Municipalities, Borough mull regional solutions

PALMER — Mat-Su Valley governments are seeking regional solutions to problems ranging from wastewater treatment to transferring liquor licenses.

Palmer hosted a meeting of the minds last week among representatives of that city, Wasilla, Houston and the Mat-Su Borough where officials also discussed the Wasilla Multimodal Corridor Project. John McPherson, a planner with HDR Alaska Inc., led the discussion about the project, which could provide an alternative route for the Parks Highway and the railroad that runs around Wasilla instead of straight through the city. The proposal calls for a joint effort between the Alaska Railroad Corp. (ARRC), Wasilla, Alaska Department of Transportation and the Mat-Su Borough.

“I think what these agencies have realized is that it’s a difficult project and by working together they’re going to have a lot better opportunity to have success at the project,” McPherson said. “But it’s also a recognition that each of these entities have recognized that there are some pretty serious traffic problems that this project is intended to solve.”

McPherson said the problems with the Parks Highway center around high traffic levels. As the main line of transportation for both commuter and commercial traffic and with the area continuing to experience high growth, the arterial needs help to divert some traffic off the main north-south highway through Wasilla. Under the Multimodal Corridor Project, the plan would be to reroute the railroad tracks that run through the city along a safer route and to include the Parks Highway within that corridor.

“The Parks Highway through town … [and] is predicted to be in congestion if not already suffering from serious congestion,” McPherson said. “So as you go through Wasilla, as traffic grows and population grows, that situation is expected to get worse.”

For the railroad, there are a few areas of concern, including safety and future growth, he said.

McPherson said it’s not a secret that the intersection of Knik-Goose Bay Road and the Parks Highway is inadequate for the volume of traffic. The intersection becomes more problematic when a train chugs through town or stops at the downtown depot nearby. Then, vehicle traffic backs up on both sides of the tracks. With so many vehicles moving close to the tracks, safety is a serious issue, he said.

Not only does the track threaten the safety of the average driver, it also hinders emergency services operations, McPherson said. If emergency services are required in the Knik area, many responders have to rely on Knik-Goose Bay Road or the Palmer-Wasilla Highway Extension to access the area. As rail traffic also increases, there is limited space to handle the necessary improvements or expansions of the rail line.

Although a railroad realignment has been studied, McPherson said the highway portion of the project lacks essential information. A reconnaissance study is needed to determine where a new highway could be located.

“In some sense our challenge is to find out how and where it makes sense to put the two facilities and whether it makes sense for them to go forward with one corridor,” he said.

Wastewater

When comes to handling the Valley’s wastewater, local entities hope to focus their efforts on a regional facility.

While searching for its own solution to wastewater issues, Palmer has taken the lead on researching the possibility of building a regional wastewater treatment plant. After hiring Hattenburg Dilley and Linnell, a local engineering consulting firm, to produce an engineering report about a new facility for Palmer, the city asked the firm to look into regional options as well.

“At the end of that study it became pretty clear that it would be very difficult for 1,700 ratepayers in Palmer to pay for a $25 million to $50 million wastewater plant,” Scott Hattenburg said.

With the Mat-Su Borough and the Wasilla also interested in improving their own wastewater and septage services, Hattenburg said a regional facility would fit the needs of all three entities.

Hattenburg said the project could include a new treatment plant, outfall facility and a pipeline from Wasilla and other infrastructure. Overall, the project could cost $80 million to $100 million. It could cost more depending on the type of technology used for the treatment plant. As for a timeline, the whole process would take about five to six years.

Although the cost of the project may seem high, it’s relatively low considering the price tag for separate new or upgraded facilities in Wasilla and Palmer, Hattenburg said.

Archie Giddings, public works director for Wasilla, said growth and wastewater treatment has been on his radar for quite some time. As the population grows in Wasilla and new development surrounds the city’s facilities, new options are needed to handle that growth. Giddings said the city has considered improving its own infrastructure, but there are financial issues. For example, an outfall that runs to the Cook Inlet could cost about $50 million.

Liquor license transfers

Along with transportation and wastewater, municipal and Borough officials were also informed about transferring liquor licenses from the Borough to a city. Emerson Krueger, a Borough planner, and Casey Reynolds, economic development planner for Wasilla, gave an update about what has been a hotly debated issue among local business owners.

Krueger said the ability to transfer liquor licenses came about last June when the Legislature passed the measure. In a nutshell, the law allows full dispensary liquor licenses to be transferred from the Borough into Wasilla, Houston and Palmer. The law will allow three such transfers in a 10-year period and the businesses making the transfer must be restaurants.

“We began drafting the Borough process in September,” Krueger said. “One of the challenges that we’ve had is identifying objective criteria … for this type of relocation.”

The Borough planner said he has met with the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board to make sure the Borough’s draft process is in line with the board’s regulations. He also met with Reynolds to discuss the process. In Wasilla, Reynolds and Wasilla City Council have already been working on their own approval process for transferring liquor licenses.

“What we ultimately came up with was a process that we think can be a template for other cities or even what the Borough does,” Reynolds said.

Local governments already have a process for reviewing transfers of other liquor licenses, now it’s a matter of adding to and tweaking the original process, he said. The main addition is that a city council must review the transfer.

“What that does is create a very efficient and effective way for processing these,” he said. “From the city’s perspective, we look at the Borough’s draft and it’s very effective, but it’s almost the situation where you got too many smart people in one room and they engineer a camel instead of a horse.”

With business owners spending more than $200,000 on a liquor license, Reynolds said it’s important to streamline the approval process to ensure businesses can get to work.