The city of Unalaska is falling behind on construction of a new wastewater treatment plant — and they could face up to $200,000 in federal fines as a result.
The city’s supposed to have the plant’s chlorination and dechlorination system online by the end of the year. In mid-November, the city is supposed to make a formal request to Alaska regulators to start operating that system.
All those deadlines were set by the Environmental Protection Agency, which sued the city for improper sewage discharge in 2011. As part of their settlement, Unalaska agreed to build a new wastewater plant, in line with national standards.
City manager Chris Hladick says the chlorine system’s an important part of the upgrade: “The chlorine kills the E. Coli, you take the chlorine out, and it goes out in the ocean.”
But the city isn’t going to have the equipment ready on time. At this point, Hladick says it could take more than 100 days past the deadline before the city is ready to get permission to run its new chlorine system.
That will push the entire project forward — and according to the city’s settlement with the EPA, the agency has the option to fine the city for every day they’re late.
Hladick hopes they might avoid the fines if they can get back on track to meet their final deadline, getting the whole plant up and running by the end of 2015.
The contractor that’s building the wastewater plant is blaming the current delays on shoddy preparatory work done at the site last year by Advanced Blasting of Wasilla. That pushed the construction schedule forward — and costs from it are stacking up.
If the EPA decides to fine the city, Hladick says they may seek payment from Advanced Blasting to cover the costs.
Annie Ropeik is a reporter for KUCB in Unalaska.
