Mr. JACKINSKY. In the meantime
Senator GRAVEL. Let's resolve this.

Mr. JACKINSKY. Going back to the rock removal

Senator GRAVEL. Even the rock removal would require some local responsible authority to sign on and say that they will maintain the project after it has been completed. So there is nothing the corps can do until we have some local authority that can assume some ongoing responsibility. It would seem logical to me that since the peninsula is primarily a maritime location, the borough covering the whole peninsula would take on this authority which wouldn't be a big financial responsibility. It would provide a vehicle for the State and Federal Government to accomplish its task.

Leo?

Mr. THOMPSON. I was just going to comment. I don't know if it works in the case of the port, but other facilities have been provided throughout the borough by a service district similar to the old public utilities-type district that we had in the territorial days.

Senator GRAVEL. Yes. If I recall provisions of the Borough Act, a decision in this regard would still take a vote of the people. It might be more efficient to set up a district or add the powers to the present assembly without incurring any additional cost.

Mr. THOMPSON. Only the people in the district vote on it.

Senator GRAVEL. I am sure other communities or other areas could probably benefit from it. It is more a ministerial function than anything else. I don't see any real liability involved.

Mr. THOMPSON. I just offered my comment as, hopefully, a solution. Senator GRAVEL. I would hope that those of you who are interested in borough activity would certainly address yourselves to that promptly because apparently the State is ready to act when that has been done.

Bob?

Mr. PALMER. While you are at this, let's go a little further. You say you see this mainly as a ministerial function and no financial obligation?

Senator GRAVEL. I see no financial obligation.

Mr. PALMER. Some people believe the local entity would be left with the financial obligation of annual maintenance dredging. Could we have something on this?

Senator GRAVEL. I will give you my experience. Let's take Dillingham. They were supposed to have some local dredging, and the siltation was occurring so fast that they couldn't keep up with it. So the channel silted up and no longer was useable. We need somebody responsible so that if additional activities are needed, something can be done in a reasonable fashion by a local government. I think that is a judgment you would make at that time.

Mr. STATTER. We have some funds available but which are obviously inadequate to do the job that has to be done. We have indicated to the borough that we would go to the legislature and ask for additional funding for the project, but we still require a local responsible governmental entity to sponsor the project, whether it is a local service district or the borough, whatever it is is kind of academic. We

don't see any large expenditure or financial burdens to the borough at this time. They will have to agree to maintain and operate and provide essentially the same assurances of local cooperation that the corps requires on their projects. But we are in a position to go after the funding for the community and to build the project and turn it over to them to operate. We just have not satisfied that one requirement.

Lieutenant Colonel BAZILWICH. I would like to point out that the Federal responsibility is involved with the channel. We can maintain the channel up to the berthing basin or whatever they use. The berthing, any dredging in the berthing basin would have to be the local responsibility.

In Dillingham, that project occurred before statehood. So the Federal Government still has the responsibility for dredging in that area as opposed to any project that is now initiated.

Senator GRAVEL. Plus, if we alter this whole judging concept, that judging concept may not be a local problem in the future.

Mr. JACKINSKY. Is it necessary then to have a sponsoring agency up to the mouth of the harbor?

Lieutenant Colonel BAZILWICH. The responsibility is a formal agreement that the sponsor would take care of certain elements. The Federal Government was responsible for the channel which would be up to wherever the berthing basin is. So the Federal Government would retain that responsibility. The rest would not be. If there are any lands, I don't foresee any in this project, just taking a preliminary look at it, but right now we just look at rock removal and dredging up to the area where the State would like to put in their facility.

Mr. STATTER. Would you maintain the dredge channel under 107 authority?

Lieutenant Colonel BAZILWICH. I think so. I think this would fall into the channel aspect since we are taking it up to where the berthing basing would be. That is my opinion right now. I would have to look at it, but I don't see where that would change.

Mr. STATTER. In this particular project, we are not looking at a berthing basin as such, at least in the initial construction. It is a bulkhead-type of facility or land fill, or dry land are both the concept, and other facilities eventually. We wouldn't anticipate that there would be any large maintenance dredging projects on our end of the project either; that is, for the sponsoring agency to be responsible for possibly a little clam work at the bulkhead over the years, but it would be very nominal. So the financial burden to the area residents would be very nominal as I see it for both projects at Kasilof.

