whole operation is making our frequency of service match the demand of travel." MacKinnon said if the lack of available ships continues, the department is going to engage private ships to take care of whatever transportation needs they can. The AMHS announced February 10th a Request for Information was released to gather details from marine charter companies about services they could provide. The AMHS is working with responding companies to establish options for interim passenger and freight service for the northern Panhandle in the near future. AMHS said they will work with communities to provide enough time to plan. Currently, the M/V Tazlina is scheduled to return to service in the Northern Panhandle on March 5, 2020. The Alaska Marine Highway System (AMHS) has canceled sailings on the M/V Matanuska through Tuesday, April 14, at which time the M/V Columbia is anticipated to assume the sailings originally scheduled for the Matanuska. Last month, issues with the reduction gear system on the Matanuska were identified. Repairs will need to take place at the Ketchikan shipyard dry dock. The Matanuska returned to service in November 2019 after a complete re-power, and the repairs are covered under warranty. AMHS is unable to provide an anticipated return to service date for the Matanuska but they are working with Vigor Marine to get the ship repaired and back in service as soon as possible. According to comments made at the press conference, there has been disagreement between the shipyard and the manufacture as to the warranty and who is responsible. "Our hope with this work group," said MacKinnon, "is that they will take a tremendous amount of information that consultants put together. And believe me if you look at that that reshaping study there is a tremendous amount of information in there. They will take that and come up with some solid recommendations for the system to move forward that will deal both with frequency of service routes, vessel replacements. I considered very high powered group. There's people highly respected in whatever field you want to consider knowledgeable in most aspects of transportation." The nine members of the reshaping work group are: Public: Tom Barrett (Chair) Admiral Tom Barrett, United States Coast Guard (Ret.) will serve as the Work Group’s Chairperson. Barrett most recently retired as president of the Alyeska Pipeline Service Company, and also served as Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation. A letter was sent to the governor's office and the commissioner from the Alaska Native Brotherhood and Sisterhood asking for two dedicated seats for the Brotherhood and the Sisterhood on the reshaping committee. Both the governor and the commissioner said they had just seen the letter and no slight has been intended for anyone. The Work Group’s final report is due on or before September 30, 2020 with implementation beginning in Fiscal Year 2023.
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