Sen. Steves at it agin, bridge this time

[Dizel8]

Sen.Stevens at it again, bridges this time

Our good politicians is at it again, Young and Stevens from AK, the same who gave us cabotage at ANC airport, now wants bridges. Now they are actively working to get money for the Knik Arm bridge, with a proposed cost of close to 1.2 billion. But it gets better, they also wants to build another bridge, to an island with less than 250 inhabitants, cost close to 400 million.

Here is another important one:

"The proposed bridge would connect the town of Ketchikan, Alaska on Revillagigedo Island to Gravina Island by way of Pennock Island. This project would also build an additional 3.2 miles of road between the bridge and the Ketchikan Airport on Gravina Island. With only 13,782 Ketchikan Gateway Borough residents, that’s a cost of at least $13,786 per person. The new bridge would replace existing ferry access to an island where few people live and forests are pristine.

This bridge would enable the timber industry to access 37 million board feet of old growth timber in the Tongass National Forest, and open the remainder of the island to further development. “This bridge is really just corporate welfare to timber companies in their search for cheap, taxpayer subsidized forests,” continued Collier."


How do they do it? He sits on some of the most powerful commitees, so his pork barreling meets little resistance. AK has the highest amount of pork barrel spending per capita. Here is what Young says himself of all his power:

U.S. Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, finished his second year in 2001 as chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee still exuberant about the power of a such a position.

"I'm just still excited about the job," he said recently. "Everybody has a relationship to transportation. Everybody comes and talks to me about where they want to go. They have to come talk to me, and I like that."

Yeah, I bet he likes that, what he is really saying, is if they want anything, they must do him favors and approve his pork.


I wish I could find the article about the bridges, believe it was in USAToday.

 

[labbats]

I just heard about that 1.2 billion dollar bridge last weekend. I thought I heard wrong, but I guess not.

 

[inline]

The other 400 million dollar bridge is to the island of Gravina, it's where Ketchikan's airport is located. Have to take a ferry to get there. You'd be better off by getting your news from another source than usless today, they get rather shrill and hyperbolic and they don't let facts get in the way of a story. You have the internet, shop for your news. Get the truth.

 

[Dizel8]

While I think UselessToday is not the high point, in this case they simply pointed it out. It appears that Stevens and Young are very good at getting taxpayer money to AK.

Pork barreling is alive and well up there. Need not mention the proposed NG pipeline, that is going to be way expensive going down the coast and not connecting with the Canadian one. The cost of that is staggering, but I am sure it will be good for AK, although the rest of us gets the bill.

Here is how they spend our money, these are all considered pork:
$128,075,000 added by the Senate for projects in the state of Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), including: $25,000,000 for Alaska Railroad Rehabilitation; $6,000,000 for wind/weather research in Juneau; $5,000,000 for the Funny River Bridge Crossing (ha ha); $4,000,000 for volcano monitoring; $3,000,000 for the Port of Anchorage Intermodal Facility; $3,000,000 for North Slope Borough Road improvements; 2,500,000 for the Arctic Winter Games; $2,000,000 for Shotgun Cove Road; $1,000,000 for Ship Creek improvements; $1,000,000 for the Port of Ketchikan Ferry; $1,000,000 for Lucille Street and Mack Drive improvements in Wasilla; $950,000 for North Pole roads lighting; $500,000 for the Iditarod Historic National Trail Project; $500,000 for Southeast Alaska Seatrails; $500,000 for various improvements to the Ketchikan International Airport; and $450,000 for the Alaska statehood celebration.

 

[inline]

No one is proposing building a NG pipeline " down the coast." One route would be from the North Slope to the Mackenzie delta, the other would branch off at Fairbanks and follow the Alaska highway to the Yukon border then accross Canada, the third would divert half the gas at Fairbanks and via pipeline carry it to Valdez, the remainder at Fairbanks to go south thru Canada via the Alaska highway route.

