Anchorage Assembly: Energy, Enterprise, & Utilities Oversight Committee-of-the-Whole Committee

Okay, everyone, are there members online? Okay, so I am going to call this committee meeting to order. This is the Assembly Energy Enterprise and Utility Oversight Committee of the Whole. I will note that I am, of course, not the chair of this committee, but right now I know both of our co-chairs may be on their way, but I don't want to hold us up too much, so I'll go ahead and kick off the meeting. So we will— so we'll notice— we are noticed from 11:45 to 1:15 PM in this room, and we'll do member introductions and we'll move into our business.

Janice Park. Anna Brawley. And one more check, is there anyone on the phone, any members? Not seeing any. Okay, and I know it's been a little bit of a chaotic day, so I imagine folks will walk in and at some point either Member Scout or Member Johnson will show up and then I will get out of the seat.

So in the meantime, let us proceed. So I'll also note we have a couple, well, two, actually wait, our agenda is a little bit late. I will note that we have the Merrill Field update under new business and So what we're going to do, I'm going to for now skip the review committee purpose statement. We can save that for later when there's more of us here. And then I'm going to first start with the Port of Alaska modernization and then our other utilities and then— because I imagine those will be briefer.

And then we will save the bulk of our business for the Merrill Field updates, just for clarity. So with that, let's move to Port of Alaska. So I will recognize— oh, and I should— sorry, I should have said we are joined in the room by clerk staff, members of the administration, members of the public, some folks who will be presenting, and also Assembly Council. So with that, we will turn to our port director. Please proceed.

Yeah, thank you, Chair Brawley. Yes, thank you. Terry Umatum, director of the Don Young Port of Alaska.

Good morning. Eric Adams, Jacobs program manager. And Bill Falsey, the Anchorage municipal manager. Okay. Today I'm here to give a presentation of the status of the Terminal 1 project.

Where we're at, what it's looking like going forward, and steps that we're taking on, on certain items here. So welcome comments throughout the presentation. So our agenda would be the Terminal 1 construction 2026 overview, the construction status, contributors to current project status, and NIMS permit modification request.

So Terminal 1 2026 construction overview. The demolition has progressed significantly and is on plan. Terminal 1A deep soil mixing is nearly complete and trestle pile installation has begun. Terminal 1B intertidal fill is complete. The work pad is constructed and ready for deep soil mixing to begin in 2027.

So one of the things I want— dock construction is tracking below the original schedule. However, contractual obligations are still expected to be met. And I'll jump into that a little bit later on. So Terminal 1 construction status, just a reminder, 748 feet of dock is required to be constructed by August 15th, and this allows delivery of the mats and cranes. And the contractor has flexibility on how they plan to achieve this milestone.

Currently this year, out of that 748 feet of dock, they plan to install 30 pilings out of the 136 that's needed to make that 740 feet of the dock. And sorry to interrupt, I'm going to say we are going to change chairs, so I am letting Committee Chair Scout take my spot.

Okay, so as I mentioned, we're about 30 out of 136 total that's needed for that 740 feet of dock. And then also they were planning on installing precast decking this year. But how were they going to do it next construction season?

So contributors to the current project status. At the beginning of the project when they arrived on site, the contractor took time to modify the template. And that was kind of really key to drive efficiency in future work. One of the reasons why I point that out is you need 72-inch temporary piling to hold this template, and we reduced the number of temporary piling needed in half on the project, which helps to protect the beluga whales and additional downtime. Pile driving did start in June, a couple months later than they originally planned, when the Cook Inlet beluga whales began migrating into Knik Arm.

We're all familiar that we need to protect the beluga whales on this project. And one of the things I want to point out is the Cook Inlet beluga whales, they're unpredictable. And this year we've seen whales appearing in Knik Arm in greater numbers than we have in past years.

So what does that look like? You can see on this chart here, the green is what we've used to apply for the LOA permits, and the purple is what we've seen to date this year. So in some instances, we're over 300% higher than what we— that the permits have indicated that we'd experience. So June through September, those bluegills tended to hang out around the project a lot more. In greater intensities than we planned.

The National Marine Fisheries Service requirements on our NMFLA authorization requires each pile driving activity has a defined harassment zone and shutdown zone, and I'll talk about what those are in just a brief second. One of the key things is pile driving must stop when the whale swims into the shutdown zone. These zones are designed to protect the marine mammals from the noise associated with pile driving. The shutdown requirements have impacted the pile driving progress. And the Terminal 1 zones that we have are larger than what we've seen on the PCT that we successfully worked with.

So here's a graph of what we're looking at as shutdown zones. If you see there, T1, the farthest one on the left, 9,000 meters. Anytime a bluegill gets in that zone, we have to shut down and we pay for the contractor to be on standby until that bluegill swims out of the zone. The green one, PCT, is at 6,000 meters, which we've seen in the past when we built the PCT. And so during the PCT, we'd have to shut down at 6,000 meters.

With the bubble curtains, we can reduce that down to 6,000 meters. And then on the PCT, we've seen 2,600 meters. But that's just a graph of how far that zone is. 9,000 Meters, that's about 5 miles we have to shut down from the project site.

