Kodiak Assembly to ask legislators whether village projects belong on its state list

The Kodiak Island Borough Assembly will ask Sen. Gary Stevens and Rep. Louise Stutes on Thursday whether the borough's state capital project list should keep requests from villages.

Borough Manager Aimee Williams' staff report asks for the lawmakers' guidance on whether to include projects from the villages, the City of Kodiak and the Kodiak Island Borough School District, or to focus mainly on borough projects, since those groups may submit their own requests. The Assembly will also discuss Community Assistance payments to rural communities, high energy costs before winter and Stevens' advice as he prepares to leave the Legislature.

The 6:30 pm work session is informal, and the Assembly takes no formal action there.

The current list, adopted Jan. 22, has 17 unranked projects. It ranges from St. Herman Harbor and the hospital boilers to water problems in three villages.

In Larsen Bay, the reservoir supplies drinking water and hydroelectric power, and its spillway "is eroding and is nearing failure," the list says. The $1.2 million repair has no funding, as Alaska News reported Aug. 8. A separate $7 million project would replace Larsen Bay's water lines, which lose 40,000 gallons a day even after the city fixed every leak it could find.

The list seeks $8 million to replace Port Lions' water system, built after the 1964 earthquake and tsunami forced Afognak residents to move there. The city says crews constantly repair leaks and blockages.

Karluk has violated Surface Water Treatment Rule drinking water standards since they were updated in 2005, the list says. Its new water tank has finished engineering design, but construction preparation stalled because of a funding shortage. In June, borough planners advanced a permit for the Karluk water work.