An expansion project at the Port of
Anchorage that’s already been marred by delays, cost overruns and political interference,
is again being put on the back burner.
Interim port director Steve Ribuffo
told the Anchorage Daily News recently
that no construction on the project will take place this summer – the peak building
season – because engineers will be studying the project to try determining the best
way forward.
This would make the third straight
construction season that passes without work progressing on expansion of the port.
Difficulties with the expansion have
included cost overruns; the August 2011 death of a bulldozer operator who drowned
when his machine accidentally slid into gravel fill; the discovery in 2009 that
steel sheets used to form a new dock face bent and separated during installation.
The project, which has been in the
works for more than a decade, and up to now has been overseen by the federal Maritime
Administration, was originally estimated to cost $360 million, and was originally
supposed to be complete by 2011. Instead, cost estimates have jumped to about $1
billion and climbing and completion date is nowhere in sight.
However, in February, Anchorage Mayor
Dan Sullivan declared that the project was back on track and that project oversight
and technical committees have been formed to review the expansion, and that a quality
control program had been created to ensure work was done properly.
Sullivan’s declaration came a little
more than a month after port director Bill Sheffield retired after 10 years on the
job. Sheffield, who had been heavily criticized for his role in the cost overruns,
stepped down effective Jan. 15, but remains on the port’s payroll as a consultant.
His replacement, Richard Wilson, assumes his new position May 14, two weeks before
the city assumes responsibility for the project from the Maritime Administration
on May 31 at the behest of Sullivan and other city officials.
