Harbors owned and operated by Alaska’s cities and boroughs will be required to install safety ladders usable by someone who falls into the water.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, the Alaska Senate approved House Bill 345<\/a>, which requires the ladders in all harbor projects that receive money from the state’s harbor facility grant fund.<\/p>\n Before the Senate voted 19-1 to pass the bill, it amended it to include part of a disaster-recovery measure from Sen. Jesse Kiehl, D-Juneau.<\/p>\n Rep. Andi Story, D-Juneau, sponsored the original bill. Speaking May 8, when the House voted 38-1 to approve the bill, she said she introduced it at the request of a constituent whose employee died in 2021 after being unable to climb back on a dock after going in the water.<\/p>\n “This bill is about saving lives,” she said.<\/p>\n Last year, the Alaska Section of Epidemiology released a study<\/a> concluding that 20% of the state’s 342 drowning deaths from 2016 through 2021 were due to falls from a dock or boat.<\/p>\n One of those deaths was Anna Foltz of Juneau, who died in October 2021. In testimony<\/a> submitted to the Legislature, one of Foltz’s friends said the person who investigated Foltz’s death concluded that had a ladder been present, she would not have died.<\/p>\n “My constituent felt that if there had been safety ladders on the dock, Anna would have been able to save themselves,” Story said.<\/p>\n She said the requirement will come at no cost to the state because municipalities will pay for the cost of the safety ladders out of the grants they’re already receiving.<\/p>\n If bought in bulk, Story said, the ladders cost about $210 apiece, and she believes the cost is not prohibitive.<\/p>\n The section of the bill added by the Senate allows condo owners who receive state disaster aid to use that money for collectively owned property, such as the foundation of a shared condo building.<\/p>\n Kiehl included that section in a larger disaster-aid bill<\/a> that the Senate passed but the House failed to pass before the end of the legislative session.<\/p>\n Kiehl’s bill included the condo-related language after a glacier-caused flood<\/a> heavily damaged several Juneau homes, including a set of condos, in 2023.<\/p>\n Kiehl’s bill also would have increased the state cap on disaster aid, but that provision was dropped because of cost concerns, he said.<\/p>\n That left the condo-related language, which guarantees equal treatment in state law between condo-owners and the owners of single-family homes, Kiehl said.<\/p>\n That was “the most essential part,” he said.<\/p>\n • James Brooks is a longtime Alaska reporter, having previously worked at the Anchorage Daily News, Juneau Empire, Kodiak Mirror and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. This article<\/a> originally appeared online at alaskabeacon.com. Alaska Beacon, an affiliate of States Newsroom, is an independent, nonpartisan news organization focused on connecting Alaskans to their state government.<\/em><\/p>\n