Environmental groups challenge rail spur

PALMER — A trio of local and Anchorage environmental groups made the first moves this week toward challenging Mat-Su Borough plans to extend rail service to Port MacKenzie.

“From the Bill Sheffield railroad terminal and the Port of Anchorage expansion, to the Mat-Su ferry and the Knik Arm Bridge, Upper Cook Inlet has become a magnet for wild-eyed government spending,” Bob Shavelson, advocacy director for Cook Inletkeeper, says in a press release announcing the challenge.

The groups — Alaska Chapter of the Sierra Club, Cook Inletkeeper and Alaska Survival — jointly filed a brief with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals hoping to stop the borough and Alaska Railroad from building the rail spur.

The groups question the affect the rail line from just north of Houston to the port district will have on salmon habitat it crosses, whether there is a good enough plan in place to pay for maintenance of the tracks and whether Alaska needs — and can pay for — a fourth big port.

The groups also dub the line “big coal’s rail project” in reference to Usibelli Coal Mine, which has said publicly multiple times it would like to ship coal through the port, be it from the company’s existing mine in Healy or the mine it is considering opening near Sutton.

The Mat-Su Borough has long said Port MacKenzie will be an economic driver in the region and the state, but that rail service is key to bringing down shipping costs and making the port viable.

“We keep hearing about we have all our eggs in one basket in oil we’re hearing about these fears about oil going down,” Mat-Su Borough Manager John Moosey said.

If the state is serious about diversifying the economy, Port MacKenzie is a way to start to make that happen by opening up the Interior to mining and other development, Moosey said.

“There is documented fact about the minerals all along the current rail line,” he said.

As for the salmon claim, Moosey pointed to the borough’s ongoing project to make sure salmon can pass under roads where they cross over streams.

“The borough has, I think, a fabulous track record on fish passage projects. We have grant money, we’ve put our own money in,” Moosey said. “Salmon is an extremely valuable resource that we hold dear to us.”

When problems with habitat crop up, the borough works to fix them.

“We had a lot to do and we still have a lot to but we’re picking away at it,” he said.

As for the idea that the state doesn’t need another port in addition to Anchorage, Seward and Whittier, Moosey said Anchorage isn’t a deepwater port and isn’t exporting raw material. Seward is maxed out or nearly so.

“I think there is more than enough room for us,” he said.

About claims the borough is operating with a “build it and they will come” mentality, Moosey said he wasn’t quite so sure how to answer that.

“If it’s built it will be used, so I agree with that 100 percent,” he said.

And the port is already operating. Moosey said there are six tenants on borough land using the port.

“In fact I think we have three ships there this weekend,” he said.

He pointed to studies showing that in the next 100 years, $90 billion in resources could come out of the state’s Interior.

“There is so much opportunity here it’s unbelievable, but we don’t really have the infrastructure to take advantage of it.”

He said he didn’t find the challenge surprising, saying this kind of challenge is really just part of the American process.

“They have their point of view and this is a dance that we do on any of these type of projects,” Moosey said.

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