By Leo Quigley, AJOT America’s 49th state is entirely dependent on three primary supply routes consisting of the Alaska Highway, air and ocean freight. There are no railways that connect Alaska to the other 48 states and its closest neighbors are Canada’s Yukon Territory and Russia. Of the three only Yukon can be accessed by land and the most recent proposal to build a land link between Alaska and Russia was the AmerAsian Peace Tunnel, a project that received the approval of the Russian government in 2011 and, if completed, would extend a distance of 64 miles at a cost of roughly a billion dollars a mile In the meantime the True Pacific Northwest state must rely on the State of Washington and particularly Puget Sound for most of its supplies. In fact, the Port of Tacoma is Alaska’s largest trading partner after China and Japan. Karen Matthias, of Matthias Consulting, the Port of Tacoma’s Alaska consultant, told AJOT 90 percent of the merchandise for 85 percent of the population comes through the Port of Anchorage. In fact, other than communities on the Alaska Panhandle, pretty well all merchandise imported into Alaska comes through the Port of Anchorage. Nearly all of this is delivered to Anchorage on container ships or barges, most of which home port in Tacoma and according to Matthias, the Alaska trade constitutes roughly $3 billion in revenue and about one-third of Tacoma’s overall container volume. The primary shipping lines that deliver to the Port of Anchorage, which is the distribution hub for the state, are Horizon Lines, Totem Ocean Trailer Express, Lynden Transport and Carlile Transportation all of Tacoma and Foss Martime of Seattle. Horizon Lines operates three D-7 Class container ships between Tacoma and Alaska with twice-weekly stops in Anchorage and Kodiak and one call per week to Dutch Harbor. The vessels have strengthened hulls to handle heavy ice conditions and special equipment to secure the containers above and below deck. As well, the 710-foot ships are equipped with specially constructed containers that are heated and insulated to keep cargo from freezing. The ships are also equipped with controllable-pitch propellers and bow and stern thrusters for increased maneuverability. Marv Buchanan, Vice President, Sales and Marketing told AJOT the bitterly cold winter and record snowfall worked to depress shipping volumes this past winter together with the fact that the snow persisted well into this month (April). Buchanan said that normally at that time of year cargo volumes begin to pick up. Alaskan trade generally follows a bell curve, he said, with the greatest amount of traffic during the summer months and is “very, very steady.” Also, there is very little warehousing available in Alaska and big box stores, particularly in Anchorage, rely on Horizon Lines to get products to the port on a timely basis. “What happens,” he said, “is the shipping lines tend to be the warehouse.” Of concern to Horizon Lines, and to other ship and tug and barge lines that move goods to Alaska is the stricter environmental regulations that will be coming into effect August 1, 2012; regulations that will require vessels within the 200-mile limit to burn fuel with a lower sulfur content. And, this fuel that will be more expensive than the present fuel used by vessels on the Alaska route. “It’s unsettling,” Buchanan said, “because we don’t exactly know what the cost is going to be because, as of yet, they don’t really have that grade of fuel. They have to blend it. “It’s a new thing. It’s new for us. It’s new for our competitors and it’s new for the cruise lines that operate in the summer. “it’s unfortunate because it’s designed for the massive amounts of ships that come into the U.S. from, say, Asia. When they get to within 200 miles of the coast they have to switch to the low sulfur fuel and, on the way out, the same thing. “However, on the trip to Alaska you never get outside the 200-mile limit and it’s a bilateral agreement with Canada. “So you have to burn it a