$10 million grant awarded to Wales-Tin City road

A Kawerak project to improve the road between Wales and Tin City has been awarded a $10 million federal grant. The project is intended ease transportation of goods between the village and the nearby barge landing at Tin City.

Under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which was signed in 2021, the U.S. Department of Transportation will fund $2 billion worth of rural infrastructure projects through 2026 as part of a new Rural Surface Transportation Grant Program.

The program’s first 12 grant recipients—sharing a total of $273.9 million—were announced last month.

Sean McKnight, Kawerak’s transportation program director, explained that Wales does not have an accessible landing site for the barges that typically lighter goods and supplies from Nome out to the villages.

“The depth of water off Wales makes it really difficult to approach close to shore,” McKnight said. “The water is relatively shallow out a ways so you really can’t get a barge into Wales without difficulty.”

Meanwhile, the current road connecting Wales to the better landing site at Tin City is incompatible with moving large loads.

“The hills and grades are too steep, the curves are too sharp, there’s two open water crossings, we have to ford through creeks, so it’s not compatible with trying to move conex containers from the barge landing in Tin City to Wales,” McKnight said. “You can do it but it’s difficult. We’re trying to bring that road up to federal standards for its intended purpose.”

The $10 million grant will allow for work on a 3.6-mile section of the road that connects Wales to an existing Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) road segment.

McKnight said the project is expected to cost $15 to $20 million. He said that Kawerak is also applying to the BIA’s Bridge Program for construction on the two creek crossings and the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities’ Community Transportation Program for the balance of the funds. The U.S. Air Force operates a long-range radar site at Tin City, but McKnight said the military is not involved in the road project. He said the military personnel at the site have used their own equipment to maintain their section of the road and would occasionally conduct maintenance operations on the road all the way to Wales.

The grant mentions that the improved road will be the only emergency evacuation route available to Wales, which is vulnerable to flooding and erosion.