Alaska-Canada-Northern Tier
railroad/utility/water transfer corridor
The Al-Can Rail Corridor: Infrastructure for Development
by Marcia Merry Baker In Fairbanks, Alaska on Oct. 10-11, 2001
This article appears in the Nov. 23, 2001 issue of Executive
Intelligence Review.
An international conference took place in support of construction of an
Alaska-Canada railway, through to the U.S. lower 48 states. The Greater
Fairbanks Chamber of Commerce and the Fairbanks Industrial Corporation
sponsored the event, which was organized by state Rep. Jeannette James
(R), Majority Leader of the Alaska House of Representatives. Among the
50 participants were representatives of mining companies, legislators
from Alaska and from Canada's Yukon Territory, and rail experts. Larry
Bagnell, a Member of the Yukon Parliament, typified the enthusiasm,
telling the Fairbanks News-Miner, "It's a great long-term project.
It'll change the face of the world."
Opinions vary on the most beneficial route southwestward from Alaska.
One route often cited is that mapped out in 1942 during World War II by
Army engineers, going from Fairbanks down to Prince George in British
Columbia. There it could connect with the Canadian lines. Because of
the wartime constraints of steel and other inputs, this rail line was
never built, although the strategic Al-Can Highway—1,500 miles of
unpaved road—was completed at that time.
Even earlier, there was significant interest in a line to Alaska, with
a link-up to Asia, especially after the completion of the
Trans-Siberian Railway in 1903. In New Jersey in 1906, the
Trans-Alaska-Siberia Railway Company was incorporated.
Figure 1 is from a paper presented to the Fairbanks conference by
Seattle-based transportation consultant Dr. Hal B.H. Cooper, Jr.,
entitled "Project Development Proposal For An Integrated Energy, Water,
Transportation, And Communications Corridor Between Alaska, Canada, And
The Lower 48 States." Cooper has been in Russia five times, and is an
active participant in the dialogue on how to restore and expand the
North and South American rail systems. He provided a map of worldwide
priority routes for the 1997 EIR Special Report, "The Eurasian
Land-Bridge: The 'New Silk Road'—Locomotive For Worldwide Economic
Development."
The "Inter-American Railroad" system in Figure 1 features a development
corridor running north-south through the interior of North America,
with the idea of creating the infrastructure base (transportation,
power, water, communications) for maximum economic growth—new towns,
agriculture and manufacturing concentrations, and so on.
Also shown is the idea under discussion by the Al-Can rail backers, for
the North American rail network to proceed westward, via a tunnel under
the Bering Strait, to eastern Russia. This would link up North America
with the new transport and energy network projects now under
construction, or set for initiation, thoughout the Russian, Chinese,
Korean, and Japanese region.
The Bering Strait link is an
engineering challenge, but not a pipedream. The Strait is 60 miles
wide, but the experts regard the subsurface soil conditions as more
favorable for a tunnel than the English Channel project, now in
operation.
Figuring in the design are the two Bering Strait islands, Big and
Little Diomede.
The October Fairbanks conference is the latest among several meetings
to discuss the various rail proposals. In January of this year, an
Alaska-Canada Rail Link Conference took place in Vancouver, British
Columbia. On June 13-14, a two-day conference was held in Nome, Alaska,
titled the Alaska-Chukotka Summit Conference. (Chukotka is the
eastern-most state of Russia.)
Of the 200 mostly government attendees, 28 were from Russia. Chukotka
Gov. Roman Abramovich actively backs the Bering Strait link
and the rail route plans.
This Fall, a follow-up meeting of legislators from Alaska and Chukotka
took place in Anadyr, Chukotka.
Infrastructure
For Recovery Getting going on the Alaska-Canada-Lower 48 rail project
is exactly the kind of infrastructure -spending project that is
required for an economic program to revive U.S. economy. The impact
includes the direct and indirect creation of thousands of jobs, and the
demand for heavy commodity inputs (steel, concrete, machinery, etc.).
Equally vital, the project contributes directly to the future economic
benefit of all localities and nations involved, by providing the basis
not only for modern, inexpensive transportation, but for development
corridors for whole new towns, and mineral, industrial, and
agricultural concentrations.
