Erosion buyout fails Assembly

PALMER — The Mat-Su Borough Assembly voted not to resolve an erosion dispute near Sutton, failing Ordinance 21-062 on July 20 by a 5-2 vote. The ordinance used remaining funds from five completed projects to appropriate $68,752.51 for a property owner along the Matanuska River who had not previously accepted a FEMA buyout through a Hazard Mitigation Grant Program.

“We went through a fairly intense process, it’s a FEMA process to offer this up to properties and we did that on the lower end on the upper Matanuska. There was 21 homes total that were initially thought to be eligible, it came down to we really only ended up buying out eight of those,” said Deputy Borough Manager George Hays. “That 68,000 would be used to buy that out and like the other ones it would then be turned over to DOT for the right of way on the Glenn Highway.”

The funds that the Borough had previously received, along with an additional $2.5 million for river management has all been spent or obligated to be spent. When the Van Wyhe family at the parcel near mile 64 of the Glenn Highway was initially offered an appraisal by FEMA at $35,000, it was lower than the $51,800 appraisal from an assessor they had previously received. Assemblywoman Stephanie Nowers asked Hays if the cost included demolition of the four remaining structures. Hays responded that it did not and the cost would likely fall to the borough. Nowers then questioned if other property owners facing erosion along the river would also ask for a borough buyout.

“Is this going to be reimbursed by some future FEMA grant or is this just our taxpayer dollars,” said Assemblyman Jesse Sumner. “

“This is just our taxpayer dollars,” said Hays.

Ordinance 21-062 called for the remaining funds from the five completed projects to be reallocated into a new “Matanuska River erosion dispute resolution” project. Assemblyman Tim Hale asked Borough Attorney Nick Spiropolous if the buyout would prevent a potential lawsuit.

“There are a lot of people who live up the river who think that the borough is somehow responsible for dikes that are up there. We are not, the borough doesn’t have the power to provide for erosion control. The borough never agreed to provide for erosion control. So when this gentleman approached us about potentially saying we caused something wrong, the answer was no we didn’t but we did have the buyout program,” said Spiropolous.

Assemblyman George McKee voted in opposition, citing the initial offer to buyout the property from FEMA. Hale noted that the HMGP along the lower Matanuska allowed DOT to put a rock barrier to protect the road.

“I think there is kind of a public good to having that land for the state for the right of way,” said Hale.

Ordinance 21-062 failed with only Hale and Deputy Mayor Tam Boeve voting in support.

“If you get into the business of buying peoples houses when they’re falling into rivers then people are going to continue building on rivers where their house is in danger of falling in,” said Sumner. “It’s one thing to do it with Federal money where nobody seems to really care how we spend it but to spend our taxpayer dollars on this I think is very objectionable and I just don’t think that we can get into this kind of business.”