The Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation is weighing penalties for the Matanuska-Susitna Borough over high bacteria levels in Talkeetna's aging sewage lagoon.
About 200 households and businesses pay for the costs of the community's water-sewer system. But it's the deluge of 100,000 tourists every summer that really taxes the utility.
The early enforcement action against the borough marks the latest in a string of DEC penalties involving government agencies across Alaska. The agency has gotten more than $266,000 in penalties from the cities of Seward and Juneau as well as a National Marine Fisheries Service lab in Juneau, through agreements signed this year.
The action, announced in a Nov. 23 letter to the borough, marks the start of an enforcement phase to get the borough to comply with federal Clean Water Act regulations governing fecal coliform bacteria levels. The state's authority comes through limits set in a 2013 permit. Tests for coliform bacteria -- found in the digestive tracts of warm-blooded animals, including humans -- are used to indicate the possible presence of fecal-borne organisms that can cause illness.
Borough officials say they've been trying to fix problems with the Talkeetna sewage treatment system and are getting closer to compliance. The borough added mechanical aeration, corrected the majority of problems with a bypass system and plans to fix the remainder this spring. It also replanted naturally filtering wetlands lost to flooding years ago, according to public works director Terry Dolan.
The DEC letter invites the borough to sit down with the state, probably within the next week or two, to discuss the state's intent and the borough's status at Talkeetna, Dolan said.
"I don't know what they're going to say, to be honest with you," he said. "Of course, we want to be in compliance and we're going to do everything that's in our power to get this thing in compliance."
DEC's top compliance official said this week that the agency initiated enforcement action against Mat-Su -- as well as the other governments -- to ensure "that all regulated entities are treated equally and held accountable when there are significant violations."
Up to 30 percent of DEC enforcement cases can involve governments, though that includes public-private partnerships, according to Michael Solter, the agency's compliance and enforcement program manager. Governmental cases are expected to be more numerous in Alaska than in other states given that a larger percentage of facilities in Alaska are government-owned.
"It's been one of those things that's a long time coming," Solter said of the Talkeetna situation. "It's kind of unfortunate the way things work. As you can imagine, government is not always as fast as we'd like."
The borough has drawn fire from some local residents over years of reported problems at the treatment plant.
The DEC letter lays out potential penalties that could total tens of thousands of dollars per day, though it's unlikely the final total will be that high.
The largest penalty the DEC has levied against a government-run operation, about $171,600, involved the Ted Stevens Marine Research Institute operated by the National Marine Fisheries Service on Auke Bay. The institute violated its wastewater permit by treating coliform with bleach as the agency prepared to install an ultraviolet treatment unit, according to a joint compliance order signed in July.
The city of Juneau agreed to pay $62,000 for effluent limit violations at the Juneau-Douglas Wastewater Treatment Plant, according to a compliance order that began with a 2010 inspection but wasn't signed until this year.
Seward agreed to pay $33,600 after the city violated its permit in May, according to a November compliance order. Debris from a wastewater treatment facility at Spring Creek Correctional Facility ended up on Resurrection Bay beaches during lagoon maintenance.