Industrial water & wastewater: North Slope Borough's Service Area 10: new treatment facility improves current operations and looks to the future: part four in a series.

• Author: White, Rindi
• Position: SPECIAL SECTION: Building Alaska - Company overview

Water and wastewater are some of the most expensive utilities to provide and the most vital to keeping a community healthy.

The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy says municipal water and wastewater treatment systems "are among the most energy-intensive facilities owned and operated by local governments, accounting for about 35 percent of energy used by municipalities."

In Alaska, costs can be even higher than those national averages, especially in rural and remote communities where groundwater is brackish or soils unsuitable for building wastewater treatment facilities.

But what's happening with water and wastewater in Alaska's urban and industrial areas? What are the issues facing these utility providers and how is each preparing for the future? Over the course of the last few months, Alaska Business Monthly readers have learned about utilities in Alaska's major population centers--Anchorage, Fairbanks, and Mat-Su. This month it's about a utility provided Primarily for industrial users in the Arctic.

North Slope Borough is the largest municipality in the nation, if size is the determining factor-it covers nearly eighty-nine thousand square miles of land, 15 percent of Alaska. It's also one of the least populated county-level municipalities, with a population of fewer than ten thousand residents. It has many more temporary residents, however: oil field workers and service providers live there in shifts.

The borough is perhaps the only municipality in the state that has a separate water and wastewater treatment plant to accommodate the temporary residents and industrial users. The municipality is working on a significant upgrade to its treatment plant that will allow it to continue meeting the needs of its customers for the next several decades.

Dubbed the Service Area 10 water and wastewater treatment plant, North Slope officials say the original plant was built in the early 1980s, not long after the borough was formed in 1975. It's located in an industrial area, says Chris Smith, SA10 program manager for North Slope Borough.

"There really isn't a residential component. Our largest customers are the hotels that exist in Prudhoe Bay. The other portion of our customers is the oil companies that rely on our services, and their supporting service companies that use our raw water, potable water, and sewer treatment," he says.

"The North Slope Borough recognizes its responsibility as the only provider of water, sewer, and solid waste services in the greater Prudhoe Bay area. In order to join the Governor and Legislature in fostering an environment which encourages responsible development within our boundaries, the borough is investing over $90 million to increase and improve the services...