Couple claim state created erosion problem on river

Ed and Valeria Musial have lived on their neat-as-a-pin property off Mile 64 of the Glenn Highway since the 1960s and are well aware of the river's penchant for consuming land. But they say the river would have stayed far away from their home, had not the state intervened 20 years ago by building dikes in the river.

Plan drawings, dated 1986, depict several finger-like dikes hydrologists hoped would shield the shore from the brunt of the river's current.

After it was built, state officials said, the project was turned over to the borough to maintain.

But the plans changed after they were drawn up -- in part because Musial refused to grant access on his property for work he didn't have faith in. Fewer dikes were built than planned. Musial said when high water hit that summer, it charged right through the wall of the first dike, spun to gather more steam and charged to shore again.

Musial believes the weakened dikes ultimately caused the river to shift its path in a more aggressive way than it would have if the dikes were never built.

Within six weeks of construction, he said, much of the rock laid in the water disappeared. By the second year, he said, it was almost all gone.

"If they would have just stayed out of the river, it (the erosion) never would have happened," Ed Musial said.

The state Department of Transportation disputes Musial's claims. The dikes did eventually fail, but the river didn't change course because of the structures, spokesman Rick Feller said.

"The course the river is going to take ... goes far beyond the dynamics of those dikes we built, as evidenced all the way up the Glenn Highway where the river is changing course all the time," he said.

Musial said he'd like the borough and the state to restore the river to its original course -- meaning dig a new channel to redirect the water.

He'd also like them to replant the forest of birch and spruce that have washed away in recent years and restore the creek full of salmon and grayling that once burbled 100 feet or so from his kitchen door.

Feller said the state has reviewed Musial's assertions "all the way up through the governor's office" and the department will not be doing any further work in the river, beyond what is needed to keep the Glenn Highway intact.

"We build and maintain highways. Doing work in the floodways, realigning the river, those things are certainly not within our call to duty or responsibility," Feller said.

He said the borough could intervene, as it did when homes were threatened downstream in Butte.

Borough planner Frankie Barker, however, said there isn't any money for structural solutions, and Sutton homeowners have so far been reluctant to form a service district and raise taxes on their own to pay for work in the river like Butte homeowners did.

Musial, 87, said he's prepared to go to civil court over the issue. Valeria Musial said they want to see the issue resolved while they're still alive.

Find Daily News reporter Rindi White online at adn.com/contact/rwhite or call her at 352-6709.