Mat-Su Borough: Talkeetna River Erosion Meeting

And, uh, I've been on hydraulic studies up at the Joliet River Bridge, all over the place doing different studies around. And I had a hydrolysis— or I don't know what they call the guy that does the study— and you got bases, and we're dealing with 3 bases, and we've missed the bullet so far in that we haven't had all 3 of them get hit hard at the same time. It's a Sitka River It's about the water that goes up Lake Louise and on up in there, the Pend Oreilles and all that. It takes, uh, the rain shed for the basin is huge compared to the Talkeetna or the Chillega. So that absorbs, that can absorb a lot.

It takes about 3 days. You get heavy, you look at a radar, you got heavy rains up there, it takes 3 days for that water to get down to town. So Kika River, the Susitna River is 213 miles long, whatever it is, it is a giant basin. It's 13th largest in North America. So the Kika River is very small and very fast to react, and the hydrologist, hydrologist, or whatever they call the guy that does this study, he said, this is an obvious problem.

It used to be there were more streams out there on the river. For the bridge going across, and they redid it, put up some metal bridge and wooden piles they had out there temporary. So they put it in and they cut off a couple of those pillars that they had that went out. The bridge went a lot further over. Well, when that went away, you got a choke point in the Tuckegee River.

If we see that we're getting water up in the Tuckegee up there, uh, 24 hours later, depending on how the storm mitigated up there in the mountains, we got it down here. That's very fast reaction. And the choke point, the guy that was doing the study, he said, well, there's no way that, uh, this, this bridge passage water channel underneath there can accommodate the size of that basin. It's just not even close. So until the railroad does something With that, you're gonna— with the bricks, it makes it great capacity to drain billions of loads.

That's what the river would be right now. I mean, over 50 years, that's where it would be running right now. You know, and because of the railroad— the railroad has kind of messed up the natural process of how these rivers drain and move. And that railroad is— and they did it right here in the Talkeetna. Now the other day we had this storm, the Susitna River got up 40,000 CFS.

That's a lot of water. That's like a lot of water. The Tokina River was, uh, 44,000 CFS. Well, you got all the force of that water from the Susitna coming down and it munched right into this three-river area. And then you've got the Talkeetna, which normally flows in the summer of the time, I'm going to say it's 10,000 to 16,000 CFS.

So it over doubled, tripled in size. It just blew out there. It backs up water north of the tracks that way and floods East Talkeetna. Each time we get a heavy rain, you've seen it, and you In the town of Keatonas, if you get 4 or 5 inches, it's right on the border. In 1986, we got 13 inches and the water was just barely making it underneath the beams on the bridge out here.

And there were trees starting to hang up on the bridge. That bridge came so close to being out in '86, '87.

I don't want to take your time, but the time that you are spending here doing this, it is very, very important in the future of all of our lives. Being able to live here, how to do it, and there's all kinds of ways in the how to do it aspect.

And I appreciate the fact that you're actually pursuing it more just after the fact than where we're going to help you now. Help people who you can't talk to now. Good enough to seek help. You're going to take the cost of this project that we're talking about to be able to control the neighbors out there. You're talking a couple billion dollars, like a drop in the bucket.

We're talking about $100 million. Maybe more. It's not a losing job. If you're going to make it permanent, you can make it permanent. You have the ability to do that.

But it's going to cost a lot. I agree with Steve. I think that the scale and the cost of this is going to be higher than what we're just talking about.

You guys remember that, what I said? We can fix the problem. Turn it into the LA River. I can put concrete on 3 sides and heal the— I'll gasp, that happened in my room last night. I can hear it tonight.

So, um, but that's how it works, right? So you do that because there's everybody that benefits from the river being there, the tourists. It changes the makeup of the town. So you have to keep that in mind. You want people to still be able to walk down to the end of Main Street.

You want people to still be able to get on the sea floats to take them up the river and go fishing, right? So all of these things, and that project that we're talking about with the CES money, that's what we're saying. We need to spend money right now on public safety. So if that includes railroad bridge, that's going to be in the future. This would solve this problem and it's going to cost this much money, and then it gives us the opportunity to go say, hey, here's what we want to do.

I got money problems. I had a comment years back regarding some flood studies, and that goes right to Steve's point regarding choke point with the river, that if you even left the bridge as is, uh, can you put in a large overflow channel back from the abutment and incorporate this? And this is what comes into this. So everybody's got to have an excuse to spend the right pot of money, but— and going as well to your turn it into the LA River and change the character of the town. The reason you would do something like that is to elevate it from the main channel as a normal water level.

Then you have a pedestrian crossing that also serves as a potential flood area. So you could move that back and you would develop that as a trail. You would develop it as an attraction., and it becomes a tourist bonus, so we can use the tourist, you know, use the bed tax money to fund the construction. I just wanted to add that down at a place at the end of town, the power lines are also about 40 to 50 feet from falling in. And the state is aware, but they fall in, there's no time for anybody to ask favors.

