The Juneau Assembly has approved $2 million in funding to construct a semi-permanent levee along Mendenhall River in order to prepare for future glacial outburst floods.
But at a meeting Monday night, members of the Juneau Assembly and the public expressed hesitation about the city’s flood fighting plan. Phase one calls for the installation of flood barriers along about four miles of riverbank from Killewich Drive and Marion Drive to Meander Way.
That would require 79 homeowners to agree to have barriers installed on their properties. The city has been conducting preliminary outreach to those homeowners over the last couple of weeks. According to a memo from City Manager Katie Koester, “most homeowners were favorable to the concept of Hesco barrier installation to protect their and others’ property.” But a few who testified at the meeting, like Meander Way homeowner Sam Hatch, are not excited about the idea.
“I, among others in the neighborhood, oppose the HESCO flood barrier proposal because of the risks that come with a fully constrained river, and the ambiguities in this project,” Hatch said. “Burdening the 70-plus waterfront homes with the cost of a temporary solution, while benefiting hundreds of Valley homes, is wrong.”
The flood barriers, made by a company called HESCO, are basically large reinforced sandbags that last up to five years. They were given to the city free of charge by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
But the cost of planning, site preparation and installation of the barriers falls to the city. Koester said Monday that the total project budget will definitely balloon beyond this initial $2 dollar investment, which was pulled from the city’s restricted budget reserves. It could cost an estimated $5 to $10 million by the time the work is finished, and it’s not yet clear where that will come from.
One of the main topics of the night was figuring out how to pay for that. It could come down to splitting costs across all Juneau taxpayers, or it could involve making individual homeowners along the waterfront take on some share of the preparation work on their properties.
The Assembly also discussed the possibility of creating a local improvement district, or LID, in the Mendenhall Valley. That could establish a cost-sharing system for some or all homeowners in the flood-affected neighborhoods.
View Drive resident Elizabeth Figus testified against the LID plan. She urged the city to focus on proposed long-term solutions like dredging new channels for the river or building a levee around Mendenhall Lake, expressing concern about the effectiveness of the HESCO levee.
“This is a temporary, experimental installation. So as we’ve heard, this could actually damage properties, both where it’s installed or downstream,” Figus said.
By the end of a meeting, Assembly member Wade Bryson echoed that sentiment.
“The more that I listen, the less that I like these HESCO barriers. It is a temporary solution that could empty our piggy bank and literally use up the funds that we will need to do a more permanent solution,” Bryson said. “It seems more reactionary.”
According to Koester, the long-term flood mitigation proposals require more careful planning and study, along with even more funding. She said the city is pursuing those long-term flood mitigation plans. But the HESCO barriers have been championed by city officials as a way to do flood fighting quickly, before another outburst happens again next summer.
New Assembly member Maureen Hall said she supports the barriers, but also said the Assembly has to reduce the financial burden that might fall on homeowners along the riverbank.
“The HESCO barriers may not be a perfect solution, but we’re looking for something temporary, quick. We can’t stand by and not do anything this coming year,” Hall said. “We need kind of a combination of sharing of the costs between CBJ and trying to figure out an equitable way among the homeowners that are impacted.”
Despite the opposition, the city plans to keep working on project plans for the barrier installation, and will continue to discuss ways to cover the remainder of the project costs at future meetings.
In the meantime, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will hold public meetings in Juneau on Oct. 29 and 31, with specific times and locations to be announced.