Welcome to another First Things First podcast. I am Dano, the first one of 2026. We were trying to remember how the song goes right before we hit record on it. Happy New Year, everybody, and time for another First Things First podcast. You're gonna be hearing a lot of this in 2026.

I think you're gonna be hearing the Cascade Point Ferry Terminal a lot as we enter 2026 and all the benefits too because there are a lot of benefits to it, and that's what we're here to talk about today. That is why we have Bruce Abel in the studio, lifelong Juno White, past president of the Juno Chamber. Bruce, welcome.

Thank you.

And we got Matt Bell over there too, supporter of the project and former planning commissioner board member too. That actually surprised Don when he heard that, Matt.

Thank you.

Good evening. And Don Habiger, our executive director of First Things First. Don, happy New Year. We did it.

We did it, Dano. Happy New Year to you. Thank you for inviting us for another lively conversation about, in this case, transportation.

Do I invite you or do you invite me? Which way does that go with Well,

it's a mutual activity. How's that? We'll just leave it as a tie.

Big supporter of First Things First. And obviously, First Things First, a big supporter of the Cascade Point Ferry terminal. Like I said, we're gonna be hearing this a lot in 2026. So, Don, I'm gonna throw it to you. Let's dive into this because there's a lot of good stuff to dive into.

Absolutely. And and as we start the new year, I always take a moment to remind the listening audience about what First Things First does. We focus on a strong Southeast economy through responsible economic development and natural resource management here in Southeast. So that's our focus. We are a five zero one C3 organization and public education is what we do.

One of our focus areas is Southeast Alaska transportation. And I've mentioned it before in previous shows, but in 2016, the First Things First Alaska Foundation put together an integrated plan whereby we were taking, using road access where it made sense, and shortening our ferry runs where it made sense. And again, making a more cohesive, interactive, more economical way to connect Southeast Alaska. And with that, Cascade Point is a perfect project for us to get started on this integrated transportation plan for all of Southeast. We've got pieces in Ketchikan, Prince Of Wales down there.

Now let's bring one north and start it with Cascade Point.

So for people that don't know a lot about the project, let's dive into that. Like what is Cascade Point Ferry Terminal? How long has it been around? What is it?

Well, I'm gonna invite my guests to jump in here at any time. And Bruce and Matt, pitch in as you need. But basically, the Cascade Point Ferry Terminal is really a ferry terminal that is built out at Burners Bay area and connects Northern Southeast. The whole concept behind it is where we have road, we go out and use our vehicles. Where we have no road, we use a short run, more economical ferry system.

And that's what it is. It is using the Alaska class ferries that were built, oh, maybe six years ago at the shipyard in Ketchikan, and the legislature funded that. And we need to use those ferries where they make the most sense. And Northern Southeast Alaska is a perfect example of use for those ferries.

So I guess what would some of the positive benefits be of this? I think we have to look at this the big picture of this. Think there's a lot of different angles we can take, but I think the big one for me is regional connectivity. Does this mean more ferries? Does this mean there's going to be less?

Like what does this mean for Southeast when you say that?

Well, I'm gonna punt that over to Matt. You know, Matt is somebody that grew up in rural Alaska and I'm just gonna let him take over and just talk about connectivity. Matt, take it away.

Thank you. Studying this project and being from CAIC, to me it has so many economic values, but it also has benefits to improving the services that we rely on. Being from CAIC originally, it's important that we have a reliable ferry system. Having this ferry terminal at Cascade Point could reduce the fuel emissions, cost of operating the vessels, which could be re funneled to other improvements. To me, I see this as a catalyst that Alaska Marine Highway needs to revamp the whole operation.

So it's a no brainer when you look at everything that, you know, you're hearing all everything that's being said about it, you read about everything that's being said about it, you're like, you look at it objectively, it makes too much sense to say no.

Thank you, Matt. Really appreciate those comments. But I'm gonna send it over to Bruce, as that small business owner, the economic benefits that we see in this project.