The spokesmen in the U.S. Congress for the idea of an
infrastructure-led rescue of the economy, are Senate Majority Whip
Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.V.), both associated with
the Subcommittee on Public Works. In deference to their colleagues'
focus on an economic "stimulus" package based on small-scale spending
on anti-terrorism defenses, tax relief, and some unemployment benefits,
these Senators have recently spoken out in favor of only limited
projects on behalf of "infrastructure security," totalling some $20
billion for anti-terrorism safety investments of various kinds (rail,
air, highways, water systems, etc.). However, the principle stressed by
Senator Reid, on Nov. 7 at a joint press conference with U.S. mayors,
that "every billion dollars we invest will create 42,000 new jobs,"
applies equally to the long-overdue long-term "big" projects such as
the Alaska-Canada-Lower 48 rail proposal.
On Sept. 25, U.S. Rep. Don Young (R-Ak.) introduced a railroad
expansion bill into the House, entitled the Rail Infrastructure
Development and Expansion Act (RIDE), which calls for some $71 billion
of various kinds of funding. Last year, Sen. Frank Murkowski (R-Ak.)
backed a bill which was enacted, for creating a joint U.S.-Canadian
Commission to do a feasibility study on the Alaska-Canada-Lower 48 rail
project.
What will push an infrastructure-building effort to realization in the
United States, is the citizens mobilization now being led by Lyndon
LaRouche and his LaRouche in 2004 Presidential campaign, for emergency
measures for national economies. LaRouche is conferring with national
leaders in Eurasia on the Land-Bridge projects, and on transportation
corridors of development in South America, Africa, the Middle East,
Southeast Asia, and Australia.
Development Corridor Concept In Figure 1, Cooper proposes an economic
development corridor to run along "a 2,700-mile-long
railroad/utility/water transport corridor between Fairbanks, Alaska,
and Bismarck, North Dakota, with a branch going to Seattle, Washington.
The development of this corridor will require the construction of 1,600
miles of new railroad line and the upgrading of 2,400 miles of railroad
line. This new Alaska-Canada-Northern Tier railroad and utility
corridor will be designed to incorporate railroad and road
transportation plus increased air service. The corridor will be able to
incorporate crude oil and natural gas pipelines, plus electric
transmission lines with new power plants, plus a fiber optic
telecommunications network."
Cooper continues his description: "The Alaska-Canada-Northern Tier
corridor will also incorporate the ability to locate a water pipeline
to transport fresh water from Alaska and Canada to the east side of the
Rocky Mountains along the Great Plains, and the Southwest in the United
States mainland. This water conveyance could be the first step toward
the re-creation of the North America Water and Power Alliance (NAWAPA)
originally proposed in the 1960s. The development of the
Alaska-Canada-Northern Tier railroad/utility/water transport corridor
could become the start of a major program to upgrade and expand the
present North American infrastructure for the benefit of the United
States, Canada, and Mexico."
Figure 2 shows the major components of the NAWAPA plan. It is a
large-scale geo-engineering project, involving long-distance water
channels—canals, augmented river courses. (Cooper's water
pipeline/corridor proposals are for certain locations where frigid
average temperatures, or other circumstances warrant.)
The NAWAPA concept was to divert southward some 15% of the flow of the
MacKenzie River system—which presently flows to the Arctic—and run the
main part of the flow through the 500-mile-long Rocky Mountain Trench
in British Columbia. NAWAPA was originally put forward by
California-based Parsons Engineering, and reviewed by Congress in the
1960s as a 20-year national interest project. Had NAWAPA been launched
in the 1970s, the recurring droughts in the Western basins would now be
a thing of the past.
Cooper describes the rail-based development corridor idea this way:
"The operating concept for the Alaska-Canada-Northern Tier corridor is
to have parallel transportation, utility, and water conveyances on a
common right of way. The approach to be taken is to construct the
railway line first, and then to utilize its superior economic transport
characteristics to bring all of the other media, equipment, and
facilities into line. The development and use of a common right-of-way
corridor would make it possible to minimize construction costs,
maximize economic throughputs, and minimize land use needs."
At the Fairbanks conference, Representative James said that the
estimates of the cost for rail construction might run in the range of
$1-3 million per track mile, for the 1,200-mile extension of rail
between Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska, into Canada's railroad
system. She stressed that the benefits far outweigh the costs, and that
the idea of "bundling" other utilities along the rail route, namely,
the proposed natural gas pipeline and fiber-optic cable, allows for
great economies.
'Rails To Resources' Senator Murkowski's concept of a railway is much
more delimited to the idea of hauling out mineral commodities. In fact,
his press information packet in 2000, at the time he introduced his
bill for a feasibility study, was called, "Rails To Resources."