Action supporting schedule goals: contractor plans to provide a reasonable path to completing work in August 2028. As I mentioned, they're a little bit behind on the pile driving progress. With the modified template, pile installation efficiency has improved. We've seen that. The contractor is planning an early start next year to both extend the work season and drive piling before the belugas migrate into Cook Inlet.

If you remember that graph I showed you, they tend to hit heavier in June and July. And then we have a couple requests in the NIMS to reduce the shutdown zone sizes. Obviously, smaller zones allow for larger windows for pile driving, and the data that we collected recently this construction season will support our request to NIMS.

So we have a couple requests for NIMS permit modifications that would be going in. We're asking for a reduction in the vibratory hammer shutdown zones. We put in the request to go from 9,000 meters down to 1,300 meters, which is a huge reduction and will help drive pile driving efficiency. Data collected this season shows bluegills swim towards the pile driving when using a vibratory hammer. No clear avoidance response were observed during any of the 85 takes that we've had this year.

The current vibratory hammer shutdown zones are larger than the impact shutdown zones. And so we're trying to really reduce that. And then obviously blue goes one way when we use the impact hammer. But the goal is really to reduce the zone sizes going into next construction season. I'm just going to jump in super quick and note that Member Silvers joined us at 11:53.

Okay. We did do some hydroacoustic studies this summer based on the construction pile driving. And with that, out of all those zone reductions we show, we are taking an aggressive stance and asking for recalibration of all shutdown and harassment zone sizes on the project. And so that will be submitted later on this year to support to NIMS, and then we'll have to go out to public comment period and address those comments with the goal of a modified permit in springtime.

So as I mentioned, we've already submitted that one modification, and then the hydroacoustic data would be collected, being analyzed, and we'll submit a second modification near the end of November. It is significant, will require a public comment period, probably two of them. As I mentioned, anticipating a spring 2027 decision.

That's basically the update today. Happy to answer any questions you may have.

Um, Chair Brawley has a question. Yeah, thank you. Um, this is a great update. I'm glad things are generally on schedule. Um, when you mentioned that one piece was below schedule, or below, you meant kind of behind schedule, is that right?

Okay. Um, uh, and you mentioned that we'll be able to kind of pick up that time. I guess I'm curious, in general, knowing we're moving into winter, you know, what are the kinds of construction activities that can happen during the winter? I imagine pile driving is not one of them, but Just curious, or maybe it is, maybe just describe the seasonality of the construction, how much of it has to happen in these summer months before the snow falls, how much is going to happen before next spring? Through the Chair, Member Brawley, great question, thank you.

Most of the marine crane barges, if you've been down the port, that we've seen is, we're basically installing temporary bracing right now on the pilings that have been installed, and they're going to look to depart near the end of the month, And so you'll see a large departure of the barges and cranes. And there'll be some land-based work ongoing. They're going to try and drive the rest of the 6 Trestle 1A piling to kind of— and that's part of the 30 overall. They've got 1 installed, and I think they're working on another one this morning. And then they got some water lines and some additional work.

But once the ground really starts freezing up, like mid-November probably, it's going to just go quiet for a little while. And we're going to start planning for next construction season, which currently they plan to start moving up here in middle of March.

Okay, thank you. And then I'll just put one brief comment in, mostly for Mr. Falsey and other folks who are tracking. I know this— it might not be the best time weather-wise to go visit the port if you're a legislator, but I know we always want to keep our legislators informed, so it might be worth sending out one more invite. I'm looking at Mr. Omatum as well, just reminding folks before they go to Juneau if they want to stop by I know we're not signing up to do a big-style event, but I think the more that folks are aware of how much work is being done down there and how on track we are, I think the better. And I know that's going to be a theme certainly for this legislative session and continuing with our federal delegation.

So yeah, really encourage folks by the end of the year to try to get legislators down there.

And just through the chair real quick, we actually had a conversation about that this morning with Susanne Fleek-Green and really trying to put something together, I think, in the next week week or so we'll have an announcement out, try to get legislators, staff, aides, anybody involved, certainly with Juno, to come in as well. And we of course extend that to any assembly members and aides as well. We're trying to get everybody we can through the port.

Great. I think we have a lot of progress to show off, so thank you.

Awesome. Any further Comments, questions? I appreciate the port tour I was able to go on and the ship tour with Tope too. We like maxed out capacity 3 times over in less than 3 days, so the people want to go on the ship tours and we'll be planning more of those in the future. So thank you.

Yeah, so I think next we have, um, Solid Waste Services and AWU with project updates. Do we have anyone here for that? Seems like no. Um, you just move to— actually, why don't we quickly just take a few minutes? Because I think the Merrill Field presentation is pretty long and in-depth.

Um, why don't we move quickly into reviewing and updating our committee purpose statement? For the website, were we able— was that printed out? Uh, it's on the back of the agenda. Yes. Okay, um, so this actually is not— I had drafted a different version, but I think it didn't make it onto the agenda.

Um, so we can just talk through the changes that I had proposed. Just a second. Um, because we have this new committee structure, so we're going to remove some of these entities from the list. And let me just pull up really quick what I had written out.

