By Sentinel Staff
The Sitka Assembly will discuss two separately important, but intertwined, issues regarding Blue Lake water at a special meeting 6 p.m. tonight at Centennial Hall.
The issues are about systems for delivering water in bulk to potential purchasers; and also on the Northern Southeast Regional Aquaculture Association (NSRAA) request to increase its water allocation for a new hatchery at Sawmill Creek.
Delivery of bulk water for export would involve modifications to the penstock bringing water from Blue Lake to the Sawmill Creek hydroelectric generating plant.
A third consideration affecting both of the water issues is the potential negative impact on the city’s electrical generation system, which have been outlined by electrical utility director Bryan Bertacchi.
City Administrator Keith Brady says he is awaiting a decision from the Assembly on direction for the bulk water project and on negotiations on an agreement with NSRAA.
The city has been offering Blue Lake water for sale in tanker ship quantities for many years. No bulk deliveries of water have ever been made, but the city installed facilities at the Gary Paxton Industrial Park for that purpose. However, a consulting engineering firm reported in 2018 that there are three reasons that the bulk water delivery system, as modified in 2015, is not safe to operate.
Currents Consulting Water and Power Services found that two main butterfly valves cannot be operated safely as their design is not adequate for flow control. They also reported that it is not known whether a 50-year-old stretch of 36-inch bare steel buried pipeline is weakened by rust and able to withstand the high pressure of water from the lake. The third factor, they said, is the lack of a backup city drinking water source. The engineers said that the safe shut-off of water into the bulk water system relies on a tunnel intake gate near Blue Lake dam that has not been operated since 2015. “If this gate should fail in any way and could not be reopened, then a long term interruption of drinking water could occur,” the consultants said in their March 18 report.
Currents Consulting noted two alternatives for providing a workable bulk water system. They suggested adding a regulating valve near the Blue Lake penstock, with piping changes, for a cost of roughly $1.86 million. This would require an outage of the Blue Lake tunnel and possibly several weeks without water flowing through it, which would require a backup drinking water source be available. Another option was building a new bulk water control valve and pipeline, connected to the new section of Blue Lake penstock for roughly $1.58 million. Both options would allow an adequate flow for bulk water delivery to a ship in the bay and also for the expanded NSRAA hatchery, the consultants said.
The Gary Paxton Industrial Park board discussed the uncertainty of the existing bulk water infrastructure at its March 14 meeting. In an April 4 memo to the Assembly the board asked for help solving the water delivery problem, and GPIP Director Garry White said he is currently working with six entities that are interested in exporting Sitka water in bulk, and three entities interested in establishing bottling operations in Sitka.
Another water-related issue tonight is a proposed new agreement with NSRAA on the responsibilities of both the city and NSRAA concerning water delivery for hatchery use, and increasing the current 10 cfs water allowance to 20 cfs.
City attorney Brian Hanson and Brady said they feel a more formal contract than the water delivery agreement NSRAA director Steve Reifenstuhl signed with City Administrator Jim Dinley in 2012 is needed to make sure insurance and indemnification are covered.
City electric utility director Bryan Bertacchi has submitted a memo to the Assembly and Brady outlining the potential expense to the city that will result from the NSRAA requests. Pumping water from the afterbay or supplying the water from the high pressure penstock will either result in the loss of $120,000 in annual power sales or require up to $590,000 per year in supplemental diesel generation, Bertacchi said in his detailed four-page his memo.
Bertacchi also listed problems with NSRAA at the Green Lake Dam Site that the Assembly should address.
“NSRAA operations on Green Lake Road and at the Green Lake Dam are creating significant uncompensated costs to the electric rate payers with significant liabilities for the City and Borough of Sitka,” Bertacchi said in the memo.
He provided a list of 13 questions for the Assembly to decide, from NSRAA’s request for another 10cfs of water to the method for sharing costs between the city and NSRAA for shared use of city infrastructure.
As usual at Assembly meetings, there will be two periods for Persons to Be Heard, one for any item off the agenda and the other for any item on or off the agenda.
