Boats are reflected on the water’s surface eat Whittier’s harbor on Aug. 5, 2024. A report card released by the American Society of Civil Engineers’ Alaska members evaluated conditions of marine, land and air transportation systems and other categories of infrastructure. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
The condition of Alaska’s public infrastructure has improved over the last four years, thanks in large part to the infusion of billions of federal dollars from investment, according to a new report issued by professional engineers.
The 2025 Alaska Infrastructure Report Card, released by the American Society of Civil Engineers Alaska Section, bestowed an overall grade of C for the state. That is an improvement from the C-minus grade of the last state report card, issued in 2021.
The report cards have been issued every four years since 2017, similar to the schedule of the American Society of Civil Engineers’ national report card. That document is scheduled to be released on March 25.
For Alaska, much of the improvement comes from the infusions of billions of federal dollars, Alaska officials with the American Society of Civil Engineers said in a presentation Wednesday to state legislators.
That money is from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021, the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 and other federal legislation. In all, $9.3 billion in funding from those laws has been granted or announced for Alaska, according to the report card.
“Lots of projects have come about from these funds,” David Gamez, an Anchorage-based civil engineer with Lounsbury & Associates, said in the presentation.
But there are headwinds that make it more difficult to keep infrastructure in proper shape, he and representatives of the organization said in their presentation.
“We still have persisting workforce shortages that are impacting our grades,” Gamez said. There have been impacts of inflation, which drove up the costs of materials, equipment and labor over the past four years, he said.
And the switch to the Trump administration brings new uncertainty. The new administration has frozen or canceled funding that was headed to Alaska, though the outcome of those actions remains uncertain.
Particularly affected may be renewable energy projects important to rural Alaska, said Greg Kinney, an Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. engineer and society member who was one of the presenters.
“There’s been a change in priority with the change in administration. It’s typically in the renewal energy space,” Kinney said. “We continue to advocate for funding for renewables. That’s an important part of it. It’s just to say that some of this may end up dropping off.”
While the overall state grade came out as a C, there are grades specific to the 13 distinct categories in the report.
One standout category is bridges, which got a grade of B-plus, which is up from the B-minus it got in the 2021 report.
Bridges represent a “shining example” of an asset management program that has used federal infrastructure funds effectively, Gamez said. Over the past four years, the percentage of bridges considered to be in poor shape dropped, he said.
The road category also got an improved grade, up to C in the new report card from the previous C-minus. As has been the case with bridges, road maintenance and construction have benefited from the infrastructure law and other legislation, Gamez said. Among Alaska roads considered part of the national highway system, 7.6% are considered to be in poor shape, down from 8.4% four years ago, he said.
Among the recommendations for improving road conditions is a focus on operations and maintenance. And a way to sharpen that focus is to increase Alaska’s gasoline tax, something that the Alaska section of the American Society of Civil Engineers has recommended since it issued its first report card in 2017.
“Many in here know that our gas tax is the lowest in the nation at 8 cents per gallon. And it hasn’t changed since 1970,” Gamez told lawmakers.
There is no bill pending to increase the motor fuel tax, though lawmakers considered one in 2021.
Daniel Nichols summarized the grades given to water and wastewater facilities, categories for which geographic disparities are wide.
The grade for drinking water infrastructure was low, at a D-plus. But that grade represents an improvement over the D grade of the last report card.
The challenge for drinking water in Alaska is not in the urban areas, which have some of the nation’s best systems, but in rural areas, which have the worst “by quite a bit,” said Nichols, who is with Kuna Engineering and works extensively in rural Alaska. In about 30 communities, there is no water system at all, leaving residents to get their water from rivers or other sources, he noted.
Challenges include remoteness, extreme environments and small populations that lack people to do operating and maintenance work. But the infrastructure law and other federal funding bills have helped address those problems, he said. “That’s why you’re seeing an uptick in our grade for water,” Nichols said.
The state’s wastewater infrastructure got a D grade, the same as it had in the 2021 report. Lack of adequate wastewater service has health consequences, and conditions in communities with little or no service can be dire, Nichols said.
“It’s a little shocking when you get out in these communities and you see things that you see in third world countries — open sewage, you know, kids with sores on their legs,” he said. “It’s shocking to see that in Alaska and in the United States.”
Among the categories in the report card included the marine highway system, public transit, energy and aviation. Those all received similar or lower grades than in 2021, ranging from C-minus to D, with varying problems cited.
For the marine highway system and for public transit, lack of workers has become a major impediment to service, the engineers said. The grade for the energy category reflected, among other challenges, the possible shortages of Southcentral natural gas supply and delivery interruptions.
For aviation, which like other categories of infrastructure bears challenges of remoteness and extreme conditions, a particular problem is lack of information services, Kinney said.
It is estimated that for Alaska to have the same density of weather information service as in the Lower 48, the state would need 300 more weather stations, he said.
“We don’t have them, and those that we do have can be out of service, as much as 30% out of service,” he said.
He noted that weather and the delivery of weather information are being investigated by the National Transportation Safety Board as possible contributors to the Feb. 6 Bering Air crash near Nome that killed 10 people.
It is too early to speculate on the causes of that crash, he said. “However, it does highlight the need for improvements and being able to upgrade and get more of these in service,” he said.
A new category in the report is public parks. The report card notes that national parks, refuges, forests, wild rivers and state parks hold a combined 322 million acres and that annual visitation tops 3 million. But some areas lack well-developed infrastructure. The category got a C-minus grade in the current report card.