Like, you're done. Okay, you know, that's part of my job to take care of the utilities, you know. So months ago, Manager Brown, you were reaching out to DOT and somebody asked that he's help so that it's not just coming from— you know, all the emergency managers coming from the head of our local government and the mayor's office to say, "Do what I need out of you, and we need to come out and be there for every type of need these citizens have." So, that's been a— that's been one of my thoughts. When you were talking to Courtney, you were cautioning her to be careful on what she does to the river, because what happens below the river could be her responsibility. Would that be on the road system, with what they did with the bridge?

And HDR came in and did a whole bunch of engineering studies, and they came up with, I don't know, half a dozen, 7 or 8 mitigation ideas. Of course, one of them was what Steve was talking about, extending the Tahquita Trestle, um, dikes along, you know, Mercedes and the road. And I'm just wondering, have you given up on that altogether, that grant, or is there any hope for that? I know the problem has —problems are less. It didn't fix the problem, meaning it didn't make them redundant.

I just wonder where we're at. We haven't given up. That's a federal program. We followed up, we've been working with the Corps, trying to use like their CAP 14 program headed in Mission 1. And, you know, up until recently, riverine erosion wasn't part of that program.

So now we're in a position where perhaps we can use the riverine, the rewording of WERA, the Well Research Development Act, perhaps at least make this an eligible project. But then again, we're still competing against the rest of the nation, you know, Missouri River, the Central River, and all those type of projects. Do you guys have any development? No, I mean, I know it falls short on, you know, saying it up here, but, you know, behind the scenes there's been a lot of activity trying to gain muster for this project because we know we can't do it all. We're working with the Corps, we're working with DOT, we're working with our Code Ls, you know, we're trying to drum up some money that allows us to do something.

Because the only thing that we can do right now is react to each of these emergencies. Whoever said it earlier, hey, we're just tossing rocks in the river every year, you know, there's a million dollars, there's a million dollars, pretty quick we're spending a lot of money that's just washing downstream.

It's still there. Is that lately in the back?

Yes. I used to work for the borough.

Please don't take anything I'm about to say because the people here from the borough weren't employed by the borough for most of their past. Commander up here in 2006, 2012. Uh, think about the railroad bridge. We identified 2012 as a key issue and talked about and so forth, but I don't think the railroad was very sympathetic to that.

Uh, there's a lot of things relevant as an issue is important. The fact that what used to be the buffer between Talkeetna and— it's 80% gone from what it was in 2006. We lost about 10-15% of that buffer in 2006, what used to be over there. 2012, We lost another 50%. And we have been eroding every year since then.

And these guys have to be extremely frustrated because that, no matter what they do with the wetlands, it's going to be undercutting it and damaging it every year and really nothing they can do about it. That's got to be part of the problem, is what— flows directly at Talkeetna. How do you address that? That's a long-term issue. I think the important thing is to get the planning done and then see if there's a way forward.

Working in a classroom grows frustrating.

You have very limited government powers, and they do the best they can, but they don't have— I was in state government in Illinois, I was in municipal government in Illinois. I had powers these guys don't have, and I think they do the best job they can.

Probably a good segue right there. I know DOT's on board. We can come back with questions, but you know, the reason you're talking about some hydrology things, and I'm not just going to lie on the spot, but we have a DOT regional hydrologist, I think, online. And if anybody that has a specialty in this is OPM, I think it's a good time for us to hear what DOT's plans are, Ohio specifically, and then we can come back and have— We'll come back to questions, but let's bring the DOT on it. This will work.

Orion, can you unmute your mic and we'll see if the room can hear you?

Hello, this is Braille from Alaska DOT. I just got a message that Orion had to step away for a couple of minutes. Can you hear me?

Yeah, can you speak? Or do you want us to carry on and wait?

There he is.

Hey guys, can you hear me? Loud and clear.

All right, yeah, thank you. I, uh, for a break for a second, but I want to kind of speak to what DOT's role is. I was able to hear part of Robin's question. I don't know if you're not in the room. Not everything came through, so if there are any questions that come your way or comments, I may have to ask for some clarification.

My name is Rob Roy. The regional hydrologist engineer for Alaska DOT. We have been coordinating with her at this location, so I'm thankful for that partnership there and, and their help along the way. Uh, this erosion site was brought up to my attention by borough staff after, uh, quite a bit of bank year, uh, we have been monitoring since that time, uh, and let us all push to start a better project, requires level of coordination with our planning staff, uh, and, and that project into our safety improvement programs. Federal funding.

Our authorities are through that federal funding source, uh, protection of our transportation infrastructure. So when we start looking at the site here, uh, we have limited right-of-way, we have to keep a piece of right-of-way in this location There are utilities on the Riparian side of the roadway, so we quickly recognized that in order to build a longer-term, uh, erosion protection project, we were going to require utility relocations or right-of-way acquisitions, and none of those following federal system takes a while. So, um, we as staff, uh, closed one of our planning staff to get that project started, and with all federal offices, it took longer than we wanted to.

So what are we doing now? I think it was apparent with this most recent flooding, uh, something needs to happen. Soon, and so we're evaluating currently a means of burying a trench through the MRT right-of-way. Uh, that does have utility impacts to both MTA's facilities and the Massacre Meadows Water Farm. We've been coordinating with those guys and attempt to come up with a relocation plan, and we're currently seeking funding to construct that.

