Waste treatment plant locations narrowed to 2

PALMER — Mat-Su Borough officials have narrowed a list of potential sites for a $22-million wastewater treatment plant down to two, officials said this week.

The borough began the process of looking for a site to treat leachates and septage earlier this year, according to borough officials. Leachates are the fluid materials that leak from the bottom of dumps. Septage is essentially human waste pumped from septic tanks.

In the recent past, the borough has essentially shipped the materials south to Anchorage for disposal, according to public works director Terry Dolan. A facility there maintained a special environmental license allowing the material to be treated much less than the standard waste site, and then released into the Cook Inlet. However, Municipality of Anchorage officials have warned they plan to stop accepting Mat-Su waste at the facility, because they their license is already tenuous, and the Valley population is creating excessive demand on the site, Dolan said.

“The Anchorage water utility is afraid they’re going to lose their license,” he said. “Because of the growth in the Valley, they’ve told us we should anticipate being unable to take our waste there. That’s what’s really forced the borough’s hand for finding a new plan.”

Over the last year, a commission of borough officials and local waste industry experts has reviewed parcels of borough property looking for the ideal location for a new final destination for Mat-Su’s unmentionables, said borough engineer Mike Campfield.

“We wanted to look at those, so in order to minimize costs so we don’t need to buy a new piece of property,” he said. “We looked at a lot of different sites, and then we scored them, we ranked them.”

Two potential locations were selected: near the intersection of Church and Seldon roads, or the existing site of near the borough landfill, Campfield said.

Both Campfield and Dolan said they favored the present site of the borough landfill, because leachates from that dump could be piped to a potential treatment facility, rather than trucked, saving the borough money.

Cost is an important factor, since whatever facility the borough constructs will likely affect the bottom line for septage hauling contractors throughout the borough, as well as the property owners who depend on their service. Haulers will no longer face a 25-mile drive to Anchorage to empty their loads. However, they may face increased septage rates (presently 8 cents per gallon) because the facility will likely not receive a permit similar to the Anchorage landfill, Dolan said.

“Whatever plant we make is going to be significantly higher,” he said. “We’re going to have to discharge nearly drinking-quality water. That means our systems are going to have to be much more complex than theirs are. But whatever the cost is, we’ve got to do this.”

Campfield said he felt any increase in the rates would likely be off-set by the decrease in fuel costs.

At least one such hauling firm, Alpine Septic Inc. sees the potential new site as a positive. Co-owner Tom Stoelting was part of the commission evaluating properties, and said he also favors the present landfill site.

“Were looking on the positive side as far as the effects on the business in terms of not having to spend hours and hours each day hauling into Anchorage,” he said. “In those terms alone, I can’t see where it would be devastating to our business.”

The plant construction as well as the potential loss of the Anchorage permit, could end up in a situation where waste from Anchorage flows north to the Mat-Su for treatment, which could in turn boost borough revenues.

The plant is another sign of Valley population growth, Stoelting said.

As you’d expect for a man who moves human waste for a living, he has something of a toilet sense of humor.

“We’ve seen the new fire stations, which means more people, which means more people are going to be eating, and then they do something else after they eat,” he joked.