TALKEETNA -- Talkeetna's aging water and sewer system, built in the late 1980s after floods fouled local wells with human waste, is bleeding money and in need of repair.
The quirky village of 700 year-round residents with a Denali backdrop fills with more than 100,000 water-drinking, toilet-flushing tourists and climbers every summer.
But it's the locals who say they're getting stuck with the utility bills -- there are about 200 residential or commercial connections -- and Talkeetna isn't big enough to shoulder the burden.
The water-sewer system is running in the red, losing about $110,000 in 2013, according to a 2014 study. And repairs are looming: The amount of coliform bacteria in wastewater flowing into a creek from Talkeetna's sewage lagoon last summer soared above state limits.
Officials at the Matanuska-Susitna Borough expect to ask for a 19 percent rate increase every year for the next five years, as recommended in the study, commissioned at the request of the Talkeetna Community Council to examine not just the system but the rate structure. Right now, the average residential water-sewer bill is about $90 a month, which is about the equivalent of an unmetered Anchorage customer. Commercial customers pay an average of $130.
The request will be part of the borough budget process getting underway this month, officials say.
Many Talkeetna residents interviewed in the past month said this across-the-board hike doesn't put any burden on the stream of visitors crowding town through the summer -- or the businesses that benefit, from major corporations such as Princess to local eateries and hotels.
"The sewer system isn't really the problem here," said Robert Gerlach, a 40-year resident and former community council board member. "It's the amount of people that come to this place and our lack of any kind of local means of getting any money from those tourists to pay for some of these problems."
Failed lagoon
Some residents say the system is also a problem, and one in immediate need of repair.
Critics say the sewer system was installed incorrectly in the first place: uphill from town, in the floodplain of the Talkeetna River and without proper insulation so frozen pipes sometimes erupt in winter, flooding village streets. Sewage has backed up into basements downtown, they say. Periodic floods wash waste through the streets. Meters installed a few years ago to measure water use don't work.
A sixth-grader living near the Talkeetna sewage lagoon actually made effluent his school project last year.
The student's mother, Kathleen Holden, said her son found levels of bacteria well above state limits emerging from a lagoon outflow pipe into a creek that flows into the Talkeetna River. Holden lives near the lagoon with veteran Iditarod musher Jerry Sousa. They run the Kahiltna Bistro restaurant in town, as well as sled dog and fishing guide businesses.
"A lot of people wanted him to present to the community council but we didn't really want him to get involved politically," Holden said during a visit in mid-April to the outflow pipe, still frozen at the time.
What should the borough do about it? The town's broken wastewater system needs to be fixed, she said. "It's a failed lagoon."
Work in progress
Borough officials, however, say Talkeetna's water-sewer system has some problems but is fundamentally sound.
The water plant needs a new $240,000 back-up generator for emergency flows, according to the 2014 study commissioned by the borough at the request of the Talkeetna Community Council and funded with a state revenue-sharing grant. Locals say if there's a simultaneous fire and power outage, no water would be available for firefighting. The study also expresses concern the current system could send untreated water through the drinking water supply. The plant filters out arsenic and other compounds.
The sewage lagoon is also a problem, officials acknowledge. Floods partially destroyed wetlands around the lagoon that helped filter out contaminants, public works director Terry Dolan said. Effluent also bypasses one of the lagoons instead of being treated in it, so crews plan to go in and check the pathway to make sure it's clear.
But it is true that last summer the outflow violated DEC standards for fecal coliform, according to water test results. DEC has not issued a notice of violation, Dolan said.
The lagoon's outflow in May and June fell well below a state limit, according to copies of the results provided by the borough. By July, the coliform bacteria levels were tested at twice the maximum daily limit. By August and September, they soared to 250 times the limit.
Dolan said the borough has yet to determine the source of those high readings. He said they could stem from various problems ranging from prohibited materials such as cooking oil or bacon grease that's disrupting sludge breakdown in the lagoon, to problems with the lagoon bypass from something blocking a pipe. Last summer, Dolan wrote in an email, somebody managed to plug a lift-station pump in the sewer system with a T-shirt and a pair of jeans, triggering a raw-sewage flow in the nearby street.
"Bottom line here is we know these lagoons will function properly if the material added is not contaminated and the inlet pipes are functioning. We are taking a close look at both over the next few weeks and expect to have these problems solved before we begin discharging later this spring," he wrote in an email last week.
Finding the money
Talkeetna's water-sewer system is the only such utility operated by the borough. There's a broad feeling in town the problems with the system reflect a larger problem getting Palmer-based officials to listen.
Some wonder why the borough can't spend some of the bed-tax money Talkeetna generates from hotel stays in the area. Most of that money goes to the Mat-Su Convention & Visitors Bureau and the rest can't be divided up by community but instead funds winter trail grooming, finance officials say.
The last bed-tax funding Talkeetna received for tourist utility upgrades was $35,000 about 15 years ago to install a public restroom at the Sheldon Community Arts Hangar. The Denali Arts Council, a nonprofit, maintains the restroom now.
Talkeetna sometimes feels like the borough's "bastard child," says aviation legend and longtime Talkeetna resident Jim Okonek, who served on the borough's five-member advisory water-sewer board until December. Now the board only has two members -- too few to meet officially.
Okonek notes the 2014 study was originally supposed to help develop a new rate structure to make utility billing more fair, and to help capitalize on the "more visitors than residents" reality in town come summer.
Funding the fix
The two remaining board members echo that mantra: Future water bills should be based on a per-gallon charge on top of a flat rate. The 2014 study, by CRW Engineering Group LLC, recommended several alternative rate structures, including higher seasonal rates in summer and also a base service charge plus an additional "consumption" charge based on volume.
But borough officials say such a billing structure is not likely to happen.
Meters the borough installed in 2012 don't accurately reflect water usage -- the company that installed them didn't notice the mistake until it was too late. Now officials have to apply a "correction factor" before they can calculate gallons used.
"It just adds to the doubt," said Jane Steere, owner of a cabin rental business in downtown Talkeetna and one of the two remaining water-sewer board members. Steere and the other board member, Jim Kellard, sat down at the Latitude 62 lounge and restaurant for an interview earlier this month. Both say the borough has never made it clear what the board's responsibilities are -- and doesn't listen anyway.
"All these mistakes get made and they …" Kellard said, shrugging as his voice trailed off.
Whitney Wolff, a local lodge owner who chairs the community council, said local complaints are legitimate and reflect overall frustration in town.
The 2014 study found the system isn't functioning correctly though it can handle the current demand and also future use, Wolff said. The problem is that the relatively small number of residents actually hooked up to water-sewer can't carry the financial burden of repair.
Wolff said the community council plans, in concert with the borough, plans to seek state revenue-sharing grant funding to make repairs.
"It has been a boondoggle for sure," she said. "I'm not going to spend any time blaming the borough. I'm trying to fix the darn thing, however we can do that."