A town hall meeting was held at the Nolan Center last Wednesday evening, July 10, to discuss ongoing water issues in Wrangell and the wider Southeast Alaska region. In short, drought conditions across Southeast Alaska have made conservation necessary for the community. Dry weather has also an impact on Wrangell's supply of electricity, as well.
"Part of the reason we're here today is because we, Southern and Southeast Alaska, are experiencing an extreme drought," Borough Manager Lisa Von Bargen said. "This is the first ever recorded extreme drought in Alaska. Now, that is the first ever recorded extreme drought since the U.S. Drought Monitor was brought online, and that was in 2000."
Von Bargen opened the meeting with a quick review of the city's water supply.
Which is kept in two reservoirs, she explained. The upper reservoir was spilling over, as of Wednesday evening, but the lower reservoir was 3.5 feet low. In the past 24 hours, as of July 10, Wrangell's water treatment plant produced 877,000 gallons of water, at a rate of 608 gallons per minute. Meanwhile, the city's water consumption was 707,000 gallons of water in 24 hours, or 491 gallons per minute. Von Bargen also added that community consumption only accounts for 70 percent of the water supply that is used up. Another 30 percent is lost in the production of usable water.
She went on to explain the importance of conservation. Other than the fact that human beings require water to survive, a constricted water supply also put the city, as a whole, in danger. If there were a major fire, for example, all of Wrangell's water could be used up. Every loss of water puts Wrangell in danger, she said.
The responsibility to conserve is not entirely on the people of Wrangell, however. The city is working on several projects to better conserve and increase the water supply. This includes cleaning the sand used to filter the water at the treatment plant, halting all sales of water to cruise ships, putting conservation notices on water spigots around the harbor, improving leak detection, and holding weekly water management meetings between borough officials and Wrangell's major water users like the seafood processors and the Stikine Inn. Von Bargen also pointed out the city's new water recapture project.
"Previously, when one of our filters would have to
be cleaned, all of the
water from that filter would have to be dumped," Von Bargen said. "And it's already gone through the treatment process, so that's a waste of that water. If a filter is full it can be as much as 140-150,000 gallons. If it's half full, which is the normal size, it's 75,000 gallons. So if they're cleaning two filters a week, that's 15,000 gallons of savings a week that is going on. So I want to thank the staff for coming up with that."
Other projects that the city is looking into include, among other things, adding lining to the city's flumes, which carry water into the reservoirs and locating old wells. City officials have also been working on getting a new treatment plant constructed. Von Bargen said that this has been ongoing for several years now, mainly gathering funding for the project, but said that they are beginning to see light at the end of the tunnel. It will still be a while before any new treatment plant is ready for operation, but one may be coming in the near future.
Trey Acteson was next to speak. Acteson is the CEO of the Southeast Alaska Power Agency, which provides electricity to Wrangell, Petersburg, and Ketchikan. SEAPA is governed by a board of municipally appointed directors from each of the three cities, and operates two hydroelectric projects at Tyee and Swan Lake. Acteson said that SEAPA has kept its power rates stagnant at 6.8 cents per kilowatt hour for the past 21 years.
Acteson showed some graphs explaining how the drought has affected them. Water levels at Tyee Lake, as of the presentation, are at 1,313.1 feet. This is an increase from roughly 1,260 feet around February and March. Swan Lake's levels are at 297.5 feet, an increase from 280 back in February and March. The towns of Wrangell and Petersburg largely receive their power from Tyee Lake, while Ketchikan gets its power from Swan. However, as residents in the SEAPA communities may be aware, there was a power crisis late last winter that required Petersburg and Wrangell to switch to diesel power to preserve what water was left in Tyee. Acteson added in his presentation that Ketchikan has been running diesel, as well, to preserve Swan Lake's water levels.
Acteson added that
SEAPA has made some changes to help avoid any similar power emergencies in the future. Part of the reason Wrangell and Petersburg had to switch to diesel power was because SEAPA sold Tyee power south to Ketchikan, which proved to be an unwise decision as there was not enough hydropower to make it through the winter. Acteson said that going forward, Tyee Lake will follow a "sales curve," which is set about 10 feet above annual water level averages. Before SEAPA can sell any power south, he explained, the water level must get above the sales curve. If the water level ever falls below the average guide curve, the sales will be immediately halted. That is not to say that power will stop flowing between the northern cities and the south, of course.
"Some folks were using the term that we were doing 'net zero' across the STI [Swan-Tyee Intertie], which means we send it north and south but at the end of the week it's just about even," Acteson said.
Acteson added that SEAPA is looking into future power sources. He said that they have been conducting a regional hydrosite analysis, looking for new sources of hydropower, and have located a potential 60 projects. These will all take time, however, and he cautioned that SEAPA only wants to invest in the wisest of options. On top of hydropower, he said that they are keeping on top of new developments in alternative energy sources, and will look into any avenues there, as well.
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