Much of Cascade Point opposition may be due to misinformation and fear of unknown, lawmakers told
- Mark Sabbatini
- 8 hours ago
- 5 min read
Regional DOT leader acknowledges 92% of 622 respondents in public survey oppose proposed ferry terminal, says ‘I take that as a challenge to make it better for them’
By Mark Sabbatini
Juneau Independent
The identification of the people in the photo caption above has been corrected. Also, a portion of the final quote in the article has been corrected to "seek to correct misinformation" rather than "seek the correct misinformation."
Yes, 92% of more than 600 people surveyed oppose the Cascade Point Ferry Terminal, but a lot of that is due to fear of the unknown and misinformation about the project, a state transportation director for the region told legislators at a hearing Tuesday.
The Dunleavy administration is taking a "how" rather than "if" mindset to the new facility about 30 miles north of the existing Auke Bay Ferry Terminal, having already committed about $30 million toward the first phase of construction and a power supply contract. The Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities is projecting the new terminal, which is still awaiting some permits and required studies, will be in service by the end of 2028.
Residents and regional leaders critical of the project say it will impose hardships on travelers, and the primary intent appears to be providing an ore shipping facility for a nearby proposed gold mine.
The "yea" and "nay" bias of state lawmakers about the project was evident during a House Transportation Committee meeting Tuesday. Rep. Louise Stutes, R-Kodiak, referred to a 10-week public survey that ended in January, with 92% of the 622 respondents opposing the terminal.
"And of the people that spoke to Cascade Point, the majority of them spoke to it because they want closer transportation to the mine that is owned by Canadians," she said. "This is a problem for me. What is our objective in this? You're talking about saving money. That road's not built to carry big ore trucks back and forth, and that's what we're doing. We're facilitating the mine and we're forgetting about all of the people that have said we don't want to."
Christopher Goins, director of DOT’s Southeast Region, said the opinions about the Cascade Point project may not be as straightforward as the survey results suggest.
"I think a lot of what you see in those public comments is a lot of fear of something new," he said. "And I take that as a challenge to make it better for them, to serve them better."
Ted Eischeid, an Anchorage Democrat who co-chairs the committee, challenged that interpretation.
"Is it possible that in those same comments you see opposition to this proposal?" he asked.
Goins agreed "there's no doubt about that" and confirmed "the numbers that are stated by Rep. Stutes are accurate." He also acknowledged Stutes’ remark that the results went unpublished for nearly a month — until a reporter requested them — because "our process is that we usually do not share those until we're getting closer to the environmental document process and posting those."
DOT officials are concerned about "this community, and the interest, and the fear, and some of the misinformation," Goins said.
"So we wanted to respond to each and every one of those 622 comments individually," he said. "And my staff is going through that. We've sat down with 10, 12 folks in the room and said, ‘What are these things that we need to be addressing?’ And again, we take them as challenges to our design and our operations and the things that we need to do, and we take that very seriously."
The original 30-day comment period was extended by six weeks because of responses containing misinformation, such as people believing the Auke Bay terminal will shut down if Cascade Point is built, Goins said.
"Auke Bay is not going away," he said. "In fact, we're spending (on) projects and have dollars to repair it, and that gives us redundancy and all sorts of other things."
Goins and DOT Commissioner Ryan Anderson spent part of the hearing presenting portions of an economic analysis of Cascade Point published by DOT last fall. The study was strongly criticized at the time by a majority of the Alaska Marine Highway Operations Board, including one member who compared it to a timeshare brochure. Some of the House committee members were also less than entirely impressed.
"The report feels to me like an AI-generated letter of support for this project," said Rep. Ashley Carrick, a Fairbanks Democrat who co-chairs the committee, noting the report contains numerous errors and non-functional links.
The report's overall findings are Cascade Point will have offsetting positive and negative impacts as a ferry hub, but will be a boon to the new mine and Goldbelt Inc. as the property owner. The presentation Goins and Anderson highlighted rosy aspects of the project while glossing over negatives — a slide about the public comments shows bars with "opposition" and "support" summaries where the support bar is noticeably longer.
The presentation asserts the Alaska Marine Highway System will have a $590,000 annual financial gain under a mid-range scenario with the Cascade Point terminal. However, Goins also said there will be up to another $100 million in initial construction costs and numerous unknowns remain, such as what fares will be for shorter ferry trips between Cascade Point and Haines/Skagway and what Goldbelt might charge travelers for providing a shuttle service between Juneau and Cascade Point.
The study itself assumes ferry ticket prices will remain the same — $120 for vehicles and $135 for three passengers — regardless of which terminal the ferry departs from. It also openly highlights the benefits to Grande Portage Resources Ltd.’s proposed Amalga Gold Project, Goldbelt and other possible development that could occur in the area due to the terminal.
"The most promising opportunity for sustained economic growth lies in the proposed New Amalga mine, which is expected to use Cascade Point for logistics," the report states. "If the mine develops along a trajectory similar to the nearby Kensington Mine, it could generate 250–400 ongoing regional jobs during operations and several hundred more during its development phase. This outcome, however, is contingent on further exploration results and regulatory approvals and is therefore speculative at this stage."
Goins, when asked after the hearing if DOT officials are trying to convince naysayers to support the terminal rather than use the comments to determine if the project should proceed, told the Juneau Independent "it’s not my decision" if the facility gets built.
"I was given dollars to move a project forward, and through that process we examine the alternatives and the things that are in front of us," he said. "We go to the public and we have those communications. I pass those things up through that process and we believe it's our responsibility to have a response back. We owe that due to them regardless of what is going on. There's going to be times where we're going to seek to correct misinformation. But there's other times that we're going to take that input (and) ‘I got to try to do something regarding that.’ That's why it's important. That's why it's substantive."
• Contact Mark Sabbatini at editor@juneauindependent.com or (907) 957-2306.
