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Web posted
Adak is on its way to becoming a new community with a strong commercial base in fisheries. "Fisheries and fuel sales, that's our economic base," says Sandra Moller, president and chief executive for Aleut Enterprise Corp. In 1985, when the U.S. Navy decided to close the Adak Naval Air Station, few thought a viable private economy could be developed in the remote region. Aleut Corp. and the new city of Adak will be the new landowners at Adak, when the land transfer is approved by Congress and completed. The Senate approved the transfer of Adak naval base to the corporation in early August. The bill now moves to the House for approval. AEC is the Aleut Corp. subsidiary charged with its commercial development. Moller said one recent boost came when the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council awarded the community a direct allocation of the brown crab harvest in the Aleutians region. This provides security for a new processing plant, which is itself a gamble. "We processed 80 percent of the crab harvested in the region last year anyway, and while we're guaranteed 50 percent under our allocation we expect to process more than that," Moller said. At different times of the year, the plant processes crab, halibut and cod. Icicle Seafoods operates the plant. Fuel sales to commercial fishing vessels working in the area is a major business activity for Aleut Enterprise Corp., Moller said. Sales are increasing, with more boats calling at Adak. Jet fuel sales to military planes and executive jets on trans-Pacific flights are also important, but AEC is also now getting nibbles from commercial air cargo carriers interested in refueling on the island. Moller doesn't expect to drain the cargo jet-refueling business from Anchorage. Adak's 8,000-foot runway has handled 747 jumbo jets in emergencies but is too short for fully loaded 747s to take off, for one thing. But the island may make sense for carriers with older or smaller planes. On certain Asia-U.S. runs, it cuts an hour off the flight, compared with having to fly to Anchorage for fuel. A second-class city has been formed and has been in existence a year now, and Adak's 120 or so full-time residents go to the polls for their first regular municipal election in November. The city will own some land and buildings and will operate local utilities and the port, Moller said. The future is bright, but there are challenges aplenty. One challenge is to modify the ample endowment of infrastructure left by the Navy to the corporation and the new city of Adak. An immediate problem the city and the corporation are facing is how to optimize operation of a diesel-fueled 20 megawatt power plant when only three megawatts are now needed by the community, Moller said. Another challenge is that while Adak is blessed with superb harbor facilities and docks, they are the wrong size to be efficiently used by fishing vessels now calling at Adak. A small boat harbor can efficiently accommodate boats from 16 to 30 feet in length, but not the 60-foot vessels that want to use Adak as a port. Similarly, the large docks are suitable for large freighters but not large- or medium-sized fishing vessels. Moller said there may be no way to ultimately use the 1,000 housing units the Navy built on the island. Three hundred are now available, she said. There are also three 4 acre warehouses on the waterfront and 10 to 15 warehouses from 30,000 to 50,000 square feet each. The airport is another challenge. Someone needs to operate the airport and it should be the state of Alaska, which runs airports almost everywhere else in the state, Aleut Corp. officials believe. Those problems are being tackled, however. Discussions are under way with the state to take over the airport. On the harbor problem, the new city government has applied to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to expand the small boat harbor to accommodate 40 to 60 vessels as long as 60 feet length.
AEC now uses only two tanks. Each tank can hold 4 million gallons, and the tanks have yet to be filled completely, Moller said. The tankers carry diesel purchased from Russian refineries and jet fuel from South Korea. Adak is roughly equidistant from Cook Inlet and the Far East. The ability to bring in tankers with foreign oil is a big advantage, however. The tankers can bring jet fuel and diesel on the same vessel. That would be more complicated coming from Cook Inlet or the U.S. West Coast. AEC's fueling business has attracted widespread attention. With its successful track record for buying and transporting fuel from Russia and South Korea, Moller said the company has gotten inquiries about AEC arranging deliveries elsewhere in the Pacific, Moller said. When the Navy announced it would close Adak in 1985 there was widespread skepticism that commercial uses could be found for the base because of its remote location and the expense of maintaining its infrastructure. Moller said the Aleut Corp.'s decision to do fuel sales there was a turning point because people realized the corporation was serious about taking over the closed base. Now the state Department of Fish and Game will do a survey of red king crab. These crab haven't been fished in several years, and if a fishery develops it will diversity and strengthen crab fishing, Moller said. It was important that several smaller boats came to Adak to fish cod last season and harvested about a quarter of the allocation for the region. Skeptics felt smaller boats couldn't work in the stormy Aleutians waters in winter, but they were proved wrong. An important goal for Adak is building up the small boat fleet, Moller said, because these vessel operators will process their fish in Adak and are more likely to live there.
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