Skagway officials look to position the community as the frontrunner in the race for federal infrastructure funds earmarked for an electric ferry concept. They’ll also discuss the problem of an aging solid waste incinerator and attempt to pass a final budget for next year. KHNS’ Mike Swasey spoke with Skagway Mayor Andrew Cremata about the agenda for Thursday’s borough assembly meeting.
Swasey – Let’s start with the electric ferry resolution. Tell us what that is.
Cremata – So as I’m sure everyone is aware by now, the federal government passed the infrastructure bill, which designates $250 million toward a pilot program of some sort. So Skagway being the community in the state of Alaska that’s very far along in the process of not only determining whether or not, you know, we can have a ferry authority or what type of vessel may be appropriate for us to get to Juneau from Skagway and to Haines from Skagway more efficiently, we also have the renewable energy that is really kind of critical if you’re going to move toward a more environmentally sustainable type of ferry system.
The goal with the resolution is to basically, you know, plant the flag into the ground and say, Skagway would like to be the lead on the pilot project program. This doesn’t mean that we’re going to start building a ferry. What this means is we can enter into the process of say, perhaps a feasibility study, and really work toward trying to get a large portion of that money so that we can work with our partners at DOT and at the Marine Highway to hopefully develop a much more reliable and sustainable ferry for the future that could potentially become the model for the entire marine highway. Nothing is going to happen until the community has had ample time to weigh in.
So this resolution is merely to say that we want to be that pilot program, we should be because we are the furthest along in this process by quite a lot.
Swasey – And how does the recent signing of the Memorandum Of Understanding with the Department of Transportation play into the goal of developing an electric ferry for Skagway?
Cremata – What’s really great about the MOU is that now we have the potential toward building infrastructure. We obviously need to replace our ferry float with something more modern. It’s kind of crumbling, and we might have to do a fix on it until we get to that point. But this gives us the opportunity to potentially build out infrastructure that is perfectly suited for a new ferry.
Swasey – Okay, great. Tell us about the transfer station project.
Cremata – So the clean-burning incinerator has a lot of pretty significant issues. And it needs a major overhaul. And it is going to be out of service for a considerable period of time. Because it has these serious issues, it also means that it could go south at any time and stop working. If that happens, we have nothing to do with all of the garbage in town. Imagine what that would mean during the summer when all of your seasonal businesses are open, restaurants and whatnot. So the idea behind the transfer station is it creates a facility where waste can be processed, packaged, put on a barge, and shipped out in a scenario where we’re working on the incinerator or if the incinerator goes down.
Swasey – Any news coming out of the fiscal year ‘22 budget?
Cremata – Not that I know of, you know, a lot of effort went into the budget. There were three Assembly of the Whole meetings. This is the third reading, so this will be the one that finally approves the budget. There’s always a possibility for an amendment at this meeting or any future meeting. Obviously a budget is always a working document. But great job by our treasurer and by our entire staff on really streamlining this process and making it very straightforward.
Swasey – All right. Well, Mr. Mayor, thank you for the preview and we’ll see you Thursday night.
Cremata – See you Thursday night, have a great day.
Skagway’s upcoming borough assembly meeting is scheduled for 7 p.m. Thursday night. You can listen live at khns.org.
