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Delta Junction manager thinks pipeline will be built Second in series, new equipment rental business in Delta Junction poised to support gas pipeline construction Patricia Jones PNA Contributing Writer
Any new building that crops up easily makes its mark in this Interior Alaska community, especially when it is a large steel structure built right along the Alaska Highway.
The 60 by 100-foot building housing the Delta Junction branch of Airport Equipment Rentals opened this May, said manager Chuck Creamer.
“The whole valley has been good customers. Now they don’t have to go to Fairbanks for equipment. We get people in from Tok and Northway,” Creamer said. “The area itself has supported the business.”
The branch of the Fairbanks-based equipment rental business would likely see a dramatic increase in customers, he said, if a natural gas pipeline were to be built along the Alaska Highway. Creamer anticipates that increase in business from auxiliary but related construction needs.
“My experience is the major contractor will bring everything from Outside … the day to day stuff filters out in the community,” Creamer said. “We would benefit from what equipment they would not have. Most contractors on large projects are like that — they don’t rent equipment that much.”
A former worker on the trans-Alaska pipeline, Creamer is one person who definitely thinks the gas line will be built.
“The only thing that might stop it is if Canada backs off (the existing highway corridor agreement),” Creamer said. “They might go around us to take gas to higher priced markets.”
Both Alaska and Canada would benefit He thinks Alaska and Canada will both benefit more from the highway route, compared to the over-the-top route, which would cross the Beaufort Sea and then track south through the Mackenzie River valley.
And the region’s economic benefits would only be magnified, if a rail line were laid along the Alaska Highway concurrently or even preceding the gas pipeline project, he said.
“That would really make Delta, Tok and the Alcan communities. You could see a boom then,” he said.
Neither of the routes should be ruled out due to environmental concerns, Creamer said. “With either route, there’s not any reason to hide something. It’s going to be monitored.”
How soon the work will start is the big question. Creamer isn’t holding his breath for the start-up anytime soon. “Delta has been played this card too many times,” he said.
This is the second in a series of 12 informal interviews about the proposed natural gas pipeline project conducted with owners and managers of businesses located along a portion of the proposed “Alaska Highway” route, which actually runs from Alaska’s North Slope to Alberta and then to Lower 48 markets.
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