If we're able to, our plan would be to construct that project this fall, and in the meantime, we're going to continue to monitor the site. If I have the ability to share my Is there a screen in the room? I don't, I don't think that's working for today. Okay, I do have some pictures on my computer I could show, you know, what we saw during that time. I'll attempt to describe them in the sense that this past event, a lot of the language in this area are more familiar so than I am, but we flew a drone following that event and found in the proximity of the Tapioca Spring Highway we lost between 20 and 50 feet of bank, and the bank is just inside DOT's right-of-way currently.

So we're going to continue to monitor that through Terrell and our M&O staff. Continue to fly drones to see any changes that would occur. We're currently watching weather events come through and making sure we're on top of any changes that Mother Nature may be bringing our way.

And, um, we hope to have that project, that interim project, uh, ready for bid, as I mentioned, um, a little bit later this year. Construction after water levels drop is ideal construction time, but if we lose a large portion of the highway, we'll have to react. And the question was earlier, what would we do in instances where we've lost portions of our roadway and they might have to pass through— We completely understand the critical nature of the transportation infrastructure. This provides access to the community, provides not just residential access but emergency access as well, and that's our primary goal in this game is to keep that, uh, and to do so through a series of projects, both one in the near term and stabilize things as much as possible, looking for funding sources there, and then one in the longer term using our federal Title program.

I'll also say that there's been discussion of, of, uh, long-term planning and collaboration between agencies, and I support that approach because we are, as we know, dealing with a long segment of the bank here, about a mile and a half. It's a very wide radius, and what one agency does then does affect other agencies within— so the more collaborative of an approach that we can have And it's in the sense of how well DOT's project ties into local projects, how well DOT's project ties into local projects, the more successful those likely individual projects will be. So, uh, thanks, Orion, for the update. Are there questions in the room specific to DOT?

Where would the revetment start and end that they are talking about? Can you hear that, Ryan? I could. Let me pull up the parcel map to verify, but if you're familiar with the area, there's a board crossing that was recently relocated away from the river.

And we would start just off of that area, uh, that structure. We would bury the revetment and replace the driveway. We would extend it for, uh, the lot down south there and then to the lot which I'm putting on the screen here. Red Roof. So, uh, frontage, uh, 3 riverside lots.

We have through the layout, I spent this entire week coming up with concepts and trying to do what I can with the available information I have to get the best project, uh, under very, very limited funds that we would be dealing with. And, uh, that is the area I'm currently focused on. It's where the bank is closest to the roadway and is where we have risks of advanced erosion impacting not just DOT infrastructure but the utility infrastructure.

Brian. You did speak to, uh,— to this DOT right-of-way in that section, and you stated that there was a hang-up potentially with the funding, because the borough itself is looking at a potential for funding for buyout of the property. Is there any coincidence they could leverage I've certainly had this conversation. I heard your questions, tell me if I'm not quite answering. I had several conversations with the borough about these parallel tracks that we've each been on regarding the borough's interest in using the NRCS grant for buyouts and DOT's interest in building a long-term erosion protection project.

Uh, those funding sources are completely separate. Uh, the NRCS funding does come with some stipulations which I'm not knowledgeable enough to be able to speak to in this room, but I can speak to our DOT funding sources we have for parcel acquisition, and they are primarily tied to the purpose and need of the project. And so, uh, we have to first advance our project, uh, that evaluates, you know, various alternatives, environmental impacts, and then from that point, uh, preferred alternative is selected, and then that preferred alternative supports, um, the department within need to acquire right-of-way, or perhaps there's no— it would be in this case, just for sake of conversation, perhaps there's available in some scenarios where we would not need to require right-of-way. That all gets determined through the preliminary design process and through establishing in need of that right-of-way acquisition, we're then authorized to make those acquisitions. When we pursue an acquisition, we— at the time begins, and that becomes the basis of what offers are made.

So I'm not a right-of-way expert. We have a whole group that does, you know, one-on-one version of the way right-of-way acquisitions work.

One thing, just to be clear, we're working very closely with DOT because different strategies or purposes they're used, and sometimes the NRCS acquiring right-of-way for their program might conflict with how FHWA pursues their acquisition of rights-of-way. So we hate to go buy property under an NRCS funding program that then prohibits or makes it very difficult for DOT to then take advantage of that acquisition for any kind of mitigation project they might come up with. So that's why we're working very closely. So we recognize the challenges there.

Utilities being in the way, and obviously, you know, to acquire the property, then you may not want utilities to be located, and something could potentially obstruct the corridor. And we're evaluating, obviously, the utilities are borough infrastructure. Evaluating that, say, about this very topic.— you know, it's the terminal end of our water line, you know, and if somebody's served, basically who's impacted, you're absolutely correct. You know, we're evaluating whether or not replacement of that infrastructure is necessary. Regardless if we have to put pipes back in the ground because, you know, no longer need for service, you know, we still have fire hydrants, we still have to terminate the line in an appropriate manner.

