Ketchikan council to vote on seventh amendment to water consulting deal

Edited on September 17, 2026 at 11:52 am: This article was revised to remove language implying every contract amendment increased the cost and to clarify that filtration avoidance is a lawful regulatory process when water meets federal requirements.

Ketchikan will not have to build a water filtration plant ordered six years ago after state and federal regulators approved its filtration-avoidance plan. The project had been estimated at roughly $70 million to build and another $2 million a year to operate.

The alternative is based on the water itself. Ketchikan Public Utilities draws from Ketchikan Lakes, and rather than filter it, the city set out to prove the supply meets the conditions for filtration avoidance. That process is allowed under the federal Safe Drinking Water Act for water sources that satisfy strict requirements. The EPA's regional office concurred Aug. 23, following the state's earlier approval.

The approval ends a long compliance process. After a 2019 drinking-water violation, the state gave Ketchikan a choice: build a filtration plant within 18 months or prove it could safely avoid one. The city chose the second option, entered a compliance agreement in 2021 and spent years demonstrating its water met the standard.

The federal sign-off was slow in coming. The state sent its approval to the EPA in mid-2025, but the regional office spent more than a year on what the utility manager described as a perpetual "management review." The concurrence finally arrived only after Ketchikan's mayor raised the delay with Alaska's congressional delegation.

One piece of housekeeping remains. The City Council votes Sept. 17 on a final $25,000 amendment to its engineering contract with Jacobs Engineering Group — work tied to wrapping up the filtration-avoidance effort. It's the seventh amendment to a contract that started at $100,000 and has grown to nearly $900,000 over the years of proving the case.

Even with filtration off the table, Ketchikan still has a big federal water mandate ahead: EPA-required wastewater disinfection upgrades, estimated at $10 million, top the city's state capital request for the coming year.