PALMER, Alaska (AP) — An unwanted, $80 million ice-breaking ferry owned by an Alaska borough has only one bid to buy it, and it's for $751,000.
The bid was the only entered by Friday's deadline set up by the Matanuska-Susitna Borough, which has been trying to get rid of the 200-foot ferry. The borough doesn't have to accept the offer, The Anchorage Daily News reported (http://bit.ly/Zuh2SN).
The vessel was completed in 2011 and born out of a partnership between the borough, which wanted a ferry, and the Navy, which wanted a fast military landing craft.
Named the Susitna, the ferry was built as a Navy prototype that would be owned and operated by the borough. The project was funded mainly with Department of Defense earmarks wedged into the federal budget by then-U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens.
The borough has no suitable docks or a workable business plan to operate the vessel as a ferry between Anchorage and Port MacKenzie in the Mat-Su.