Water & wastewater: North Pole.

• Author: White, Rindi
• Position: ENVIRONMENTAL SERVICES

Water and wastewater are some of the most expensive utilities to provide and the most vital to keep 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 areas? Are water utilities much different than outside the state? What are the issues facing Alaska's utility providers? Since last fall, Alaska Business Monthly readers have been learning about utilities in Alaska's major population centers--and utilities provided to industrial users--and finding out how each community is preparing for the future. As part of the continuing series, this month we invite readers to learn about North Pole.

Amid talk of losing dozens of jobs and a major Interior Alaska jet fuel provider, a few effects of the closure of the Flint Hills Resources North Pole refinery have gone largely unnoticed, namely the effect on the city of North Pole.

Flint Hills is the city's largest industrial customer for the North Pole wastewater treatment plant, providing about 20 percent of the incoming wastewater to the system and a significant amount of associated revenue.

North Pole Director of City Services Bill Butler says it's impossible to tell how the reduction in flow, which will happen over the spring and summer, will affect the city's open-air, non-mechanical wastewater treatment facility. Flint Hills spokesman Jeff Cook, via email, says closures will happen over the course of a month.

"Our extraction unit that produces gasoline will be shut down on May 1, 2014, and the balance of the refinery that produces other products will be shut down no later than June 1, 2014," Cook writes.

"Without Flint Hills ... we have the potential to lose 20 percent of our income on the wastewater side, and that's significant," Butler says.

In addition to paying the same rates any city wastewater customer pays, Butler says Flint Hills pays an extra surcharge because it's an industrial customer. It's not a lot--four-tenths of a cent per gallon of water--but the surcharge money goes into a special fund for capital repairs. Without it, the city will be more at the mercy of state and federal funding restrictions when it needs to pay for improvements.

North Pole Mayor Bryce Ward says the city is lobbying legislators to work something out that will allow Flint Hills to sell the refinery to another operator...