The borough has until 2030 to meet tighter state and federal water quality standards for its wastewater treatment plant discharge, and will use this year to determine the best way to kill more of the bacteria in the outflow.
The Environmental Protection Agency renewed Wrangell’s wastewater discharge permit in November — along with permits for Haines, Skagway, Sitka, Ketchikan and Petersburg.
The communities must make improvements to their treatment systems to reduce the levels of bacteria discharged into marine waters.
In Wrangell, that likely will mean adding a disinfecting system to its treatment plant to further clean the water before discharging the outflow through a pipe into deep water about one-third of a mile out from City Park.
The borough had expected the permit renewal with its new conditions and has been working on its next steps.
The most likely options are installing a system to add chlorine to the water to kill more of the bacteria or running the water through a system of ultraviolet lights to destroy the harmful microorganisms.
Neither will require a rebuild of the treatment plant, but whichever new system is added will cost millions of dollars to install.
The borough has requested state and federal aid to pay for the improvement to the wastewater treatment plant. Its biggest request has been to Alaska’s senior senator, Lisa Murkowski, who is pushing to include a $10 million grant for Wrangell in this year’s federal budget.
Congressional action on the budget has been delayed by political battles with the changeover to a new Congress this month and a new president moving into the White House, and may not be settled until March — if then.
“Best case, we get the $10 million,” Borough Manager Mason Villarma said last month. The upgrade to the treatment plant is near the top of the borough’s wish lists for federal and state funding.
While waiting on funding, the borough will contract with an engineering firm for an alternative analysis of the best disinfectant system for the community. That work will take about a year.
The EPA permit issued in November “requires the borough to complete a facility plan, which evaluates alternatives to meet the final effluent limitations for bacteria, and select a preferred alternative,” Capital Projects Director Amber Al-Haddad reported to the assembly last month.
The borough asked for — and received — forgiveness of $75,000 of a $175,000 requested state loan to pay for engineering services for the analysis.
“We could, at the earliest, have a loan agreement in place by early 2025 and be able to move forward with a solicitation to hire a consultant to develop the alternatives analysis,” Al-Haddad reported.
After selecting a disinfecting system, the next step would be final designs to go out to bid for construction.
“In the meantime, we will continue to seek funding to cover the expected capital costs as much as we can,” said Public Works Director Tom Wetor.
Wrangell and its five Southeast neighbors are among 24 municipalities in the United States granted waivers by the EPA to perform a lower level of treatment of their wastewater because the communities discharge into deep marine waters.
The updated wastewater discharge permits for the six Southeast communities incorporate state water quality standards that were tightened in 2017. Those state standards count bacteria levels in waters used for recreation and subsistence foods gathering.
Three more Alaska municipalities — Pelican, Anchorage and Whittier on Prince William Sound — still await renewal of their EPA permits.
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