Borough prioritizes septage

PALMER — The Mat-Su Borough Assembly is getting serious about poop.

To put it less colloquially: the borough has decided to set as its top priority in seeking state funding in Juneau next year the construction of a regional facility to handle the area’s septage.

“I nearly went through the cotton-picking floor,” said Helen Munoz of her reaction to the borough’s decision to prioritize waste treatment. Munoz has testified at dozens of assembly meetings about the need for a facility.

Currently, the Mat-Su Borough hauls all of its septage to Anchorage and most borough homes are on private septic tanks rather than city systems. The system necessitates a fleet of private septic pumping trucks. That’s why, on any given day, drivers on the Glenn Highway can see trucks with colorful names like Royal Flush and El Chupa-Caca making trips between the two communities.

Anchorage dumps minimally treated effluent into Cook Inlet under a permit that the federal government has said might not continue in perpetuity. The municipality has warned the borough it might get cut off sooner rather than later.

Munoz, who spent her professional life as one of those sewage pumpers, told the assembly that she’d been working on the problem for three decades, long enough that the last time she met Gov. Sean Parnell he referred to her as “the Sewer Lady.”

“How would you like to be addressed at my age as the Sewer Lady? Isn’t that a great way to be remembered? But I don’t care,” Munoz said.

Steve Colligan, in moving to put the septic treatment plant at the top of the borough’s priority list, said he wanted to recognize, “the hard work of Miss Munoz who has been before us every meeting to remind us what our responsibilities are… It’s unfortunate that she may be recognized as the Sewer Lady but hopefully we can recognize her for getting stuff done.”

Assemblyman Jim Sykes was equally effusive.

“I commend Helen Munoz for her many years of work and we’ll see if we can get it moving,” Sykes said.

Assemblyman Matthew Beck chimed in to say he was in favor of pushing for the creation of a regional septic treatment plant.

“I do think it should be our highest priority above our other priorities because it affects people that are here right now,” he said.

Contact Andrew Wellner at 352-2270 or andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com.