So, you know, those conversations are actively taking taking place. What about electricity? Does that power being on that side slow down the DOT's production?

I'm not as familiar with the power in that area, unfortunately. Our house, and it goes right along our driveway, along the tracks, crosses, goes by the depot. It doesn't go on that side of the road, but the water goes— it comes back over by Howard's, but it doesn't go right—. Water from the research that we performed, there is a service, uh, NEA, that, uh, goes along the west side of the roadway, but it terminates north of where I was describing would start end of this, uh, first throughbedment. So, uh, based on the research we've done so far, we don't anticipate, uh, complement with the power, um, under the assumption we stay to the south of that existing crosswalk.

Any more questions for DOT, or Ron, you got any more you want to add?

I just have a simple question again for DOT, going back to my question was what happens tomorrow? If that roadway, if the DOT roadway starts to get eroded, that section where we all know it is, what happens tomorrow when that happens? What does the DOT have in their back pocket to to stop that. Ryan, did you hear that question? I did.

You know, not to put him on the spot, but maybe I could ask Burrell, being a maintenance manager, how we would approach that particular type of scenario.

Thanks, Ryan. Am I being heard okay? Yep. All right, thank you. Yeah, my name is Morell, maintenance and operations manager.

Um, to speak to the question, we are currently monitoring that site. We're tracking it daily. Staff are being informed as well as leadership, and especially Orion, on any kind of erosion. If you notice big differences, we— our intent is to potentially evaluate it for actions. An M&O response would likely be a triage, initial triage.

We would have to get permits potentially. We do have a declaration of disaster emergency from the governor, and this potentially may help us with regards to permits, but Field permit would take maybe possibly a couple days, but also sometimes emergency permits we can get after the fact so we can take— we can start work immediately. MNO, as maybe some of you might know, is limited with regard to resources we have, the size of equipment, the amount of material. So likely we would respond whenever we could. I would imagine it would be district-wide, and when you say district-wide, I would imagine folks in both, uh, MSU, uh, district to participate in any kind of, uh, resources, equipment, and, uh, materials that we'll try and get there as soon as possible.

Uh, folks in Hagford likely begin doing emergency, uh, traffic. The goal would be is to try and get larger res— more resources on the site. And of course, I don't want to leave the Massachusett Borough out. I don't want to leave you out. We would constantly be—.

Yeah, I don't want to go on further, but I think that that would be a high-level response to the question. Yeah, I'm happy to answer any more or answer more if that didn't hit it. You know, I want to add something here to Darryl's comment there. I mean, manpower or materials, you know, typically what we see in response to this is, is, is riprap, the large big rock. And you know, with our project right now, that material is— so you can imagine time that could take for travel time alone, get material here.

And then, you know, this is the, the vendors that have that material, I mean, they've got a limited amount of volume readily available without doing a So there, there is a little bit of a problem potentially.

We have had conversations with the railroad and their ability to provide material from— so you're right, we haven't hauled yet, so I'll let you answer that question. I mean, that conversation—. In 2012, suggested that we get our vehicle packed up in case we had to evacuate because there's only one road in and one road out. At that point, it was thought to get a secondary road.

14 Years ago now.

I'm sorry, I don't— what's the question? The question is, back in 2012, it was, um, suggested that have one way in and one way out. Could there be a second road?

Uh, in an expedient manner. I mean, that takes planning, right? I mean, it takes planning, it takes construction. I think, I think there's other, you know, those that are familiar know how to get there. One trail, it's— you can't get a tour bus down there.

Can't get school bus down and probably can't get 150 vehicles going at once. Yeah, right. I understand your frustration with the community that's limited to— has limited access. During discussion, are you guys in discussion with the railroad where we could use the depot at the tracks? Let's say that, you know, the permits took too long, you guys couldn't get the DOT, couldn't get the Can you use the railroad depot?

I'm gonna ask this very bluntly. We invited the railroad to participate in this conversation tonight, and here I am. So I can't answer those questions necessarily about what the railroad will or won't do. No, I understand. I'm just trying to suggest that we are having as many conversations as we can because there are a lot of different players in this problem, and We can invite, we can't bring horse water.

So you've had no negotiations with them or paused? Yes, we have had preliminary conversations. Yes. Um, I have a question for you. Given the nature of all the complexities and all the different players, would we benefit from having a dedicated project manager to oversee this and talk to all these entities, or that UKC, or Would that be beneficial?

And if so, how do we meet that up? Yeah, so because there's an active disaster, then that's me and the coordinator. And so, but I rely on Tom and his group a lot to have those technical conversations about roads and bridges and rock and all that. But then we also have to deal with, you know, the floodplain management permitting. That's Tom.

So I'm the coordinator on that, at least at the high level. And then we we, you know, pull in there as well, find you that help and assistance to make sure that Tom's doing his job, right? So that's how that works. But Tom is more than capable and his department to go out and make those contacts with those other entities. But to your point, John, right now there is discussions going on, like multiple departments, like Brian Well said.

