Nome Port Commission Work Session and Regular Meeting- Sept. 17, 2026

Completely agree. Whatever, however it gets sorted out, start from that point. Absolutely, yes. I'm glad for—. I'm going to put it in the water in the summertime.

All of them. Okay, so there we go. There's summertime. All those are taking up space. And somebody just said we get more vessels, more vessels.

Well, I think, not to be harsh, but if you're wanting more vessels and we need a place and those aren't going in the water, I don't think moving them is a long-term solution. I mean, I get it, you want to just pull them in there, but— and like they're saying, they're not trying to make people go right away, but I'm just sitting here. What was discussed at some previous meetings as well, which you guys weren't at, was, you know, we would love it if when we roll people out for the winter, big guys, we have everybody go along this bank. I would love that if every winter everybody just stacked up like cordwood over here and I didn't have to put people out in the middle. And then the spring, if something changes and someone needs to stay out for a season, you're already in a good spot, you're out of the way, we can work freight.

The problem is if we have boats along the edge that just sit there, boats that are actively going in and out can't go there. They have to go out in the middle. We have to start puzzle piecing them around. And those boats should get the priority because they're working on the water and they need to be pulled out and they need to be in the water. The boats that aren't, I think that's the one that's like, ah, shucks, because shucks, they're just there right now.

If that's summertime and that whole thing can't move, I don't know what to say. I understand what people are saying, but there's also the argument like we're growing and we need the guys that are out working, they need a good space to come in. So I don't know how it works. What you guys want to recommend, well, everybody will consider everything, but I think it's a—. With the hull of a tough one, a vessel go in the landfill, or would it go to the city dump?

What about that big old barge? The Dugong has red lead on the bottom, you know, that And for more than half his life, it was painted annually with red lead, which is a real toxic—. No, it's copper. Copper. Yeah, it's copper, not lead.

But I'll guarantee there's lead paint all over that boat. We've had part of it. The red part's the copper. Yeah, copper. Yeah.

So, and that's if the city is involved or hire someone to do this, you know, it's going to probably be, you know, this stuff needs to go to the hazmat out at the landfill, and this other stuff needs to go there. All the fluids need to be removed, the oil drained, all the— there's a lot of stuff inside. What'd y'all do when y'all pulled the Rustler? Just took it out in one piece and buried it? Pumped all the tanks, removed the tanks, pulled it out, dug a hole under it, backed the lowboy under it.

I mean, you didn't have to deal with any of the paint or let paint—. We just got rid of the fluids and the liquid hazmat, and then we were able to take it in one solid piece and bury it. You can't do that with you, Don. Probably some aspects we don't know. A contractor who can yet, or who's interested.

The guy got in with two little boys, he could get it out of there. Just need someone willing and able.

Yep. I heard that about the two 160 too, that two, uh, what do you call those, the dollies. Yeah, get him maybe in winter and drag them out there, drag it out to the belts. But I don't know that that's feasible. Yeah, I think it's got some asbestos insulation in there on the exhaust and stuff inside.

I was in it one time, I remember correctly, years ago. But if you didn't tear it apart, that wouldn't be an issue. You just drag it out there and bury it, I would assume, you know. That's still the tanks. Real house here.

Would a big loader be able to drag that thing out there? Yeah, once it's rolling, it's on some lowboys or on some dollies, it ain't going to take that much to move the damn thing. It's flat all the way out there down there. That was the issue with the Rustler, is we didn't have anything that could pick it up. The Rustler, we couldn't pick it up easy and just set it real nice on cribbing on a lowboy.

Had to dig a hole under it and roll it onto it, push it on. This thing's just a little bit bigger, a little heavier.

But ultimately, yes, there's a whole lot of junk back here. I anticipate this fall the vast majority of all this stuff is going to all be gone. A bunch of the loose stuff in between is all going to be gone, and we'll be working with the owners of anything that is not a vessel to see where it could possibly be relocated or be removed. Or if it's clearly junk, junk it, or at least store the junk somewhere else. So what's the capacity of that bridge on Snake River?

I don't have that on hand. DOT, 140,000. How much? 160, 160 Pounds. 80 Tons.

80 Tons. The Snake River Bridge?

Yes. Hell, I think it's more than that. I walked at 4,000 across it. That's DOT's posted signage. Yeah, they give us a permit though.

Yeah, you can get over the counterweights, but the car body, the crane weighs more than 80,000, which they give us a permit, I guess. That 4,000's been across the bridge a couple times. Yes, ma'am. Yep, yep. And I've been out to Causeway several times, but I hadn't been out there lately.

Any other comments? Robert had a good question. What about, what about moving some of these things in the winter on the ice? Would be a little easier to slide them somewhere on the ice across the, you know, slide them to where that— I don't know, but just moving them in general, just being able to move them, you know. They didn't move all the bucket lines way out in the boonies during the summers.

They did it in the wintertime. I think our biggest, from what I'm seeing, our biggest issue is where to them, right? You know, especially if they don't have purpose. You know what I want? A purpose.

I mean, a long-term, right, purpose, a use. So the roads are pretty soft, you know, and, and when it freezes in the winter, then, then you can move anything on it. But the DOT is going to get really excited if you drive on the pavement. Yeah, yeah. So winter is a better option.

Yeah, but to where? I think Lucas was asking. Well, it's gonna be the same place as where it'd be in the summertime. It's just easier to move. Oh, there's a lot of these mining camps, a lot of big old holes.

I was hoping Scrappy would take something. He'll take whatever's left over. That's how he is. If you get it, they've got one. You bring it, they'll take it.

Hanging out hauling no more. Steel. I don't think that's gonna work.

I don't know what they're gonna do with all that crap anyway.

Is there any room for like a staging ground in front of the monofil there where something could be disassembled and scrap goes to the— metal goes that way? And no, there's less room out of the mono than there's ever been before. Quark set up the big recycling center out there, so they're doing a bunch of renovations to the building and the outlands. Sounds like we need to put it on their hands then.

They got all the big trucks, all the big equipment, they're taking up all the room.

Okay, anybody I haven't talked to got any thoughts?

Wow. So are you guys okay with the sliding scale then? That was— that's the other topic that we have to discuss. I don't know if anyone's going to be okay with it, but it's going to suck for anyone who falls into that category, obviously, right? I want to talk to the owners of those dredges.

It's not going to suck if you don't fall into that category, right? But it's—. But, but yeah, times, times what? Yeah, I mean, really, is there a time that it's set and then sliding scale? Is it just kind of, uh, acknowledging delinquency?

Ultimately, that's what this rule is, is to give the commission food for thought so they can talk about it. And over—. Maybe not just—. Obviously this stuff has to go no matter what. This stuff's garbage.

It just needs to get scrapped out. Somebody needs smashed up and just get rid of it. Light it on fire where nobody's looking and just get it gone as fast as possible. You know, it just, just turn your head. And so, and then this group is a recommending body to the city council who sets our tariffs.

So ultimately, that's what we're just trying to do, discuss with you guys. So we have discussion materials, and then we will take what we think then after that. These guys say it's not me.

Miners. I mean, I think you gave a year to explain to the owners of this equipment that it does have to be moved rather than going right to increases in rates and sliding scales. Give them time to acknowledge that it's going to have to be moved and get ready. If they could show proof of contract that somebody's been paid to destroy it, move it, or haul it, then that may give you your incentive to say, so we, you You show me proof of contract, then we may not charge you for the season as long as it's out of here. Incentive.

Yeah, we have been talking— Lucas has been talking to these guys for what, a year or more? Most of the owners we've been talking with, especially the stuff that's on the South Bank, to move at least get to the edge and work with us to clean up the stuff that's around them so we can improve the surface so they can move to the edge. We've been working on that, but no, in just the last, you know, 6 months it's come up more, hey, we might want to think about what other facilities are doing with their space and how they allow or manage folks to use their uplands, especially the folks that don't go back in the water. Those other facilities have liners like here? No, no, but they have other large vessels taking up space on the uplands.

The exact same. We are the most unique. Right, that was going to be my next question. Is, is this like what we're talking about? So like, because I got the Goliath, I've got that boat that's been on the trailer.

That's on the Uplands. We're not on the Uplands. Okay, so this is just the lower. So like little skiff boats and things that are, you know, like the Dredgenator's up on the, the big lot. You know, that thing hasn't been in the water.

And I, I think this is—. So my question is, does that roll into You know, which is, which is what I guess my, my next question. I think this is the first layer, right? Because this space is so prime for moving cargo in the summer. Okay.

After this gets refined and lined out, I think vessels that have been in stores for 15 or 20 years in the backland areas are going to be the next layer to address because It—. Because—. So what are these owners' feelings about these? Are they like, hey, we're, we're ready just to scrap these things? Well, I'm one of them.

A good chunk of them are right here in the audience. Yeah, I'm one of them right here. Okay, I mean, so, uh, if they're all willing just to get rid of these delinquent vessels—. I own that AU grabber that I inherited when I bought this operation from Hank, so I told Lucas next year I'll have that thing disassembled and gone for sure by maybe by middle of July, July 15th, I'll have the AU grab her out of there. So, you know, I heard that.

