Last week, the Haines borough hosted the Lutak Dock Town Hall. Alain d’Epremesnil has this story.
The Haines Borough held a presentation by Turnagain Marine Construction last Thursday night, to inform the public about future work at the Lutak dock, and clarify how the planning has evolved in recent weeks. The current structure was built sixty years ago and an engineering report from 2014 declared it at the end of its useful life. Jason Davis, of Turnagain, explained how he believes the latest design proposed by his company offers the best value, as no funds have to be spent on demolition of the old dock and hauling away of contaminated materials. This is achieved by encasing the old structure within new walls and using the old dock as fill for the new one.
Here is Jason Davis: “Again, speaking to the uplands that would be removed, and that under our proposal would remain in place, there is a lot of cost hat comes out of just tearing that out, and to get rid of land, versus keeping it instead of paying to dispose of it, was really the foundation that lead us to make the proposal that we made, that was within the available budget. “
Many of the approximately 55 attendees were not here to talk engineering so much as wanting to question the premise of rebuilding a structure that could be used as an ore dock and potentially draw heavy truck traffic through town.
Heidi Robichaud commented: ” How do you know when you think you have the community’s input, when you feel you really know what the community wants?”
Some expressed frustration with the suddenness of recent changes in design, and distrust of the planning process.
Here is Jessica Plachta: ” Some of you individuals sitting in front of us tonight have been involved in those conversations, it seems disingenuous to pretend now that those conversations haven’t been happening all along. The community deserves honesty and transparency from our representatives.”
And Eric Holle: “I’d be interested in knowing who the stakeholders are. I assume Delta Western is a stakeholder, are Yukon mining interests stakeholders?”
Mayor Doug Olerud defended the borough’s approach: “The borough was going to build the dock, we don’t know what it’s going to look like, but once we received the funding that we’ve been fighting fof for seven years, six or seven applications, all of them I think with unanimous approval from the borough assembly.”
This latest design will be proposed to Maritime Administration or MARAD, the DOT agency that approves funding. If approved, MARAD will provide half the 25.3 million dollar cost, local revenue from docking fees is to cover the other half.
The power point presentation can be seen at
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