State weighs 30-year lease for St. Michael barge dock

No road connects St. Michael to anywhere. Fuel, freight, and bulk goods arrive by barge during the open-water months, and the state is now deciding who controls the dock they tie up to for the next three decades.

The Department of Natural Resources has issued a preliminary decision on a negotiated tideland lease of up to 30 years that would let Vitus Terminals continue running its barge moorage facility on about six-tenths of an acre of state tideland on St. Michael's east coast, in Norton Sound. Nothing new would be built; the company is seeking to lock in long-term rights to a facility already in operation.

At a February focus group on rural ports, every participant rated barge and port facilities as moderately or very important to their communities, according to prior Alaska News reporting.