Editorial: Time to move ahead with water plant project

Looking around at all the boots, raingear and plastic tarps, it’s hard to imagine that Wrangell can’t handle a little water.

The community can handle the rain alright. It’s collecting all that water, cleaning it and delivering it to our homes, offices and businesses that is a challenge.

Wrangell’s 23-year-old filtration plant, which runs muskeg water through a variety of sand filters and other processes, struggles to efficiently provide all the water the community needs and often falls short of meeting state standards for safe drinking water.

The borough has been aware of the problem for years and has been working hard to find the right answer. Wrangell succeeded several years ago in winning federal assistance totaling $9 million toward the cost of a new system. After overcoming various delays imposed by multiple reasons, the borough wants to move ahead. The town’s water supply needs a permanent fix.

The best solution looks to be a new filtration system that essentially uses air bubbles to help separate the bad stuff from the good water and bring it to the surface at the plant for removal.

However, other problems are rising to the surface. There is a 2023 use-it-or-lose-it deadline for the federal money, and though an extension is possible, it’s less likely if Wrangell isn’t making real progress toward a start on real construction.

And the project cost estimate is from 2017. Most definitely, that needs updating.

The borough assembly last week directed the administration to get the number updated. The estimated $25,000 price tag for the update is smart money. Wrangell needs to know the cost before it can commit to the solution.

Leaving the existing water filtration system untouched is not an option. It falls short of the community’s needs, both for supply and healthy water. Likewise, endless debate in search of a more perfect answer would burn up time Wrangell can ill afford — $9 million in federal aid can fill a lot of glasses with cleaner water.