Eh, what’s up with dock?

PALMER — The Mat-Su Borough and Anchorage are discovering not any port will do as a storm of controversy builds over where to land a planned Borough ferry on the Anchorage side of Knik Arm.

The ferry, built by the U.S. Navy as a prototype landing craft, is due to be delivered in August 2009. While the Navy will monitor the ship’s performance, the Borough will own and operate the boat, making regular runs between Port MacKenzie and Anchorage with a capacity to carry 14 to 20 cars and more than 100 people.

On one side, Mat-Su Borough Manager John Duffy said the best spot to dock in Anchorage is next to the boat launch at the end of Ship Creek.

On the other, Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich said the Port of Anchorage is the logical choice.

Duffy said he is armed with a sheaf of letters and studies that show Ship Creek is the best place to land the ferry.

“We have letters from the Port of Anchorage, Governor Sheffield, [and others] saying Ship Creek is the site. Please go to Ship Creek,” he said. It has only been in the last year that Begich has voiced opposition to berthing at Ship Creek.

As to the Port of Anchorage option, Duffy cited a letter from Southwest Alaska Pilots Association member Michael O’Hare that says that guiding boats into the proposed Port of Anchorage ferry dock is simply unsafe.

Begich said in an interview Monday that the port is perfectly safe.

“I think that if it was going to be unsafe we would not be building a $600 million port there,” Begich said.

As for Ship Creek, the area is a $7 million asset for the city, a boon to both the tourism industry and sportfishermen who come to catch salmon in downtown. The city is committed to protecting those fish stocks. A big unanswered question is whether the stocks will remain healthy if a ferry moves in, Begich said.

A ferry landing also doesn’t fit in with plans for the area, where the city wants to build viewing stands and develop the spot into something resembling a scenic waterfront. Other cities across the nation are buying up old docks and property to make such waterfronts and Anchorage, he said, has a chance to learn from its mistakes.

“We would argue that the other location is designed for ship docking,” Begich said. “This is not designed as an industrial port area, the Ship Creek Area.”

Duffy disagrees. A ferry dock won’t hamper fishing, he said. It would be built on pilings, which have been shown not to bother fish. The Borough has done a federally funded environmental analysis showing that the fish will not be bothered.

Also, rather than an eyesore and a hindrance to development of a waterfront, the ferry would be the catalyst for such a development, Duffy said, citing San Francisco and Seattle as cities that have used ferry landings to bolster waterfront commerce.

Begich disagrees. He stopped short in each mention of the ship of calling it a “ferry,” noting the boat’s provenance as a U.S. Navy prototype.

“I know they put different labels on it, but it’s a defense vessel,” he said. “It’s being developed by the Navy.”

As such, it should dock in the section of the Port the city is developing for the military to use, he said.

That development is part of the reason Duffy doesn’t see the port as a viable option to dock the ferry.

The port, he said, is in the middle of a three-phase expansion project and the section where the ferry will berth is last on the list to be built. He doesn’t believe Anchorage’s port project will have a spot for the ferry ready in time for the boat’s August 2009 delivery date.

Begich disputes that.

“The section we are expanding this year actually corresponds to the location” where the ferry would dock, Begich said. “It corresponds right with their timing.”

Begich said that when he talks to Mat-Su commuters working in Anchorage, the ferry is not on their list of improvements they’d like to see. Most people he talks to are hoping to see better lighting and improved safety on the Glenn Highway and a rail link between the municipality and the Valley.

Duffy said Begich is talking about different commuter groups.

“I do not believe people from Palmer are going to drive down to Point MacKenzie to take the ferry,” Duffy said.

The ferry targets residents of Big Lake, Willow and Knik-Goose Bay Road, he said. As a link to Anchorage, it also benefits development in the Borough by allowing developers a quick and easy method of bringing materials across the arm.

Whatever the outcome, both sides have pledged to work together to find a solution.

“We’re going to continue to work with them, but at the end of the day we have to make sure it works with our port,” Begich said.

“We have studied all kinds of different sites, done everything possible to make it work and we are going to continue to do that,” Duffy said.

But the ferry, he said, is hugely important for the Valley.

“In order for us to get the Port MacKenzie port moving we need to have this transportation link,” Duffy said. “It’s vital for our economic development and [to Anchorage’s] benefit as well.”

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