So the rewrite that I had proposed is that the Assembly Energy Enterprise and Utility Oversight Committee reviews and makes recommendations regarding the operations and budgets of Anchorage Hydropower AWU, SWS, the port, Merrill Field, Eklutna, and other activities related to municipal energy enterprise and utilities. So that removes ACDA, Public Works, M&O, PM&E, because I believe those are going over into infrastructure committee. Is that right? Yeah, the one I will note— so that's correct. The part of the goal was infrastructure.

This used to be the Enterprise and Utility Oversight Committee.

Was added a couple years ago recognizing that that's an important topic, but we also know there's been overlap with Transportation Committee, and so those have been added there. The one thing I will note on ACDA, they don't usually present here. They are considered an enterprise activity because they're part of— well, sort of similar to the Merrill Field, actually. It's something that's considered sort of its own entity but still part of the muni. But that said, they do regularly present to what's now Housing, Community, and Economic Development.

So I think it would be—. So I just wanted Note, they are an enterprise utility— or sorry, they are an enterprise activity, but they are not necessarily the same type of thing as the other things that are here. So yeah, and I think this statement, probably the point is to reflect our like regular rotation of presenters, and any group who wants to request to present is welcome to, ACDA or otherwise. So yeah, we'll get that more final version circulated around, but yeah, noting that that is forthcoming. Any questions, comments before we move to Merrill Field?

Yeah. I have one, so I— and I really appreciate the suggestion that I know came from our now co-chair in the committee to add energy discussion here. And I know that is an area where, you know, we don't have an energy utility per se. We used to have our electrical, but we don't now. But I think making sure that the description somehow reflects that, because I know that is definitely an area that we all care about that we do not have direct control over.

But I think just thinking about how that fits in the description without making it, you know, long and tortured. But yeah, that'd be good. Yes, I love that. Okay, great. Anything else before we move to Merrill Field?

Okay, please. Come on up. Welcome.

Maybe start with some quick intros, and all are welcome to dive in. Sure. Good morning. My name is Earl Malpass, Airport Manager for Merrill Field. We're here today to discuss the 20-year Airport Master Plan that's required by the FAA.

With me this morning is our contractor for the master plans, Woolpert Engineering. They're from the lower 48 but have a heavy presence in the state of Alaska throughout the entire state, mostly with the state airports themselves. They've been instrumental in making Alaska safer by working through the weather systems that are out there as well as other, the over 200 airports that the state operates. I'll introduce the project manager. His name is Craig Sanders, and I'll let him introduce his team.

Thank you. Good morning. My name is Craig Sanders, as Earl just mentioned, and serving as the project manager and lead planner on the Merrill Field Airport Master Plan. And it's great to be here this morning and excited to present our progress to date.

Good morning, my name is Hillary Fletcher and I am with Wupat as well as a planning program manager and working through the community engagement and outreach efforts for the master plan. Awesome, thank you.

So I'm going to get us started a little bit about process and then we'll get into some of the technical aspects of the master plan. As Earl mentioned, this is an FAA requirement. They do require that when you fund projects or when you're seeking funding from the FAA, those projects need to be reflected in a master plan, unless it's an emergency circumstance. So it's very important that the airport have a capital improvement plan. That is an outcome from this effort, and it's really the desire of the FAA is to see a sort of systematic, thoughtful, strategic development of future projects.

So we go through this process, we have guidance from the FAA about how to conduct that, but the End of the day, the airport sponsor, which is you, have the, have the ultimate approval of this Master Plan. The FAA has some components where they're involved, but their interest is really to see a safe and orderly development of the airport, safety being their primary interest, reflective of community values, and that it's an inclusive process.

When we sat down with the airport to talk about what they wanted to achieve from the Master plan, I think they were very clear that they want Merrill Field to continue as a business-friendly environment for the aviation community and the aviation system across Alaska. They want to be forward-leaning into how they can engage with their communities across the state that are serving, receiving access, whether it's medical services or other needs, that they continue to position Merrill Field as a place to handle that. As like every airport in the FAA system, they want to see airports be financially self-sufficient, and we know that that's of interest, and we're going to be talking through that as we go through this plan. And at the end of the day, just like the FAA, the airport's interest is to make sure it's a safe environment to operate. So those are the primary goals for the Master Plan.

And move forward. There are a lot of strategic partners in this process, as you know. The Federal Aviation Administration, did provide the grant for this. They're the preemptive authority on aviation safety. Obviously, the municipality here is a financial partner as well.

And also importantly, when you accept those grants, you're accepting 40 grant assurances along with those. So it's very important that this master plan is compliant or bringing all of those aspects into the, the recommendations coming forward. The Aviation Advisory Committee is a participant in this as well, and they're engaged in this process. As they provide input and feedback as we go through all the different components. And then we have established a project advisory committee, and that's made up of users, tenants, some community council representatives, as well as the MAC.

So it's a nice robust group of folks to give a lot of diversity to the conversation. So those are our partners that we're working through. I think it's important to understand in the airport, we want to kind of manage the expectations for everybody, which is always tough because there's a lot of people interested in these. The FAA role is in two places. One, well, three, they fund, they provide the grant to make this happen, but they only, they really step back to make sure that this is a locally, it's really reflective of the community.