Alaska and the Yukon Territory, like Siberia, are treasures of natural
resources. After discovery of gold in the 1890s, there were repeated
gold rushes. Today, the Fort Knox gold mine east of Fairbanks produces
at the rate of 1,000 ounces per day. But the region's hardrock
formations have rich, extensive deposits of silver, copper, lead, zinc,
tungsten, and other ores. The coal deposits in Alaska are vast, in the
range of 6 trillion tons, according to Murkowski. The timber resources
are significant.
Murkowski's estimate is that "there might be 120 million tons of
freight a year from new mines and timber development along the
Alaska-Canada rail corridor that would utilize such a new railroad
link."
At the October Fairbanks conference, James McLachlan, of the Yukon
Legislative Assembly, spoke of estimates on the Canadian side that some
500,000 tons could be shipped out yearly, for 30 years, from the
mineral deposits there. He said that this would mean revenue in the
range of $46 billion. Many minerals and fuels companies are backing the
Murkowski "Rails To Resources" plan.
In fact, to conceive the benefits of the Alaska-Canada transcontinental
rail system in simply these "mine-to-mouth" terms misses the boat in
two fundamental respects. First, it ignores the great overall
development potential possible from providing integrated
infrastructure—of an intercontinental scope. Second, it ignores the
reality that, right now, an epic financial and economic breakdown
process is under way. So, any vision of extracting and hauling
commodities based on some "rails for resources" scheme, such as used in
colonial Africa, is doomed along with everything else.
The only approach that will work is that which worked before: the
precedent of the Federally backed public works programs, and private
contracting of the 1930s under Franklin Delano Roosevelt—the Hoover
Dam, the Grand Coulee Dam, the Tennesee Valley Authority, and so on.
The same principle applies today.
In the conclusion to his paper, Cooper refers to the economy-building
effects of rail construction. "The construction of the
Alaska-Canada-Northern Tier railroad/utility/water transfer corridor
will require considerable new infrastructure. The expected construction
of 2,700 miles of new rail corridor from Fairbanks to Bismarck may just
be the start of an effort to build or rebuild as much as 70,000 miles
of railroad corridors in the United States and Canada. There will need
to be a very large amount of steel in order to perform this
reconstruction as well as for other numerous infrastructure projects.
In addition, large amounts of aluminum, copper, nickel, and other
metals, plus larger amounts of cement and minerals, will be required.
There will then be a great need to expand American manufacturing within
the United States to serve these needs."
A Non-Development Corridor One straightforward example of how not to
plan a rail corridor, is the "coal train" proposal actively before the
Federal Surface Transportation Board. This proposes a 900-mile
unit-train (cars go point-to-point, with no stops and no de-coupling),
to run from Wyoming, through South Dakota and Minnesota, to the
Mississippi River. Figure 3 shows the route, owned by the Dakota,
Minnesota & Eastern Railroad Corp. (DM&E), which is awaiting
the board's opinion on an environmental impact study on the project.
DM&E, formed in 1986, has been operating remnants of other rail
lines, running agricultural, clay, and other commodities on its old
track. In its "coal train" proposal, it would extend an additional 250
miles on its western end, to connect into the Wyoming Powder Basin coal
deposits; then update the rest of its 600-plus miles of track, to be
able to run unit trains of some 120 cars, at up to 45 miles per hour,
going eastward without a stop to its eastern terminus at Winona, on the
Mississippi River, sending coal to midwest and eastern energy users.
Thus, it would be a point-to-point line, not a development corridor.
Opposition comes from the existing monopoly coal hauling rail lines,
from so-called environmentalists opposed to any rail or coal projects,
and from the towns the coal trains would bisect as they thunder
through. The Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, for example, has
worked hard to hold up the project for that reason. The coal trains
would go within yards of its hospital wards.
What is the alternative? Serve the national interest by mandating more
on-site, regional power generation—high-tech coal and nuclear, and
water development systems. Foster new, modern industrial, agricultural,
and food-processing centers, which would revive whole towns, and lay
the basis for new modern cities and rural county growth. Start to phase
out the long-haul unit trains, and build modern freight and high-speed
and magnetically-levitated passenger lines. In other words, take a
development corridor approach.
As of the end of October, both the okay by the Surface Transportation
Board, and the funding for the DM&E coal train project were up in
the air. Cooper commented on Nov. 13, "I think it is important to point
out, that that proposal is lacking on-site industrial and power
generation—which has made the project hard to finance. They would have
made it far easier if they had followed the LaRouche develoment
proposals, than what they have tried to do. They need to have a power
plant in Pierre, South Dakota, and they need to have one over near
Mitchell, South Dakota. Those are the two places I would think where
they need to have them, and then—if Minnesota lets you build one—in the
southern part of [that]
state."
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