Bears have made Cordova's landfill unsafe for workers, and the fence is stuck

Cordova City Council members said Wednesday that bears at the city landfill have made the site unsafe for workers, and the electrified fence meant to keep them out remains stuck without a contractor.

One member said he drove out to offload trash and found it physically unsafe, with bears climbing up to the truck. Bear spray has been used at the site, and a dead bear was found there, which Mayor Miles Smith said was killed by another bear.

The state requires Cordova to fence the active waste area of the 17 Mile Landfill, where brown bears are reaching garbage, but the city's request for proposals for an engineer drew nothing. "We did not get any response... No response," Smith said. "Zero." The city put the job out to fencing contractors instead and has talked with Kodiak, which recently built a bear fence.

Crews bury the trash and the bears dig it back up, from both new material and the old capped cells, and digging deeper isn't allowed because state rules bar going below the water table. Council members pressed for something to do in the meantime, but most options, from euthanizing bears to arming or escorting workers, ran into permitting, staffing or liability. For now the plan is mainly to limit how often workers leave their trucks, with a new dumpster truck arriving Friday.

One council member asked the city to plan now for the worst case, a person maimed or killed, and to work backward from the measures that would follow.