If you want to talk of pork barreling, Robert Byrd is the king.

Stevens and Young aren't the first and won't be the last.

 

[Dizel8]

Well, IIRC, a couple of routes are proposed, one that goes along the Alcan Highway and one that connects with the canadian line.
Further, I believe one is cheaper than the other, however, to make sure they get their way, Young and Stevens that is, they have tried to ban one route:

REP. YOUNG ANNOUNCES AMENDMENT TO BAN NORTHERN “OVER-THE-TOP” ROUTE FOR NATURAL GAS PIPELINE
Washington, D.C. - Alaska Congressman Don Young today announced an amendment was agreed to in the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s energy package that would prohibit construction of a natural gas pipeline taking a northern route through Alaska and into Canada.

The amendment was introduced by Chairman Billy Tauzin (R-LA), on behalf of Rep. Young, during the Energy and Commerce Committee’s markup of the “Energy Advancement and Conservation Act of 2001.” The amendment states “No license, permit, lease, right-of-way, authorization or other approval required under Federal law for the construction of any pipeline to transport natural gas from lands within the Prudhoe Bay oil and gas lease area may be granted for any pipeline that follows a route that traverses (1) the submerged lands beneath or the adjacent shoreline of the Beaufort Sea; and (2) enters Canada at any point north of 68 degrees North latitude.”

“A gas pipeline that stays in Alaska, creates jobs in Alaska and provides gas for Alaska is the right thing to do for Alaska. This resource belongs to the people in my state and the people of America and they’re the ones that should benefit from it. The Alaska state legislature has already said they will not tolerate a northern route and the governor has said he will not back a northern route. I agree.

“Some have said we should build a pipeline via a northern route but it doesn’t matter if there’s a cheaper route if you can’t get it built. A north-south route through the state is the most realistic way to build a gas pipeline and it’s the most realistic way to ensure that Alaska gains the most benefit from its own gas,” said Rep. Young.

 

[chawbein]

Term Limits = no more "senior" congressmen.

 

[Dizel8]

Here are our favorite porkers observed in action, quite sad really!

"$50,000,000 added in conference for an indoor rainforest project in Coralville, Iowa by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley (R-Iowa)."


Pork Link

 

[inline]

You still haven't made clear what " coast route." you're talking about . I repeat, no one is talking about building a NG pipeline down any " coast", to the lower 48. Any pipeline built will have to go thru the interior of Canada at some point.

I'll bet we could come up with some pork-barreling in your state too.

 

[Dizel8]

Okay, I will rephrase. Two routes, principally, were under consideration. The northern (or over the top route) or the Southern Route. The northern route appears cheaper and would hook up with the Canadian system, hence cost savings through the use of existing network and cost sharing with Canada.

The Southern route, would involve building a larger new and longer network, that would travel the lenght of AK before entering Canada.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The bill would have required that a natural gas pipeline from the North Slope of Alaska follow a route south to Fairbanks, then along the Alaska Highway into the Yukon Territory, across British Columbia and into Alberta. The Senate version of the bill included tax subsidies of between $15 billion and $45 billion -- subsidies opposed by the American Conservative Union, Taxpayers for Common Sense and the National Environmental Trust.


However, this would require a separate pipeline for gas from the Mackenzie Delta of Canada, and neither line is considered economically viable by itself.
Current reserves for the two fields are 35 trillion cubic feet in Alaska and 6 trillion cubic feet in Canada, with the exploration potential of another 160 trillion cubic feet.
An alternative proposal by Arctic Resources Co., according to chairman Forrest E. Hoglund, would have the pipeline run offshore from the Alaskan reserves to the Mackenzie River Delta and then through the Mackenzie River Valley to the existing natural gas pipeline interconnects near Edmonton. Among the advantages of that route, according to Hoglund:


It is about half of the distance and roughly half the cost of Alaska's two-pipeline scheme.
It is a better environmental route, would be faster to build and wouldn't cause conflict between Canada and the United States.
It wouldn't require any subsidies from either country."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Obviously, Stevens and Young is against the N. route, as posted above, since it would provide less benefits for AK, although the benefits appear higher to the rest of the nation.