The two places where they do have authority to sort of approve, they look at the aviation demand forecast. So what is the next 20 years of activity? Activity that we're anticipating. And then at the end of the master plan process, it will produce an airport layout plan, and that is reflective of all of the capital projects that are anticipated. And the FAA does approve that airport layout plan, as well as the municipality.

So those are two places where they are engaged. They are— I will say, where they have authority to make decision-making, they are engaged in this process and participating, and we're keeping them briefed and, and bringing issues or ideas to them for bedding. So they've been a great partner.

The focus areas for this master plan obviously are airside planning. We really want to take a good long hard look at capacity, where we can make sure that we're using the property at its best and highest use. We look also at landside facilities, and we're looking at demand, vehicle parking, ground access for users, all those sort of things. And then the third component is community impact. And we know every, every airport has a community that surrounds it that has an opinion about the airport.

So we're engaged with the community councils through this process, and we are inviting everyone to a community open house this evening. But we do have a strong focus on the stewardship of the airport, the economic benefits, the community benefits, and making sure we're also coordinating land use planning.

This is just a graphic to kind of give you a sense of the process that we go through. The FAA provides pretty clean guidance on how you conduct a master plan. We have found this method and this approach to be very successful over the years of doing this. We are in Phase 2, and that's what we're presenting today, is the inventory and the forecast components of that. And once we move on to the next section, we'll take that forecast, look at the facility in the long term and the demand that's anticipated, and look at the requirements that are provided by the FAA and aviation practices, as well as alternatives to meeting that demand.

That will be the third phase. And then the ultimate next, last open house will have three kind of community gatherings one tonight, one for alternatives and how, what the development options could be. The third one is really that Phase 4 implementation. We'll come back and talk about, uh, what's the order and sequencing of those capital projects. We do provide the first 5 years, the second 5 years, and the last 10 years.

And we'll also look at eligibility for FAA funding, other grant options, local funding, and then private funding. So we'll provide a financial plan associated with that capital project. And again, it's important that you have a good solid CIP. If you don't have a project on a CIP, it's going to be very— it's— unless it's an emergency, it's very hard to get FAA funding. They want to see it has— that it's been taken through this process.

Okay, so I'll turn it over. You want to start the inventory? Yeah, we'll get into a little bit more of the technical aspects of the master plan so that, that second portion of that graphic we just had up. And so, happy to report we have draft chapters of the inventory and forecast available. And so, we're continuing to work through that.

They're in draft format, and we're accepting feedback still.

But really, we, you know, in this existing conditions stage, we want to establish the importance of Merrill Field as an economic engine. It's approaching its 100th birthday in 3 years, and so that's exciting. So, as the first official airport in Alaska, there's a lot of history there, and we want to make sure that that history and importance, you know, continues in the future. As you all are aware, this is owned and operated by the Municipality of Anchorage as the sponsor, and it's home to 840+ based aircraft. And 30+ businesses and tenants.

And this list is not exhaustive of all the activity that goes on at the airport, but it helps support air taxi, commuter air service, air ambulance with a connection to Alaska Regional Hospital, and it also supports various general aviation activities such as flight instruction, aircraft maintenance, and recreational flying. So it's a, it's a very impressive facility, and As we mentioned there in that last bullet, it supports through-the-fence operations to the hospital. So the hospital is not technically on airport property, but there is an access agreement and there's a taxiway that leads directly to that facility. And we actually met with the hospital yesterday and it's been great to hear their stories and be prepared to communicate that through our future effort. And so it's a, you know, I think it's one of four in the United States that has that direct access for fixed-wing aircraft.

You know, a lot of hospitals have access through helipads and helicopters, but this is one of four with a taxiway directly to the hospital.

So our existing conditions assessment, it really focuses on airfield infrastructure. Merrill Field, it features three runways, many, many taxiways, and lots of apron space to accommodate those 840+ based aircraft. And so our work effort to date is really documenting the current condition of those airfield assets, looking at lighting and navigation aids. You know, part of— as Earl mentioned, part of our other work with the State of Alaska is helping with accessibility in remote communities. And even though Merrill Field is an urban airport, they still have challenges related to access, such as instrument procedures during inclement weather.

And, you know, making sure that we can maintain that access for the pilots and users at this airport is important.

We're also looking at the existing and proposed anchorage airspace and how that impacts operations at the airport. And then finally, over the summer, we began data collection for our aeronautical survey, which is an FAA requirement. But what that, what that really does is it sets up a good baseline data source for the airport layout plan, which, as Hillary mentioned, that's really what the FAA is after at the end of the day, because that documents all the future projects, and it also documents the airspace and any kind of obstructions around the airport. So we're well underway on that, and as we get to the schedule portion, we can update you on, on how that plays into the bigger picture.

So we have this graphic here to highlight the on-airport businesses and tenants. And it's really an impressive facility that supports a variety of uses.