Lieutenant Colonel BAZILWICH. Unless they tried to enlarge that area up there for some reason and that would be their responsibility and not the Federal Government.

Senator GRAVEL. I would hope you would bring the case back to the borough.

Mr. JACKINSKY. I have.

Senator GRAVEL. Bring it back again. Obviously, you have a statement of record here, a willingness to participate on the State and Federal level. All you need is somebody to sign papers.

Mr. JACKINSKY. Thank you, Senator. I would like to see those rocks out of there.

Mr. FISHER. Senator, the next witness will be Bob Logan, and Senator Logan is, of course, well-known to you. He will introduce himself for the record.

Senator GRAVEL. Come on up, Bob. It is a pleasure to have you aboard.

STATEMENT OF BOB LOGAN, MARINE SURVEYOR

Mr. LOGAN. I would like to speak in behalf of the harbor Kenai. It is not reasonable to expect that the harbor Kenai can be built to berth ocean-going vessels for today barging on the Pacific Coast has reached a high peak. Roughly a third of our cargo is coming into Alaska today by barge. There are two types: Barges carrying vans and barges carrying railroad cars.

I am a member of the port commission in Anchorage and, of course, we look at distribution with a jealous eye. But we do also realize that the development of Kenai is all to the good of Anchorage.

Today you are trucking approximately 75 miles from Anchorage and in the wintertime over bad roads into Kenai, to the Kenai Peninsula, that includes Homer and Homer is much further than 75 miles.

This is a growing area. It is only reasonable that you should have a harbor that will handle oceangoing barges summer and winter. I have had a considerable amount of experience in this harbor over the years, both summer and winter. And I have never seen the ice conditions in this river sufficient to stop the Monday tug or Monday barge.

We do get from 6 to 18 inches of ice in here in the severe winter, but this is a brash ice. This is not a hard ice as we get in the Arctic and further up in that part of the country.

So it is completely reasonable to be able to enter here during the wintertime and discharge with today's tugs and barges.

To do this your channel is going to have to be dredged and it will have to be dredged to -8 feet so that you have a port that can be entered by the normal tug and barge, possibly right on the maximum low, but in on either side. This is going to make the harbor.

I might add that in Anchorage we are expecting-we are delighted you are going to be there on the 13th and we are going to discuss tidal harbors, which Anchorage actually is a tidal harbor, very much the same condition you have here.

With your harbor a small boat harbor. We recently took a hull out of the channel down here and I counted 34 boats strung out at the various moorings, some of them tied to ropes and others to individual moorings. It was not a safe operation. The day is coming when you are going to be putting big barges in here that are going to have to leave on tide and you can't have it strung all over the channel. I imagine the fishermen will agree with me when I say what you need here is not so much a harbor, but a well-installed city float that will give the fishermen and other boatowners access to the boats at any state of the tide with suitable ramps where you could move small cargoes down on the float.

I saw an outfit in Los Angeles here not long ago that was newly installed, a city float, where they have a little tractor and a small trailer and they can drive down the ramp, up to any of the boats, put aboard

what has to be put aboard, groceries, supplies or otherwise. It works very well.

So I would suggest that a well-installed float, capable, say of handling at least 60 boats. You can double the size of that, if you wish to. But there is nothing against tying up with each other.

The canneries, of course, have their own dock faces down there where they can work. This is the only objection to oceangoing traffic coming in here, is the boats in the channel, because this is a decided hazard.

The other thing about a well-designed float, well set up float, is waste disposal and oil disposal. All of these boats have oil in the bilges. It is the only way they can drain their engine when they have to change the oil. They can't pump it into the creek. It isn't a good thing. Today the well set up float has a system of pumping bilges and pumping it into a waste holding tank. I notice a lot of these fellows now are carrying these bags. Where are they going to put them? There is too much trouble. They usually go out a few miles and throw them over the side. This is a fine thing to pick up in your gill net. We had one period here when they had a platform for throwing the sacks over the side, and if there are any gill netters here, you will remember those days, they can curse the day that they had their anchors torn out and gill nets pulled up parallel to the beach and no fishing.