Yeah, you know, and Lucas said he'll give me a dump trailer and then we'll just— I, you know, I talked to Scrappy, he said he'll take the metal, so I'm just gonna, you know, cut it up, scrap it up, clean up that whole area, and then, you know, Lucas is going to work out something for me, I think. Yeah, we'll talk about it. Just like everybody else, we've had cutting vessels apart, other part of the facility if we can swing it and if Public Works can spare it, we've hauled a lot of stuff away for people, our trucks or trailers. So everybody shows up with a truck, everybody, I think we can make it happen.

That's easier said than done. Lucas, do you intend to look at all your friends? Yeah, you anticipate doing that gravel on that south pad there out onto the riprap this fall? Yeah, when I sent out the notifications to you this last year, to everybody who had stuff over here, my, my thought was that the snow was going to melt and we were just going to go slam some gravel in there and move boats. But then we started looking at how much stuff was back there, right, in between everything, right?

And not only just big stuff you can see here, but little stuff that's taken a lot of time and effort to handle. Yeah, and we still need to work with a contractor to gut that big ugly stuff out of there. Put it in a side dump to get it out to the dump. It's amazing. Well, uh, that's what I'm questioning.

Do you anticipate having that gravel down this fall yet, this winter, or it'd be next year sometime? It's hard to say. I think we can say the lot's going to get cleaned up this fall. Whether or not we get the gravel down, yeah, is a question. Yeah, well, I was just thinking I could pick my stuff up and move it if I got it, if it was ready, but I don't want to move it back there and then have to move it again to put the gravel down and all that stuff.

No, no, we wouldn't do that. You know, speaking of which, Joe, man, you've got the big crane. Obviously that has the potential to be a working piece of equipment for services around the port, right? The 4000. Yeah, the other smaller cranes that have been there a really long time, I mean, it seems like they don't have a purpose.

You could yard those things out to your other pad. Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna pull the baby pile driver out of there. I hope to get it out this fall. Get it set up and ready to drive the piler out the yard out there from the shop. But yeah, it's just, uh, having the time and taking the time to do it, you know.

But I'll get it out of there. Well, I just want to make sure we're, we're being fair because some of your equipment's been there, you know, a long time. So I just want to make sure it's clear that we're talking about both, both kinds. Yes, ma'am, I understand, I understand, and I can see the need for it. So you got no problem from me.

They're saying they need the stuff to get out of the way, you know. So when the riprap was placed, it was before the eastern jetty, right? So that was— I remember talking to Randy, the city engineer at the time, and saying— later a manager— he said that gravel or that riprap had to be there as part of a Corps of Engineers requirement. But because it's a run-up ramp, it's— if you look, it's really gradual. It's not—.

Right, not a—. Well, that's, that's the other problem that I was going to mention about moving this stuff to the south shore there, unless that built up pretty good. Because, uh, man, when we get high water and use the wind pushing up, I mean, it pushes halfway up into the harbor there. So anything that's moved down that way, if it's not elevated, it's going to be underwater. That's why all that sand and debris is there, is from Murbach in 2022.

Ultimately, what I would like to see— and we got to look at the feasibility of it— is develop into this outer mudflats to extend that pad, potentially build additional ramps, have additional storage space, additional place to load and store rock, to have multiple people haul out at the same time. Yeah, on one long ramp instead of one skinny ramp. Ultimately, that's where I think it needs to go in the future. But, you know, we've been talking about this port expansion for 10 years. It's finally slowly taking track, right?

We've been talking about floats in the river for 7 years, hopefully slowly taking track. Things move slow, and we have to use the space in the meantime. So, you guys think you're gonna move to try to acquire any new properties at any point in time in this? I mean, there's not really many properties on the water side that you could even feasibly acquire and turn into storage. All you do is dredge it and pump it up and build the land.

Yeah, that's exactly what I'm thinking. What about up against like Old Avenue out on the east side?

There's a lot of open space. I know that snow trucks go in and out of there, small dredges, you know, a lot of open space. There's dozens and dozens of private properties all throughout this whole area going down. Not all of it, but some of it. Okay, so can the feds do like— if they were the Army Corps, would they like say we're gonna eminent domain that or this?

Yeah, the Gold Avenue is going to be totally included in the new harbor. Yeah. So that then, then that, you know, what's the beach now might be— you could do something there maybe. Where's Gold Avenue? Right, right here.

Oh, that's running right along and right where all those pipes come down here. Yeah, it's this road that comes up and then goes down, or is this name of something else? That's E Street. Yeah, so then F is what's coming down this— or Gold Avenue. Yeah, it runs east-west, all the same.

So for vessel storage on this side, all we're really talking about is this pad right here for the most part. We can— like in this picture, we've got some use for equipment that's over there, which moves. It's gone before Iditarod needs that space. Yeah, very temporary. But this area, we could put a whole lot of boats here stacked up of various sizes.

It's just there's not—. How far south toward the, uh, beach can you go? Uh, there is a property line in line with this sheet pile wall, so really there's an invisible line going like that. We don't own any of this. So when you cross the road, we don't own the other side either.

For airbagging out on that side, um, will you— are you going to put another dead man in the lot above, or are you just gonna just hope that the dirt ramp works? That's a little steeper on this side. Than it is on the other side. It's actually less. We just measured the slopes.

Is it really? Yeah, this one's like a degree or almost 2 degrees less of a slope, but it's a lot taller of a ramp. You got to go farther up it.

Right. It's shallower on the other ramp too. Dead man's right where the Myrtle Light reams. Right. It's buried.

It's never been used. Right, I noticed that. It's just buried. Yeah. But I'm just thinking, you know, if you got a nice wide ramp there, Yeah, right, but it's dirt, so it's going to be a little harder to— longer ramps can be harder to get up over that edge.

Yeah, there's already some vessels using this side, which would love to continue using this side. They like it. Um, and there's a lot of others I think that could use this, but we just run out of space so quick trying to put stuff around the big guys there. It's been super congested over there this season. Like, if you have to pull your vessel in for some repairs You can't hardly get over there just to beach it and do something.

Yes, that's why I need the Snake River floating docks. We can get a lot of the smaller vessels off of the sheet pile walls and not crammed in over here on this east ramp. I agree, I look at the space every day. Yeah, and there's no way the environmentalists let you, uh, sink that big um, barge landing craft thing out there and use it for—. Yeah, marine life.

I don't think it would make a good dock. I mean, it's got tie-ups all the way around it and a ramp going to the thing. Which one? What are you talking about? Just put the tube in the water and then just tie boats to that thing, you know, on outside the harbor.

I mean, I don't know what else you're going to do Yeah, I was gonna say, that's what they're doing. There's stuff buried right here. That's exactly how they plug the channel up. And there used to be a barge nosed in right here that served as a dock for many, many years. Half buried and sunk.

Yeah, is that the one the kids blew up? Yeah. Yes. Yeah, there's still parts of it out there. No, it's in the channel, Joe.

He's talking to Lulu. Yeah, the Lulu out there, that was a different This was one that some kids got killed in, uh, Mother's Day. Mother's Day fire. Oh, I'm in the '80s. Yeah, it got buried in the channel right there under the tubing, or about west of the tubing.

Oh, the old channel. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's been—. I mean, arsenic, whatever. Yeah, so you can't dig too far in there. Well, is there any way to put bags under the tube and slide it either north or south? Yeah, anything's possible.

Oh sure, all of that up. I mean, why is that not going to turn? I don't know what he's doing, but again, Jeff, it puts us back to where we are on the other side. You're trying to figure out how to get vessels that that don't go in the water out of the way, right, for commerce that does go in the water, right? There's many different thoughts about it.

Some people feel like, you know, I'll just roll it out of the way and let it stay. Others feel make a sliding scale. Others are no, if it's been here X amount of years, it needs to go away, right? Well, I mean, you know, like you said, we're trying to talk like long term, but like in talking with the Palmers about what they were kind of going through at the end of this season You know, like if they choose not to pull out on that side again, or make sure that, you know, and they pull on to the west ramp, you know, they're always a dredge that, you know, really isn't the first one in the water, you know what I mean? Which stages them in the middle, you know.

It's always a game figuring out who has what maintenance or modifications to do. Sure, sure. But again, like if, you know, even if long term, slide that over. Now you got the JAG out there, you got Johnny Wilson on that, you know, you got all those guys that are organized. Now you've got more dredges that can pull that on that side.

And then at the beginning of the season, when the first barge gets here, it's not having to work around large vessels until that south wall gets fixed. I agree. You know, Joy just said something about— or was it Lucas— about you know, do you sliding scale, you know, move out of the way, or, you know, the 3 choices. You really kind of need to do— you can kind of do all 3. You know, move what can be moved out of the way, have a somewhat gentle sliding scale, you know, taking into account, you know, who's actively improving a vessel.

