Mat-Su ferry almost finished, but port location uncertain

The ferry, a one-of-a-kind ice-breaking ship being built by the federal Office of Naval Research, is on track to be finished next winter.

Borough officials have long touted it as a way to transport commuters between Anchorage and Mat-Su, and more recently to ferry workers from Anchorage to a state prison being built nine miles from Port MacKenzie.

But the landings on both the Anchorage and Mat-Su sides have yet to be built and still need millions of dollars in funding. Meanwhile, there has been continued opposition to a potential landing spot on the Anchorage side, including a Coast Guard letter released last week saying if the borough builds on the site it prefers in Anchorage, collisions between the ferry and tugboats or private boaters could occur.

While Mat-Su works to prove the ferry landing will fit in the crowded Anchorage coastline, it appears unlikely a permit will be granted in time to build the landing next year.

As a result, Mat-Su officials said this week the ferry could end up sailing to remote Cook Inlet villages for two years before it has a place to dock in Anchorage.

Or it could be mothballed until the landings are built.

The ferry, dubbed the M/V Sustina, is an experimental ship originally designed for military use. It has a ice-breaking hulls that will allow it to operate year-round in Knik Arm. A movable deck between the hulls will lower to let military equipment drive off without a dock. But in Cook Inlet, where low tides uncover acres of sticky mud, a dock that moves with the tides is needed to haul personal vehicles.

The vessel is expected to cost $68 million. After three months of testing how it performs for military use, the borough can operate the vessel as a ferry, provided it continues to track the ship's performance for five years.

The ship is expected to carry up to 111 passengers and 20 cars. Ticket prices have not yet been set, but a report last year estimated $10 per person or $25 per car for a 15-minute trip from Port MacKenzie to Anchorage.

Lots of hurdles

The Mat-Su Borough has a permit to build a ferry landing at Port MacKenzie and is working on final designs. The site sits almost directly across Knik Arm from the Port of Anchorage. Port MacKenzie Director Marc Van Dongen said the borough needs another $8 million to build the landing. If the money is found, the landing could be built next year.

Construction of an Anchorage dock is nowhere near as close. Officials from Anchorage and Mat-Su have been deadlocked over where to put a ferry landing on the Anchorage side of Knik Arm for several years.

The two communities had agreed to work together on the ferry project. Anchorage committed $150,000 to planning and design. But outgoing Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich ended that agreement in December, about two weeks before he resigned to be sworn in as a U.S. senator.

"We have both recognized for some time now that the project is no longer a joint venture, and terminating this agreement is essentially a housekeeping matter to square the record with practice," Begich stated.

Anchorage mayoral candidates Eric Croft and Dan Sullivan have been vague on their positions. A Daily News candidate questionnaire in February asked them whether Anchorage should agree to cooperate with Mat-Su on a ferry landing and where to build it -- at Ship Creek, the Port of Anchorage or somewhere else.

Croft answered "somewhere else." Sullivan said he would "review all options."

The ferry's prospects got foggier last week with the release by the Army Corps of Engineers of several letters from state, federal and municipal agencies opposing the borough's choice for a landing site on the Anchorage side.

Mat-Su officials applied last fall for a Corps of Engineers' permit to build a ferry landing near the mouth of Ship Creek, on a finger of land that includes a public boat launch. Anchorage officials want to redevelop that area some day into a tourist attraction and don't believe the ferry will fit those plans. They have asked the borough instead to build the landing at the nearby Anchorage port. But Mat-Su officials have a long list of objections to using the port, chief among them that ferry passengers would have to pass through security checkpoints, which could deter potential riders.

In evaluating the borough's request for a permit for the site near the boat launch, the Corps of Engineers took public comments on the project. Eight state, federal and municipal agencies responded with lists of concerns.

Among them, the U.S. Coast Guard recommends denying the permit because the landing could hinder boat traffic at the public boat launch and at Cook Inlet Tug & Barge Co., which operates next to where the borough wants to build the Anchorage ferry landing.

"Knik Arm's ice conditions, tides, currents and spatial limitations combine to create a hazardous environment where the addition of a facility of this size poses unacceptable risk," stated Coast Guard Capt. H.M. Hamilton in an April 16 letter.

Mat-Su officials hopeful

The project needs Coast Guard approval to move forward and Van Dongen hopes to get it. He said he is working to change the landing design to address the Coast Guard's concerns and concerns raised by Cook Inlet Tug & Barge President Carl Anderson, who says part of the ferry landing is too close to his dock.

"It's going to take a couple more months to work these things out," Van Dongen said.

If the dock is built at Port MacKenzie, the borough has said they could use the ferry to make runs to Tyonek and other Cook Inlet communities until a landing is built in Anchorage, although those communities would need to build docks too.

Meanwhile, the borough is searching for funding for the landings. Construction of the Mat-Su landing is expected to cost $14 million, of which the borough has $6 million. The Anchorage ferry landing is much more costly, at $22 million, Van Dongen said. The landing, a floating concrete dock, would require a quarter-mile-long trestle to reach it, he said.

Borough Manager John Duffy said the borough has applied for federal transportation grants to build the project. But if the Knik Arm bridge project is halted, he said the borough will ask for some of the about $63 million in unspent federal money earmarked for that project.

An Anchorage transportation committee last week voted to start a series of public hearings to see if the bridge should be removed from Anchorage's long-term transportation plan. The project must stay in the plan to qualify for federal funding.

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Find Daily News reporter Rindi White online at adn.com/contact/rwhite or call her at in Wasilla at 1-907-352-6709.