Alaska Public Media
By: Zachariah Hughes

In a departure from big wish lists of the past, Anchorage Mayor Ethan Berkowitz’s legislative request has only one capital budget project. The administration is also pushing for a number of law changes designed to give local governments more financial flexibility.

Berkowitz submitted his legislative program to the city’s Assembly on Friday. It’s a menu of funding items and bills the municipality hopes to see from the Legislature in the upcoming session.

This year’s legislative program is just seven pages – six if you don’t count the title page. The small size and focused scope are intentional steps toward a new funding relationship between Anchorage and the state, according to Ona Brause, the mayor’s deputy chief of staff.

Read Full Story Here:
http://www.alaskapublic.org/2016/12/12/anchorage-pushing-for-port-more-flexible-finances-from-legislature/

Alaska Journal of Commerce
By: Elwood Brehmer

The defendants in the Municipality of Anchorage’s lawsuit over its failed port expansion project have banded together to demand the city’s claim for monetary damages be tossed because they contend it has yet to specify what exactly it seeks to recoup.

Attorneys for Anchorage-based PND Engineers filed a joint summary judgment motion in U.S. District Court of Alaska Nov. 21 on behalf of co-defendants Integrated Concepts and Research Corp. and GeoEngineers, a Seattle-based firm that consulted on the long-dead project.

The group alleges the municipality’s damages claim contains numerous “fatal flaws” that will keep it from being successful at trial, which is currently scheduled to begin next April.

Chief among their arguments is that Anchorage has yet to detail who owes it money, and how much, in its lawsuit filed more than three years ago.

Read the Full Story Here:
http://www.alaskajournal.com/2016-12-01/port-defendants-argue-anchorage-has-no-claim-state-federal-project-funds#.WEeDmPkrLtV

Alaska Journal of Commerce
By: Elwood Brehmer

Anchorage has settled out of court for $12.6 million with three subcontractors in the city’s failed port expansion project while a lawsuit against other players in the complex drama continues.

Most recently on Oct. 19, Terracon Consultants Inc. and the Municipality of Anchorage filed a motion in U.S. District Court of Alaska notifying the court that Terracon had agreed to pay the municipality $1.95 million.

Terracon reviewed a 2008 evaluation report of the Open Cell Sheet Pile dock design that the municipality claims was faulty. The settlement document notes that CH2M, which filed a third-party complaint against Terracon in November 2014, has not filed a claim of fault or breach of contract by Terracon.

On Aug. 30, Quality Asphalt Paving, or QAP, agreed to pay the municipality $5.15 million to resolve its role in the lawsuit.

Read Full Story Here:
http://www.alaskajournal.com/2016-10-27/anchorage-settles-126m-port-contractors#.WBqK7vkrLtV

Alaska Journal of Commerce
By: Elwood Brehmer

The global engineering firm CH2M is almost out of Anchorage’s lawsuit to settle liability for the municipality’s failed port expansion project after a Monday federal court ruling.

U.S. District Court of Alaska Judge Sharon Gleason found the Municipality of Anchorage has little financial recourse against the company that, at least initially, seemed to play a very small role in updating the aging docks at the Port of Anchorage.

Gleason wrote in a 31-page order that the municipality cannot link CH2M — which through a company it purchased was a consulting subcontractor in the layered and complex project — to the damages it has since incurred.

Read Full Story Here:
http://www.alaskajournal.com/2016-11-01/all-one-claim-against-ch2m-dismissed-port-lawsuit#.WBqJ-PkrLtV

KTUU News
By: Beth Verge

For the Port of Anchorage, and the team fixing it, the biggest challenge may be Father Time: The POA's docks are supported by 1423 steel piles - posts that hold the whole thing up - which are deteriorating so badly that many have lost up to three quarters of their original thickness.

"They're racing to get these things on and bolted up, so they're secure before the tide gets so high that we can't work and level," said Bernie Rosenberger, Diving Operations Manager for Global Diving and Salvage Alaska.

A team that includes professional divers was charged with the task of repairing some of the Port of Anchorage piles with jackets this year, like many years before. They've been bolting two different types of curved steel sheets on the piles in order to help alleviate some of the damage to them. One is a friction coupler, which encapsulates the pile, and the other goes around the pile but leaves a space which is later filled with concrete.

Read Full Story Here:
http://www.ktuu.com/content/news/Crews-race-to-make-repairs--399520291.html

Dredging News Online

The US Army Corps of Engineers-Alaska District has received a Section 408 permission request from the Port of Anchorage to modify an existing federal dredging project as part of the Anchorage Port Modernization Programme.

The port’s programme consists of five phases to replace and modernize existing docks. The request for Section 408 permission is for the North Extension Stabilization, Step 1, which will be completed as part of Phase 1.

Read Full Story Here:
http://www.sandandgravel.com/news/article.asp?v1=23445

Alaska Dispatch News
By: Alex DeMarban

A second contractor has settled with the city in a lawsuit over the bungled Port of Anchorage expansion, with general contractor Quality Asphalt Paving agreeing to pay just over $5.1 million to end its financial liability in the case.

On Monday, U.S. District Judge Sharon Gleason ordered the company released from liability in the city's sprawling lawsuit against multiple contractors involved in a failed project that ultimately cost more than $300 million.

Read the Full Story Here:
http://www.adn.com/business-economy/2016/10/18/city-settles-with-second-contractor-in-lawsuit-over-port-expansion/

Alaska Dispatch News
By: Jeannette Lee Falsey

With Alaska's economy sluggish, the volume of goods brought into the state by its two major shipping lines is on the decline.

The moderate shrinkage of imports has competitors Matson and Totem Ocean Trailer Express, known as TOTE, working harder to defend market share while continuing investment in a small regional economy where growth over the next few years is not in the forecast.

The companies deposit their cargoes side-by-side at the port of Anchorage every Tuesday and Saturday. Crossing the North Pacific from the port of Tacoma, they deliver the goods that make Alaska livable for hundreds of thousands of residents: fleece vests, skis, dog collars, paint, toothpaste, guns and butter.

Read Full Story Here:
https://www.adn.com/business-economy/2016/10/14/as-economy-loses-steam-alaskas-major-shippers-report-import-declines/

Alaska Business Monthly - October 2016
By Julie Stricker

An Alaska road map is barren by Lower 48 standards. Most of the roads in the 49th State are concentrated in the most-populous Southcentral region, with two highways connecting Fairbanks and Anchorage. One of those turns to the east and Canada. The other heads north, ending on the shores of the Arctic Ocean amid the industrial development of Alaska’s oil fields. Outside of this corridor, the map is mostly blank.

Read Full Story Here:
Arctic Transportation Infrastructure Needs - 5MB pdf

KUAC - Fairbanks
By Tim Ellis

Some 5,000 soldiers from around the country and Canada are headed back home after a grueling three-week field-training exercise on ranges around Fort Greely. Arctic Anvil was the biggest exercise U.S. Army-Alaska has held since 2001. It was intended to test the Stryker Brigade’s warfighting abilities. But it also challenged the soldiers who provide logistical support that make operations like Arctic Anvil happen.

Read Full Story Here:
http://www.alaskapublic.org/2016/08/09/logistical-support-soldiers-enabled-army-to-hold-biggest-alaska-training-exercise-in-years/