Full document / COSOC-W-86-002 - the National Sea Grant Library

Estuarine and CoastalManagement-Tootsof the
Trade. Proceedingsof the TenthNationalConference
of The Coastal Society. October 12-15.1986. New
Orleans.LA. Copyrightby TheCoastalSociety
1987.
Nome. A Remote Trade Center
NOME, ALASKA PORT FACILITY DESIGN:
COASTAL MANAGEMENT ISSUES
Tim Holder
City ofNona
P.O. Box 281
Nome. AK 99762
Nome is located 500 air miles northwest of Alaska's major city,
Anchorage. Because no roads connect Nome with the main road systems
in the state, Nome is dependent on marine and air transportation. The
population of Nome, approximately 3500, is small by lower 4B standards;
however, it is a trade center for 15 villages with 5000 people in the
Norton Sound-Bering Strait region within a 150-mllc radius.
Existing Port and Lightering Costly
The existing port facility Is located at the mouth of the Snake River.
Built and maintained by the Corps of Engineers, the harbor consists
of a 75-foot vide channel with revetment along 600 feet of each side.
The channel requires annual dredging by the Corps to maintain an
operating depth of approximately eight feet.
An improved facility has been needed for some time. The operating
depth of eight feet in the existing port and shallow water in the near
off-shore allows the docking of vessels with a draft of no greater than
six feet. Nearly all line haul barges come from Seattle, across the
Pacific, through the Aleutians, and across the Bering Sea, some 2600
miles to Nome. Their loaded draft normally exceeds 16 feet and is a
maximum of 22 feet for dry cargo and 25 feet for liquid bulk cargo.
Currently these barges from Seattle anchor about one-half mile offshore
and transfer goods to shallow-draft barges that can navigate inside the
mouth of the Snake River, a process vhlch Is called lightering. Twentyfive
percent of the cost of shipping from the dock in Seattle to the
dock in Nome is in lightering the last one-half mile. The cost of
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