Anchorage Assembly weighs just under $300,000 to help price a trash-burning power plant

The Anchorage Assembly will decide Wednesday whether to pay a construction firm just under $300,000 to help figure out what the city's proposed trash-burning power plant would cost to build.

It comes two weeks after the Assembly unanimously approved up to $700,000 for engineering firm HDR to start designing the plant.

The two jobs are different. HDR's contract is for early design. Haskell Davis JV, the firm up for this contract, would review that design as it develops, gather current prices and flag factors that could affect cost and schedule, according to the city's recommendation.

The city says the work is meant to produce a reliable construction cost estimate and finish its plan for paying for the plant.

The step-by-step votes are by design. In April 2025, the Assembly passed a resolution backing the project. It called for $8 million for early work, including site selection, permitting and design: $5 million from Solid Waste Services and $3 million from the water utility. The Assembly gets a go-or-no-go vote at each step.

Another $4.5 million was approved this April, bringing the early-work budget to $12.5 million, Solid Waste Services Director Kelli Toth wrote in an Oct. 21 email. As of that day, about $9.5 million had been committed and $6.3 million spent, leaving about $3 million not yet committed.

The estimates so far range from $550 million to $750 million. A 2025 update to a feasibility study, by Geosyntec Consultants, put the plant at $550 million. A May update to the city's solid waste plan, by Tetra Tech, put it at $750 million. The city calls both conceptual.

That plan projects borrowing payments of $42 million to $43 million a year. It estimates the plant's revenue, after operating costs, would cover about 97% to 100% of that, short of the cushion the plan sets as a target. Closing the gap with landfill fees alone would add about $7 to $8 a month per household, the plan says.

The plant would burn household trash to make about 25 megawatts of electricity and extend the life of the Anchorage Regional Landfill, the city's only municipal landfill.

Haskell Davis was the only firm to submit a proposal. City staff and the project's program management office scored it against the request's criteria. "The absence of competing proposals does not diminish the Committee's confidence in its recommendation," wrote John Ellinwood, the office's deputy program director.

The firm would serve as what's called a construction manager at risk: a builder hired early to advise on design and cost, which could later build the plant if it and the city agree on a guaranteed maximum price.

This contract runs through June 2027 and doesn't authorize construction. The Assembly memo says any later phase would need separate Assembly approval.

The solid waste plan says the city should build only if it can show a workable path to permits, acceptable costs for ratepayers, secured or well-defined revenue and a guaranteed maximum price. The project team plans to bring its financing plan to the Assembly in 2027.