It will cost $6 million for federal officials to study — not provide — protection against flooding from Suicide Basin and the Juneau Assembly on Monday is scheduled to give initial consideration to a requirement the city fund half of the bill.
The Assembly is also scheduled to consider providing $700,000 for short-term flood-related measures, including $600,000 to reinforce the bank of the Mendenhall River along Dimond Park. In addition, the agenda for the meeting includes funding to support hospice, home health and residential substance abuse treatment involving Bartlett Regional Hospital.
The $6 million study would be performed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which is responsible for flood mitigation projects elsewhere including a diversion tunnel in Seward completed in 1940. City Manager Katie Koester told Assembly members at a Committee of the Whole meeting this past Monday the city will need to provide local matching funds for the $3 million the Corps of Engineers would spend for a study of Suicide Basin.
A proposed ordinance providing the $3 million will get initial consideration at the upcoming Monday meeting, which if formally introduced by the Assembly will get a public hearing and possible vote on approving the funds during a special meeting Sept. 23.
Such a study — along with the process of obtaining federal funds for actual protection work — would likely require several years, according to Juneau Mayor Beth Weldon.
“It literally would take an Act of Congress to do something (sooner) with the river because it’s not our river,” she said Thursday during a candidate forum for the upcoming municipal election, where the matching funds for the study was among the questions asked. “As much as we’d like to do stuff it’s not our river, it’s not our lake, it’s not our basin.”
Shorter-term measures discussed by the Committee of the Whole — potentially for as soon as next month if a major flood seems likely — include six-foot sandbags that could be placed along the Mendenhall River to divert water to vacant land owned by the city.
Another proposed flood-related ordinance being considered at the upcoming meeting is providing $100,000 for “detailed mapping and hydrological modeling of the Mendenhall River to determine potential flood impacts in the future, with data collected to be used for mitigation solutions,” according to the official agenda. That measure would also get a public hearing and possible vote Sept. 23 if introduced.
An immediate transfer of $600,000 in capital improvement project funds for riverbank armoring at Dimond Park will also get consideration and a possible vote by Assembly members Monday. The funds were initially allocated for other projects such as sports field repairs and roof work at Treadwell Arena, but Koester said those projects are not in current need of that money.
“During (this year’s) flooding event, 40 feet of riverbank was scoured away, leaving the riverbank within 50 feet of the building,” Koester wrote in a summary of the situation at Dimond Park. “If the riverbank is not stabilized and armored, the remaining riverbank would most likely be compromised during the next flooding event.”
The flood-related measures follow two years of record flooding in early August from the Suicide Basin ice dam, with about 40 homes damaged or destroyed last year, and about 300 homes damaged by even more severe flooding this year. Experts say there is a strong possibility severe flooding will continue annually, making it a foremost concern of local officials and residents.
In addition to the annual summer releases, which have occurred at a less severe level since 2011, city leaders were also told last Friday another large release is possible in October since water is building up again in the basin. Multiple releases have occurred in previous years, but none of the secondary instances have been severe.
A range of proposals for mitigating the flooding have been suggested to city leaders, including drilling a drainage tunnel through a mountain, digging diversion channels for the water flow and blasting near the basin to partially fill it with rocks. However, since the basin is on U.S. Forest Service land any such work will need to meet federal regulatory requirements.
In a separate matter, several items related to providing funding for Bartlett Regional Hospital are on Monday’s agenda, including proposed ordinances providing $200,000 in general funds to supplement $186,000 from the hospital’s fund balance to continue hospice and home health programs for the rest of the fiscal year that ends June 30. Another would provide $500,000 to continue Rainforest Recovery Center’s substance abuse program under a cooperative arrangement with Gastineau Human Services.
The hospital is seeking help from the Assembly due to a financial crisis stemming from operating losses averaging $1 million a month since the summer of 2020, which leaders say could leave the hospital broke within three years. Part of the remedy includes subsidizing, scaling back or eliminating “non-core” programs, and Weldon noted Thursday the hospital has operated at a profit during the past three months — although it also is typically busier during the summer tourism months.
• Contact Mark Sabbatini at mark.sabbatini@juneauempire.com or (907) 957-2306.
