Port panel setting rates for summer season

The Nome Port Commission rolled up their sleeves to revise the tariff earlier this month, but there wasn’t a lot of work to do in preparing rules and charges for the season when ice breakup opens the harbor. Changes in operations are few: proposed rate increases toggle between five percent and 10 percent. Adoption of the tariff including any rate increase should happen at the next regular meeting slated for February.

The commission held a work session before the regular meeting and considered tariff modifications on: 

• Impounds of vessels, equipment and cargo for unpaid storage fees.
• To modify the hot work permit from the current daily requirement or to increase the duration, as a permit for several days of the job. Hot work includes welding, cutting, sandblasting or painting on vessels or dockside. A new permit is required for any day in which work is expected to occur, for safety, “to give good hard information on who is doing hazardous work on a particular day,” according to Joy Baker, port director. Harbor Master Lucas Stotts concurred—that the hot work permit was put in the tariff for safety concerns to know by whom, where and when hot work was occurring. Several suggested a permit could be obtained for the duration of the job or for a week, then a text sent to port officials when work was actually underway.
• To add abandoned cargo to the rule against obstructing fire lanes and keeping the area 20 feet uplands of revetments clear of resting cargo and vehicles, unless permission has been secured from the port director. Unauthorized cargo and vehicles will be removed by the Port of Nome and associated charges fall on the person who left the obstructions.
• To add availability of rubber tire fender rental and a rate.
• To develop a section on port security requirements and the assessment of fees. The numbers of foreign vessels, which require tight security, are increasing, such as the ships installing fiber optics for Quintillion.
• To charge usual docking fees for ships anchoring out to lighter passengers as well as cargo.

The Nome Port Commission on Monday announced another work session on the tariff for Thursday, Feb. 2 in City Hall. The meeting will address additional tariff changes, historical tariff rate tracking, and spending years 2013-2017; revenues and expenses comparisons.

In other business, the Commission discussed upgrades and repair to erosion of the ramp at Middle Dock. Further discussion will occur at the Feb. 2 work session. Port administrators have received change order pricing from Orion Marine Contractors for extending the roll-on, roll-off concrete ramp on Middle Dock by 19 feet. Orion built the Middle Dock for $7,267,543. The change order adds $253,225 for a contract total of $7,520,768 and adds 237 calendar days bringing the contract time to 942 contract days. The ramp work will begin in June. A bid package for Thornbush Site Development and Snake River Dredging Part II comes due on Feb. 7. The funding comes from two state grants. Dredging will begin in the spring, with suction cleanup and pad development following in the summer. The project will dredge along the bank of the Snake River to further increase moorage for small vessels. The dredge spoils will go to begin filling the Thornbush site, working westward along the bank of the pad on the old state trailer site, as far as funds will allow. The cubic yards awarded will depend on the unit price. According to Port Director Joy Baker, the plan will allow the dredge spoils fill to dewater over a year or two, and then receive more dry-fill for further pad development.