We've had a suggestion to color code this, and I think that it will highlight even, you know, highlight that diversity even more. And so we have, we have hangars, we have avionics, we have aircraft, aircraft maintenance, we have folks that provide fuel, the air, air air taxi and commuter services as well. And then the University of Alaska Anchorage and their aviation complex where they support flight instruction. And so it's really an impressive facility that, you know, not only hosts those 840+ based aircraft, but it helps facilitate passenger movements and it helps facilitate cargo, the hospital visits, and, you know, all these assets play together. To create a pretty impressive aviation environment here at Merrill Field.

So as part of the inventory effort, we're also looking at the environmental aspects that impact the airport and the local community. And so through this process, in the, in the inventory chapter, we're documenting 13 environmental categories, and they include topics such as noise, biological resources, solid waste. And so, if you're not aware, part of Merrill Field sits on a landfill. And so we are looking at how that impacts future development. And you know what the ramifications of that kind of, you know, presence of that landfill, what that looks like in the future.

And we're completing a cultural and historic resources survey to help expedite future projects through the NEPA process. Which is an exciting part just because we— it will just help get those infrastructure projects going and be more efficient in the future for funding.

So that's a summary of our inventory portion, and now I'll move into the aviation demand forecast.

So just to to preface the demand forecast and the details I'll share here, we just want to show some of the flight activity from Merrill Field to and from, and how important it is to the state of Alaska. It serves over 200 unique destinations throughout the state, and it's really— it's on-demand, it's air taxi, general aviation operations. And so it's— to me, this just shows how dynamic this airport is, and it's impressive that it has over 150,000 annual aircraft operations supporting all this variety of activity. And really, it's also interesting, there's a lot of activity at airports near Merrill Field, and a lot of that is related to sightseeing, but also getting folks to and from destinations that don't have that road transportation access.

So in the FAA space, you know, forecasting helps with demand, and, you know, analyzing that demand at the airport helps us identify the need in the future. And so to provide some context here, we have historic annual operations for some of the area airports. You know, as throughout this planning process, we're always looking at the regional context and how Merrill Field fits in with not only the local community but also the local aviation community. And as you can see here, it's second behind Ted Stevens in terms of aircraft operations, and, you know, is effectively the second most, and combined, you know, has even more operations than some of these airports combined. And so it's a critical piece of the regional transportation community.

And so for our forecasting process, we're really looking to develop a reasonable and defensible basis for those 5, 10, and 20-year periods of aviation activity. And we're really, through this process, trying to identify features of the aviation industry that are local to not only Anchorage but also the state. And What this means is that we're looking at these socioeconomic trends, we're looking at historic baseline data to provide that defensible forecast to be approved by the FAA. And then below that, we have the 3 categories that we're really analyzing through this forecast process. It's based aircraft, so aircraft owners that store their aircraft at Merrill Field.

What that does is it helps support projections for hangar space, tie-downs, aprons, and fueling. Next, we have aircraft operations, and what that does is that helps dictate the need for any kind of augmented instrument approaches to the airfield to provide that critical access, and it also influences some of our airfield design elements. And then third, we have passenger enplanements, and really what that does is, you know, it helps kind of identify if there is a need for a terminal space and if, you know, what kind of vehicle parking requirements might be needed if folks are are coming to Merrill Field, parking their vehicle, and leaving for a few days on a commuter flight. And then finally, the key output for the forecast is the critical design aircraft. And what that is, is the most intensive aircraft using the airport that's on over 500 annual operations.

And that defines the runway design code, which is a safety feature that the FAA defines. Based on aircraft characteristics.

Yeah, of course. Um, there's a question on the last slide. Yeah, yeah, I just had a background question. I know this is getting— before you're talking about forecasting. Sure.

Um, so I represent the district that has the other airports, uh, Ted Stevens and Lake Hood, so I'm a little more familiar with kind of the— and I know, and obviously different state airport seaplane base, Merrill Field is a little bit different, but I'm curious just in general. It's, it's interesting to me that it— that Merrill is so much larger than Lakewood. I assume LHD is Lakewood. Um, and so I'm— and just as a background, I'm curious, um, is it because Merrill has more, uh, I guess, spaces for planes, or is it really just that it's doing a larger bit of demand? Because I know Lakewood, very busy, but it's a seaplane base, they're constrained.

I know that's a whole ongoing conversation to expand capacity over there. And so I'm just curious how— and maybe this is a question for Earl, but, uh, question how capacity-wise they're different? And then my other question in terms of kind of users, how much of it is individual kind of recreational users, someone who owns a plane versus Ed Merrill specifically, versus these— I know there's a number of companies that fly out of there, for example. So I'm just curious, like, what is the general user mix there? Sure, through the chair, to Member Bowman Day, the The difference between Merrill Field and Lake Hood is Lake Hood is the largest, world's largest seaplane base, and they do have a lot of tie-downs on land, but they have been space limited on those.

There's a 12-year, last I heard, 12-year waiting period for spots there at Lake Hood. Merrill Field, it's been here since 1930, obviously, and we've had the space for the, the fixed-wing parked aircraft. We're at near capacity right now. We started tracking a couple years ago the— how many tie-downs are in each apron area and how many are occupied and leased year-round and what the, the unfilled or the empty slots are. So we've been tracking that here recently.

