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Business View Magazine
modest, little facility to what it is and what we are, today.”
Today, the Port of Anchorage, which occupies approxi-
mately 220 acres, includes three general cargo termi-
nals with 2,100 feet of dock face, with container, roll on/
roll off, bulk cement and break bulk capabilities; two pe-
troleum product terminals with 600 feet each of berthing
space and four 2,000 bbl./hr.-product pipelines each;
loose cement offloading capability via pneumatic pump
and pipeline; two 30 ton and one 40 ton rail-mounted,
electric cranes; and intermodal connections via rail,
road, and air.
A half-century after the Great Quake, the Port of Anchor-
age can truly be called the Port of Alaska, as it has most
definitely become its essential maritime hub. The cargo
that passes through it supports roughly 85 percent of
Alaska’s population of 760,000, in over 250 communi-
ties, supplying them with everything they eat, wear, drive,
and put in their fuel tanks. “We’re the only intermodal
port facility in the state,” says Ribuffo. “We support 75
percent of all the waterborne freight that enters south-
central Alaska; 95 percent of all the refined petroleum;
100 percent of the fuel for Joint Base Elmendorf-Richard-
son; and about 65 percent of what supports Ted Stevens
International Airport. We’re also the ‘meat and potatoes’
guys with respect to groceries, and clothing, and refined
petroleum products, all of which are consumed to sus-
tain the population that we support.”
The POA is a municipal entity. “We’re a department of
the City of Anchorage,” Ribuffo explains. “The Board of
Directors is the Anchorage Assembly. All of our contracts,
user agreements, and leases have to go through the As-
sembly for approval. We answer to them as a public sec-
tor entity. We’re considered an enterprise function, which
means we have the responsibility of generating enough
revenue to cover all of our own expenses. And, in addi-
tion to that, we pay a fee, in lieu of taxes, back to the city,
every year, to help support city government.”
Ribuffo describes the way the Port generates its revenue:
