Officials hail rail construction

POINT MacKENZIE — Dignitaries from state and local government filled a tent overlooking the massive cleared area that is the site of its planned rail loop to mark the project’s official launch.

“Today is 10 years in the making,” Borough Manager John Moosey said Tuesday. “I am honored and proud and pleased to be a part of this project.”

Construction on the portion of the Port MacKenzie Rail Extension connecting that rail loop at the port to the mainline near Houston officially began last summer, but construction on the looped segment was ongoing as early as 2009.

Speakers at a groundbreaking ceremony Tuesday noted that there has been funding for the project in every state budget since it got underway. This year was no exception — the budget contained $25 million for the project.

Gov. Sean Parnell compared the project to the transcontinental railroad, saying that under Abraham Lincoln the railroad sparked economic opportunity from coast to coast.

“That’s exactly what’s happening here,” the governor said.

He said the project is “bigger than just the Mat-Su Borough” and will open up resources to development statewide.

But while the event featured universally positive speakers, the project has its detractors. Cook Inletkeeper, one of a coalition of environmental groups suing in federal court to stop the project, penned a press release timed to coincide with the groundbreaking ceremony.

“Residents around Alaska are questioning whether this Mat-Su Borough project can ever pay for itself,” the press release states, calling the mining that is supposed to justify the costs “indeterminate” and the $272 million construction costs the “tip of the iceberg” compared to ongoing maintenance of the rail and the port.

Speaking at the ceremony Sen. Charlie Huggins, R-Wasilla praised Parnell as a “supreme leader” on these kinds of projects. He also praised his colleague, Rep. Bill Stoltze, R-Butte, for “synchronizing that thing called money” and a pair of teenage boys who “stayed up until 3 o’clock last night” building a scale model of the project that was on display outside the tent.

Stoltze, for his part, noted that there were people in the crowd from Fairbanks, a community that had embraced the rail project and its potential to spur economic development there.

“For Fairbanks to endorse something outside of their boundaries is real rare,” Stoltze said.

But, he said, with mining opportunity he described as “limitless” and a massive limestone deposit, Stoltze predicted major economic changes in Alaska.

“This is probably going to be the cement hub of the whole northwest,” Stoltze said.

Mat-Su Borough Mayor Larry DeVilbiss said the port is unique in its ability to stage bulk resources like limestone and ore.

“It’s the only area in the whole state where you can dump a whole mile-long loop of railroad cars without stopping,” he said.

John Binkley, who sits on the Alaska Railroad Corp.’s board of directors, noted that the railroad almost died in the 1980s. The federal government was going to pull up the tracks and scrap the iron.

“The state of Alaska said, ‘no, this is our railroad, we’re going to buy this railroad,’” Binkley said.

And, he said, the state put it to use, just as it intends to put the spur to Point MacKenzie to use.

“So let’s do it! Let’s build a railroad!” Binkley said.

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