State starts rewrite of Juneau sewage plant discharge permit

The pollution limits Juneau's main sewage plant must meet, and that Juneau sewer customers pay to meet, are getting rewritten. Ratepayers can't weigh in through the formal permit process yet; that opens once the state starts a 30-day public review.

The Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation has prepared a preliminary draft discharge permit (APDES AK0023213) for the City and Borough of Juneau's Juneau-Douglas Wastewater Treatment Facility, which discharges into Gastineau Channel. Under a notice DEC issued Friday, the preliminary draft goes only to the applicant, CBJ, for a 10-day review. After that closes, DEC will prepare a formal draft permit and fact sheet, which triggers the 30-day public comment period. No comment date has been set yet.

The permit, issued under the Alaska Pollutant Discharge Elimination System, sets what the plant may discharge into the channel for the life of the permit. Whatever treatment those limits require gets paid through CBJ sewer rates, not by the state agency writing them.

The rewrite has been a long time coming. The plant's existing permit has expired, and the facility has spent three years out of compliance. DEC's earlier draft fact sheet for the same permit had set a public comment period running from Dec. 10, 2020, to Jan. 8, 2021.

Juneau bills already reflect the plant's treatment level. At a Juneau Assembly Finance Committee meeting in February 2025, Assembly member Wade Bryson said local wastewater rates "are higher than other places in the state because we treat our water to a higher standard." At that same meeting, Bryson said he wanted to hold off a year on a $20 million wastewater bond question: "We need $20 million to do it. I just want to wait one year and not ask the citizens to have a bond question on this election."

Anyone fishing, boating, or harvesting along Gastineau Channel has a stake here too, since the permit governs what enters that water.