Juneau's flood protection should be everyone's bill, three members say

Three Juneau Assembly members say the local share of long-term glacial flood protection should be spread across the whole borough rather than charged to the Mendenhall River homeowners it would protect.

Their reasoning, relayed in a memo from City Manager Katie Koester ahead of Monday's committee meeting, is that a permanent fix protects commercial and public infrastructure the whole town uses, and that losing valley homes would make Juneau's housing shortage worse.

The recommendation arrives with a delay attached. The Army Corps of Engineers had aimed to give Juneau a "rough order of magnitude idea of that cost by December," as Assembly Member Alicia Hughes-Skandijs put it in August. The memo now says a rough estimate for an emergency water conveyance prototype will not come until spring or summer 2027, which pushes any bond question to the October 2027 ballot.

The scale of what is being protected: in the Corps' worst case, a flood of 90,000 cubic feet per second would reach 3,001 parcels and 2,265 structures, including 2,067 homes, assessed at $1.5 billion. The HESCO barriers in place now hold to 63,500 cfs, covering 1,371 homes worth about $840 million.

Juneau wants the federal government to cover 90 percent of the permanent fix. The Corps paid for the second phase of barrier work, roughly $35 million, and for first-phase repairs outright. The city put up $3 million to match the Corps' flood study.

The group set aside two harder questions, a flood control district and easements, until the timeline firms up. "There was little appetite for utilizing eminent domain," Koester wrote. Members discussed temporary easements with annual lease payments instead.

Juneau has tried billing benefiting owners before, and it did not stay contained. A local improvement district for the first phase of barriers ended up putting 60 percent of the cost, about $4.7 million, on taxpayers at large. Of the 466 properties in that district, 117 objected, citing uncertain effectiveness and unfair cost burden.

Koester wrote that October's municipal election will inform whether the city pursues a dedicated funding source.