Comment period on Juneau Access ends Tuesday

Signs mark the end of Juneau's Glacier Highway in 2013. A state transportation plan calls for extending the road north 47 miles to a new ferry terminal. (Photo by Heather Bryant/KTOO)
Signs mark the end of Juneau’s Glacier Highway in 2013. A state transportation plan calls for extending the road north 47 miles to a new ferry terminal.
(Photo by Heather Bryant/KTOO)

Tuesday is the last day to weigh in on the latest environment document on the Juneau Access Project, commonly called the Juneau Road. The state has received tens-of-thousands of comments so far on the project, according to state Department of Transportation spokesman Jeremy Woodrow, a number the department expected.

“We were anticipating a large volume of comments coming in for this project based on the comment history based on the previous comment period for the project in 2006,” Woodrow says.

A revised Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement was released on the project in September. It examines ways to improve access between Juneau and Northern Lynn Canal communities.

The state Department of Transportation favors extending a road north of Juneau to the Katzehin River where an unmanned ferry terminal would be built. Ferries would transport vehicles and passengers between Katzehin, Haines and Skagway.

That option is estimated to cost about $523 million for road construction, and new ferry terminal and vessel construction another $51 million.

The DOT held meetings in the three communities about the impact statement. People registered their comments on the project at those meetings but the bulk of the comments have come in written form. Woodrow says many of those submissions are from national advocacy groups, like Sierra Club, whose members submitted form letters and signed online petitions. Woodrow says DOT was expecting a delivery of 20- to 40,000 comments from the group Earthjustice on Monday.

DOT does not have to respond to each comment individually, but it does have to respond to each issue raised, Woodrow says.

“Responding to the comments is really responding to the information presented in the comments. If the information is similar to other comments, then responding to those questions or concerns in one response meets the criteria of responding to those comments,” he says.

DOT estimates it will take about a year to incorporate all the comments into the final environmental impact statement.

Gov. Sean Parnell has favored the road alternative and pushed its progress through his term. Incoming governor Bill Walker has said he questions the project’s costs.

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