I mean, we're also with DOT, you know, we engage with the railroad, um, you know, we've got Chief here as a local resource, Amanda's here as a local resource, but you know, um, right now there's no— really is no project that we are doing, you know. DOT has their separate project, you know, we're working through FEMA to get our grant, you know, and that will provide us an opportunity to have a project and part of that, establishing a stakeholder group or working group that will be multi— you know, many different departments and agencies involved. And then at that point, over here, Mike Campbell lead on that project.

Oh, that's a great point. So there is an advisory board. Unfortunately, there's nobody on it.

Oh, there are 3 vacancies. If you have interest to be on the Flood Control Advisory Board, you're welcome to submit an application to the mayor and become part of our team. To your point, like, these ongoing questions about what are you doing about this, like, that would be a place for those conversations to occur, just like they do for TSW, just like they do for road service areas, just like they do for fire service. And that board has been vacant, um, for years. Absolutely.

Yeah, so, well, I guess question related directly to that, uh, Flood Control Service Area Advisory Board. I know when the, uh, sales tax came up, the votes around that Well, what are the requirements? Since there has been a bit of a lack of clarity on who can be appointed to represent the town, what are the requirements to serve on that board? Do you have to be a resident property owner? Well, I don't know exactly.

I think you need to be a volunteer. I would start with that. I mean, honestly, it's an unpaid position. I believe, ideally, you would be a community member that understands and recognizes the issue. I'll make sure John gets filled.

You know, for a board that has lack of participation the way it has, I think we would be starved for somebody that would want to—. I just wanted to say that the Alaska Railroad has a bad habit of not working with communities. The Alaska Railroad is a corporation wholly owned by the state of Alaska. So it seems to me the governor has a representative here We have state representatives, we have state senators, and I do believe it's time for the state of Alaska to tell railroad companies to work with their people.

To thank DOT, the borough, everybody who's working on this. I know Manager Brown reached out to me with the preemptive disaster declaration, you know, that was going to happen so that I can make the governor aware. I think everyone is doing the best they can right now.

I've heard the Alaska Road Railroad mentioned a lot of time, many times here. I will say The best thing to do is to reach out to the Alaska Railroad, to reach out to Megan Clements, who is the community liaison. I don't know if I said that right. Yeah, external affairs. Just because the governor was mentioned, I want to make sure people understand how that— it's a quasi-state agency.

They own their own assets. The governor has attempted to make their budget part of the Executive Budget Act, but the legislature did not, did not approve that legislation. But once a railroad board member is appointed, they serve and they cannot be removed just at will, like I could be fired tomorrow by the governor. But that they, they can't. And so it really is important to work directly with the railroad, to communicate to the railroad.

And you are right that the governor appoints board members, the legislature confirms them, but when they're in place, they have a lot of autonomy. So, um, so it is a— it's like many quasi-state state agencies in our government. They have a board, they manage, they hire and fire their executive director, their CEO, whatever that title is. And so it really is best to reach out to them. I appreciate the borough's efforts in their attempt to work with the railroad as well, but I recommend that you reach out directly.

I've got a couple notes, but I'll hit it because I'm sure many of us are frustrated with the railroad because of this kind of semi-autonomous going on. I will personally reach out to Megan. I, I mean, I think Megan's very responsive in her defense, in their defense, uh, and ask to participate, probably, John, in a future community council meeting. I know you do, but I'll reach out because I think part of the borough's role, even though we have absolutely no authority over the railroad, is to be an advocate for the community. So we'll reach out, share the frustrations that we've heard tonight, explain the questions that have been asked, and ask for some engagement directly with the community.

So I'm not going to make any promises, but we will do that and see where that goes.

I had a question for the governor's office. What is the governor's office willing to do? What's the state willing to do to help find resources?

And what can be done at that level, not with DOT necessarily, but with the governor's office and the state? It might have— it might take a borough bypass, you know.

I realize this is a serious situation. I'm not trying to make light of it. Um, really good points. Like, you know, funding, um, was, was brought up a number of times. Like, um, there's federal money.

I know it's frustrating when there are all these rules about what money can be used for, what it can't be used for. The revetment and the shaker are a great example. Tom spoke to it, but I'll, I'll say it again, which is it's disaster money. You can't fill in a hole that didn't already exist. Like, you, you have to only build on things that existed with disaster money.

So that's one of those— it's just legally You would be responsible if you misused the money.

Budgets. I mean, the legislature passes a budget every year. But the structural deficit that exists in the state of Alaska is $1.9 billion. We collect $1.9 billion less than our current state budget. So is it possible to have a line item in a supplemental budget which gets passed a little earlier next year?

It could be. Speak to your legislators. This is the one time when I can say don't talk to the governor about the budget because he no longer the governor next year during session. So Talk to your legislators. Maybe there is some money that you can get in the budget for land acquisition for some of these projects, but money is very tight.

As opposed to expansion projects that aren't happening yet, how can we protect existing infrastructure before expansion? Like say, how keen is going to wash away Is there any correlation that can happen in an emergency situation?

Well, so once the legislature passes a budget, there is a purpose for that money, and emergencies don't change anything. Emergencies make emergency money available. But they don't allow money to be pulled from one specific line item for a project to another project.