And Then, you know, when you sign your Harbor thing, have a, you know, hey, by the way, even if you're doing the gentle sliding scale at year 7, something changes and we really want it gone then and we're not going to be nice, whatever, 5, whatever. But, you know, it really— you could kind of incorporate all 3 and not be a complete, you know, hard-ass about, you know, some draconian sliding scale. You know, and, and just kind of give folks a heads up that, hey, when you sign up here, don't plan on leaving this thing here forever. And, uh, future users, yeah, you know, moving ahead, you know, yeah. And, and, you know, this area here is most of it.

It looks like the Myrtle, they're taking apart, so they seems like—. And I spoke with, uh, George, he kind of seems like he has a plan. And then you've really got 3 problems. If Kevin gets the, the, the old Grabber out of the way, you know, you, you've just got a couple vessels. Maybe the, the Dugong may be the hardest one to deal with, but if you incentivize to get the, the Shelly somehow over to the east side Seems like you just get a ton of room right there.

Yes, I don't know, it's a floating boat. It worked last year, it was in the water last year. Yeah, it's operational. They just had some medical problems. There's a whole lot of boats in the harbor.

It's not profitable, but there's a lot of boats that are floating in the water that ain't profitable either. So yeah. Including the one I know. We've got 3 more minutes before we start our regular meeting, so yeah, if, uh, you have any other comments, make it—. Thanks, make it quick.

Thanks for stopping by, Eric. Thanks, Eric. Is that it pretty much for the work session? Yes. Appreciate you guys coming.

We'll take the—. We'll take the Dupont down. I keep telling, but for $5,000, we're not going to do it. If you have a proposal and a business license, you are absolutely welcome to send us something. Next year I'm going to take the cable grabber down.

I might as well take— thanks guys, let's talk. I like your hat. Thanks, Kevin. Yeah, of course. I got to move those bags in that cable Anything on that South Bank, if it's yours, because it's getting purged.

See on the picture right now, any of this stuff right here, any of this stuff. So you know this is not mine, that's not mine. I know whose blue stuff this is, pretty much everything else. This is Chris Kelly's right here, that trailer. Yeah, this Connex is mine, but you told me to put that there like a long time ago, get it out of the way.

I mean, it's empty, there's nothing in it. We just need to figure out what to do with it. Yeah, I got space for it. I guess I could put it— I could put it like on top of the 80-gram until I cut it out if you need it moved like right away. But that thing is like so far out of the way, dude, like, you know what I mean?

Well, that's what we're trying to do. What we're trying to do is move all that because we're gonna move all the gravel in here, surface it all. So yeah, wherever you want me to move it, I'll move it. Okay.

I love that man. He loves me. Uh, but yeah, no, I will look. Anything that you need moved right away though, just let me know. I'll—.

You know me, I'll get on it quick. Because see, like where the Palmers were at this half on the Sitnasock property, if the two will be moved over, then the sister Shelly could go in and pull all the way up. You know, I don't necessarily see a benefit to moving the Sister Shelley from one side to another. It's stored anywhere and there's more room on that side. Okay, but there are other boats that are hauling in and hauling out, right, every year.

This would be a prime location to roll them out, have them roll back in the spring. Okay, so, um, absolutely, I think we need to work with everybody on repositioning to make the best use of space, not necessarily just get out right now. Okay. And I definitely think this needs to roll one direction or another to make more space so we can manage it this fall. Absolutely.

If it just moves south, right up, right up to the property line, at least that'd be kind of a straight shot. You could get something in there straight out next to it. Yeah. But move it west and face it north and south. Yeah, that's not a bad idea.

It's too long for a lot. Yeah, it is. It'll be on private property on one side.

But it's really hard to turn it to—. Very hard to turn. Yeah. Yes, question. If and when we get to Phase 3, report no modification, will any of that area be designated for the project?

Oh yeah, the connection. At that point, it would be probably 2031, '32-ish. And yes, the, the new breakwater causeway would be built in line with E Street. So behind the two leaves going out into the ocean. So that land would all be taken up.

The city would have to turn it over for rock staging and construction, Abram. Good thinking. And we would— yeah, we would have to acquire properties and turn that over to project. Thus the question of the eminent domain. Like, can—.

Is the Corps going to just come in and say, well, we think this is needed? We have justification, we will. Otherwise, what we did when we relocated the entrance channel was the city leased properties for the duration of the project, only having to eminent domain and buy the properties that were in the channel that were never to be seen again. We had to do that. Actually, we were able to offer people funds they sold it to us.

We didn't have to eminent domain anybody. But the other lots we leased and we returned them to them. That'll have to happen on the east side too when we get to phase 3. We're not there yet. By then, hopefully, like you said, Lucas, you could expand on the other side and get that pushed out.

Yeah, because that's huge. That's huge, especially if you're talking about a ramp coming right straight in. Yeah, I want to do a big long ramp just coming in. That's the ticket right there. I've got, I've got my cartoon drawings at my office.

That's the ticket right there because you don't have room to grow here. Yeah, you have room for there. So it's right here, sort of like what we're dealing with with the port expansion. You know, there's no room to do any of that inland. You got to build out and make some space.

So all that flatlands, I'd love to not have to look at mudflats and have that be uplands. Why not? I mean, what's it doing now? Yeah. You can almost go clear up to— how close can you get to that bridge, the Salmon Bridge?

There's a big hole, Doug, a big sump. You can't get that close. So there's—. We have, we have the legal rights to go all the way up to Baranair. We do.

That's what it looks like. Oh wow, look at that. The channel's over here. Bridge, actually. Oh yeah, oh yeah, ramp here.

That's awesome. You know, you guys, we meet once a month. Come on down, you might learn all kinds of stuff. We usually don't see anybody, otherwise we never get to see you. Come on, we have— we feel no love.

You know we love you, you know. These guys do. These guys are always here. Watch the live stream. But it's just us, man.

Come down and like, of course, share the love. I'm gonna come by Yeah, of course, I'm always interested. Lucas, uh, on the New Horizon there, when I pulled in, I would have scooted back further, but that wasn't clear back there. No, there was stuff back there. There's stuff back there.

So, uh, can you move back there now? You need me to scoot back? I can't. You know, I think just like everyone else, I think once we kind of get our ducks in order, we're gonna reach out to every owner and start saying, let's come up with a plan, let's see what we can do. And each thing is going to be a little different, you know, for you.

Maybe it's we want to make use of that dozen or 15 feet or whatever it is back there and go a little farther and talk with you about that. So yeah, I'll stop by your office and talk to you before I leave next week. Thanks, Randy. Good seeing you guys. Thanks.

September 17th. Commissioner Smith-Eisler. Here. Commissioner Leen. Here.

Chairman West. Here. Commissioner Farley. Here. Commissioner Nowit.

Excused. Commissioner Sheffield. Here. Commissioner McClure. Excused.

We have a quorum. Okay, I need an approval of the agenda.

Any additions to the agenda? If not, Move to approve the agenda. Second. Roll call, please.

Commissioner Lean? Yes. Chairman West? Yes. Commissioner Barley?

Yes. Commissioner Sheffield? Yes. Commissioner Smith-Eisner? Yes.

Motion passed. All right, then, a packet. We have, uh, need a motion for approval of our July 16th readvised revised meeting minutes and August 20th minutes. Can we do them separate because I got thoughts on both? Okay, let's take the 16th.

Um, on page 2 of 4 on our July 16th, I just caught this where it's, it's where I'd asked about the protocol for the port, the, the incidental harassment authority for NOAA for the, the whatever, marine wildlife. And it says there are numerous federal permits. I went to look on the website, just so everyone's understanding, on the, on the City of Nome Port website, and the permit that— the only permits that's shown, unless I'm mistaken, is, uh, expired in April 2025. So if we have a new permit, that would be awesome. If there's an IH— I think it's an inter— whatever it is, Incidental Harassment Assessment.

It would be great to know what it looks like, um, and to have the most recent one on the website.

There is one, right? I mean, the Honor Corps has that. Yeah, they're on their website. Well, can we get it on ours? Because we had the other one on up until 2025, so it would be nice to just have the new one.

And people do have questions about how that's is there gonna be local hire and all that kind of thing. No, I understand, but you can see how they're going to do the work they're gonna do and people can then ask those kinds of questions. So question, just for what we're doing here, is this just a comment on the minutes or you're trying to add something? Nope, it's just a comment to let people know, I think I might have asked for the most recent one, but I thought, eh, I saw that and I thought I better go just go look. It's probably on the website, but the one that's on is this one, which expires, it's from May 2024 to April 2025.

Just a comment, 'cause that is a concern. And then on page 4 of 4, There was the two confidential city attorney memos, that recommendation where there was little to no benefit to the city pursuing that arrangement regarding Port Authority. And I saw that Port Authority was in our packet, so I have questions about that when we get to that because it actually— I read it and it actually gives me more questions about that. So, um, so anyway, thank you for putting that in the packet. I didn't expect that.

