Cooper Landing fishing guide Dominic Bauer stands on a curve near Mile 52 of the Sterling Highway, Nov. 29, 2006, at the site of numerous truck accidents, including one that dumped diesel into wetlands along the Kenai River. Bauer supports state plans for a bypass that could improve safety and, in his view, protect the river that provides his livelihood.
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Published: December 4, 2006
Last Modified: December 5, 2006 at 01:37 AM
COOPER LANDING -- It's been a long, long time since the State of Alaska said it would fix a winding, tortuous section of the Sterling Highway that passes through here.
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Think back to the days of the construction of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline. Trucks rumbled by Hamilton's Place gas station on the Sterling day and night, and it was then that road planners first came by and told owner Dodie Wilson they needed to make some changes in Cooper Landing.
Back then the plan was just to widen the road and give pedestrians some room, but by the mid-1970s planners told her they were dropping that in favor of a straightened bypass. Wilson fears that plan would draw motorists away from her store and most every business in town, but she has grown tired of fighting it.
"I was concerned about this for so many years," she said. "I can't believe it. I started this (fight) when I was 35. I'm now 72. I can't see any more that's been done.
"They talk about it just to spend money."
She would prefer that the state Department of Transportation and Public Facilities go back to the old plan and improve the road they've got, for millions less.
The department says the action is about to commence, for real. This month road planners released a new "scoping" document identifying the issues at stake, from bear habitat to traffic safety, and it doesn't include an option to keep the existing roadway as the main highway. A new environmental study is due out for comments in 2007, with a decision also possible next year.
Department project manager Miriam McCulloch said the bypass has a long history because it is more complex than most road studies. One of three options, the Juneau Creek alternative that would swing north of Cooper Landing and the Kenai River, bisects the popular Resurrection Pass Trail and cuts through a sliver of designated wilderness on the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge -- which would require congressional approval. The other two options to the south, along the river and Cooper Creek, run through private property and have historic and archaeological issues, not to mention the river.
"You've got every possible issue here," she said.
A previous study led to improvements from Mile 37 to Mile 45, but never reached a decision on the tougher issues in the rest lying from there to Mile 58, McCulloch said.
To date the department has spent about $6 million studying the bypass proposal, she said.
As part of the federal highway system, the road has to be designed for travel at speeds of 55-65 mph, McCulloch said. Doing that on the existing, curving roadway would require paving five lanes, something the state will not consider. Today, the road, pressed between mountains and river, is posted at 35 mph in Cooper Landing.
The settlement is a string of roadside stations and tourist stops, some decades old. Homes are tucked along forest roads, many of them north of the river and across from the highway's trouble spots.
The new study is renewing debate in the sportfishing enclave on the upper Kenai River. For Wilson, it means another round of defending businesses that rely on highway visibility.
"If all these businesses were built because of the highway -- to service the highway -- then you're taking away the reason for the businesses," she said.
But others see a new economy emerging in this hamlet of 344, and it isn't necessarily driven by chance tourist stops.
Dominic Bauer isn't the typical road booster. Yes, he wants a bypass for faster and safer traffic through town, and he says the Kenai Peninsula needs better infrastructure and access as the population southwest of Cooper Landing grows. He's a driftboat fishing guide by profession, though, and his prized possession is a clean, productive Kenai River.
He has seen hundred of soda cans bobbing in the river where a delivery truck driver misjudged the corner by the bridge near the outlet of Kenai Lake and spilled the cargo. He also recalls a tractor-trailer wreck on the bend near Gwin's Lodge by Mile 52, which sent a sheen of spilled diesel through a culvert to the river. It frightens him to think what could become of the trophy trout fishery he works.
"No matter how well you engineer it, can you guarantee me that one truck with sulfuric acid from the canneries won't go in the river?" Bauer said.
"Our whole economy is built on that river."
Anglers who find their way to Cooper Landing don't stop on a lark when they see a road sign, he said. This is their destination, and it would remain so after a bypass is built.
Bauer and his wife, Shannon Meredith, are raising two young children in Cooper Landing. Safety is an issue, especially when roads are icy.
"Those corners are deadly," Meredith said. "People pile up on them all winter long."
Bauer said he drives the posted speed limit through Cooper Landing and is routinely passed by people going 50 mph or faster. Later, while driving the road to point out its problem spots, a speeding pickup passed him in a no-passing zone, as if to underscore his point.
"People don't realize it's a town," Meredith said, explaining the constant speeders.
Cheryle James, president of the town's chamber of commerce, used to want a bypass. But it has taken so long to materialize that now she wishes the state would just fix some trouble spots and let everyone move on to other issues.
Two of the state's three alternatives don't even bypass the corner near Gwin's, which she said is the worst spot. The Juneau Creek alternative does go beyond Gwin's.
"Why not fix Gwin's corner, since that's where we have accidents anyway?" James said. "It would be easier to just fix the problems we've got."
McCulloch said the state plans to "soften" the curve at Gwin's regardless of which alternative it builds.
James owns Wildman's liquor, convenience store and laundry. A bypass could pull business away, she acknowledged, though overall the effect may be neutral. She said a more pressing economic issue is the winter economy. She is working with investors and extreme skiers on a plan to bring a ski lift to the Cooper Lake area, she said.
As it is, she said, few businesses are open in winter to feel the effects of a bypass, and plenty of people would still cycle through in summer. "It won't hurt in summer," she said. "You've got so much traffic here anyway. People are going to come down to the river."
McCulloch said it could take two or three years to design the highway following next year's decision and any required congressional action.
Daily News reporter Brandon Loomis can be reached at bloomis@adn.com or in Soldotna at 1-907-260-5215, ext. 24.
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