You can have the next legislature or during— I mean, yeah, one legislature can always change the budget.

Is it for DOT? Um, you know, I'm not sure. Federal funding opportunity.

And going down to number 4, this speaks to Courtney's point, use of state legislative grants.— system upgrade. That is a direct change in the intent of apparently a pot of money that's out there to right here. Absolutely. So like Mr. Brown said, we understand money is confusing for us. We want to try to figure out the possible way they're eligible to be the local match to federal or state funds.

So we, we tried to identify 5 different potentials. The one you just spoke to, um, Representative Kevin Cade, uh, gave us a state grant several— couple years ago, actually, that was intended to help us improve our water infrastructure, including a new water source. Um, we recently asked whether or not that grant could be used as a source of match funds that we can leverage against the $2 million that could be made available to— through the CDS grant. So if, in the absence of any other match funds, we are able to go take $500,000— actually $666,000 out of that grant and use it as local match so that we can receive our $2 million federal—. What is that?

What are you just asking? Is there money that can be taken from somewhere else that's exactly—. So, so during a disaster, we're in a disaster, so, uh, I'm not even talking about pre-disaster type of stuff where it's very hard to move from one block to the other block. During a disaster at the borough level and at the state level, it opens up to be able to go and do response type things. So it's a very— it's a simple question I think you asked, but it's a very convoluted answer as to how it happens and when it's allowable to happen.

So Todd's right about not being able to put money programmatically at the state level, but people are able to do that after the disaster and during the disaster. That process is called disaster refund, where they can move money to themselves. If a road needed to be built, hypothetically, or if a project needed to happen to protect the existing road, that those funds would be used initially to do that type of work, with the thought of if you spend a million dollars doing something, then we're going to take it to FEMA and ask FEMA to declare a disaster, which then opens up federal money. So that's kind of some of that process, that how that works. Just because the money's in the bank before a disaster doesn't mean you can use it for types of things.

So we have used any of that hundreds of thousands of dollars that just went in.

So let me, let me speak to the fire real quick, I wanna, I wanna hit on this, on this funding real quick. So when we did the disaster declaration, we had— when we drafted that, really was to see, can we get the state of Alaska to make money available for the non-federal match for NRCS or FEMA, the two opportunities we had before? The state said no. So number two is, hey, Let's look at another option. So we're looking at the Nevada Commission.

We'll still pursue that. I don't know if that'll bear fruit or not, but we're going to try it. The reason we're doing it in this order is to try to keep money that's already in Taupita. We can use the legislative grant, which is item number 4, but it's going to take it away from the Taupita Sewer and Water Project, which might be okay. Okay, but the point is we want to try to leverage these other opportunities and if they're not available, we'll move to the next one.

Really, the takeaway is it's pretty safe to say for the FEMA grant, we are going to find the match and we're going to be able to leverage the FEMA. The whole thing with that disaster declaration was to really try to figure out how to get the non-federal match to develop a law enforcement. Then it rained sooner than it was supposed to. The good news is, and I get the credit to the Borough Assembly on this. The way that disaster declaration was set up is it buys us 6 months.

When I— I have some authority to declare a local declaration in conjunction with the mayor for 7 days. The Borough Assembly gave us 6 months. So if we have more rains that come in later this month, I guess we're even into September, uh, we are still going to be under that declaration.. And they're still looking to the state of Alaska for disaster relief. Okay, but that's why we wanted to lay out some of these funding items for you so you could see we're actively looking at different ways to bring money to the community to solve this problem, not just now but into the future.

And we're trying to leverage different opportunities to get there that don't involve taking money away from a project that's already in Talkeetna. That doesn't necessarily add, it just moves. Uh, and so that's why we're going to delay some of this stuff out. The NRCS, depending on how things go, it's possible that that CDBG money that's listed in Title 3 may be able to get applied to the NRCS and we're able to execute buyouts. Our priority right now is the theme of mitigation because that's what's going to allow us to move forward with the solutions different than we've been doing.

I just wanted to clarify that.

Where's that money? We approved $400,000 4 years ago.

Well, roads is a different— roads is a different territory. We got the same thing revenues, uh, from them that are— that are within the service area, unless there's a voter-approved ballot that allows us to spend area-wide funds. But I think what you're trying to talk about is a project that was approved by the Road Service Area Board of Supervisors, um, and there's work going on on Yoda Road, on the bridge, on the revetment upstream of the bridge. So I'm not quite sure You know, but I'm familiar enough to tell you exactly which project you're referring to.

Well, maybe we can talk separately because I, you know, again, there are ways to traffic area-wide, and that requires a ballot proposition. And there we have several of those that we're very— they're typically larger projects we're working on. I'm not familiar with Yoder Road being one of the past 3 ballot propositions.

History has a way of repeating itself. The blueprint for what's happening with Calpita is in the borough records. I was the borough sitting I've been working for this area for 11 years, back in the '80s and '90s. The Matanuska River was doing exactly what this is doing now. What was—.

Okay, we were after long-term plans, uh, spending that kind of money, over $100 billion, flowing the river over there before Cindy made a decision to do something different. As part of that long-range plan was not to monkey with the river anymore. What to do if we can—. If the river continues to erode in the area and direction that it was going. We lost over, I think, 50 homes eventually that was lost.

