Anchorage Assembly to vote July 7 on $3M AWWU asset and mapping contracts

The Anchorage Assembly will vote July 7 on four contracts totaling up to $3 million to help Anchorage Water and Wastewater Utility manage and map its water and sewer network, which carries an estimated $8 billion replacement value.

Two contracts would go to Burgess & Niple and Dewberry Engineers for asset management work. Two more would go to HDR Engineering and StreamlineAM for geographic information system mapping. Each is worth up to $750,000 over three years, structured as indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity agreements with individual purchase orders capped at $250,000. The contracts are intended to augment staff in the Strategic Asset Services Section of AWWU's Engineering Division and would be used on an as-needed basis. Mayor Suzanne LaFrance's administration recommends approval of all four.

The Assembly vote covers the four procurement contracts only. Separately, Anchorage water and wastewater customers face a rate case before the Regulatory Commission of Alaska. AWWU filed tariff advice letters as revenue requirement studies based on a 2024 test year, requesting a 5.50 percent increase for water customers and 3.25 percent for wastewater customers. The commission's December 2025 notice stated that "AWWU requests that the proposed rates take effect on February 13, 2026." The commission set a public comment deadline of 5 p.m. January 14, 2026 for those filings, a window that has since closed.

The contracts reflect a concern Anchorage officials have raised in recent years about aging infrastructure. Assembly member Erin Baldwin Day, speaking at a January budget workshop, said the municipality had not adequately planned for the maintenance now required on older pipes and roads: "We have a lot of legacy infrastructure that we have built roads and pipes, things that are not indefinite resources, not they don't have an indefinite lifespan. And so there's a lot of repair and maintenance that is now required because the new stuff is now old stuff."