Spring brings foul runoff

PALMER -- For the past few years, each spring, runoff the color of cola from an adjacent horse pasture has pooled in a vacant lot in the Valley Trails subdivision, then flowed into above-ground storm gutters that carry it down North Anna Street toward West Auklet Avenue. In a bad year, if the runoff is moving fast and the storm drain at the end of the Auklet cul-de-sac is clogged, a large foul-smelling puddle will form.

Some residents uphill from the offensive runoff will drive around the block to avoid Anna and Auklet altogether. Residents describe the runoff with various adjectives -- "gross" and "smelly" are among the more polite terms.

"The city is usually pretty good at coming out to get the drains unclogged and getting it moving," said Kristy Saunders, who lives on Auklet Street but not on the cul-de-sac. "Some years it will be really bad; there's been times when it's been a regular lake out there."

That's when the city of Palmer's public works department is called. Palmer public works director Rick Koch has contacted Tom Sojka, the man who tends the horses next door to Valley Trails. Koch said Sojka had promised to make changes to the pasture runoff last year and has made significant improvements in the last two weeks.

"He's put in dams and stuff up there. He's doing a hell of a job," Koch said.

Sojka wouldn't comment for this article except to say that the problem is being solved by slowing down the runoff -- apparently, he plans to keep the runoff on the pasture property until it evaporates and sinks into the ground so his neighbors won't have to step in or drive through it.

"We're going to try and see how we can help with that runoff," Sojka said. "We're hoping to do even better by not having any impact next year."

The problem of springtime runoff isn't new to the Valley and is likely to become more complicated as the landscape is developed. Every new foot of storm gutter moves runoff a little further and every filled-in hole takes away a place where water seeps into the ground.

There are laws that recognize this, including a state regulation that requires a storm water pollution prevention plan be filed with the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) for every development of more than five acres. The department has only been enforcing those regulations since 1995, according to a DEC spokesman.

Valley Trails and its storm gutters have been in place since 1981 or 1982, according to developer Rex Turner. Sojka said he's been tending horses at the adjacent property for 21 years -- about the same length of time. Koch figures as a downhill land owner the city is bound to collect whatever storm water runs its way.

But the solution to the problem isn't about figuring out who got there first, said Jean Kornmuller, the district manager for the Palmer Soil and Water Conservation District (PSWCD). In the worst cases, property owners in the lowlands can always pursue the matter in court regardless of how long the pollution source has been there, according to Kornmuller.

Kornmuller prefers cooperation to litigation, though. Conservation districts are "quasi-government" agencies that promote conservation with education, directing land owners to funding sources and grass-roots organizing Kornmuller said. The Palmer district office has been operating since 1947 and there are two other Mat-Su area districts, called the Wasilla and Upper Susitna soil and water conservation districts. Kornmuller said organizing at the grass roots level can prompt state and federal agencies to move in a coordinated effort on a problem.

"We're actually working on a similar problem in Bodenburg [Butte] -- it's not necessarily an agricultural problem but it is a runoff problem," she said. "Because we are a grassroots organization we can move faster [than regulatory agencies or the courts]"

Kornmuller said the neighbors in the Butte area are pulling together and that the solution there involves residents, the state transportation department and the Mat-Su Borough. She said in some places the group is hoping to get approval to install culverts on private property.

The effort has started to pay off in a matter of months, according to Kornmuller, who hadn't heard of the Valley Trails problem yet, but said she hopes she gets a call about it.

Besides trying to keep the West Auklet Avenue storm drain unclogged, Koch has taken water samples, met with Sojka, and talked to state officials at DEC.

The water tests showed 131 fecal coliform colonies per 100 milliliters in Koch's samples -- a level Koch said is higher than what exits in the city's sewage treatment plant. Fecal coliform counts are used in water tests as an indicator that disease-carrying pathogens might be present. Raw sewage can typically run 40,000 to 50,000 colonies per 100 milliliters.

Environmental engineer Mike Skibo of the DEC said the results returned to Koch from Valley Trails are not extremely high for springtime runoff.

"It's about the same thing you'd get off of one dog in a yard," Skibo said.

The fact that other places have nasty runoff too doesn't make the problem any less acute in the eyes of Gladys Davis, who lives on North Anna Street. Davis said the runoff can be a problem for a month or just a week, depending on the winter and break up. Summer storms aren't a problem, Davis said.

"It's gotten increasingly bad, I would say in the last four years," Davis said. Davis moved into her mother's house in Valley Trails eight years ago; her parents have lived there 15 years, she said. Her mother, Evelyn Davis, who is 88 years old, doesn't go for walks outdoors during break up. Gladys is not sure if anyone should.

"If I had little ones I surely wouldn't let them play outside in that stuff," she said.

The DEC is required to take action in the event runoff threatens a water body or causes a health threat. The pasture runoff that cuts through Valley Trails doesn't enter a water body, but eventually evaporates or settles in vacant land further south. So far, no one has declared the runoff a public health threat and no one has threatened litigation. DEC officials said they prefer to intervene with education rather than enforcement.

Once the runoff leaves Valley Trails it travels through an underground storm drain that surfaces on the south side of Arctic Avenue and from there it enters an undeveloped parcel of land east of Palmer High School and settles into the ground.

Kornmuller -- who calls land owners "land users" -- said that a soil and water conservation plan could help protect Sojka from future liability.

"[A conservation plan] is not a mandatory thing, It's a good thing," Kornmuller said. "You can sleep better at night and it can also help you legally."

Sojka seemed confident that his actions this spring can do that.

"I have taken care of the problem," he said.