As far as the aircraft mix, there's I would, it's an excellent question. I would put the, it's around 90% smaller privately owned aircraft. And they're from all over the area, but there it's a popular place to park. It's just interesting because we're also the most expensive airport in the state for tie-downs and things like that. But it goes back to the location, location, location.

Everybody loves that. So I would put the aircraft mix 90%, privately owned and the remaining 10% commercially owned.

Thank you. Yeah, that was partly just satisfying my curiosity, but I'll note too, I know that the story with Ted Stevens Airport that we hear is very large volume airport, mostly from cargo until we have, you know, double the number of visitors or population. So that's, that's helpful to understand that a lot of it is really individuals with some commercial operations.

Thanks. Member Park has a question. I don't know if I should be using—. Yes, thank you, Chair. Through the chair to Member Brawley, I— one of the things I remember the most about in my water treatment business that I did for several years was that we had a lot of clients in the bush who needed specific water treatment chemicals that could not be carried in planes that also carried passengers.

They're ORMD commodities, and we did a lot of business through Merrill that took these commodities out to the villages that needed them for water treatment, and there was largely no other way for them to get them. Interesting, thank you.

Thanks, please continue. Great, thank you.

So I'll walk through 3 slides related to those, you know, based aircraft operations and emplacements. And so just to provide some background here on our forecasting, the FAA produces their own forecast, and that's called the Terminal Area Forecast, and you'll see that referenced on these slides as that black dashed line. And to skip to that bottom bullet there, FAA tolerance. So the FAA has an expectation that forecasts produced as part of a master plan should be within 10% of the FAA's published forecast within 5 years and within 15% within 10 years. And so if, if you are forecasting outside of that range, you'll need some, I'd say, extra special justification for getting that approved.

And so just wanted to provide that context of We're working within sort of a defined buffer from the FAA already based on their forecasting of activity. And again, the forecast here is it really helps with identifying demand, right? And so this is— I wish I could have a crystal ball that says exactly what's going to happen in 5, 10, and 20 years, but, you know, this is just scenario planning, and this helps with that third phase of the planning process. In identifying facility requirements and alternatives to meet these three different forecasting elements. And so, to help develop our baseline scenarios, we're looking at, you know, low, medium, and high scenarios for activity.

And for this Based Aircraft 1, we were basing that on Anchorage area income growth. And so, really, in our forecasting, we're either looking at historic trends or can we correlate to that correlate that to some kind of projection that can, you know, be tied to aviation activity. We're also referencing the FAA's terminal area forecast for based aircraft in that low scenario, and then in the high scenario, we're looking at Alaska total pilot license growth rate. And, you know, we're really trying to root our analysis in Alaska-based data. You know, we— the FAA produces a national Aerospace forecast, and I think it warrants a special look at all these Alaska-specific factors since it's such a different area up here.

For our aircraft operations forecast, again, we're referencing the terminal area forecast for aircraft operations, and then for the medium and high scenarios, we're looking at historic fuel sales at Merrill Field, that kind of growth. Does that influence operations? And then we're also looking at historic documented tower operations and how that looks over time. And so, again, looking to root our projections in real activity. And in this scenario we're looking at a medium growth rate there based on the fuel sales.

You know, just to reiterate, the operations here are— that will help us in planning for, you know, what kind of fueling facilities we might need, what kind of aircraft storage facilities we might need. So, the forecast, it's really about how it influences safety factors and how it influences future design elements.

And then our employment forecast. So, this is— these are folks traveling on air taxi and commuter services to to and from Merrill Field to Alaska communities. And this forecast, again, we're using the terminal area forecast for our low projection, and then we're also isolating that terminal area forecast operations growth for air taxi, because if there's more air taxi operations, there should be more passengers on board. And so if we're So if those operations are growing, it's going to be expected that you're going to have more, more passengers. And then we also looked at historic air taxi growth, which has been pretty rapid over the past, I think, 10 years.

And so we're looking at that scenario as well. And for employments, really, I think where this is going to come into play in the future is with planning for some kind of common area space for for these passengers as they come through Merrill Field. Right now, it's at individual lease lots where people can board aircraft and at businesses that provide these services. So looking at if there's some kind of opportunity there for a common space.

So those are our three—. I'm sorry. Yeah, we have a question from Member Park. Thank you, Chair. Just out of curiosity, in the former slide, you mentioned your fuel sales.

What has the increase in the cost of fuel done with your capabilities from anybody to keep supplied and keep these small planes going out to the bush where they really need the supplies? Through the Chair to Member Parks, it has been a dramatic development, but it's the Costs have been passed on. The gallons that we've been selling so far, we're year to date, we are above last year for fuel sales. We track it for multiple reasons, for taxes, but also we get a fuel rate, so we get reports monthly. And as a follow-up, what is the approximate percentage of increase that you've seen in your fuel costs.

Uh, that's begging your pardon, the cost, the percentage increase in cost? Yes, it's, it's proportional to, uh, the, the, uh, the Jet A fuel has gone up proportional to the diesel prices. So 20 to 30 cents. So I, I'd have to do the math, be glad to get it back with you. On the, on the avgas, uh, the 100 low lead, which is for the piston aircraft.

