“But come time for crab rationalization, it slowed down tremendously,” said King Cove Mayor Ernie Weiss. “The fleet’s about a third, if that. We don’t have the boats we thought we would have. There’s a few tied up, but nothing like we were expecting when we built the harbor.”

The harbor carried a $10 million price tag, paid for by the Aleutians East Borough, according to Robert Juettner, borough administrator.

“We went out and developed a harbor plan based upon a vessel survey we did way back when, 1993 or 1994, and we showed all this demand for the borough,” Juettner said. “Then we went out and started developing projects based upon that demand. But lo and behold, along comes crab rationalization and the fleet buy-back and that’s been having a disastrous impact on harbors.”

Among the impacting ripples, Juettner and Weiss listed a sharp drop in the number of tenders coming into port, a decrease of moorage, the decline of jobs for King Cove residents and the influence on storage space for crab pots.

Not too far away, however, a different scenario has Aleutians East Borough back in the harbor-constructing business: a $20 million harbor for False Pass.

“It’s just a unique place between the Bering and the Pacific, so they pick up the business. They have geographics going for them,” Juettner said.

The many factors that make Alaska’s harbors valuable is a familiar subject for Alan Sorum, who served as harbormaster for the city of Valdez for seven years and president of the Alaska Association of Harbormasters and Port Administrators for two years. Sorum also served as the Whittier harbormaster and Wrangell’s deputy harbormaster. He recently began work as the city manager for Skagway.

“I’ve been making the argument for a really long time that small ports and harbors are really important to Alaska communities,” Sorum said. “When you look at how many communities are coastal communities, it’s pretty phenomenal. It’s your connection to the world, really. … It’s an economic driver of the community.”

During his term as AAHPA president, Sorum was involved in a project conducted by the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities, which created, with the help of Northern Economics Inc., the Harbor Economic Impact Model. It provides a standardized measure of economic impacts so decision-makers can evaluate projects, and use that information to support funding decisions and requests for matching funds from federal and state sources. It also is intended as a tool for residents wanting to place a value on their local harbors.

Sorum used the model when developing a harbor deferred maintenance matching grant program with the state, which included data on economic impact of harbors to communities.

“I don’t know if it’s a magic bullet, but it’s a tool,” he said. “If you’re writing a grant, it’s handy to demonstrate the (harbor’s) value.”

While studying rural development at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks, Sorum did his master’s project on the importance of ports and harbors. In January, he took the subject another step and wrote “Northern Harbors and Small Ports — Operation and Maintenance,” published by Alaska Sea Grant.

Changing fisheries is one factor that has impacted the harbor in Homer.

“The herring fishery has really changed things for us. That’s no longer a viable fishery. And fish, particularly shellfish, have moved further west,” said harbormaster Steve Dean. “Things have changed in the last 20 years.”

What Homer has and King Cove lacks is a diverse customer base.

“We’re one-third commercial, one-third recreational and one-third other, which might be charter, ecotourism or freight haulers,” Dean said. “We’re also diversified within those sectors. We’re lucky our commercial fisherman are fishing for halibut, salmon, crab. We have herring permit holders and even a couple of draggers. … An area that was totally dependent on salmon fishery is much more vulnerable to pendulum swings within the fishery.”

In addition, Homer is on a road system, which adds accessibility.

With a harbor expansion on the city’s horizon, Dean is preparing to tie dollar amounts to the harbor’s importance.

“We’re just starting an economic feasibility study for harbor expansion and that’ll be part of the study, using the state’s economic impact model or another model to try to assign some dollar value,” he said.

Dean also is aware of the importance customer service plays when it comes to attracting boats to the harbor and making sure boat captains are offered the facilities they need. Among Homer’s offerings are a public fish dock, hydraulic cranes open 24 hours a day, and an ice plant open to the public.

In her 40 years of commercial fishing, Jessie Nelson of Homer has been in numerous Alaska harbors.

“We’ve fished up and down the coast, so our family has been into Sitka, Valdez, Whittier, Seward, Sand Point, King Cove and, of course, Homer,” Nelson said. To the fishing regulations, geography and other factors impacting the value of a harbor, Nelson had another list based on years of involvement in the commercial fishing industry.

“What people are looking for is helpful personnel, services and reasonable rates ...,” Nelson said. “One other thing people look for is security in the harbor. That probably raises fees for more harbor officers, but for us, it’s pretty important that the boat is secure. You can pay less for harbor fees, but if you lose a $1,000 piece of equipment, what good does that do you?”

Of King Cove, Nelson said, “Rationali-zation hurt them, but when we pull in, there’s someone down there asking how they can help.”

It will take more than customer service, however, to add value to the King Cove harbor.

“We’re trying to make it pay for itself, but we’re in the red,” Weiss said. “If we had the boats we’d expected, we’d probably be in the black. It’s more damage control, right now.”

Juettner said, “Harbors have a lot of different revenue streams, moorage, rents that come off harbor lands, storage fees, crab pots, a lot of different ways to pull money together. But it works out better if you have large resident fleet.”

Unfortunately, a resident fleet is something King Cove doesn’t have. In fact, another factor is threatening to reduce the harbor’s usage even more: the merger of two Japanese companies, Maruha, which owns Peter Pan, King Cove’s only processor, and Nichiro.

“They own some processing plants farther west and we’re afraid we could lose our tax base as a municipality if the processing goes elsewhere,” Weiss said.

Still, Weiss is hopeful for the future, for King Cove and False Pass.