Sewage study ahead for Mat-Su

MAT-SU — A regional wastewater treatment plan for the core Mat-Su area is percolating.

A joint effort with the cities of Palmer and Wasilla and the Borough is beginning to take shape, Palmer City Manager Bill Allen said. The next step is for the entities to advertise for proposals to conduct a feasibility study of building a central treatment facility.

That could happen sooner rather than later, said Keith Rountree, public works director for the Borough. After awarding a bid for the study, he anticipates that study taking place by the third week of August.

“We’re kind of having a joint effort here,” Wasilla Public Works Director Archie Giddings added. “Everyone has done preliminary research.”

Combined funding from both cities and the state, the Borough will have about $700,000 to conduct the next round of research ahead of a likely May 2009 joint city-Borough meeting to discuss the project, Rountree said. Early estimates put the overall cost of such a facility at $100 million or more.

A regionalized facility would mean the Borough would no longer outsource its wastewater to the Municipality of Anchorage, he said. It also could alleviate permit issues Wasilla and Palmer face with the continuing growth of the Mat-Su Valley. Today, the Borough has no facility for wastewater treatment and disposal. Property owners not part of a municipal system use septic tanks. The septage from those tanks is trucked to Anchorage for treatment and dumping in the municipal outfalls in Cook Inlet.

A site for a potential joint outfall if a facility is built here would be near the interchange of the Glenn and Parks highways, Giddings said, adding he is optimistic the expense for property owners to construct and operate the roughly $100 million to $125 million plant in the Valley would be offset by state and federal monies.

Whichever governing body is eventually created to manage the facility would ultimately make any decisions about wastewater treatment rates or fees, Rountree said.

“The hope is that it would be financially sustainable,” Rountree said, adding the cost to discharge sewage in the Valley as opposed to Anchorage may cancel out in the long run once a regional facility is built.

Rountree said the wear and tear on vehicles from making the longer drive into Anchorage, the threat to Beluga whale populations in Cook Inlet from the sewage, and issues regarding where wastewater actually goes in the Inlet prompted the Borough’s interest in pursuing a local facility.

“The goal of the project is to see if there’s some benefit to joining forces,” Giddings said.

The deciding factor for Wasilla, Giddings said, may be the affordability of discharge outfalls to where processed waste would be pumped. Wasilla’s current treatment plant pipes wastewater into drain fields, while Palmer discharges into the Matanuska River where spawning salmon have been discovered. Palmer has until Dec. 31, 2011, to meet EPA standards for wastewater flows into the salmon habitat as outlined in the agency’s pollutant permit requirements.

Although a regional solution would be nice, Allen said Palmer needs to address its wastewater needs, and if something doesn’t happen regionally, Palmer “will go solo, assuming the cost is within reason.”