Kenai Crews: Prepare for Crane Exams Between Tides

Stopping a bluff from falling into the river

City leaders called the bluff stabilization their top priority for 30 years. The plan builds a berm along about 5,000 feet of the river's north shore, from the river mouth upstream to Pacific Star Seafoods. Total project cost was estimated near $41.6 million, assembled from federal infrastructure funds, a state appropriation and grants. The Corps awarded the construction contract to Western Marine Construction of Seattle in February 2024 for $19.3 million, covering about 42,400 cubic yards of armor rock, 33,200 cubic yards of crushed rock and 13,100 cubic yards of gravel. The schedule targeted completion by February 2026.

Placing armor stone is crane work of a specific kind: repetitive heavy picks with grapples or slings, from shore or barge, timed against the tide. It rewards an operator who reads the chart for every radius and a crew that keeps ground conditions under watch as the water rises and falls.

Tides change the lift

Cook Inlet carries some of the largest tides in North America. Near the river mouth, a barge-mounted crane may go from floating high to sitting on the mud within a few hours, and the radius to a fixed landing point shifts with it. Marine contractors plan picks around tide tables and adjust rigging as the deck rises and falls.

Barge-mounted cranes also bring list and trim into play, which the manufacturer's chart may restrict. The written exams test the principles behind those limits, even though the test is not about marine cranes specifically.

Fish plants and oilfield yards

Seafood processors along the river use cranes and boom trucks to move totes, equipment and containers during the summer runs. Fabrication and service yards supporting Cook Inlet oil and gas, from Kenai to Nikiski, keep service truck cranes and mobile cranes working year-round.

Not every lift in a processing plant falls under the construction crane standard, and floating processors on navigable water are generally under federal OSHA rather than AKOSH. Construction and maintenance contractors who come into those facilities, though, usually need certified operators.

Courses that fit Kenai work

Most local candidates start with one operator course and one rigging course, then add more as their work changes.

• Mobile crane operator for crawler and hydraulic cranes on marine and civil jobs
• Rigger Level II for armor stone, heavy equipment and multi-crane picks
• Service truck crane operator for oilfield and plant mechanics
• Rigger Level I for deckhands and laborers who hook and unhook loads