A lot of it was lost in the river, but it was turned by the assembly As part of that long-term plan was to buy out program to get as many people and facilities and things off waiver with the money that was available. So it was a voluntary program. I think it's still in the code now. Nobody likes to leave their home, but It was not mandatory. So that was one of the things.

As part of your plan, you started working towards some of the things that I mentioned here tonight. What to do if the electrical network was forced out by the river, the Matanuska River Bridge going going over to the beautiful water. How to get around that particular highway was mentioned here tonight, was mentioned exactly the same way then. So in those plans, rather than spending all your money and time on the river itself, going to flood, let's start working towards what has to be done to protect the people that will be affected by this flooding situation in Calhoun in the future. I will guarantee you there are emergency plans that can be set to prevent public utilities.

If that highway is washed out, they will put that somewhere else. If the railroad gets washed out, They will.

If any power lines goes down, they will put it back.

The Parks Highway was washed out at Fontana Creek. It took about a week, 10 days to put that back. The only way to get to Fairbanks is to go around the highway. The railroad bridge was washed out. The railroad bridge is out of the water.

Moved into different locations within 8 years. So that's where I would ask you to add into your plan, your long-range plan, what to do with all of these 4 things that will need to be replaced. And we actually moved money, a lot of this planning money, that's going to go into planning We put that money into that buyout program. Many people away from the river. So if you go back and resurrect all that paper, at least you can sell them something like this.

If you ignore the river, the town isn't gonna go. Buyouts. You're not gonna buy out Mountain High. You know, like ignoring the river and focusing on buyouts is the wrong direction to go because the river is all of us. I mean, maybe further up the hill, but anything that's down from that, we're there.

We're right on top of it. The whole town is right on top of it. That's right. Yeah.

You got a great point because I thought the same thing. I mean, there's a difference between what we can do on emergency.

You know, uh, that's exactly it. So I mean, we can sit here and answer some more questions, but I think it's kind of dying down a little bit. I think you guys get the sense of the magnitude of the problem, how we're trying to attack it, what our hurdles are. How can we help? Well, and that's why— well, and my point here— yeah, yeah, and I'll get back to that in just a sec.

But what you want to hear is what are we going to do right now? I think you heard what DOT's doing. What is the borough going to do? So we have dyke and revetment, and we do have some damages on the revetment from the one that we just repaired this summer, or not more than a few weeks ago, honestly. So we intend to do some more work on it.

And again, limited to repairing what's already there, we're not being able to expand. We'd love to be able to tie the dyke and revetment together and try to fill in that big hole. Didn't come out right.

My apologies. Excuse me. Um, I guess, what can we do? No, absolutely. So I mean, I want to say two things.

We're monitoring the water line that's active right now, but you know, we don't want it to rupture when something— because of a rapid loss of landfill around the pipe. And what we're within 15 feet of our mainline right now. So we got, you know, eyes on, on the riverbank. Fortunately, right now we got a spell of dry weather. That's going to change.

July was kind of an oddball. It's kind of an out-of-phase rain period for us, right? You know, past few years it's August, September, early October. So it came out of a weird time. We know August, later this month, when the river rises back up and we monitor the river, you know, we start punching our teeth a little bit about what kind of loss we're going to get.

So from the borough's perspective, the dike revetment and the water line. And then what can you do? I think you've heard a little bit about, you know, obviously your local borough state representatives, maybe even your Code L, you know, and showing that this is an issue of community concern. That require a little bit more attention. And at least, no, I mean, every day we're trying to do something to figure out how— the fact that we have some sunny weather is giving us a little— it's only going to last for weeks.

I don't want you guys leaving here tonight thinking that, you know, we've got a solution that solved this problem this fall, this year. This is a, this is a problem that's going to be persistent for the next out here until we can put together a plan and then figure out what the plan is at that point.

Yeah, I want to add something real quick. Like everybody said, it takes water to move water. If we move the water, that's going to be our best at this point.

You lit enough, you got to do it on the backside. Going to happen. Otherwise, when you turn, going to suck. It's going to hurt his— on the road, it's going to hurt his ass because they're stuck on a pole for 6 hours, including the other 6 hours in the other— this is a midway point. We're going to lose it all, and then it's going to trickle down.

We need a D9 Trapper crew excavators, mine it, move it. There's no standing industry anymore. Who cares? It's fucking around.

It's all paperwork. It's all red tape. That's all like birds. We're men and women, human beings. We need to survive.

Gotta get our heads out of whose office is doing what and just move the river to help them out. It's not gonna hurt. Just do it. That's what everybody here is thinking. Now is the time.

The mayor's going to take the road out the next 3 years. You guys know it. You guys know it. We can see it on your faces. You're tired of it all.

It's just the red tape BS we hear every day on the news through the rest of the nation, throughout the world, and all the other BS. You're tired of it. We're all asking, we want action. So we need to make something happen. We need 24 hours a week with equipment, the 302, whoever we got to get involved with that, plead with them to help us out.