And on the last sentence on the Sheffield thingamajiggy paragraph at the very top, it just says NOAA. It would be for the— I think you might want to say the NOAA Northwest Explorer or whoever it was, and it was their medical emergency they had on board. I don't care. I don't know if that matters, but the people that in perpetuity might like to see their boat name or whatever, and it was great. I need a motion for approval of the revised, revised July 16th minutes with the additions.

I don't think there's much to revise.

I can live with it being the way it is, but if you squeak it in, it's fine. Well, then we need to, we need to revise it.

Oh God, no, I—. Right, all right, you didn't see it, don't unsee it, never mind. Okay, so I need a motion and approval for to proceed on both minutes.

I had a comment on the other one. Okay, let's take July 16th minutes. Okay, I move to approve the July 16th minutes as amended. Most recently. Need a second?

Second. Roll call, please.

Commissioner West? Yes.

Sorry, Chairman. Uh, Commissioner Farley? Yes. Commissioner Sheffield? Yes.

Commissioner Smith-Eisen? Yes. Commissioner Lee? Yes. Okay, so on our— in our packets, got the August 20th minutes.

Any revision, deletions Yeah, I had a comment on the commissioner updates.

I kind of, I was trying to be facetious and, uh, kind of came out like I, that's what I thought. But what I wanted to say was that there's a great deal of misinformation that I recently saw on YouTube and people giving virtual tours of Nome and saying things that weren't true. Wow. And I, I was kind of shocked. My brother brought it to my attention, two different, two different YouTube moments that were full of misinformation.

So that's, that's what I meant to say.

So what do you want to revise it to, Charlie?

Just that there's a great deal of misinformation on the web about the Nome Port, and I think it behooves the commission to, uh, to point out things that aren't correct. So, okay, we can have that. And I've got one too.

Under page 2 of 4, under Commissioner Updates, it's that the CMTS is the U.S. Committee on the Marine Transportation System, CMTS, and it's a maritime transportation group. It is not with State of Alaska DOT. It's—.

Yeah, and it is the Bering Strait Study Working Group.

Okay, thank you. Just change—. Just change those—. Alaska to DOT to USDOT. Yeah, and if you want all the other stuff—.

Marine Transportation. Yeah, and it's not Conservation— Maritime Conservation Transportation Group. So yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, no problem. Thank you. Oh, I need a motion for Approval of our August 20th as amended.

So moved.

Second. Roll call, please.

Commissioner Farley? Yes. Commissioner Sheffield? Yes. Commissioner Smith-Eisner?

Yes. Commissioner Leeney? Yes. Chairman? Yes.

Now I'll open up to citizens' comments. Do we have any comments out there? We have One citizen. One citizen. This, after a full house, now only have one.

Would you like to address the commission?

I don't have anything real— I don't have anything constructive to say other than thanks. Okay, moving right along. The harbormaster report.

Uh, communications?

No communications. Okay, yeah, communications. Anybody have any, uh, uh, comments on the communications that we've been presented with. So the letter to Department of Transportation is money for a new loader? It's not money for a grant, it's, it's, it's an endorsement letter that the grant program requires from the state of Alaska, who's the sponsor of the maritime Alaska Marine Highway route that comes up to the Western Alaska, they require this letter, so I thought I would share it since they provided it.

Okay, any other comments, questions?

Hearing none, moving right along to Commissioner's updates. Any commissioners want to give an update?

I will. So, um, I was at the port modification grand opening that happened on whatever day that happened on, the Wednesday of last week or second. So I've really been thinking about how to comment on that, and it seemed like we had 10 Army Corps of Engineers people that flew up. We had a number of the Kewit guys that are working here. We had mayor, city man.

I mean, you can count on one hand kind of everybody that was there. And I answered the email and I understand people have jobs, I have a job and I made time to go.

What was unexpected was how exclusive that event was.

Understanding that there's a lack of time, I took that as almost disrespect from the Army Corps of Engineers to the city of Nome. If you guys only received a an invite that they're on their way to do this on a Friday and they're coming on a Wednesday. That seems— if that's really the situation, I was sort of stunned by that. This is a big deal for the region, for the city, for Nome and the outlying areas, and I don't know who was invited or what groups. And I understand it was last minute, but I mean, I'm listing the ways you can— we can rally phone calls, the radio, the Nugget, Nome Announce, all the Facebooks, Nome Post, the city webpage, Nome Announce.

We didn't have anything, and as a result, I think it said in the Nome Nugget article on it that the native village of Solomon might have been invited. That's what the Army Corps said. And I'm sort of— was sort of shock and awe, but in that— in a way that was so exclusive, and it seems like this is something relating to communication and transparency that just sort of really was recognized, really felt strong in seeing this big, you know, big event, or should have been a big— it was a big event, right? I think Dan— Senator Sullivan was using this by the end of the day in his election stuff. Yeah, so why don't you—.

Let's—. That's not a commissioner update, that is a commissioner comment. Okay, I can wait until commissioner comments. If we could hold that, that would be great. So if you have an update on something that I went—.

I attended, so did you and Joy and Lucas and I was—. Yeah, I was hunting. Sorry. Oh, you missed it? Yeah.

You should have been there. So, anybody would— I didn't mean to cut you off, but well, let's just—. You did, and that's good. We'll hold off and we'll, we'll restart it up again at Commissioner comments, and that's fine. Thank you.

Charlie, do you have any updates? We've had a, had a comment letter brought to our attention here. With the Queric and ABCP talking about the offshore leasing. And that's a— I believe that NSCDC is preparing a comment on that, on what's out front here. Basically, it says that we think that there's a viable crab fishery.

It's been proven for decades, and, uh, we don't believe that there's a resource in the federal waters to mine. So we were opposed to it, to the local situation. And, uh, but the letter isn't public yet, but it's, it's in the works. So does the city have a stance?

What was that? Does the city have an opinion or do they not on, uh, or is that something they would even comment on? Question to Charlie. We submitted comments. Okay, great, good, thank you.

Okay, any other updates?

Seeing none.

And now let's go into the harbormaster's report. Um, over the past several weeks we've had, oh, like 9 or 10 sailing vessels and yachts of various types coming through, everyone coming over the Northwest Passage. These are all folks that started over Greenland side and came through. It was very interesting and nice to talk to everybody coming through. Was right on the tail of a few storms that hit on the way south, and then right when they rolled in, like the next day or 2 days later, it blew up pretty gross.

Everyone was very happy to be in Nome. Got a lot of comments about how they liked our small harbor. It was very busy. Um, most of them had to raft to other vessels— gold mining vessels, fuel barges. Some had draft limitations and weren't able to be up against the walls, but they could raft 2 or 3 out.

So it was a lot of work working with those folks to figure that out and then figure out how to get fuel when it would calm down for a nice day, but then get bad again. But everyone needed to cycle over to empty spots and get fuel, but we made it work. But we got a lot of really good comments at the port office, um, of folks that were very happy to be here and that we had the facility we did. We did have about 3 of them that were just way too big, way too deep to come inside the harbor. I was curious what they did.

Uh, they used it— they used the outer harbor commercial docks for very limited time. I think all three of them wanted to stay for like 3 to 5 days and enjoy Nome and park and rest their legs and, you know, all that fun stuff. All three of them got one single day at the dock before the weather blew back up and they had to leave again. One boat wanted to work with me to stay, and I said, it's going to get gross overnight, how about we meet at 8 PM tonight and look at the weather and see what the conditions are. By 8 PM it was rocking and rolling, and we kicked them out right then, and they were— they left.

So a lot of those— all three of those big sailboats actually went— there was big lows south of us, and there's nowhere to run to. If you're lucky, you can go to like Hooper Bay, but those big ones can't get in the Hooper Bay, so you're going all the way down. And, uh, some of those folks actually came to me asking where can they hide, where can they do this. I put them in contact with with some of our commercial boat captains for Bryce and Alaska Marine Lines and a few others that regularly hide from weather in this region. And they collectively decided to actually go to St. Lawrence Island and hide out on that southeast bay, um, from those strong northerlies ripping through.

And then it was south down below them, and as soon as it all switched north, they rode that south. There was like 4 sailboats that did that. Yeah. Yeah, so thank you. But yeah, it was just real, real interesting, uh, this time of year.

Earlier in the season we get the folks going the other way, but usually the people that are coming through in the fall from the opposite direction all show up in a big pile because when Mother Nature lets them through, they're all kind of stacked up. But that was pretty good. We had our last cruise ship, the Greg Mortimer, yesterday. They were going to come in the night before, but it was just too much swell. That wind didn't switch around until late.

We made the call not bring them in until the next morning, but that was good. Um, currently we have UAF Sukuliak out there. We just tied them up right before this meeting. And we have Bryce out there with the Maya H and Albert Cornelius. They're loading rock, have been since yesterday.

They're gonna probably get out of here Saturday and then bring in their next one, and then and they've got the third one right on the heels of that guy. So I think these may be the three last barges going up to Barrow for the season. Not quite sure on that, but that's kind of the way it's looking.

