Governor Mike Dunleavy has allocated $5 million from the Department of Commerce, Community and Economic Development to the City and Borough of Wrangell to help stabilize the two earthen dams that contain the town’s drinking water.
Wrangell’s Public Works Director Tom Wetor says that when the governor came to Wrangell to talk about the landslide, they also talked about other health and safety issues.
The dams are the first major issue to conquer.
“We were the number two high hazard dam in the state,” he said. “I believe we are number one now because I think the worst one got fixed last year.”
The reservoirs were constructed in 1905 and contain Wrangell’s only source of drinking water.
An Army Corps of Engineers Study from 2006 reported that 15 homes and close to 40 residents were in the reservoir’s potential runout zone.
This means that the possible loss of life is high if the dams break.
Wetor says that the stability analysis the borough commissioned last fall resulted in better news than officials were expecting, meaning there is an easier path to stabilization.
He says that $5 million may not cover all the pressing projects needed in and around the community’s reservoirs.
“We need to get a dam bypass, we need to stabilize our dams, we need to fix the through piping,” he said. “Those are our top three needs up there.“
Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski appropriated a little over $2 million for that dam bypass project last year. The project will connect the upper reservoir directly to Wrangell’s water plant.
