Proposed rail corridors spark debate in Big Lake

MAT-SU -- Nearly everyone agrees a rail spur and road from the Parks Highway to Port MacKenzie would spur development both in the Port MacKenzie area and along the chosen route, but residents and officials who control the money to build the spur disagree about where the route should be located.

"Don't do something that's going to make everyone a lawbreaker," said longtime Big Lake resident Keith Lipse, who advocated choosing a rail corridor that bypasses land widely used for recreation. Lipse said he and many other residents use public lands in the area proposed for two of the road/rail corridors as moose hunting grounds. Although rail crossings in the form of tunnels are proposed, Lipse said they would be too few and far between to accommodate most people who recreate in the Big Lake area.

"They need to bypass Big Lake and the Crooked Lake area entirely, because it's such a recreational area," said another Big Lake resident at a recent public meeting. Representatives from Tryck, Nyman and Hayes, an Anchorage consulting firm working under a contract with the Mat-Su Borough, presented results from their Mat-Su Rail/Road Corridor study at the meeting. The meeting was held at Houston High Wednesday, and offered residents the opportunity to rank the rail and road corridors proposed.

Several other residents agreed with Lipse in his selection of rail corridor three, a route that would break off the main line of the Alaska Railroad Corporation route paralleling the Parks Highway roughly a mile up from the Willow side of Hatcher Pass Road, pass west of the Nancy Lakes Recreational Area, and amble on a relatively straight course to Port MacKenzie. Although the area is rich in lakes and would cross the Little Susitna River, it would have a lesser impact on wetlands than the other corridors proposed.

Despite its preferred status among some of the landowners who live in the area, the corridor has several drawbacks. Project manager Norm Gutcher said the route is nearly 50 percent longer than the other suggested routes and, despite easy access to gravel, would cost about $25 million more to construct than the two other rail routes proposed. Some of the construction cost is offset, Gutcher said, with existing materials.

"That's part of the advantage of that route," Gutcher said. "We deliberately located it on a gravel moraine."

A road corridor along that route was not studied. Mat-Su Borough Public Works Director Jim Swing said there were several reasons the corridor did not have a road attached, but money was the main factor.

"The truth of the matter is, we were just at the end of our available funds," Swing said, "and we had to limit it somehow."

The borough was working within two grants -- one was a federal appropriation through the Federal Highway Administration and a second state grant -- related to Port MacKenzie. Swing said he hoped, if the rail corridor proved to be the more desirable alternative, the Alaska Department of Transportation would pick up the plan for future study. He added that, if corridor three were chosen, a utility and potential road corridor will be discussed.

"If the railroad goes on that corridor," Swing said, "We certainly would make sure there would be enough right-of-way."

This isn't the first time a rail spur connecting Port MacKenzie to the Alaska Railroad has been studied. In 1993, Peratrovich, Nottingham and Drage presented a rail spur corridor study to the Mat-Su Borough Assembly. In the nearly 10 years that have passed, that study has become outdated, due to land ownership changes, increased production costs and other factors.

"Route five was adopted by the assembly in 1993," said assembly member Jody Simpson, who attended the meeting. "But things have changed a lot since then."

Tryck, Nyman and Hayes studied five alternatives, two of which were rail and road corridors, both heading through the area between Big Lake and Houston -- Corridors 4 and 5. Houston residents, including Angela Rosas, a Houston city council member, hoped that bringing the rail spur close to the city would spark much-needed development.

Most alternatives fall into the $60- to $80-million range for each segment, rail or road. If both rail and road are built, as proposed in the Corridor 4 and 5 alternatives, the end price would be about $140 million.

Wednesday's meeting was the second time area residents have had a chance to weigh in on the Tryck, Nyman and Hayes study. Although several at the meeting complained they had not received notification of the meeting, TNH staff said about 10,000 cards were mailed out to landowners south of the Parks Highway in the area between Knik-Goose Bay Road and Houston, the area considered for study of potential rail spur routes. About 100 residents were at the meeting to give public comments.

Gutcher said the public comments taken at the meeting, as well as those submitted afterward, will be compiled over the coming weeks.

"We'll sort things down so that we have a road alternative and a railroad alternative that has the least amount of objection," Gutcher said. That information will be compiled into a final report. "We'll have a public meeting to present that in late February/early March."

That, Gutcher said, is when TNH bows out of the picture and the borough steps back in. It will be up to the borough, he said, to decide whether the presented alternative is acceptable, then find the funding to move the project forward, or decide if it's a needed expenditure.

Area residents who didn't have a chance to attend the open house or would like to comment on which alternative they believe is most desirable can contact Gutcher at 1-800-770-0543 or reach him by e-mail at normg@tnh-inc.com.