The other important thing-this is one of the most important things in Alaska today-is repair facilities. There are no practical repair facilities in Alaska today. We have a small public, individually owned, in Kodiak, capable of lifting 700 tons. Most of the time that harbor is jammed, boats waiting. A fish boat sitting alongside the dock waiting for repair is about the most useless thing you can get your hands on. The crew is sitting there and there are fish outside and they can't get at them. The fishermen in this country there has possibly a week or 10 days of the best fishing to make his payday and that can be upset by bad weather. You have seen that happen.

So it is most important that repair facilities are available to the fishermen, not only to the fishermen, but other commercial boats.

We had during the construction period for the platforms here 16 vessels that were engaged in the construction. After construction they worked into the winter as long as they could.

When these hulls have to be beached at high tide and the welding work has to be done on them at low tide and anywhere from 5 to 15 to 20° below zero, you can imagine what kind of job you are getting. Not only is it expensive, you are getting a poor job.

I have been associated with waste and repair facilities for many years. Whenever I go into a port, I go into not only the Alaska ports, but all of the ports on the Pacific coast and I occasionally even get to Japan and Korea. I have been able to note the system of handling boats, drydocking boats, lifting boats, roll-a-ways, and so forth.

I finally seen one which is becoming very popular in the States, which is the ultimate in boat handling, and it is called a "synchrolift". It is manufactured in Florida. I am going to speak about it quite a bit. I want to say here I am not an owner, participate, nor do I own any shares in it. I met the man that invented it. That is the only connection I have with it. But I do recognize that this is the very best system, especially for Alaska wherein channels such as this you cannot put out

an incline that is raising three-quarters of an inch to the foot, because you are out in the channel too far. You are going to get the fish boat and course hooked up in it and they will hit it at low tide even if you have dolphins out there. It obstructs the waterway.

The drydock is out of the question up here because of the winter work. But this system of synchrolift is nothing more than an elevated platform. You take this table I am sitting at here and you put six sets of tackle on either side of it, you equip it with three railroad tracks, you drop it down at any stage of the tide, run your boat over it onto the bilge blocks. The bilge blocks are made up with small wheels on them that set on these railroad tracks. You pick the boat up and roll it ashore.

There is no other type of marine repair facilities such as drydocks, incline ways, side slipways where you can handle one boat at a time.

The canneries had a system for storing boats in the winter they used to call side slipways. They are very inefficient. But this system permits you to take the boat out of the water, set it on a side track, repair it and at the same time you can have three or four boats ready to pick up and these gentlemen are going to get back to fishing in a few hours, because normally the damage is a rudder, some trouble with the propeller. You might have a cooling system that has gone haywire or a lot of small things on the water. These are very quick handling.

I wrote to these people and asked them to send me some brochures. I have seen three of these units, two in California and one in Vancouver, British Columbia. There are many parts in Alaska where you would have to build a very costly pile structure to support the outboard end of the incline ways, side slipways the same thing and drydocks, as I say, would be too costly up here to maintain and too hard to handle in the wintertime.

Even if you could get into them, you are going to have freezing weather, you are going to have troubles all the way through. When you have got the crew blowing on the hand 50 percent of the time to keep warm, you are not getting any work out of them.

I believe that we have the need and it can be proven and we are looking to the future on this, too, that one set of synchrolift ways in Kenai capable of lifting 1,000 tons, that that will pick up the biggest supply boat with somewhat of a load on it, too, I may add, because the big ones like the rig engineer go about between 7,800 tons empty, but they normally have fill and water in them.

It is not a good thing to pick up a boat that is fully fueled and fully tanked with water, because you put a strain on the hull, but you can do it in an emergency if it is reduced, if the cargo is reduced.

One of 1,000-ton here in Kenai: Homer could handle 500 tons; Seward 1,000 tons.

In Seward you are looking forward to drilling in the Gulf of Alaska. Today there is absolutely no repair facilities for the type of vessels that would be there such as the tug, the big surface vessels, and, of course, the only place you can drydock a drilling platform is in Seattle or Vancouver, British Columbia.

There are no repair facilities in Prince William Sound, no repair facilities in Seward today that you can handle any one of what you might term useful vessels to be employed in drilling in the Gulf of