Kaktovik residents press North Slope Borough on cracked homes

Residents of Kaktovik and Nuiqsut told the North Slope Borough Assembly on Tuesday that homes are cracking and sitting unlevel. A separate Utqiaġvik resident asked the borough to refund her February water bill.

A Kaktovik resident read the borough's home rule charter preamble and its 1974 signing certificate into the record, then presented photographs from the village. The mayor addressed him as Fenton and thanked him for his service as a founding Charter Commission member. The photographs showed cracked walls, doors that will not shut, and sinkholes melted by utilidor heat. He also described sewage backing up through a bathtub he said remains unrepaired.

He asked the assembly to create a Kaktovik industrial storage district. Title 19 of the borough code provides a Barrow Industrial Storage District with no equivalent for the other communities, he said.

"I would like to see the Assembly start a Kaktovik Industrial Storage District to be able to fill in the village sinkholes, placement of fills," he said.

The mayor listed several follow-ups. He said he would look into the intent behind the Utqiaġvik industrial storage district and how it applies in the title. He said he would verify with the borough's capital projects staff that water and sewer dig-ups are being backfilled to the engineered standard, and follow up with Public Works on culverts and supplies. He said the housing director would contact homeowners about which repair program fits. Damage tied to borough operations would go through the risk department's claims process, he said.

Sheldon Brower, the Kaktovik fire chief, spoke as a homeowner. He said a borough window-and-door replacement effort had not reached Kaktovik, and that his house needs at least four new windows and a new door before freeze-up. He said the water and sewer box at his house has leaked for years despite his calls to the water plant. He repeated a request for reflectors along the road to the airport to help crews moving patients to medevac flights during storms.

The mayor said he had directed Public Works to find the appropriate reflectors when the issue first came up, about a year ago, and would hold the responsible appointee accountable for not following up. He said the leaking box falls under the borough's above-ground and below-ground water and sewer contractor, and that staff would follow up if they can get the house number. On windows, he said a needs assessment was done and orders have been processed and received across the slope, something on the order of 1,000 windows region-wide, with a minimum of three installed per approved qualified household.

Nuiqsut residents said home leveling there has remained unresolved for years. The mayor said the borough scoped the work last year and was then awarded a $1 million grant under the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska impact program for home leveling. The Alaska State Legislature adopted the funding and the governor signed it in the new fiscal year, with the money available through the Department of Commerce. The housing department will begin the work now that the funding is available, he said.

Nuiqsut residents also said drums the utility operator NUC bought for backup diesel heaters, and hauled over from Utqiaġvik, have gone missing. They said a proposed airport terminal agreement with the borough has been held up in legal review for more than a year. A Nuiqsut city council member asked the borough to support the community's opposition to a proposed data center in the Prudhoe Bay area, saying the Nuiqsut trilateral committee had passed a joint resolution against it.

The mayor said the borough would follow up with its environmental department and the utility operator on the drums. He said Public Works and the Law Department had a Friday meeting scheduled on the terminal agreement. He said he would follow up with the state Department of Natural Resources on the data center lease.

The mayor said the borough has nothing to do with the utility billing done by BUECI, the utility that provides electric service and distributes natural gas in Utqiaġvik. He said the February outage began with a power distribution problem that cut power to the heat tracing on the water and sewer lines, freezing and backing up homes. The borough's usual freeze-up and backup list of 30 to 40 households jumped to between 90 and 110, he said.

The resident said BUECI's board had told her the borough was responsible for water, which is why she brought the request to the assembly. On the separate January increase, Public Works Director Scott Danner said BUECI, not the borough, raised the charge to make water from 6 cents to 11 cents a gallon. The borough absorbs the cost of delivering water by pipe and truck, he said. Danner said he is discussing a new cost-of-service study with the utility.

The assembly separately approved a $5 million increase to its water and sewer contract on July 14, partly due to a freeze-up in Point Lay. The mayor also said the home renovation program is funded again. It reimburses homeowners for half of what they spend, up to $10,000, if they start the work themselves.