Bruce? There's a whole number of economic benefits. I think the first thing to keep in mind is, while it might seem redundant to have a second ferry terminal in Juneau, what it does is it eliminates 24 miles of water service that parallels a road. I don't think there's anywhere else in the world that has that kind of service. If you've got a road, you use it, and then you link at the end of that road with ferry service.

And if you look at those 24 miles you're saving, and you multiply it times a year, you get, I think we decided, what about almost 9,000 Almost

9,000, yes.

Yeah, almost 9,000 miles of savings in ferry travel that can be redistributed by the state to Cake or Angoon, or any of the villages that are currently underserved. In fact, many of them are really underserved. And it frees that up. So there's that ability. You have fuel savings on that route.

More than half $1,000,000 a year in fuel savings. But the real hidden nugget is the maintenance that won't be used running a ferry parallel to a road. That's pretty important stuff. Shortens the route, allows for a day ferry, And it puts reliability back into the system. So circling around on the small business aspect, when I was early in my career, I used to ship freight on the ferry system.

But the ferry system, as it has degraded over the years, has become unreliable and we've no longer been able to do that. But to have a reliable service that can run daily, or pretty close to daily, that's a huge benefit, which we could get deep into those weeds, and I won't. But basically, can put vans on a ferry at that point, and you can drive efficiencies and revenue back into the system.

One of the things that I noticed, and I'm gonna bring this up, part and parcel with this project is an economic study done by economist, local economist, Ed King. And in that, he he actually adds numbers to some of these savings. And $550,000 annually savings in fuel. And why do we get that? Simply because we're shortening the route.

And so some of these things, again, can be redistributed to other underserved communities. So that's a significant piece. And savings here, trying to eliminate duplicative transportation routes using just singular transportation routes really does benefit our region. So one of the things I also wanted to bring up is just that partnership and new economic opportunities. And so I'm gonna open that up to either one of you to just talk about, first of all, maybe a private native organization that can lead the development here or work in conjunction with the state, as well as new opportunities for, let's say, resource development.

So any one of you wanna take those issues on?

No, we're looking at each other. I

see that.

To me, when you look at and you hear all the different pros that you look at Cascade Point, you look at what Gold Belt is trying to do out there, that's got to be a real eye appealing opportunity to them and then it could couple what the state's trying to do and it could help both Gold Belt and the Alaska Marine Highway. They could partner up and make it a pretty viable operation that makes economic sense. It makes reliable sense. It makes it's literally almost an unlimited resource that is yet to be defined when you look at everything that it can potentially do. But I see it as a real win win for Gold Belt and for the Alaska Marine Highway, as well as the region and state.

Well, as we're looking at perhaps another mine out the road, it takes the delivery of that ore and those resources off of the Juneau Road system. You're not running it ten, fifteen, 20 miles to Auk Bay. Instead, you've got a pretty short drive out to that particular development. And that helps offset the cost and saves the state money, because now you've got more than one tenant at that location. So that's good for Gold Belt.

It also opens up opportunities for Gold Belt to further develop that resource for any number of things they want. And I'm not sure what those would be, that's Gold Belt's purview. But certainly this makes that site viable and generates revenue and jobs in our community.

It does, it really does. Like I said, I see it from my perspective, from what, you know, being on the Planning Commission, know, for several years, know, you see for sand and it's always we look at it from how can the, not only the community benefit, but the region, let alone the state. And so you hit the nail right on the head.

Thank you. I wanna thank you, Bruce. Thank you, Matt. I kind of wanted to give a number, the jobs number since Bruce brought that up. But certainly we have short term jobs as well as long term job possibilities.

And because Mr. King puts those in his report, we need to remember these good paying jobs. And as Juno has just talked about affordability recently, we've gone through ballot initiatives that had deal with affordability. We need those good paying jobs. So construction jobs, great career and short term while it's being built 75 to 150 construction jobs.

And that is road building, that is earthmoving, that is marine water construction, all of those skill sets that our young people can apply for and do. After that, and this is kind of exciting, if the new Amalga project gets going, Mr. King used some of the hiring practices of our existing mines. So we're talking about 300 potential, two fifty, 300 full time new mining jobs in this community. Again, new families refilling our school districts with kids.

That would be a wonderful outcome of just

a