Crowley is the only fuel source for that fuel, and they bought it— buy it in such large bulk, it has not been as volatile in pricing. So it's been about— it hasn't gone up as much, but I suspect the next load will be up dramatically.

Thanks. Um, yeah, please continue. Great, thank you.

And so, uh, this all leads to the proposed critical design aircraft, which as I mentioned earlier is the most intensive aircraft using Merrill Field, uh, with 500 or more operations annually. And, um, what we found in our data analysis, um, Earl actually has a, a tracking service called 1200 Arrow, which helps identify runway usage and specific aircraft types. We've identified that critical design aircraft as the Beechcraft Super King Air 200, which per the FAA's runway design codes is a B2. And so that graphic just helps contextualize the different aircraft types, and the B2 is the most demanding out at Merrill right now. That actually keeps in line with the, the past airport layout plan and master plan.

And so that's our proposal for the, our submission to the FAA, and we'll— we're still accepting feedback through the end of the month, but that's where we're at right now for the forecast, and that will then influence our facility requirements and alternatives in helping us analyze different safety components and and the general layout of the airfield.

So I'd like to touch a little bit on the engagement because I recognize it's an important part of the community dialogue that's going on around the airport. So if you could advance. If you haven't been to the project website, I encourage you to do so. It's merrillfieldmasterplan.com. It's a story map format, so we've gotten some really positive feedback from folks.

It's easy to navigate, has a lot of information. All of our content that we presented this morning with our Planning Advisory Committee and the open house material is all posted and live on that website today, as well as the draft chapters. There is a public portal comment, and we are receiving comments, and everybody who has submitted comments has received an email back from me acknowledging their comments and thanking them and giving them additional information to address whatever a concern they've raised. So we are sort of gravitating people to that website, and we'll have meeting updates on that, notices, and all the relevant information related to the project. So it's been— if you haven't had a chance to look at it, encourage you to take a peek.

It's a great source of information.

We have launched a pretty extensive outreach effort here and really give credit to Earl wanting to make sure that there's opportunity for people to take advantage and provide feedback. We have launched surveys out to all the tenants and users. That's been online. We've spread QR codes from one end of the airport to the other as far as getting information back about tenants and users and how they see their future at the airport, what fleet changes they might be thinking about, all those kind of things. We have the Project Advisory Committee, which is a diverse group of folks to help give us input and feedback.

We are slated to touch— actually, I think we're going to add a couple more community councils as of this morning, but we're going out to the community councils. We're scheduled for 4 or 5 of them now. We're going to add a couple more and we'll be giving them presentations as well. We have been here for the last several days. We've hosted now actually 8 focus groups because we met with the hospital.

So we've had a lot of focus group meetings over the last 2 days, got a lot of input. We're doing one-on-one interviews with some, you know, key stakeholders. We've— the city has assisted in issuing a press release for our open house. And then this evening from 5 to 7 PM, we'll host the first of 3 open houses for the project. So hopefully folks join us at the library at the learning commons area.

We're excited to hear what folks have to say.

I want to talk a little bit— oh, sorry, did you have a question? Yeah, I'm just curious, this sounds like really robust public outreach, which is great. And when you're talking with folks, what kind of questions are you asking? Like, what are the places where these engaged community members can provide input in the Master Planning process? Right.

So for the focus groups, to keep sort of the— be able for us to come back and report themes, we've been pretty consistent in our questions. So what is working well at the airport? What do you like about the airport? What are barriers that you see with regard to operating at the airport, having a business, or any issues or concerns that you have? And then in terms of the third question we're asking, in terms of the next 20 years, we really want to hear What do you think the most important priorities are for the next 5 years for the airport to really focus their effort?

So we've asked those consistently across all 8 focus groups. The surveys are much more detailed. They're looking to get actual hard data about operations, employment, business planning for them, for the respondent. If they are contemplating fleet changes in their aircraft. And then for the public, we simply have a portal there for them to just put in any comments or concerns.

So we've gotten some great comments, you know, reminding us, you know, hope you're looking at environmental best practices, things like that, you know, how are you addressing this? So all of those comments have been great and we've responded to all of those folks and we'll continue to do so. Great, thank you. Thanks. In terms of next steps, we are going to now take all this data that we've been collecting for the last couple months, but very intensively for the last few days, and sort through that and identify the common themes that we're hearing, any issues and concerns.

We're going to continue with our community council presentations. Now we've asked folks to— from the PAC to give us comments for the— in the next 2 weeks on the draft chapters. Once those are finalized, we'll get the forecast submitted to the FAA. We'll begin working on the facility requirements and alternatives chapters, which are the next step. And we anticipate that we'll be back here in late spring in front of the committee, as well as in a community open house and PAC meetings and ongoing outreach efforts.

So we're really very open if there's a group out there that wants to have a presentation, we are more than happy to accommodate them. We've tried to anticipate as many as possible. Our schedule is to be wrapped up with this master plan the end of next year. It's typically about an 18-month process. There's a lot of scoping that has to happen, but we anticipate We— the one thing we can't predict is how long the FAA wants to look at things or ask questions, but from our delivery point, we're on track, right on schedule.

And any questions?