It's going to change it all, and it's going to be a fraction of cost. And if I see you guys coming, that's stress out and try to just throw money in the river. What do we do now? And this should have happened 15 years ago, and you know it. But that's what— that's, that's what—.

Statement noted. Um, so I want to talk real quickly and say the other things we'll walk away from. I am interested in— we'll talk a little bit about the alternate access, and I think— I don't know that the lady who's asking this, um, but there is currently nothing anything in the works necessarily for that. We'll take a look. And then just the emergency response plan, if there was limited access, let's call it.

So we'll take a look at that. I will get with the railroad. I mentioned that earlier. I am interested in the idea of the economic analysis. I don't know that we're going to go spend $100,000 to do that, but I think having a way to talk about the value different than just our assessed value is helpful, right?

Like the economic So I got that. We'll look at that. And then the other thing you could do that would be helpful— Tom already kind of hit on state officials and our federal officials, but also at the local level, like, because I think John kind of alluded to it and we talked about it— how do we continue the community conversation about where we're going, what we're doing, has things changed at all? I think that, that Flood Control Service Area, it'd be a good place if we get some solid members on there because that's going to help engage with us and like carry the conversation, because I don't think it's necessarily something for the community council to do, but that might be a vehicle where it's a little bit more focused, that it's a better level of engagement than what we've had, because this is going to continue for some time in the future. And I hear you, I got it, I'll talk to you afterwards.

I'm not going to get into a debate about when we're going to go get next week Um, but I appreciate— I think we're winding down. I've seen a lot of people leave already.

Um, and we're here. Yeah, we're here. Like, I know we're not here in the valley, like, you know, if there's other stuff you want to talk about or you want to— like, we're here. Like, we'll show up. I know sometimes take passionate discussions.

It's fine. We work for you. We're not confused by that. Thank you for actually being here. Yeah, so we'll work through it.

I know it's a tough situation. I can tell that from you. I know she may have left. Like, I— we understand that this— oh, there you are. You moved.

Good. I was going to talk to you afterwards, but I appreciate the time. And Eric, I'm going to give you props too. Like, great job up here. I think just him being local and available.

I mean, I was on the phone with him Friday night. I think he was probably going back to his desk at that time. Um, like, you have local resources that can reach out to us and talk to Casey, to talk to Ken and others, um, if we're not like right there in that moment and you're like, I want to talk to somebody about it. So I think we've probably concluded for tonight. We're going to stick around.

I want to bring out Chief Chapel real quick. Real quick, I want to thank Morell and, uh, Orion for— hey everybody. Um, so I'm a— all of everything we do in seconds and minutes, so I, I see your guys' frustration. Um, we— I've been here trying to do some stuff. Some of the things that happened over the last couple weeks.

We have been flying a drone, getting footage to the borough of what's happening. We also met with the National Weather Service. They came up, they sent a couple people up here and looked at this last high water event because they're trying to refine their model so that when X amount of rain happens up in the hills, they have the right river level. So these are things that'll help us in the future. I will be the person probably that if it does reach the road that, you know, we'll be out there blocking it for a couple hours or running traffic for a couple hours until DOT gets there.

I've also worked with the property owners to do things like get fuel barrels moved and propane tanks move so that when homes do go into the river, if they do, that we're not— so there's things that we're doing, not necessarily big huge things, but we're trying to do things. One thing I would like everybody to do is, if you know, I'm emergency response, so that's like life safety type stuff, but I am the eyes and ears for some of these people. Um, also, if you see something like a building go into the river, let me know. Give me a call. Um, a lot of you know my number.

Um, if not, 795-389. I'll give you a card afterwards. Um, call me, let me know that the river— that the building went in, and if you confirm that nobody was in that building, that is huge on the emergency response side of things. We had to send boats last year, right, Becky? Is that last year that the dam went in?

2 Years ago? To go down and look at a river or a dam that went into the river to be sure it wasn't occupied. So knowing that building Gosen is not occupied is huge for our side to be able to say, hey, there's no life there. At. Um, that's the one thing I ask.

And if you guys see something, it's not an emergency, me or the borough, give me a call. I'll answer 24 hours a day. Um, let me know, and then I'll get messages to Casey or, um, Ken or whoever needs them, and Tom, to, you know, be able to get their people up here and get stuff done. What's your number again?

907-795-23. If you call the fire station, it forwards to my cell phone too, but call or text myself.

So thank you, John, for bringing this all together. Thank you.

I think we're going to wrap up. It's been a long night, really hard out tonight. Uh, a lot of passion, a lot of emotion. Uh, it shows how much people care about this community. That's awesome.

And we're going to keep fighting this. And I really want to sincerely thank the borough, Mike, Tom, Casey, uh, Mike, all you guys coming up here, being in person. That, that means a lot to in this room. Uh, we know you, you the best you can fighting this. So Thank you, everybody.

Uh, if you still have questions that didn't get answered, um, in the room, if you can funnel them through the community council, we can forward them on the best we can as well. Um, but I think we're going to call it a wrap. Thank you very much.

Thank you for doing the tech side. Yeah, I appreciate.