Urban water & wastewater: Juneau.

• Author: White, Rindi
• Position: ENVIRONMENTAL SERVICES

Aging water wells, a system that shuts one-third of the municipality's water source off when work is done at the local electrical utility, and, on top of it, rates that have seen little increase over the past decade have left the City and Borough of Juneau in a tough spot when it comes to water utilities.

The wastewater utility is in a similar state--treatment plants that are aging with forty-year-old roofs in disrepair and a waste product--the cakes of bio-solids, or the thickened version of the sludge left after wastewater has been treated--that no one has known quite what to do with. Right now, shipments of bio-solids are barged south and then trucked to a landfill in Arlington, Oregon, for final disposal, at a significant cost to the municipality.

Juneau Utilities serves roughly 33,000 people via 8,500 water and 7,100 wastewater connections. With the issues outlined above, the municipality says it needs about $72 million to make improvements and solve problems. While the municipality always seeks grant funding first, utility customers will ultimately be paying some of the cost for upgrades and improvements. How much, municipal officials say, has not yet been determined.

Municipal Public Works Director Kirk Duncan says the municipality will ask the Juneau Assembly for a 9.5 percent increase in rates each year for the next five years, with a 5 percent yearly increase the following five years. The municipality will also be asking for half of 1 percent of the 5 percent Juneau sales tax and $1 million from the marine passenger fees, or head tax charged per cruise ship passenger.

Periodic Interruptions

The Municipality of Juneau gets water from two main sources--a surface water source at Salmon Creek and a handful of wells in Last Chance Basin. Both water sources have problems.

Salmon Creek, where the municipality gets about a third of its water, is a shared water source. Alaska Electric Light and Power, or AEL&P, uses the creek to generate electricity, and fish hatchery Douglas Island Pink & Chum uses the creek to rear salmon. Juneau Water Utility Superintendent Dave Crabtree says the problem is that it's an interruptible power source.

AEL&P has to close the pipe to perform annual maintenance, he says. At other times, like when a major meltoff happens or if the lake is stirred by cool water suddenly rising to the top of the lake, the water becomes too turbid, or filled with silt and soil, for use.

"We currently have a bid on the street to install a bypass," Crabtree says.

The bypass project is being expedited in hopes of having it installed before AEL&P begins a major maintenance project this year, he says. If not, the municipality could be reliant on well water for 3.5 weeks. Crabtree says...