More homes losing ground to Mat River

MAT-SU — Five homes along the Matanuska River — two in Butte and three in Sutton — are losing ground fast to the hungry river.

After Chris and Daina Mirsch-Wenner and their tenant Ben Ritch-Smith moved out of residences at 1050 N. Old Glenn Highway last week, more people along the river are moving out of their homes — and moving their houses.

Next door at 1000 N. Old Glenn Highway, Josh Shaver told the Mat-Su Borough he has lost two acres of his property to the river’s maw since last Tuesday.

He said he bought the house during the winter. And a survey he had done at that time determined the house was situated beyond the 100-year flood mark, Shaver said. But this summer the Mat River has gobbled up trees and soil and now is roaring hungrily at his front door.

Greenstreet Construction was at Shaver’s property Wednesday afternoon, jacking up the house and putting it on a trailer. They worked just a couple of feet from the fast-moving river water.

Shaver said they moved his house away from the Mat River to property he owns along the Little Susitna River. He said the house is out of the flood plain at its new location, too.

“It’s been a great effort. The borough staff has really taken it on as though it were their own home,” Shaver said in a Mat-Su Borough press release. “They’ve been really helpful.”

In Sutton, efforts are under way to pull George Blubaugh’s house away from the riverbank, where water is undercutting it, the press release says. Blubaugh’s house was evacuated in 2010 when parts of it started falling into the river.

George Rauscher, a Sutton resident helping coordinate efforts to help the threatened homes, said that since then it has lost 10 more feet of land and the house is hanging out over the river. Rauscher said the borough is trying to work with the state to move the home back, but it’s slow going.

“There’s stipulations that go with those and anytime you’re in the process of trying to do it yourself you may or may not interrupt the possibility that they will help you because you may have broken some of the stipulations,” Rauscher said.

At Mile 65, Glenn Highway, Ed and Val Musial are opting to remain in their home for now, the borough says.

Rauscher said they think the water has crested and won’t threaten their property much more. Still, the erosion has knocked their septic system out of commission and they’re keeping a wary eye on the river.

Next door, junkyard owner Sonny Johnston is getting help from friends, family and a local religious group to move his equipment and vehicles away from the river and to dismantle his home and cart it to another spot, Rauscher said.

“He’s actually lost a lot of land also and he’s lost a Quonset hut,” Rauscher said. “He’s pulled everything back that was left that had not fallen into the river, he’s pulling that back toward the highway.”

The area has been on the borough radar for years as being high risk for erosion. In 2007, the borough purchased three properties and demolished the homes situated there at Mile 64.8, Glenn Highway, according to Frontiersman reports at the time.

But on the heals of one of the snowiest winters on record, most seem to agree that this year has seen a massive spike in the erosion. Whereas in 2009 the Wenners lost 10 feet, they lost nothing in 2010 or 2011. This year, though, they lost 15 feet in a day.

On scene Wednesday, Ritch-Smith said he returns periodically to see if his former home remains. He described watching trees fall one by one with his former landlord prior to the evacuation.

As of 3 p.m., Aug. 1, river measurements were lower and slower than in much of July and June. The river level at the Old Glenn Highway is 7.68 feet. Flood stage would be 12 feet, according to the National Weather Service’s webpage. And the speed is about 12,000 cubic feet per second, slower than the 20,000 cubic feet per second recorded in June, the borough said.

Hydrologist Janet Curran with the USGS Alaska Science Center in Anchorage says the Matanuska River did have a higher snowmelt than average; however, right now where the river happens to come up against the bank has a lot to do with flooding and erosion.

“The specific configuration of the channel next to the bank has more to do with the erosion and flooding at a particular location than the overall flow of the river,” she says in a press release.

In Sutton, Curran said the river is extending the braid plain into the terrace or riverbank where the homes are. In Butte, the river is returning to historically flooded areas, she said.

Contact managing editor Heather A. Resz at 352-2268 or heather.resz@frontiersman.com or reporter Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.