Port of Alaska announces new federal grant

The US Department of Transportation Maritime Administration announced Tuesday that it will award the Port of Alaska with a $20 million grant to aid in the construction of a new

The grant comes on top of another $25 million dollar grant from the DOT in 2019, as well as various other sources of state and federal funding funding the construction, which is estimated to cost just over $200 million. The final puzzle piece of the terminal's funding comes in the form of a tariff, recently passed by the Anchorage Assembly, set to fund roughly $42 million of the terminal.

How this new grant will affect the tariff is currently unclear. The tariff is set to increase yearly until 2029, and will see its final adjustments after the terminal is complete and the total cost is known. The terminal is currently slated to be finished in 2021. Whether the costs exceed or go under the estimate will be the truly deciding factor in the tariff.

"We designed them to come online slowly, over time," said Anchorage Municipal Manager Bill Falsey. "So rather than jumping into the final state of the tariff, there would be a fe years of ramp-on period, and it looks like, with these kinds of good-news stories, we might be able to adjust those out-years."