Building off of Monday night’s Nome City Council meeting, last night’s Port Commission meeting began with a teleconference with Ivet Hall, state Department of Transportation representative, to talk through concerns about the Snake River Bridge.
The replacement to Nome’s old Snake River Bridge, which was removed late last month, has been the focus of safety concerns due to lack of lighting and blind corners where the bridge meets the road.
With only $2 million from the state available for a permanent solution, port commissioners began prioritizing their requests for the city council to submit to DOT. The limited budget means not all their proposals are feasible, so they’ve brainstormed alternatives to fit the bill.
“Number one: realign Center Creek Road to Jafet Road Bridge. Number two: Doyle Road, alternative one, meet Center Creek at Bypass; alternative two, straighten at curve and leave at Seppala. Number three: create turning pocket on Seppala at bridge approach,” listed Joy Baker, who oversees Port Projects & Expansion. “And four was lighting?”
The commission plans to solidify those recommendations and then submit them to the City Council. After much discussion of the poor lighting situation, it’s likely the city itself will provide a temporary solution. But the request submitted to DOT will ask for lighting at all intersections once the road is realigned, and lighting above and below the bridge, for the safety of snow-machiners who use that path in the winter.
In other updates, Baker explained that before Wednesday night’s public meeting with Graphite One Resources—the Vancouver-based company seeking to mine graphite near the Imaruk Basin—she and other city leaders met with the project team.
“It’s still an evolving project, but they are interested in what the port can do for them—what type of staging, you know, volume—what kind of capacity and volume,” said Baker. “They’re going to keep us updated as their project evolves and their timeline evolves further, but they’re still in the beginning stages.”
Since it’s just the beginning of their process, any plans for shipping the mineral out are too early to determine. But port and city leaders plan to continue conversations with Graphite One if and when their project progresses.
And as the harbor begins to freeze over, next year, Baker said Harbormaster Lucas Stotts is considering a hard date to have vessels removed from the water, to prevent people from getting stuck in the ice and having to break themselves out. The harbor currently does not require boats to be out by a specific date, but as Baker pointed out, the water is starting to freeze and there are still a few lingering vessels that have yet to be removed.
The next port commission meeting is scheduled for November 20.