Um, basically now through the 26th, they've got that middle dock just monopolized loading rock every day, all day, as long as the weather holds out. It looks like it will. We had AML's last barge, or barges— we're waiting to find out if they could fit it all on one, or if they're bringing two between— are they doing two, you think? So then the 23rd through 26th roughly is when they're going to have those barges in. That will be the last AML barge for the year.

Um, may have smaller traffic, but for the most part that's going to be it. And then on the tail end of that is when we're— Crowley's going to come in and do some fuel. So like 26th through 28th, 29th, we're going to be Crowley delivering fuel for both them themselves, potentially also to NJU, their fuel delivery for the year. And then another fuel delivery for Delta Western going to Bonanza, their final fall delivery. That's going to be like October 1st, October 2nd is what it's looking like.

So stuff is— we're busy for the next— I have all 3 docks busy for 2.5, 3 weeks solid just because everyone's trying to come in and get everything done at the end of the season here, but then it's going to slow down drastically. Yeah, so Kulia comes back— they're here for like a couple days and then they come back in mid-October. October, they're here for a long trip this time. They're here all the way through next Tuesday, so they got a whole bunch of stuff to do. They're getting fresh water, septic pump outs, freight and stuff coming in, pipeline fuel on Saturday, so gonna be busy.

But on top of that, we have a number of research boats also coming in— Norseman II, Northwest Explorer again. And then we've had all these cable-laying ships out here all season. Most of those went south, but we still have the IT Integrity out here. He's looking for dock space, but there is no space. So depending on what the weather and Mother Nature does and how that affects other schedules, we might— but sounds like they're going to be hanging off offshore just hoping there's some space.

So, um, and then also doing fuel to the inside. Inner Harbor has been busy. We just had, uh, Global Diving is who has worked— they're the ones who had all this cabling stuff done. They're working for IT, and, um, they had their dive boat, the Miss Diane, and the assist tug Bristol Wind, which were all on charter to We just— they just left yesterday, and I think one of them was in the harbor for 45 days and the other one straight, and the next one was in there for like 28 days. They would, you know, go out and work during the days, but they'd come back in every night, so their dockers just kept rolling.

But it was interesting to see them stay for so long. But so just adding to the congestion of the small boat harbor, but they made it work. So it's just been real busy in the Inner Harbor as well as the docks.

Sorry, what? And they paid? Oh yeah, oh yeah. We were supposed to today have a fancy 160-foot yacht come in, but they decided to pass right on by Nome. They came over the top, but they decided to just keep trucking south, I guess.

What was the name on that, do you know?

The motor yacht Lieutenant Pete Maverick Mitchell.

Sounds like drinking tea with a pinky. I don't know what one it is, but they drew almost 16 feet. They were pretty deep, so way too deep to come into the Inner Harbor. 160 Feet. Wanted to stay here for a whole week, and we just couldn't do that out on the commercial docks with what was there.

So I offered them a chance to raft if they needed fuel or groceries or something, raft up one of these guys, maybe load and rock, tie up along the side, walk across. But which we've done for folks, but they weren't interested. They've kept trucking south. So the motor yacht Lieutenant Pete Maverick Mitchell— I don't— that is, that is literally his name. But yes, that is what that's from.

Holy cow. Yeah, very interesting. Um, outside of that, um, let's see here. Yeah, fuel research, just— and we're sort of in that mode right now of, as we were talking about earlier, cleanup. We're doing a lot of purging of stuff.

We've been working with owners of moving stuff, random dredge hoes or trailers that are falling apart and no one's claiming ownership. We've, uh, done what stuff that we can consider nuisance property in our tariff. Which is not a vessel or a vehicle with a VIN number, you know, stuff that falls underneath that, we can do a 10-day impound. So put notices on it, say that this is nuisance property, it's been abandoned, or we, you know, it's just in the way, has no sense being here. Post it, 10 days later we can purge it or whatever we want with it.

So that's been actually tremendously helpful. We had that added into our tariff last year to give us more flexibility to not have to go through like a 90-day impound process on just junk. And it's been really nice. We also purchased, uh, with Public Works sharing the cost, a new dump trailer. We were able to buy from one of our users who sold it to us for a very great price.

Um, it's been day and night difference having— being able to take commercial trash and all the stuff from the ships or do large loads of junk and just go dump it and not have to hand unload it constantly. It's been so nice. So that's sort of what we've— now it's available when we have users who want to do cleanup. We're doing cleanup, we can very easily pull that somewhere, have them fill it up, or possibly even dump it. So it's been, it's been really nice having that.

Just want to throw it out there. Um, That's about it. We're just in, in the mode right now of talking with users who are going to be stay— or when are they thinking about coming out. Some have ideas, some don't. Where are you going to go on Port property?

Are you going home or someone else's property? And then talking about where we think that's going to be. So we just started today drawing up a scribble maps, like an overhead map marking of where we think we're going to put people. And it's already been pretty helpful showing that to users where we think we anticipate that to go. It would be a whole lot different, obviously, if we had everybody on that south bank rolled further south and we had a little more space.

But it sounds like we're going to retain use for, at least for the winter, of the fenced-in lot down along Port Road, the old Air Force tank lot, for storage of smaller wheel dredges who are able to roll. So that was one of my bigger concerns. Turns right now because we have so many folks in the harbor and we have very little upland space. Yeah, I thought you said they're—. Yep, almost done.

No, all that rock there, from what I understand, they're not really— well, they may be hauling more rock down there, I don't know, but the rock that is down there is what's going to be going on those barges, and I anticipate probably by the end of October all that rock being gone.

There's—. Before that, quarry trucks and stuff, braces. Yeah, all that stuff. All that stuff. I don't know what they're— they haven't said to us exactly what they're doing, but I believe we may be getting that space back.

So any comments to the Harbor Master? Questions? Was the work session helpful for you? Because it seemed like people were voicing up and a lot of people came? Yeah.

Yeah. Okay, good.

I've had almost the same conversations with a lot of them. It's nice having everybody in this— in a group talking to you guys, sharing those opinions and having the back and forth, because people sit in my office and say things all day long. It doesn't—. Totally understand. That's good.

All right, moving right along to the project manager.

Okay, a couple of quick things out of my report. Um, it was a nice segue, Lucas talking about all the work they were doing to clean up the facility. Uh, the first section of my report, I want to commend those guys— Alex, Lucas, Lucas Morgan, who works for Lucas. Yeah, we got two Lucas. We got extras.

And I call him Junior, but with his permission. As well as Caitlin, because these guys have been working every day non-stop. And the only, the only exception being when they've got to divert to go handle lines or deal with a cruise ship or something. But they've been staying on, chasing folks down, chasing down gear, identifying who owns what, and getting rid of the junk that we're legally able to do so. So I, I think that they've done an exceptional job finding ways to clean things up and using every nook and cranny of footprint we've got and looking for more space all the time.

Um, so they get gold stars for the rest of the season.

Um, the fuel pipeline infrastructure upgrades on page 2, um, which is the replacement of the existing fuel line infrastructure from the city dock up to the pig catchers on the industrial pad. That work, we currently have a surveyor in town doing physical locates underground so that they can identify the exact locations and maneuvering of these existing lines that are 40 years old and start working towards 35% design. Line for the replacement for that infrastructure, as well as new routing and a fourth line that will go into this construction that is replacing the existing three. So there will be actually four lines which will connect with the new pipelines, four pipelines designed to be built in Phase 1 Bravo with the port expansion., the surveyor while they're in town or are still doing some surveys for the city and other port areas so we can maximize having them available on site. The Snake River Morage Facility, as you saw in the communications, the FONSI, which is a Finding of No Significant Impact, was issued by MARAD, USDOT, on the Snake River River Morge Project for the final consultations that we had to have redone from the original NEPA permit done by— which extended the existing Snake River dredge permit again to another modification back 3 years ago, but the Corps was unable to find their review consultation records, so we had to redo the process.

It is now complete and the FONSI was issued, so we can check that box with MERRAT and close that process and move forward with executing the grant agreement for the USDOT funding for the Snake River Moorage. Um, that is moving forward. With what we propose to be a bid package for the dredging with a secondary bid package for construction of the uplands, the armor wall, the sheet pile dock, and the purchase and shipment of the floats. Should be in a two-phase project.

Um, let me see. The Monday night's meeting, the city council executed an amendment to the NSCDC lease on the fish and freezer plants, expanding there. Lucas, can you open that? Um, are you able to open the server folder for the meeting packet? Yeah, there's a layout there.

I want to show people where that lot is. Yeah, um, it's a mock-up drawing that's called— anyway, it's the lot located between the NSCDC's freezer plant and Harbor Office. And it, um, nope, nope, nope, it's called mock-up. Mock-up, I see it. Yeah, um, And it is being incorporated after approval by the city council Monday night.

