September 26, 2018
Wednesday AM

I want to thank Mike Painter for his letter regarding our freight situation in Ketchikan.  I also have wanted to get this discussion going for quite some time now.  I think there must be an enormous amount of penned up frustration about this around the community.  There is no doubt that we were all totally sold out by the State of Alaska and the Attorney General when they allowed one barge line to get a monopoly on our freight and hold us all hostage. 

I have been a business owner in Ketchikan since 1986. From that time and into the 90’s we always had AML and Boyer competing for our freight business.  We were paying right around 3 cents per pound for less than container load freight.  Then Northland bought out Boyer.  No problem, freight was still competitive.  Then the State allowed AML to buy out Northland and basically obtain a monopoly.  They brought in Samson to give the appearance of competition. Nothing but a sham considering AML hauls Samson freight on AML barges.  How is this competition? 

Our freight costs are now around 22 cents per pound.  That’s over a 700% increase.  Oh and let’s also add on a fuel surcharge.  This was added even after fuel costs plummeted a couple of years ago.  Let’s put this in perspective.  They will claim this 700% increase is due to inflation and cost of doing business.  If this were true, then a home in Ketchikan that cost $200,000.00 twenty years ago should cost around $1.5 million now.  Not even close. 

I can’t think of any other product or service that has seen anywhere near this kind of increase.  We are an island community and have no other choice but to barge our supplies in from Seattle.  These outrageous freight rates are becoming an economy killer for Ketchikan.  They are making Ketchikan an impossible place to do business.

How can our shipyard be competitive when they get robbed every time they ship in steel and other supplies.  If they can’t be competitive, we will lose good jobs that we can’t afford to lose. 

The cost of shipping in groceries and other essential goods is passed onto every consumer in the community.  Our livelihoods are being threatened while one shipping company is becoming extremely wealthy.  I don’t really consider AML to be crooks.  They are a for profit company that has been allowed to greatly increase their profits by our state government. 

We desperately need help.  Our local governments need to pressure the state into rectifying this disastrous situation that they allowed to happen.  There are antitrust laws in place to prevent this exact stuff from happening. 

I know this sounds a little bit cynical, but ever since this was allowed to happen, I suspected we probably had one very rich Attorney General because how could this be approved without a lot of behind the scenes money changing hands.  I’m just saying! 

At any rate, Mike Painter thankfully got the conversation started.  Now let’s keep it going and get some momentum and make some changes.  We need help from the City Council, Borough Assembly, and Chamber of Commerce to convince the State to launch an investigation into the shipping rates being charged as well as to exactly how this situation was allowed to develop.  Some might ask what can be done now?  Well, there is always something that can be done to rectify a very bad mistake. 

If the State can’t entice some shipping competition into Southeast Alaska, then maybe they should offer some subsidies like they do to get Alaska Airlines to provide service to smaller communities.  When they allowed this Monopoly to occur, they should have put annual percentage limits on allowable freight increases. 

I am very tired of being held hostage and I hope enough other people also are so maybe we can get started on a fix.  We are now in a situation that allows one private company to possibly destroy our economy.  Not Acceptable.

Sincerely,

Chris J. Herby
Ketchikan, Alaska

Editor's Note:

The text of this letter was NOT edited by the SitNews Editor.

Received September 25, 2018 - Published September 26, 2018

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