Anchorage Daily News

PALMER -- What happens after a flush is a topic most people don't spend much time thinking about.

But dealing with that waste is becoming a big problem in the Valley and is likely going to require an expensive fix.

Both Wasilla and Palmer are facing serious problems with their treatment plants that limit their ability to treat more waste without expensive upgrades.

In Palmer, ammonia levels at the treatment facility off Outer Springer Loop Road already exceed federal standards and, if not fixed by 2011, the Environmental Protection Agency has threatened to fine the city up to $27,500 a day.

In Wasilla, the nitrate levels in testing wells near the city wastewater treatment center off Old Matanuska Road are high. Nitrates can pose a health risk in drinking water.

Meanwhile, throughout the Valley, septic pumpers drive thousands of extra miles a year hauling millions of gallons of septic waste from Mat-Su to Anchorage because there is no place to dump it in the Valley. The result is that Valley homeowners pay almost double what Anchorage homeowners pay for septic pumping, according to a 2007 study done for the Mat-Su Borough.

While Valley growth has slowed some recently, the problem will by no means go away as more and more people move to the Mat-Su. Figuring out a fix was the subject of a meeting last week between Palmer, Wasilla and the Mat-Su Borough officials.

The three governments have teamed up in hopes of finding a solution. The three municipalities each pitched in $50,000 of their own funds and jointly got a $550,000 state grant to study the issue. They contracted with engineering firm Hattenburg, Dilley and Linnell to do the study.

Scott Hattenburg, principal engineer at the firm, said the study is trying to answer two basic questions: What is the cost of the three municipalities each having their own treatment plants, and what is the cost for them to come together as one regional facility?

The team is considering three options. The first involves the least amount of change: improve Wasilla and Palmer's wastewater facilities to meet the needs of city residents and build a separate, borough-run facility to process waste now hauled to Anchorage by septic pumpers.

A second option is to connect Wasilla's treatment plant to Palmer and expand Palmer's plant to process septic waste.

The third and most dramatic option is to build a new regional treatment facility somewhere between Mat-Su Regional Medical Center and the Central Paving Products gravel pit on the Glenn Highway. The facility would be hooked up to the city wastewater systems and include space for septic pumpers to dump there.

Hattenburg said the consulting team hasn't begun to estimate the cost of the various options being considered. It's too early, he said, and the basic questions, such as how big any of the waste processing plants would need to be are just now being answered. He hopes to have estimates ready by October.

Hattenburg said the idea of a regional facility has been kicked around for a while, but planning began in earnest when Wasilla and Palmer officials ran into hurdles asking for funding to pay for upgrading their treatment plants.

Palmer City Councilman Richard Best last week said he and other city council members met with state elected officials to lobby for funding to make the improvements. But, he said, city representatives were told there isn't enough funding to go around.

"(Lawmakers said) they would not be able to support individual systems," he said.

Best said he and others at Palmer are reluctant to allow Wasilla and the borough to jointly control a crucial service such as wastewater treatment. Palmer Public Works Director Carter Cole said he believes upgrading Palmer's wastewater system so it could serve as a regional facility is the best option.

The system Cole is proposing would involve heating the sewer lagoons to boost the speed at which bacteria process the waste. Cole said heating even by a few degrees dramatically boosts efficiency.

The city is planning to install a greenhouse-like cover over one lagoon to solve its immediate ammonia problem. But that's just a stop-gap measure. Installing a full system would cost much more and be too expensive for the city to do on its own, Cole said.

But not everyone agrees, particularly the residents who live closest to the treatment plant on Outer Springer Loop Road. Rita Loyer, who lives next to the treatment plant and whose family owns a former Colony-era farm the city would buy to expand its plant on, said she believes having a treatment plant as her neighbor cuts her property value.

"You tell me, if you have a five-acre tract that fronts on a sewer lagoon and a five-acre tract that fronts on an ag parcel ... I wouldn't buy next to a wastewater treatment plant, especially one that smells like ours," she said.

Hattenburg said his company is taking comments on the proposed options. He hopes to hear input about expanding the Palmer site, building a new regional wastewater plant or about adding a place where septic pumpers can haul their waste.

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

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