Seems great. Yeah, sure, problem. Yeah, thank you, and I appreciate the as, um, Member Scout said, the robust community engagement, um, and talking to community councils. And, um, I guess in my experience dealing with airports, I know there's the neighbors that are adjacent to the airport, and then there's the users of the airport, and then there's everyone else, right? Um, and so, um, I imagine you guys are— I'm seeing nods, so I know you're, you're well attuned to that.

I was wondering, um, if you are also engaging with the local business community. And I was going to say, for example, I think a lot of people just in general aren't aware maybe that we own an airport, or they maybe know it's there, they don't know much about it. But another opportunity just to put out there would be the Anchorage Chamber of Commerce, for example, has weekly Make It Monday lunches. And I'm not—. I don't sign up there, they're scheduling, but there's some other opportunities.

I know AEDC, Anchorage Economic Development Corporation, I think I just want to flag those groups as another potential audience. Maybe they don't use the airport, but I think it's important, especially as you have this economic impact data And I know often our larger airport to the west takes up a lot of the room in terms of the discussion, but reminding folks that we do have a municipal airport and kind of what you're going— the process you're going through. I just wanted to mention those are other opportunities, and of course reach out to those groups directly about that. But I think reminding our larger business community how this fits into our economy is super helpful. Thanks.

Yes, Chair, thank you. Member Baldwin Day, Brawley Day. In conjunction with this, that we've reached out and we've put it on our Facebook and I've made all kinds of requests for invitations, but in conjunction, uh, we'll be first quarter 2027, we'll be doing, uh, our second economic impact study. And that, that a lot of that surveys and questions will be going to businesses off airport as well, just to get a a full picture. You're spot on when you say that many folks don't realize, yeah, there's an airport, I hear the noise, and that's about the extent of their knowledge of it.

It's important that everyone understands. If you saw that graph there where all the flights to— from Merrill Field to 200 rural communities, remote communities, uh, the impact that we have statewide, uh, when you start thinking about not only the The community is coming in for— they're going to do grocery shopping. We already know the first place that the— after the phone lands at Merrill Field, the first place it goes to is the highest number of departures goes right to Costco. And then it's— we know that the— then they go— next one down is the McDonald's and Wendy's and stuff like that. So we're tracking all that that kind of stuff.

But what a lot of folks don't realize is statewide there's, there's an effort to try and make sure that when Costco tractor-trailer backs up to one of our six carriers and unloads their perishables and their vegetables and lettuce and bananas—. Excuse me—. It does not stay on the ramp at 20 below zero in Merrill Field. And then when it hits McGrath or Kotzebue or any of the other 200 communities, it hits there in time. They're scheduling to get that just in time into the stores and people's homes.

It's a big network, so much bigger than what someone is driving past Fifth Avenue might realize.

Okay, anything else?

I think we will then Move to audience participation before we close out.

Oh, sorry, Kelly SWS, you, you were on the agenda earlier. Do you have anything you want to report out on before we move to Jamie?

Sorry, no pressure if you don't, it's fine.

Thanks for being here. I know there's big other stuff happening. Thank you. Kelly Tilghman, Director, Solid Waste Services. Thanks for the opportunity just to remind all of you that we are in the process of bringing on the construction manager at risk, the designer, and the operator manager at risk.

So those items should be soon on your agenda. So just wanted you to know that. That's a follow-up from, I think, 3 weeks weeks ago presentation. That's all. Thank you.

Awesome. Thank you so much, Kelly. Okay, now we will move to audience participation.

3 Minutes.

Okay, check, check. Okay, hopefully this one works. The last one was cutting out. Apparently the batteries failed. Uh, Jamie Lopez, C. Formerly Coalition for the Homeless.

So Don Young, Port of Alaska, stop, hammer time. Well, apologies to the chair, I did not bring my hammer pants. And yeah, no more, you can't touch this jokes. But anyways, all that said, so yeah, it was a nice presentation. And aside from that, one thing when I was watching the Merrill Field presentation I didn't see brought up was meth.

Apparently there's an active methane system there. Maybe, maybe I'm wrong. And so I don't know if that's something that can be tapped for electricity generation, but I remember in 2025 there was an emergency order and that said that it was reaching critical levels. And so I think if I remember correctly, the system that supplies JBER with electricity or manages for it, it's 100% of electricity during the summer and then maybe 60% the rest of the year round. Maybe the numbers are wrong.

But anyways, is it feasible to sort of set something up in Merrill Field to sort of generate electricity? And if so, is that in the master plan, or is it required by the FAA? I don't know. But it was something to consider. And so, aside from that, I got a minute 42, probably won't go all the way, but Ms. Toth gave a very nice presentation yesterday at the Midtown Community Council, and I don't know if that's going to be done here at some point in time, but it was interesting to see the discussions about using alternative methods to sort of make use of the landfill, whether it's precious metals extraction, burning things to generate electricity, and the amount of electricity that you can generate maybe offsets some of the costs of the rising natural gas prices and other things.

In the Anchorage area, which are going to increase rents or, you know, expenses for the meeting. So all that said, no more jokes.

The end of this one. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you. Anyone else? Okay, then I think we will adjourn this meeting at 12:48.

Thanks, everyone.