The plan for the Homer Harbor Expansion is beginning its second year of its General Investigation study to discover if creating a bigger port would prove beneficial to the community.
The study is currently being funded by the FY 25 Presidential Budget, which was released to Congress. While final approval is contingent upon approval after the Federal budget deliberation process concludes, inclusion is the first step and underscores the US Army Corps of Engineers’ shared commitment to advancing the study.
However, it seems as if the need for the Homer Harbor to expand has become more apparent over the past few years.
That’s why Port Director Bryan Hawkins is hoping for some positive community output over this next year of the 3-year study.
“So what we’re doing is, you know, we’re working with the Army Corps of Engineers that were saying, you know, we’ve got a viable project that brings regional economic growth. And benefits and so we we want to do this study to prove that so that we could move to the next page which would be construction,” said Hawkins.
The study is intended to address environmental conditions in addition to economics and engineering feasibility.
Through this study, the City of Homer is able to evaluate how their services would potentially be affected if they were to choose to follow through with an expansion.
An expansion would include a basin and support infrastructure to adequately accommodate the large marine vessels that are tied to the harbor.
Part of the reason why they intend to expand the port is that many vessels come to Homer to port, but are not able to due to the fact that there is not enough room.
Considering the fact that this risks the city of losing valuable vessels in the harbor, it could cause a negative economic consequences, including reduced revenues and job loss.
An expanded harbor facility could also moor the Coast Gard Cutter Aspen and potentially provide short-term moorage for the Coast Guard Cutter Aspen and potentially provide short-term moorage for the Coast Guard’s new fast cutter fleet for a layover, provisioning, and repair work.
If the USAE study results in positive results, the City will then decide whether to launch an effort to secure sources of funding and construction a harbor expansion.
“You know it is an amazing effort really it starts with you know the cities priority and then grows to our entire federal delegation support that is required to get funding not you know federal funding into the Anchorage District Court of Engineers budget so that. We could meet, you know, meet this, the needs of this study. That’s an amazing amount of support that goes into this. It’s a huge group effort,” said Hawkins.
For more information, visit: homerharborexpansion.com