It is being incorporated into their lease where their fish and freezer plants are to the south there and for warehousing and shop and offices and a little, uh, watch guard station, as you can see. Port office is right up here. Yeah, so just wanted to update you guys on that. The council approved a ordinance at second reading Monday night. So now, once we execute— once we receive signature back from Metro CDC, which I sent it to them today, they will transfer the $1 million payment for the 19-year lease that they are paying in advance, which is going to serve as cost share match, part of the city's match to the funding cost share for the federal funds for the construction.

So we'll have similar to what I shared at the last meeting with the grant-funded projects. There is, for this project, there is a Denali Commission $1 million, there's NSCDC's contribution now for $1 million. There's the adjacent property owner for $0.3 million, and then there are, um, the remaining million is being still being considered by several other entities for contributing a portion of that, with the city having a portion as well, the remaining portion. All Um, so that is that update. And then if you could pull the photos up from that flash drive, please.

Um, standby. Wrong screen.

Um, the removal of the spur has begun. This is the spur. Yes. Uh, Kiewit has started removing armor stone off the top of Desperre, and we've had a couple of meetings out there on site with them talking about traffic control, access for the trucks.

Luckily, you know, sometimes they're able to operate without a vessel at the dock so that they have a good turning area, but then when we do have operations at the dock, Lucas is working with them coning off areas that limit the, not only the dock operations from infringing on the construction area, but vice versa. We will have a freight, AML's last freight barge next week, which is going to prove the most difficult interaction concerns that we have, but we've talked with both the contractor and AML's guys and I'm confident that we can find a way to work through it so that everybody is able to work and we keep everyone safe. This is one little trial run with the freight barge before next summer hits with everybody trying to work in the same space at the same time. So this gives us a little test run for everyone to see what it looks like. Just today when we were tying up the Sekuliac, that's why these vehicles are out here, we were tying them shortly.

Uh, they were actually just opened up enough room here at the end they can pull their trucks in, swing to the west, and then back down their ramps. So they can do all their turning within their own area. Yeah, which is going to be very helpful. Yes. And then there are some pictures of the jump-off ramp that they have built.

Yeah, when you scooch up, you can see where the truck actually— there are the trucks that's turning off the Causeway Road to drive down on the ramp to the beach where they're storing the rock they're removing from a spur. So, um, they decided that was much safer than coming off—. It's right here—. Yeah, than, than actually coming up and driving off West Beach Road. They wanted their own ramp to keep their heavy equipment and haul trucks off of the West Beach, using the West Beach only for for other side dumps that are hauling in.

So just wanted to— this shows you a little bit of the trucks. We have Bryce hauling today as well as Kewitt hauling, and the interaction is working pretty smooth. So just— and they're also keeping the road bladed, keeping the holes filled and the muds pushed off to the side. And they're also working on keeping rock down on the road to the end of the causeway because there's, as you can imagine, quite a bit of mud down there. And that's all I've got unless you guys have questions.

I had a question. It's not part of your presentation. So the area where Rice has stored all the rock, you know, the old fenced-in tank farm, there's that lake back there. And I know you've mentioned it before, but is there a plan to fill in, to level that lot? We are currently working on a plan for that right now, to fill that pond with some potential material we may be able to get a hold of to do that work, but it's unclear yet as to whether that's exactly going to happen.

Um, or if it may be sourced from a different direction. So we're working on that. It is at the top of the list because we're cleared to fill that pond. You know, we don't have to wait on anything. We're clear to fill it, but we want to find a suitable source of material that is, you know, the most affordable and something— we obviously don't want to use any of our crushed material, expensive stuff.

We want to use, or throw a bunch of slop in there. Yeah, I don't want to call it waste, but we want to use stuff that isn't high dollar. So we're hoping that we have a pathway, but we're not— we haven't been given the high sign yet.

I asked because selfish interest. I don't like that, that water body pushing any residual pollutants through my lot across the street. Or, or also, I think that having a, a more usable laydown area is everybody's interest. The idea is to pump the pond before it's filled instead of spreading the water, since it's got to go somewhere. Yeah, yeah.

And where are you going to pump it to?

That's still part of the plan we're developing, but likely into, um, ditch area, likely into the local drainage to the north or south. I was flying my drone earlier this season over there and it was pretty full of water, but you could see right through it. It was like clear, you could see the bottom. And I was flying later, probably mid to end of July, and it was almost bone dry in there. And there was water in the bottom, but I was surprised at how low it got.

I just remember it being a lot more full than that. I think it's above the river level or pretty close. I think now it's higher again with all the rain we've been getting. Yeah, but I mean, it— once the grass goes out of the ground, then it can drain. Yeah, that's what I'm trying to say.

Great question about all the truck traffic we just saw. Um, the fuel lines, there's no concern with those heavy trucks and there's enough cover, especially right up there, right there? I mean, like when I— when you drive out the causeway right now, there's definitely, you know, when you come off the bridge, things like that, where the weight of them is having an impact on the road, but where they're making that turn especially, there's enough cover that there's no risk for damage to the fuel. Fuel lines are along the east side of the road. Okay, good question.

Didn't think of that one. There's a few spongy spots as you get out, like out in the middle, that where the water has collected, and then it hadn't fully dried before someone drove through it with something big that are, you know, several feet deep. If I remember correctly, that's like 14 feet deep. Are they? I don't know.

Good. We saw some— I had some pictures. She gave me some pictures of when they were installed, and I was pretty surprised. They're kind of deep. I've still got those.

Yeah, cool. Once we're done with this survey, we're going to have Aspen And we've moved to having daily or every other day meetings first thing in the morning with Kewitt talking about our traffic, their traffic, haul plans, all the above. So it's been nice being on the same page. And track— with them starting this haul, it's picked up enough it warranted doing so, but it's been going good.

They've had a few— actually, one accident on the state trailer park road, had a forklift go off the side. And, and they—. So they have opened that up a little bit. And was that through the state, or was that through us, or—. We didn't—.

Well, they did it. But since it's a state road, did they give them authorization to do that? They talked to the state. I mean, it's a lot better for sure, but it's just, uh, I wish it'd go a lot wider. Yeah, yeah, but go south into all that brush.

Nice. But any other comments to or questions to the Harbor? The Port Authority issue, just before my report, I've included Article 9 regulations, law under the Alaska Statute 29.

It gives kind of— I mean, it goes into a lot of depth. It's the full statute as it was written.

I wanted to make sure that that was highlighted as, you know, this is kind of where the Alaska law stands right now, but it certainly, you know, it certainly doesn't— it doesn't really change the perspectives previous counselors and, and city attorneys that have looked into it before because the law hasn't changed. So can you tell us why that, in a nutshell, why they don't— why the confidential city lawyers' opinions are, one, confidential, and two, are saying that the Port Authority is not the way to go? I'm not trying to be hard here. I, I actually wanted to learn when, um, Kenny and the city manager said the governor was saying we should look into that. I thought, well, somebody knows something, so we should probably look into it.

Is that— but it sounds like it's a— nobody wants this to happen, right? So it makes me even more curious because it sounds like reading through this, we could have like the Bering Strait Port Authority if all the cities wanted to— municipal governments wanted to get together. You can actually link and play together. So I'm just wondering What's the— what are like the main— without going into details, what are the main points that the lawyers came that the Port Authority was not a viable option? Just for education to try to learn.

A couple of points I can make in general terms is the city already has the authority to own, operate, maintain, regulate, and fund the port. So creating the Port Authority under this act does not extend or expand those powers in any way.

The, the act was actually developed to facilitate a potential natural gas pipeline from the North Slope to Valdez, which was extending across multiple municipal boundaries, which was why they came up with this solution. However, it's not always a good fit for everyone.

You know, if, for example, if there were a— if there was a regional Western Alaska Arctic Port Authority developed with, say, the Maritime Hubs. Katsubi no um, Bethel, Dunedin, whatever, Barrow. Um, the objective— it would be difficult to provide a clear additional benefit of doing that when the objective— my battery's gonna die— yeah, excuse me. Um, when the objective, you know, would be to support a specific project in a, you know, an individual member municipality, because I mean, if it brought additional assets and revenue sources and bonding capacity that wouldn't otherwise be accessible to each municipality, then That, you know, that would be one thing, but that would be difficult to be realized when each municipality that would be a member of that authority would reasonably be expected to prioritize the use of its assets and resources for projects within its own jurisdiction. So It is very unlikely they would want their assets leveraged for a project in another member's municipality.

I guess that's how that would function. For Nome, for just Nome, what's the— what is the— because it looks like this is made to get investments, to get bonds, and to get things like that sort of sound like we need, like incinerators and loaders, cranes, and lifts and whatever else all that's needed by the port. So I'm just wondering, is it that if we have a port authority, we don't have a port commission? Or is that— I would see them as something that's mutually beneficial from what little I know reading. So when the governor came and suggested that we should look into a port authority, we were having a really hard time getting all the funding for the port.

That problem kind of solved itself.

But the—. So all the members of a port authority own a piece of the action, pretty much equal. So if Nome enters into a port authority, we give up control. We being—. We, the city of Nome.

