Fairbanks draft river plan backs changing wastewater discharge so the Chena can freeze

A draft plan for the Fairbanks riverfront backs changing wastewater discharge so the Chena River can freeze through town in winter again, reversing a decades-old pattern that has kept the river warm and open. But residents along the stretch that stays open now are worried about what freezing over would mean for them.

The draft says the plan "supports changes to wastewater discharge to allow the Chena to freeze when and where feasible." Most Interior Alaska rivers ice over each winter, it notes, and the Chena through Fairbanks is a longstanding exception "primarily due to excess thermal wastewater discharge, which causes ice-free conditions to persist far downstream."

The draft points to the Aurora Energy Chena power plant, on the riverbank downstream of the Barnette and Cushman bridges. Before the plant, it says, the Chena reliably froze solid and carried dog teams, sleighs, skis, skates and hockey games through the middle of town — the winter river as a thoroughfare and a gathering place.

Many residents want that ice back. But many who live along the section that stays open all winter worry that a frozen river would bring snowmachine traffic past their homes. The draft's sentence on how the plan would ease that conflict is left unfinished in the working text.

The discharge itself is governed by a state permit, not the borough plan. State environmental notices describe the plant drawing roughly 20 million gallons of river water a day to cool its equipment, with heat and pH the main concerns, and regulators have proposed granting it a variance to keep discharging warm water — finding that the river's fish and wildlife would still be maintained. The same notices list the stretch as impaired by excess sediment.

The plan is a full replacement for one last updated in 2016. A borough subcommittee, authorized by Mayor Grier Hopkins to draft the revisions and gather public input, takes it up again Wednesday — for discussion and drafting, not adoption. It can only recommend; the Borough Assembly and Fairbanks City Council would decide. Three more meetings follow through December.