Alaska Marine Highway System introduces 20-year plan

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – With a pool of federal dollars flooding into Alaska, the Alaska Marine Highway System is looking to address its aging fleet as part of its 20-year plan.

Marine Director Craig Tornga said AMHS is looking to upgrade more than half of its fleet as part of the 20-year plan, with three new vessels coming online in the next four to five years.

“There’s nine vessels in the fleet and five of those vessels are over 45 years old. Standardly, you don’t operate vessels past the 25, 30-year mark,” Tornga said.

He said the plan seeks to replace the aging Tustumena, which is nearly 60 years old, with a diesel battery-powered hybrid ferry. The plan also calls for the Lituya to be replaced with an electric-powered ferry. In addition, the plan calls for the Matanuska and Columbia to be replaced, Tornga said. The Aurora and LeConte will likely be replaced in the “2031 range.”

He said the first phase of the draft plan is set to be shared with the Alaska Legislature in August.

“It’s there for the team here to see the vision and have a path forward but it’s also for the Legislature to see that there is a plan and when we are looking for funding to support it, they can see that there is a plan that’s tied to that,” Tornga said.

Southeast Conference Executive Director Robert Venables called the plan a “game changer.” He said the plan addresses problems that should have been addressed 10 to 15 years ago.

Venables said he is optimistic the plan will bear fruit thanks to a culmination of state political support and federal dollars, to which he thanks Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski.

He added when ferries break down, it is often for weeks at a time because parts are hard to come by locally, and technicians have to travel up from outside the state.

“This summer we see the communities like Yakutat with zero service. We’ve seen many communities with limited or just absent service for weeks and months at a time. That has a huge impact on local economies, the ability to access health care needs and other needs they need to get to hub communities for,” Venables said. “Sometimes flight opportunities are not even available, but when they are, it’s a much higher fiscal impact to household and community income.”

Tornga said the plan calls for the marine highway to have a fleet of nine vessels, but he is hoping recruitment and retention of employees improve as the plan develops. Tornga said currently they are short in every licensed category. He said they are down nine fleet officers and 36 engineers.

“The only way we’re operating is people are working over. And they can’t continue to do that so we do need to get recruitment a little better than what we are doing now to fill all those positions,” Tornga said. “We are working on a lot of initiatives in that area.”

According to the draft plan, AMHS hired 12 new people in 2022 and lost 11.

Tornga said the plan will be mostly funded through federal dollars. According to the plan, AMHS received nearly $97 million in federal money in fiscal year 2022 — $59 million from the Federal Highway Administration and $37.5 million from the Federal Transit Administration, so the state allocated only $7.5 million because of that infusion of federal dollars.

As for the Infrastructure Investments and Jobs Act, it is a massive federal investment and provides more than $550 billion over five years for repairs and upgrades to infrastructure across the country.

Of all that money, $1 billion is allocated to ferry-specific projects. Alaska is also expected to receive about $74 million of $342million that was set aside for the construction of ferry boats and ferry terminals facilities.

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