Anaktuvuk Pass, Nuiqsut struggle with water and sewer lines

Anaktuvuk Pass was forced to operate on limited water and sewer service since a leak was discovered on Christmas morning in the community’s water system.

The North Slope Borough mayor’s office said in a statement that the water leaks outstripped the village’s ability to make potable water. The community was on a boil water notice.

“Leaving the system in circulation, always on, would run us dry in less than half a day,” the Jan. 3 release said.

The borough was working hard to fix the problem, based on the last report, with four excavations underway to expose piping and construct a temporary bypass that would restore pressure service to the south side of town, including the school.

Additional personel were scheduled to arrive on Jan. 4 to assist with digging, thawing, water delivery and other work. New equipment was also on the way.

The water plant remained open to the public so community residents could fill provided water containers and more supplies, including honey buckets, trash bags and bottled water were expected.

Nuiqsut system also falters

Meanwhile, Nuiqsut is enduring a similar fate - the computer that runs the Nuiqsut Vacuum Collection Station was taken down by a power outage on Dec. 28, and could not be restored, so operators are manually operating the collection system.

Operators are turning on the vacuum pumps at regular intervals to maintain sewage collection in Nuiqsut, and a replacement computer was scheduled to arrive on Tuesday to restore the automatic vacuum pump operation.

In addition to the vacuum station outage, however, multiple leaks were discovered in the collection system on Jan. 2, closing Nigliq Street and Second Avenue, and impacting sewer collection to 10 homes on Nigliq Street.

Supplies of honey buckets and trash bags were provided to affected homes, and residents can reach out to the public works department for those items.