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Walker keeps Dalton stations in budget Five maintenance stations on road to North Slope to remain open; five on Interior highways affected; Thompson to operate seasonally TIM BRADNER For Petroleum News
North Slope truckers are breathing easier in late June after Gov. Bill Walker’s final state budget decisions allowed maintenance stations on the Dalton Highway to remain open.
The 414-mile Dalton, a gravel road that is partly chip-sealed, is the only surface transportation link to the North Slope oil fields. Closure of even one or two of the maintenance stations would have made the road vulnerable during adverse weather, usually in winter.
“It would have been catastrophic for us,” if the governor’s budget vetoes, announced June 29, would have affected Dalton Highway maintenance, said Aves Thompson, executive director of the Alaska Truckers Association. “A combination of poor maintenance and bad weather could cost lives,” he said.
The governor’s veto actions will affect five stations on Interior highways: Central on the Steese; O’Brien Creek on the Taylor; Birch Lake on the Richardson, and Chitina station on the Edgerton cutoff, the road to Chitina and McCarthy from the Richardson Highway.
The Thompson Pass station, on the Richardson Highway north of Valdez, will be operated seasonally, when winter conditions make driving through Thompson Pass difficult.
“All state agencies are working with reduced operating budgets due to low oil prices,” said Meadow Bailey, Department of Transportation and Public Facilities Northern Region spokeswoman. “All Alaskans will feel the impact of these reductions, but it is our intention to minimize the impacts as much as possible,”
$15.5 million per year Five Dalton Highway stations that will be open are, from north to south, Deadhorse; Sag River; Chandalar (near Atigun Pass); Coldfoot, and Seven Mile. A fifth highway station at Livengood, on the Elliott Highway, provides the onward connection to Fairbanks.
The state spends about $15.5 million per year on the Dalton. “The average for the past five years (for maintenance) is $11.6 million in state funds from the operating budget,” Bailey said, along with an average of $3.9 million per year in major maintenance paid through the state capital budget, primarily federal funding.
Thompson said closures of the Dalton can cut North Slope oil fields off from supplies of fuel, chemicals and equipment that are needed in the field as well as groceries and other supplies. These are shipped by truck to the Slope.
In spring 2015 there was a brutal reminder of what road closures can do when unusually heavy flooding in early spring south of Deadhorse cut the road for an extended period. North Slope operators had to fly fuel in.
Thompson said an aggressive road reconstruction program by the DOTPF reduced the threat of a similar cutoff in 2016, although weather-related factors that caused the prior year floods did not repeat. Contractors working for DOTPF added 10 feet to 11 feet in elevation to the road in some places.
Thompson said the maintenance stations planned for closure are inconvenient for people living nearby but are not on major transportation corridors. The governor had earlier planned to also close the Northway maintenance station, on the Alaska Highway west of Tok, but changed the plan when Interior Alaska legislators protested.
The Northway closure would also have affected maintenance on a road connecting the Alaska Highway to Northway village as well as maintenance on the Northway airfield. All of these are typically done by one contractor.
Thompson said the closure of a highway station typically means maintenance is done by the stations on both sides. That means extended travel for DOTPF personnel and less time in the workday devoted to the actual highway work on all the sections.
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