Juneau weighs Kensington mine rock and charter use for North Douglas ramp

A Juneau harbor committee takes up a $365,000 engineering contract Wednesday for expanding the North Douglas boat launch. It would pay to study building the expansion with waste rock barged from the Kensington gold mine, and to ask the public whether the ramp should serve charter boats and tour buses.

The Docks & Harbors Operations & Planning Committee meets at 5 pm to consider recommending the contract with PND Engineers, along with a $750,000 transfer from the Docks Enterprise Fund to the project, according to its agenda packet. City records list the full expansion as a future need of about $50 million.

PND's proposal sets aside $50,000 to study whether the mine's waste rock could be used as fill. PND would sample and test the rock, work out how to load it at the mine's barge ramp and barge it to North Douglas, and run environmental tests developed with input from regulators. Permit applications are not included.

The contract also pays for three public meetings. The first would ask who the ramp should serve, including "whether the project should accommodate passenger-for-hire tour bus and vessel operations." PND would then develop at least three concept alternatives.

Port Director Carl Uchytil wrote in a memo that "a rigorous engineering review along with community input may warrant commercial charter use at this facility." He said it could mean fewer charter boats crowding Statter Harbor in Auke Bay, less wake damage to Auke Bay waterfront owners and a way to help pay for the expansion.

The ramp has drawn $1.225 million so far, all from the Harbors Enterprise Fund, which Alaska News reported in August was near its lowest point ever. In asking to move $750,000 from the Docks Enterprise Fund, which held nearly $4 million at the end of fiscal 2026, Uchytil wrote that staff intend to evaluate the design "with the opportunity to provide services which directly benefit the tourism industry."

The same meeting takes up a proposed increase to the per-passenger fee charter operators pay, now $2.05.

Crowding at North Douglas has come up before. At a city listening session on North and West Douglas in September 2025, North Douglas business owner Danielle Brown Farrell said five or six boats often line up to use the launch.

Anything the committee recommends goes next to the Docks & Harbors Board.