Mystrom updates business leaders on Valley rail extension

PALMER — With the governor seemingly on board and work already started, one of the main cheerleaders drumming up interest in a rail extension to Point MacKenzie is optimistic about the project’s future.

“He’s bought into it. He’s got some skin in the game,” former Anchorage mayor Rick Mystrom said of Gov. Sean Parnell’s decision to keep money for the project in last year’s budget and to include more money for it in his draft of this year’s state budget. “This project will happen.”

Mystrom, who has been working with the Mat-Su Borough to spread the word about the rail line, gave a presentation Wednesday to the Palmer Chamber of Commerce and said the biggest question now seems to be whether the borough can stay on track to meet its goal of opening the rail extension in 2014.

The project should pass its next big milestone next month when the federal agency in charge of approving the project is expected to release a report announcing its preference for one of four potential routes.

Two of those routes are through Houston and are essentially the same, except for six miles just before the extension reaches the Alaska Railroad’s main line near the Parks Highway. It’s this part of the project that has drawn the most reaction from the public. Borough residents who live near one or the other route could be counted on to make appearances at every meeting at which they were discussed, often voicing opposition.

One of the proposals, the Big Lake route, crosses major thoroughfares like Big Lake Road and Hollywood Road. The Willow route skirts numerous lakes, but still crosses the Little Susitna River, as does the Houston North route. All cross the Iditarod Trail, though really just the portion of it the race uses if it starts in Knik, which it hasn’t in years.

But Mystrom, the borough and interested parties in the state’s Interior have long said that building this rail line is a major step toward ensuring Alaska’s future.

“I would describe the economy right now as very uncertain,” Mystrom told his audience at the chamber meeting.

Sources of uncertainty he listed include some of the usual suspects: wobbly plans to build a natural gas pipeline, a lot of lingering questions about how the state will produce energy for itself and the declining volume of oil flowing through the trans-Alaska pipeline.

But he also noted that there are questions being raised on the national level about whether Alaska Native corporations should be allowed the special status they have for no-bid federal contracts of unlimited size, and roadblocks Shell Oil seems to have hit in its plans to drill for oil in the Chukchi Sea.

A shorter rail route to the Interior, ending at Port MacKenzie, which is deep enough to handle the world’s largest cargo ships, would go a long way toward solving two major state problems — a lack of transportation infrastructure and a lack of economic diversity, Mystrom said.

A limestone deposits near Livengood would “provide all the cement we would need to build a Susitna Dam,” Mystrom said, referencing the hydroelectric project that has recently received a lot of support from the state.

But that limestone is currently inaccessible. A rail line would change that. It would also help existing resource extraction businesses.

“It can take about $3 per ton off the cost of Alaska coal,” Mystrom said. “Exxon estimates $100 million in savings on gas pipeline construction.”

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