The chamber of commerce is surveying its more than 100 members to ask where they think the town’s barge ramp and freight yard should be located.
The borough earlier this month closed down the facility on the downtown waterfront after an engineering report cited structural issues with the 47-year-old, 140-foot-long steel ramp.
Even before the shutdown decision, the borough has been looking at moving the freight loading and unloading facility and staging area to the former 6-Mile mill property, which the borough purchased for $2.5 million in 2022 for its economic development potential.
“We want to know how moving the barge lines out to the 6-Mile mill site will affect your business, either positive or negative, whether there are creative alternatives to moving the barge, and what kind of public process you would like to see the borough have for this issue,” Tracey Martin, the chamber’s executive director, said in an email to members last week.
The short survey will be emailed this week to members — 110 businesses, individuals and nonprofits — Martin said.
The chamber will present the survey results to borough officials.
“I hear people say they would love to have a waterfront park” if the barge and freight operations were moved out of downtown to 6-Mile, she said. But residents are concerned about any additional freight costs for the longer delivery run back into downtown.
“It’s a valid concern,” Martin said of freight charges.
Until the borough can decide whether to repair the downtown barge ramp, or work with the freight lines serving Wrangell to construct a new facility at 6-Mile, the weekly barge will call at the old mill dock next to The Marine Service Center.
Though without a floating ramp to handle the tides, freight vans will be offloaded and loaded with a hand-off between a forklift on the barge passing the van to a forklift on the dock, according to borough officials.
The freight lines used the same setup a few years ago when the barge ramp was closed for repairs.
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