The city of Nome gives up control. And so depending who your partners are, that could be good or bad, but that's, that's a big unknown. And, and so, you know, speaking for myself, speaking for myself, um, you know, it also would do away with this Port Commission. It would— there would be a Port Authority Commission. I don't know what they call it, but every, every entity that was in the Port Authority would have their representative.

And, and so in some port authorities, there's corporations and municipalities and a bunch of different participants, and some have different motivations. You know, the corporations want to make money, so that, that could add cost to the citizens at home.

Um, it could, but, and it might not. So with an advisory body only, we wouldn't have a Port Commission because there'd be a Port Authority, which—. Look, the Port Authority sets policy, so it performs many of the same functions. That's very interesting. When I've seen it in other places, it's a lot of times when there's multiple facilities or cities within, you know, like an organized borough or close proximity that share common interests, that share a lot of the same traffic, commodities, and they have a vested interest to work together to set policies for the whole region, for the folks that are in there, and kind of be on each other's team, right?

I would love it if there was other facilities around here, you know, that weren't as far south as Bethel or as far north as Barrow. That's at least the way I've always— they do, they do. Does anywhere else in the state—. The Aleutians, the Aleutians. They have their own organized borough and I believe they have a port authority that sort of organizes and tries to fight for funding for all their small harbors and small communities.

See, that's what I thought the port— so this is very interesting. Thank you for bringing this to a little bit of a discussion and learning moment for my head because I looked at it as we need an incinerator, we need to do the blah blah, we need a lift, we need da da da da da, and all these things that are coming In fact, some of these sailboats were coming by the university and they're like, you don't have water, you don't have internet. You know, they come over, they just came from Europe or something and they're gonna get it all here. But we, we get it. So I thought that's what a port authority, when you have all the different entities and they can start making investments into the things that we're looking for.

So it doesn't sound like that's, I have that correct. It becomes a public corporation beyond the municipal— municipality's control. I mean, we can kind of—. I don't see that as a bad thing for Nome, honestly. But it actually— but like you said, there's—.

Charlie had it pretty well. There's a lot of risks to it. Okay. It's each of the member municipalities in the group is going to want their projects funded. No, I just mean if you had something for Nome, right?

If you had all the different entities, like what Joy just said, she said municipalities for each group, but any member of the Port Authority, you know, if I'm sitting here and I want something for a big old— I think, and you think, no, this is more important, it would—. It could be a lot harder, uh, to make a decision.

All right, very interesting. Thank you very much, and thank you for putting the port info in. So I'm still ruminating over it. Citizens' comments here. You want to talk?

No, not yet, not yet. She's not ready. For citizens' comments, I will have some comments. Okay, good.

Any other questions about project money? Moving right along to old business. We had a work session tonight on the discussion of our uplands, inner use, uh, lands areas for cleanup and storage. I think actually it was pretty good turnout for being the first one. And they did have a lot of good comments, so we need to keep moving forward on that and make some revisions to the land, the property areas, to kind of extend out a little bit and make a little bit more room for our cargo operations in the summertime.

So, and also decide what we're going to do on long-term usage of, of these vessels that don't go into the water. So figure that out. Any comments on the work session? I thought it was interesting.

Well attended. Yeah, I was surprised, and it went pretty smoothly.

So this will be a continued old business item as we move forward with it. That is, I would think that's—. Sounds like unless you have a decision, or if anyone has any further thought from what they said other than what we've already talked about, sort of, as we— otherwise we'll go back and chew on this a little bit, bring it back, ruminate. Yeah, or I ruminate like a cow. Just, just from the harbormaster perspective on getting the word out, reaching users, posting notices about this.

There's a lot of misinformation flies around. NOAA has a rumor mill, it's a pretty good one. What? A number, about half the users I saw in the audience don't have large vessels, don't have something, but they store dredges or have containers. And there was a lot of talk.

I've been receiving numerous calls over the last few days about we don't allow storing of any dredges in We're not allowed to store containers anymore. We're— anyone who has a container must immediately remove it before fall. So I've heard a whole slew of things that were just wrong. I'm like, where did you hear this from? They tell me a name.

I'm like, stop listening to them, please. They said, no, that's why I called you. I said, tell your friends, please, just tell your friends about the lower pad areas adjacent to the ramps. So, but I thought we had really good discussion and I was glad a number of them showed up. That's nice.

Moving on to new business, we have none. Now I'll open up the floor for citizens' comments. State your name and, uh, spell it backwards. Um, so I stuck around for the, uh, Port Authority, uh, comment, questions. So my perspective on the Port Authority is that, um, the way the ordinance— the way the state statute reads it, it provides an opportunity for multiple municipalities to come together to work jointly with an organization and still have some of the same powers.

Now, it is also possible for a single municipality to have its own port authority. And whether or not that would be useful comes down to, for me, about one question, and that is, are there funds available to port authorities that cities can't get? And if there's something in that category that's large, then it might be worthwhile. Um, earlier I did a quick Zoom, or quick Zoom A quick Google search and AI is stupid. So I, I don't know, I, I, I didn't find anything big.

I didn't find a big thing. I found a couple of little things that we're kind of already doing. We're kind of like way beyond it. Um, but that's been really the only recent— so I A couple weeks ago I went to the Alaska Defense Forum and Alaska Summer Municipal League meeting and spent a bunch of time with the mayor of Ninana. They've had a port authority since before statehood, and, uh, they don't share it with any other, uh, municipalities.

I think they trying to do a multi-mode in the sense that they've got Well, it was primarily because so much of the river traffic was barging stuff, and they had a railroad terminal, so it made sense for them to, to do that, I guess, before even statehood. Um, subsequently, it boils down to, like I said, if there's— if we can find something that we qualify for funding-wise, it only authority you can get. That's, that's about it. Other than that, I don't see it. I, I put a nail in the coffin.

Yeah, yeah. You haven't seen where the— what, what I'm hearing is you haven't seen where the port authority has different access to monies, correct? Is that right? Okay, correct. The city can make a deal.

The city's got complete authority to make all the deals that any port authority could do. So the city of Nome, which owns the port, and has fully got control over it. Um, now of course that does mean take care of it. The biggest thing about a port authority is that if you had more than one community, you could, you could lever everybody's credit together to address something if you, if they were agreeable to it, you know. But that's, and I've seen that happen in Juneau used to be the City of Douglas, City of Juneau, the borough, all separate entities.

And then they unified against Douglas's wishes. They, they— the borough and the City of Juneau overpowered the City of Douglas, and, and they went screaming and crying the whole, whole way. They, they purposely— they had a bank account where those other two entities were running on credit. The City of Douglas spent all their money before they got assumed. But that's— I mean, that was an example of an adverse takeover, right?

That's a big bad. And, and, uh, but that's, that's one of the risks, I think, for port authorities, like we combined with Teller and Brevig and steal their budget. I don't think that's going to work. They don't have much budget. I was thinking more of all the entities that would form, not a municipality, but— or, or if we had more sort of inclusive— seems like teamwork, we get more done in Nome, right?

When everybody's entity can write a letter of support, or when everybody's, you know, something like that. It would just be— so this is helpful. Thank you. All right, that's pretty much all I had to contribute. Thanks.

Commissioners' comments. Commissioner Farley? Uh, yes, um, the, uh, I had the duty to go to the Storis when they were here for Liberty with the Adjuketi and my brother and a deckhand, and we, uh, we had 58 launches to the Storis, and I got to meet the captain, uh, Corey Kearns, and he gave us each a golden, um, challenge. It was like a challenge coin. Yeah, awesome.

It was pretty neat to meet the captain. We didn't board the vessel, but how did they get up? That thing looks like it goes up into the sky. It is a very large vessel, they have an opening door on the side of the vessel, and it was basically one step up for the crew.

So we counted after 58 launches, we transferred 354 crew members back and forth. Wow. They were so happy. Yeah. And then we also did about 22 pallet loads of provisions and then about 6 pallet loads of material waste for the vessel that they took care of with the crane and with the dump trucks.

And then the cable-laying ships We had a charter go out to the 3-mile line about 8 times with those vessels laying fiber optic cable all over the area. And then you guys were talking about the sailboats that were here. We had a charter to about 3 of those vessels, and it wasn't the nicest weather when we showed up to one of those vessels, and they came in, the pilot was a very good pilot that brought them in, and it was 6-8 foot seas. When we're at the 3-mile line, it was about 8-10 foot seas, and we pulled up alongside, and if you know what a sailboat does, it heaves and hoves, you have to time your timing right to get the pilot aboard, And to time a vessel that's sitting there heaving and hoeing, and when you pull up next in a pilot boat that's doing the same thing, is very stressful, heart racing. And I was captaining our boat at the time.

My brother was right there, right next to the pilot when he stepped aboard, and it was very heart racing. Time with that one. Yeah, um, and the other, uh, vessel that we did, the Maramu—. Marama—. Marama, uh, that vessel, uh, the pilot told us was north of $1.5 million.

