Borough eyes stimulus money for dock work

PALMER — The Mat-Su Borough is hoping that its request for $3 million to expand its port will receive federal funds.

The project to expand the port’s barge dock was one of many on a list of projects the borough hoped would receive federal funding under the economic stimulus package. The list was cobbled together in a meeting of the Borough Assembly earlier this year.

Dave Hanson, the borough’s Director of Economic Development, said the borough sent its grant proposal for the barge dock to one of the federal agencies that was given stimulus money to distribute — the Economic Development Administration.

“We had many stimulus grant projects that we could use but for this particular funding agency the barge dock was what fit their criteria easiest,” Hanson said.

The project would cost $6 million. The borough is expected to come up with the other half of the money. Hanson said they plan to do that mainly through material costs. There’s a lot of borough-owned gravel out at Point MacKenzie.

He said he put in his application and it looks to be going well so far. He hopes to hear back by the first or second week of April.

The project calls for a 7.86-acre expansion of the current barge dock. Having a larger barge dock, he said, will do a number of things.

First, he said, “It provides enough room to where we can assemble the giant Sea-Lift modules that are so big you have to assemble them right where you load them onto the ships.”

Second, plans for an expansion of the port’s deepwater dock require a larger barge dock. Trucks currently drive across the barge dock to access a trestle leading to the deepwater dock.

“We can load the biggest vessels in the world because it’s so deep out there,” Hanson said.

Once the trucks have unloaded their cargo, they have to turn around on the deepwater dock and use the same trestle going out that they used coming in. With a larger dock, the borough could build another trestle, allowing trucks to enter on one and exit on the other.

“The dock works the way it does now, this would just greatly improve it,” Hanson said.

And a bigger dock would mean more storage for pipes coming in if the company building the natural gas pipeline decides to use Port MacKenzie and for lumber being shipped out of the port.

If the grant is approved, Hanson said, the project will begin almost immediately with the goal of wrapping up before the summer is through.

“We’ll be digging dirt, digging materials in June,” Hanson said.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.