KTUU: Questions raised around future of Anchorage’s Fish Creek Trail project following route concerns

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – Continued work on a much-anticipated trail connection project for West Anchorage has been potentially put on hold by the Alaska Department of Transportation after concerns about the trail’s route were recently expressed by Marathon Petroleum.

The Fish Creek Trail Connection project is a collaborative effort between DOT&PF and the city to create a multi-use trail connecting the Fish Creek and Tony Knowles Coastal Trails.

Lindsey Hajduk, director of community engagement and external affairs with NeighborWorks Alaska, said the particular section for the proposed trail is something the community has been using for decades and having a dedicated trail only makes it that much safer.

“It would essentially connect Downtown to Midtown and all these different neighborhoods,” Hajduk said. “This year in particular, when we’re seeing such a high number of fatalities on our roadways, not just for pedestrians but vehicles and collisions.”

She said a dedicated pathway would also create a clear path to avoid interacting with the Alaska Railroad, which the trail runs nearly entirely along.

The trail also runs along an area where Marathon’s Tesoro Alaska Pipeline is located, which runs 70 miles from the Kenai refinery to the Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport and the Don Young Port of Alaska, delivering gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel.

During a recent Anchorage Metropolitan Area Transportation Solutions (AMATS) Technical Advisory Committee meeting, the request to have the project’s proposed path re-evaluated was announced, followed by an explanation by a presentation from Marathon representatives outlining concerns behind that request.

Evan Bencic, a right-of-way supervisor with Marathon told the AMATS advisory committee that in addition to the trail creating potential maintenance challenges for the pipeline, there was also the issue of a block valve.

Bencic said that the block valve had been tucked away for decades until an apartment complex had been built in the area roughly five years ago, “greatly exposing” it, and in looking to the future the thought of hundreds of people walking past the fenced-in block valve created serious concerns.

In an interview with Alaska’s News Source, State Rep. Zack Fields, D-Anchorage, called the notion that the trail is unsafe by being near the pipeline or the block valve “silly.”

“This pipeline goes past a bunch of roads, houses, apartment complexes, and trails already, so if it was unsafe, what about the rest of the pipeline? That just doesn’t make any sense,” Fields said. “Right now, this block valve has a simple little fence around it, a trail would make it safer because there’d be some people around it. So if there was a ne’er-do-well who wanted to mess with a block valve, someone would see it.”

In a letter to DOT, Executive Director for Bike Anchorage Alexa Dobson also expressed her surprise at learning the project was “put on hold,” questioning how the public process could be seemingly disregarded.

However, according to DOT Administrative Operations Manager Justin Shelby, the idea that the project has been paused is simply inaccurate.

“We’re evaluating the concerns that Marathon Pipeline has raised regarding their fuel pipeline and, you know, essentially looking at whether or not those concerns can be effectively mitigated,” Shelby said. “There was not a request from Marathon to pause the project.”

Shelby said while he currently has no timeline on how long the evaluation might take, he added that at this time he is not aware of any impacts that would affect the project’s forward motion.

When asked what might happen if it’s determined that Marathon’s concerns cannot be mitigated, Shelby said he’d rather not speculate on what could happen and would rather focus on getting through the evaluation process. much-anticipated