And so we pull up next to that vessel, and the weather was a little bit better but there was a whole line of buoys that they put out next to their vessel, and I was trying not to scratch that vessel so badly. It was beautiful. It was a very beautiful vessel with not a scratch, but I was trying so hardly not to even come close. But to get the pilot aboard, you have to pull up next to it. And to watch those buoys spin next to your vessel with the next one coming up and pulling away without the back end of your vessel hitting that vessel is two different things.

So it was the weather the last 3 weeks have not been that nice, so, but we got— we're able to get it done. Did you give him a scratch? No, no scratch. Good job.

But I have to go through the log books and— or I go through the cameras to fill up the log. So I was watching them. I don't know if it was the Ningaloo or the Marama, which one it was, but it was the rougher of the two. And it looked like they were having troubles getting alongside the dock with the strong winds and everything. It looked like you guys were almost assisting them and helping them.

Yeah, we had to, uh, push just a little push, a little bit, because their, uh, Zodiac didn't have enough power to pull the line. Pull the line. We're grateful to the dock. So it ended up being a pretty busy last 3 weeks because I use the port back and forth with, uh, with our business. So ends up a lot of work.

So yeah, I'm lucky to have you guys. You guys seem to have been— seemed very busy the past month. The past month. And, um, actually That was kind of the nicer weather. We had the Aruba Borg, it's a heavy lift vessel, and they're going up over Canada and we had to put an ice navigator and he's from Canada and he could— what he does is when they go through the ice on the Canadian side, he picks the where to go through the ice and what lanes to take on the Canadian side, where to go with the vessel.

And so when we brought him out to the 3-mile line, we left the port— basically you closed the port that day. It was 8-10 foot seas at the mouth of the port, so we went up one wave, backed the throttle down so the wave wouldn't come over the front of our boat and then throttle up going down the next wave. And then we got out next to the ship. They idle at about 2.5 knots and gave us a lee, but the boat was still moving quite a bit, about 5 or 6-foot seas. The boat sporned, so they said, "Oh, it's only 1 meter." But no, it's not 1 meter, the waves next to the ship.

We got the ICE Navigator board We turn our vessel around and we started heading in. And my brother, he's with me, he goes, "You think we could ride this wave all the way in?" And I said, "Ah, I think I could time it," because the waves are crashing next to us coming in and there are 8, 10-foot waves. And I'm throttling up and then I ended up giving it full throttle and we ended up coming through the port doing about 22 knots. Our vessel could only do about 18 knots full speed, so we had a little assist there with the waves and the wind coming through the port. So we didn't want the wave to pass us and, yeah, to, yeah, overtake you, overtake us.

So it was, it was kind of a heart-pounding moment too. So when, when they say that the port is going to be upgraded in the next couple years to weather port. So when the pilots talk about this, when it's shielded and you come around the corner and the waves aren't heading it straight on, that makes our job even more difficult because we'll have to go out in the same weather, but the ships will have a nice guided port to come in. Protection. Protection.

But the Farley Marine with Audrey Katie will have to go out in any weather to put the pilot aboard so they can come into a nice guided port. So, so just to let you guys know how the port's being used, that's my comments. Very good. Thank you. We'll see you with more white hair next fall, or next coming year.

Years. Yeah, but thank you. Yeah, so just, um, to remind everyone here, the AIS, uh, marinetraffic.com AIS antenna is, is renewed. We got a brand new one stuck up. So if you— and it's even got better coverage, so anything from Sledge to the Cape, and I don't know how far out yet, you can get all information for free, for nothing.

Just go to marinetraffic.com and auger in on Nome and all the information on ships, whatever that little antenna that's right on the front of Northwest Campus's main building, whatever that's picking up, it's being put out with all the bells and whistles for nothing. Anybody can access that. Awesome. And then to get back to this, so what I'm trying to say is that that event kind of rang sour, not sour, unexpected exclusiveness, meaning there were so few people there. And so it sounds like there were so few people invited.

Who knows? I don't know. It's not my job to know, except we're not hitting the mark, I don't think, for communication, transparency, inclusion. And so maybe some, some things I was— I just don't think we're making the mark. I, I get comments all the time, you know, oh, it doesn't matter, the port's nothing because it's not going to help anyone here, or I don't know what's happening, or there is— there a website and blah blah blah.

So I get a lot of those comments and I'm thinking maybe we do need more, um, communications. And I'm not sure what that would look like, if there's a page that deals with just the port modifications and, you know, has a link to where you can get a job, has a link to whatever, something that has whatever meetings you guys are having with Kiewit and whomever, the Army Corps, has a link to an updated permit. You know, just bring it more to life to the region here because it was shocking to me to see that no one's there at that shovel ceremony, which is a pretty big deal. This is the port of Nome, right? This is for the region.

People have been hearing about this, and I was like, we can do better, we can do better. So that's my comment on that communication, transparency, more inclusion in the— as we move forward, because now we're underway. Right? I saw the dirt go and that's the signal we are underway. So, and then we went to the Kiewit Man Camp for lunch, which is a very interesting facility.

I sort of was taken to Prudhoe Bay, you know, kind of its very ATCO unit. But interesting to me, it is run by no one local is in that crowd. I think the corporation is the NANA Corporation is the one that's running the you know, the food and the facilities. I think it's whatever that company is, is a subsidiary of NANA, is my understanding, and I could be wrong, but that's my understanding. I thought, ah shucks, wonder, you know, all these things are of interest to people, um, here, especially having that big man camp here.

So any kind of— if there's like a subcommittee, if you guys need help in planning out more outreach, communication, ideas for transparency or inclusion, I'm all about it to bring more awareness to the region so people can come down and understand what's happening and where to go get more info. And so we can have like, uh, more people in the audience as well when we're like we did earlier tonight with a special group. That is it. Thank you, Commissioner Smith-Eisler. She took it all again.

Commissioner Lane. I was too short notice for me, and I ended up being a guide to tourists that day, and then I ran into Derek and he was feeling guilty too. He had another commitment, couldn't make it, so we're— two of us were kicking ourselves.

Yeah, I'm pretty involved with fishery stuff and things like that, so nothing that really affects the port.

The Nome salmon runs have been pretty poor this year, extraordinarily poor, and silvers were very low. I can't remember, like less than half of their escape in gold.

So the— so we— NSCDC puts eggs and incubates them and tries to keep the anvil creek running. And, and, uh, we, we weren't allowed to do that this year because of the low escape, but wild stock. And then come to find out the miners there by the Moonlight Springs have wiped out the spawning beds. So pretty frustrating for me. I spent the last 25 years trying to keep that run going.

Pretty much toast. So, dang, is that in the re— retort area, watershed permit area?

I think it is. I also brought it to the attention of DNR and stuff, and they, they said that the first check, they couldn't find a permit for them to put the water back into the creek. So I think they're operating outside a couple of different permits. But they've already done the damage. Damage already done.

Yeah, dang, pretty frustrating. Anyway, so that's not so much the pork, just Charlie. So sorry about that. How about Chukotka and fish hatcheries? I'll leave it, I'll ask you after.

Oh yes, so yeah, you shared a news article about Chukotka fish hatcheries. It wasn't clear to me exactly where it was. It seems to be south of Anadyr and probably closer to the Kamchatka Peninsula, but there—. No, it's going to be in Chukotka, which ends at Cape Navarin. Oh, I didn't understand that.

Yeah, but anyway, they don't know where they're putting it yet, but it's—. They got the money. They got money to build 2 hatcheries. Um, it also didn't say what kind of fish, but being that close, it's going to compete with the American side of stocks. So that's concerning.

We already have a major problem in the Gulf of Alaska with declining salmon stocks due to over-competition or overpopulation of salmon along the Alaska Peninsula, Aleutian area.

So that's one of the best explanations for the declining Chinook runs and also chum. So adding more pinks and chum to the mix just means that everybody else gets a smaller piece of the pie. So if they build up, we will decline. It's kind of a war of adding hatcheries.

So it's not good news for us.

Just cheering everyone up.

Anyway. Yeah, I'm shocked. Yeah, well, they've been— a year ago they said that they were gonna triple their— Russia was gonna triple their production of salmon and salmon hatcheries. And I think that's part of that initiative.

Thank you.

And I'll keep my comments brief, but it's exciting to see the, the spur come in demoed and in actuality the extension going to happen. You know, that's, uh That's the original concept, was to get out there and make a dogleg and make everything right. That was our original goal back in the '80s.

And yeah, I mean, it was just the cost factor is astronomical. But if we had done— hindsight's always 20/20— and if we had done it then, it would have been $75 million or $80 million. A lot of money back then, but now versus the $600 million or whatever million it's going to be— $600 million is going to be billion, yeah, whatever. But no, it's progress, and I think it's, it's going to definitely change our outlook on shipping in this area, in this region. So But other than that, uh, looks like a very busy season down there with traffic and weather and positioning and all the good stuff that the crew goes through every day.

So appreciate their help and dealing with all that. So our next regular meeting is October 15th at 5 30. I need a motion for adjournment. Motion to adjourn.

Second. Meeting adjourned at 8 o'clock.