Coastal communities throughout Alaska have environmental waivers that let them pipe minimally-treated sewage into the ocean. Many of the permits were issued decades ago, and water quality standards have since tightened. Now, Wrangell is one of the first of these towns to face huge costs as it looks at adding a disinfection process at its sewer plant. KSTK’s Sage Smiley reports.
Sewage treatment isn’t a quiet process.
“Basically, everything that’s covered in the insulation here, that is where the wastewater comes into the system.”
That’s Tom Wetor, Wrangell’s Public Works director.
“There’s a screen located inside of what you’re looking at there. And that takes out, you know, like wet wipes, tampons, condoms, all kinds of other things that get flushed down the toilet that aren’t supposed to.”
Screened sewage goes through a collection of ponds where microbes feast on oxygen and sludge, breaking down solids. Eventually, that treated sewage gets sent through a pipe beneath the highway, next to the cemetery, and along the ocean floor about 1,500 feet offshore in the Zimovia Strait.
Many coastal communities in Alaska operate similarly – from nearby Ketchikan to Anchorage – they all have a federal wastewater permit waiver called a 301(h).
“There are relatively few 301 H waivers around the country.”
Bill Dunbar is a spokesperson for the federal Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA.
“I think currently, there are about two dozen, nine of which are in the state of Alaska.”
The waiver is a decades-long collaboration between state and federal agencies. It began in the early 1980s, and allows communities to operate on minimal sewage treatment systems called primary treatment systems– ones that don’t necessarily disinfect, but allow solids to settle out before waste is disposed of in the ocean. And that can create issues.
“People still do get sick from swimming in polluted waters. This is a real risk, right? Sewage is a real risk to people’s health. And sewage is a real risk to people’s health through the consumption of fish in shellfish that have been contaminated from sewage.”
The EPA and state Department of Environmental Conservation told Wrangell a couple of years ago they’d be reissuing its sewer permit – with much stricter standards.
“Things have changed rather significantly in the state of Alaska and the way the state is implementing the Clean Water Act and significantly ratcheting down the amount of pollution that is allowed to be discharged into Alaska waters.”
Alaska established new water quality standards in 2017, specifically focusing on bacterial limits.
While the agencies aren’t asking for full-blown sewage treatment Wrangell may be required to implement a new disinfection step within the next five years to be allowed to keep discharging sewage. Wetor says the paperwork alone is a very long and intense process, heavy on the science and modeling.
“Obviously, you can’t see through microphone, but there’s got to be, you know, 400 or 600 pages worth of documents here, you know, that we reviewed from the EPA in DEC, and had to comment on so it’s, it’s been a quite a bit of back and forth with them over the last two years, and what they were were not going to require and so you know, it’s a it’s a slow process. And we’re working through it now.”
There’s a reason for that back and forth. Wrangell and the state and federal agencies have disagreements about some of the science – how fast water moves out in the strait, for example. There are also significant concerns from Wrangell about the cost of a new disinfection process and testing requirements.
“Ultimately, all of these things are going to have an impact on, you know, number one, capital expenses, number two operating expenses, and number three, you know, possibly staffing.”
Wetor says the testing budget alone will probably quadruple under the terms of the new wastewater permit. Adding a disinfection step will require Wrangell to build a new building and add an additional treatment process inside. An engineer estimated in April that those additions could cost around $12.6 million.
Wetor says Wrangell has pushed back on the EPA and DEC since the beginning of conversations about upgrades, explaining that Wrangell can’t afford them. He says there’s been little give – Wrangell *may* be able to secure a low-interest loan to do the work. But even with a low-interest loan, user fees could have to more than double.
“If we don’t get free money from somewhere, we’ve got to pay for it somehow. So, you know, definitely some concerns about this.”
Wrangell is one of six Alaska communities to have their permits targeted for the first round of renewals, including Haines, Petersburg, Ketchikan and Sitka.
Bill Dunbar says the sticker shock is a normal reaction.
“Oftentimes people say, Gosh, that’s a lot of money. But it’s an investment over time that improves people’s health that can help maintain the health of, say, shellfish ban of maybe the shellfish industry, if that’s something that is important in the community. So the public health benefits are very real.”
Wetor says it’s not that Wrangell is arguing against cleaner water standards. But reaching those standards could be prohibitively difficult. That includes the space physically available at Wrangell’s wastewater treatment plant. On one side is the highway, which runs between the cemetery and the ocean.
“We’re basically surrounded by a rock pit, you know, it’s bedrock, pretty much everywhere around us.”
Ultimately, Wetor says
“We need to start talking about this now, five years will go by quickly. It’s definitely a doable timeframe, but we don’t have a lot of time to waste.”
No pun intended.
Reporting by Sage Smiley, for KSTK in Wrangell
