Hoonah and Ketchikan dock projects renew marine mammal permits without breaking ground

Two Southeast Alaska waterfront projects have renewed their federal marine mammal permits for another year, and neither has started construction.

The National Marine Fisheries Service reissued authorizations to the City of Hoonah for a cargo dock and to the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities for ferry berths near Ketchikan. Both run Sept. 1 through Aug. 31, 2027.

The permits are a standard prerequisite for in-water construction where marine mammals are present. Pile driving and drilling carry underwater noise, and federal law treats noise loud enough to change an animal's behavior as harassment — a term covering disturbance rather than death. The agency issues the permits only for work it finds has no potential to kill or seriously injure animals, and they set the window when disturbance is allowed, not when construction happens.

Hoonah's first permit took effect Sept. 1, 2025 and expires Aug. 31. The city told the agency in May that the project was delayed and none of the permitted work had been done.

The dock at the Hoonah Marine Industrial Center would let barges land, load and unload at any tide and in any season, in a town reachable only by air and sea. Construction was to begin in September 2025.

The permit covers pile driving and removal and allows disturbance of eight species. For three of them — Dall's porpoises, harbor porpoises and harbor seals — it also allows a limited degree of hearing injury. A February 2025 agency review found the work would not jeopardize Mexico humpback whales or western Steller sea lions.

Ketchikan's project is further behind. The state's original permit ran from September 2023 to September 2024. DOT&PF asked for a reissuance in 2024, reporting that no pile driving or drilling had occurred, then reported in June that the work had slipped again with nothing completed. Friday's permit is the third.

The department, working with the Ketchikan Gateway Borough, plans two new ferry berths in Tongass Narrows and rework of two existing ones at the Revilla and Gravina airport shuttle facilities.

That permit allows disturbance of 11 species, among them humpback whales, killer whales, Steller sea lions and harbor seals, with the possibility of injury for five. Observers independent of the construction crew must halt pile driving when an animal enters a shutdown zone.

No one commented on either project during its public comment period. The only community voice in the Hoonah record is Ian Johnson, the Hoonah Indian Association's environmental coordinator, who told the agency no marine mammal harvest is known at the site.

Neither record includes a new construction date.