As the Matanuska River continues to threaten their home, Sutton family refuses to leave

SUTTON — Ed and Val Musial are confident in what they’ve built.

The Musials live in Sutton in between the Glenn Highway and the Matanuska River. Lately, the river has gone from neighbor to near roommate. As the Matanuska River changes courses and moves closer and closer to the west bank, it has taken out numerous houses along the Glenn Highway. This is not the only area where high and changing rivers have threatened homes. Houses along the Old Glenn have gone into the river as well.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has offered funds to buy houses of those left in the danger zone. The Musials have refused. Ed and his family built this house after they got 6.56 acres in 1934. Ed, Val, and their daughter mixed concrete by hand. They supported the cinderblocks with inch-thick reinforcing steel and filled the rest of the space with concrete. Ed is confident that the river is not stronger than the house he has built.

“I’m not going anywhere,” said Musial.

Musial is incredibly aware of his circumstances on his property. The Musials used to have a back yard to enjoy off their back porch. Now, sections of the walkway that once went to the back porch have fallen into the river as it has eroded away at the west bank hard and fast. If you were to walk out the Musials kitchen door, you may fall about seven feet into a rushing river.

While Musial is happy to live in the home he has built with his family, he is unhappy with the Mat Su Borough. Musial claims that engineers changed the designs to finger dykes, similar to those that have recently been installed in the Butte, in the mid 1980’s. Musial believes that the faulty design originally intended to keep the river on the other side of the bank has since done the opposite.

Musial will turn 96 this year, but is still fiery as he was 30 years ago about the designs that threaten his house. He has made no plans to move in case the house were to go in. He has made no plans to sell. He has no plans to take money from FEMA. He used to walk out his back door and fish for plentiful salmon that liked to stop right in front of his property. The changing braids of the river and currents have brought glacial silt to his side of the river, and the salmon have chosen to spawn elsewhere.

** Editor’s note. This is part of continuing series on Valley families and erosion.