Stretching ninety miles along Alaska’s Inside Passage, the Lynn Canal is North America’s deepest fjord. It’s waters were the lifeblood of the Klondike Gold Rush, and now offer a window into the wild that defines Alaska. The Lynn Canal also ties the people of Alaska’s “Southeast” together. It is their highway.

But for over three decades, the fight over a new highway, a land-based road running alongside the canal, has divided communities and left the future of the Lynn Canal in doubt.

Blue Highway begins as a film about a kayak trip tracing the historic Lynn Canal travels of John Muir, but becomes a study of both sides of the battle over the proposed Juneau Access Road. After more than 30 years of debate, is there anything left to say, and can two sides separated by environmental, economic and cultural concerns ever come together?

New cost estimates boosting the Juneau Access Project to half a billion dollars has moved the road into the realm of “mega-projects,” a designation bringing with it new federal regulations.

A Federal Highway analysis of the 50.8 mile road up the east side of Lynn Canal is estimated to cost $491 million to complete, according to a Federal Highway Administration agency. So far $25 million has been spent.

The state’s estimate was somewhat lower at a total cost of $474 million.

The mega-project designation is designed to protect the federal government, which funds most projects of such scope, from bad or mismanaged projects that could spiral out of control.

The Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities is proposing a Juneau access road, but it is currently held up in court after a federal judge ruled the Environmental Impact Statement failed to adequately look at ferry options.

DOT project manager Reuben Yost said the designation is not a surprise.

“We knew that sooner or later we were going to get close to or trip that mark,” he said.

Among the new regulations are development of a project management plan and more federal involvement in the project, said Lois Epstein of the Alaska Transportation Priorities Project.

“They’re going to be scrutinizing the management, and scrutinizing the cost numbers more closely as well,” she said.

It is not something that Alaska projects usually face, Yost and Epstein said.

“I haven’t dealt with many projects that are this costly,” Epstein said.

The Juneau Access Project now exceeds Ketchikan’s Gravina Island “Bridge to Nowhere” in cost. Other likely mega-projects in Alaska include the Knik Arm Bridge and the proposed freeway connecting the Seward and Glenn Highways, both in the Anchorage area.

Yost said that because state officials knew they were getting close to the half billion dollar level, they knew they would need a cost estimate that would win approval from top federal highway officials. Yost said that was one of the reasons they chose the federal Highway Administration’s Western Federal Lands Center to conduct an outside cost estimate.

It is likely the federal agency would have confidence in its own subsidiary agency’s cost estimates,” he said.

In Alaska, project management plans are used for even much smaller projects, Yost said.

It is also not clear whether Juneau Access will remain a mega-project. A federal court ruling that eliminated the current preferred alternative – the road up Lynn Canal to the ferry terminal at the Katzehin River – could result in a much smaller project.

• Contact reporter Pat Forgey at 523-2250 or patrick.forgey@juneauempire.com.

Despite Alaska’s size, politics in the state almost always feels like small-town politics. When it comes to the debate over the proposed Lynn Canal road, some politicians always seem to be at the center of the argument.

In an exclusive interview from the upcoming film “Blue Highway,” State Senator Kim Elton discusses life in Alaska’s “southeast,” the fight over the proposed “Juneau Road,” and the changes it could bring to the region.

The battle over the Lynn Canal and the proposed “Juneau Road” has galvanized communities throughout Alaska’s “southeast.” Leading the charge in support of the road has been Citizens Pro-Road, a grass-roots group fighting to see the road become reality.

In this exclusive interview from the upcoming documentary “Blue Highway”, Dick Knapp, head of Citizens Pro-Road, discusses the arguments for and against the “Juneau Access Road.”