I am sure there are lots of pork barreling going on in IL and the rest of the nation, as you said Byrd is the worst, but that really is not the point. My contention is, that we taxpayers, gets ripped off.
Makes no difference what state you live in, we help" support" this.
Obviously, those politicians, that sit on the powerful commitees are having an easier time doing it.

So the question becomes, do we ignore it or do we keep ourselves informed while trying to change it. I know I have written senators, congressmen and the President, when I thought it was appropiate. Does it make any difference, I hope so, but I doubt it, however, if I do not try, it certainly will not make a difference.

 

[A Squared]

Regarding the Gravina Island Bridge.

The USA today article is misleading to the point of being dishonest. The bridge would connect Ketchikan to the Ketchikan airport, a little fact that is conveniently obscured by the article in order to make it sound better. They don't quite leave that out, but it is phrased in a way that many would miss it. Any balanced article about the bridge would present that explicitly as one of the issues (the main issue).

Now, having said that, I agree that the bridge proposal is a grotesque abuse of public funding. Here's the deal; Ketchikan is seperated from it's airport by the Tongass Narrows, about a half mile of it, but there is already excellent ferry service. I've ridden it. There are two ferrys on opposing schedules. every 30 minutes, if memory serves me correctly. The ferry ride is very short. All told, getting between Ketchikan and the airport is as fast or faster than getting from the baggage claim to the rental car lot at most large airports. The existing system works, quite well. there is no need for a bridge. Keep in mind that the benefit to the general public is almost non-existent. Ketchikan is isolated from the road system. the only people wo will use that bridge are ketchikan residents and people visiting ketchikan. It's not like a bridge say...... across the Mississippi which might be used by people from Maine, California ...wherever, who are driving cross country. The bridge only benefits Ketchikan. Now, let's put this in perspective. Ketchikan is a very small town. Current official estimate is 8002 persons total in Ketchikan. So it's going to cost the taxpayers $150,000 per person to provide the people of Ketchikan with a bridge.

Oh yeah, one final note, the bridge spans the Tongass Narrows which happens to be an extrememly busy takeoff and landing lane for seaplanes. Most transportation in that area is by seaplane (no roads, few airports, lots of water) I would venture to say the narrows has far more takeoffs and landings per day than the airport itself .... so they're gonna build a bridge across it.

 

[Singlecoil]

This article from the New York Times about the bridges was on the front page of the Anchorage Daily News earlier this month.
(The link is from another paper)
Link

 

[A Squared]

Uhhhh ... I'm going to have to revise my numbers here in my per person cost estimate for the Gravina Island bridge. I used the construction cost for the Knik arm bridge and I used the population of Ketchikan, rather than the population of the borough, which is all connected by road to Ketchikan .... So it's not quite $150,000 /per person. OOps, I see that the original post actually had the more realistic per-person cost. Maybe I should learn to read more carefully, although I get $14,800/person for the bridge....the population of the area is decreasing rapidly. Anyway, $15,000 per person is still completely absurd for a bridge which is totally unnecessary.

Unfortunately, this sort of Pork is rampant in Alaska. One other example which comes to mind is Chuathbaluk.

Chualthbaluk is a small village on the Kuskokwim RIver. It is currently getting a new airport, with a 4000 foot runway.

Here's hte deal, CHuathbaluk has a population of 102 persons. the airport construction is budgeted at 6.4 million dollars. That's $62,883 *per person* to provide tham with a new runway. Neber mind that Chuathbaluk already has an airstrip, and it is only 8 miles (4 minute plane ride, 20 minute boat ride) from Aniak which has a hard surface runway served by an ILS.

Your tax dollars at work folks.