Unfair burden for Talkeetna area

To the editor:

Ostensibly, the Talkeetna Water and Sewer system was implemented to provide a safe water and sewer system to the residents of the village of Talkeetna at affordable costs. I am commenting as a resident of the Mat-Su Borough, property taxpayer and as a user of the borough-owned Talkeetna Water and Sewer system.

Unless the system was built and operated for the benefit of the entire Mat-Su Borough, then it should be explained to all the residents of the borough why a select number of individuals who live in an arbitrary geographic area receive a benefit other residents are not entitled to. The reason that this issue is being raised is due to proposed rate increases to users of the system.

At a recent water and sewer advisory meeting, it was apparent that those board members are intelligent and mean well, but are without any real power. It is also evident that Mat-Su Public Utilities is staffed by forthright individuals; however, the latter do not answer to any voters or to the collective membership of water and sewer. It also seemed apparent that there is a lack of communication between borough representatives and the advisory board regarding loans, operating costs and methods available for rate relief.

The state of Alaska does not provide any oversight over the operation of this type of public utility. As such, users/members are subject to rate increases to cover a system that is apparently not economically viable. It must be operated at a loss relative to the number of users unless user membership is increased (a number that has not increased since the inception of the system in 1990). In addition, because of a lack of oversight, the borough can force 180 users of the system to bear future costs that might be a result of borough mismanagement. Consider the situation that happened in Unalaska.

The users of the water and sewer system should not have to pay more than market value for using the system and should not have to subsidize a system that is proving to have unsolvable defects. The issue then becomes who pays? If the system benefits the residents of the borough — as it seems to do — because Talkeetna, a key hub for tourism in the north central part of the borough, provides revenue via a bed tax, then all residents can bear the difference in operating costs. The only other method of raising revenues would be through a “crapper tax.”

Given that there are up to 2,000 visitors a day to the Talkeetna area (10 times more than the 200 or so inhabitants who pay for the system), those visitors would be subject to a user fee akin to the existing bed tax. This would make sure those visitors have a place to use a commode and to be assured their water isn’t laced with arsenic and contains a proper amount of chlorine.

In summary, if one of the policies of the Mat-Su Borough is to promote tourism, it is unfair that fewer than 180 users — of whom less than 50 percent are commercial — should subsidize 2,000 visitors per day to the community by paying for a system where operating costs outstrip the service demands for which the system was built. It is also unfair for the residents of Talkeetna to be treated as special by the Mat-Su Borough (i.e. the borough should provide safe water to all residents of the borough and share the costs among all borough inhabitants instead of singling any one group simply based on territorial happenstance).

The lack of state oversight of publically owned and operated utilities is an issue that affects all rural Alaskans. Mat-Su Borough policies and EPA code compliance is an issue that extends beyond Talkeetna and should be discussed out in the open.

Anthony Martin

Talkeetna