Business View Magazine | March 2019

THE PORT OF VALDEZ 160 hundreds of miles of beach were oiled. Crews worked all that summer and fall and into the next year, cleaning the beaches and rescuing animals. Today, the Valdez is considered one of the safest oil tanker transport locations in the U.S. because of a double tug escort system and enhanced oil spill response capabilities, as well as due to the double hull oil tank- ers and barges that are now used in the oil transport industry. Since 1977, when the pipe- line opened, more than 20,000 tankers have transited through the Port, which receives an average of half a million barrels of oil through the Pipeline on a daily basis. “Five percent of the nation’s oil ships out of Valdez,” Talbott remarks. “It comes down from the North Slope, 750 miles from Barrow, all the way down to Valdez. It gets loaded onto ships and then most of it gets shipped to the west coast.” On the north side of the bay, the Port of Valdez is an important location for both commer- cial and sport fishing. The local streams and hatcheries generate large numbers of pink, chum, sockeye, and coho salmon. There are two processing plants operating in Valdez and Talbott explains that the port’s main export is fish. In fact, two local companies have recently expanded, which bodes well for the port’s op- erations. “Silver Bay Seafoods just built a $57 million processing plant, here in Valdez – the largest standing processing plant on the west coast,” Talbott notes. “When they did that, they went from 200 workers to 440, and they can do about four million pounds a day out of that facility. Peter Pan, who is right next door to them, is looking to expand, as well.” Talbott assumed his duties as Ports and Harbor Director in 2017. He oversees 11 full-time em- ployees and another dozen or so that he hires during the busy summer season when the fish are running. His department operates as an en- terprise fund. “The money that we make goes back to the Ports and Harbors,” he says. “For 40 years, the city subsidized the port. This year, we probably will do a small subsidy, but last year was the first year we were in black for the port. That was my goal – to get operationally stable with our port. If we have an average fish year, we’ll be fine from here on out. The harbor has always been revenue positive; it’s been sus- tainable.” Talbott explains that funds for the port’s capi- tal projects comes from property taxes levied on Alyeska, whose infrastructure sits on city property, and the town’s 4,200 residents. “The