Thirty years ago, Mayor Rick Mystrom invited the Anchorage community to submit their ideas on “Imagine Anchorage.” More than 20 submissions were published in the Special Edition of the Journal of the Alaska Design Forum No. 4, published in July 1992. The “Turnagain Lake” submission by the “Virtual Realists” addressed the mudflat problem Mr. Cameron mentioned in a recent letter.
Anchorage is surrounded by water; however, unsafe for multiple water activity use because of its dangerous daily tides. If safe water activities were made available in the adjacent inlets, Anchorage would indeed be a perfect city. The Virtual Realists’ submission proposed the Turnagain Arm inlet be made safer by building a causeway from Anchorage to the Kenai Peninsula via Fire Island, using a combination of concrete and boulder rip-rap sides filled with sand and silt pumped from the mudflats. A similar economical system was used to build the Egan Highway in Juneau 40-plus years ago. Creating a causeway dam would eventually turn the Turnagain Arm into a large freshwater lake unaffected by tides.
The causeway would provide a new direct access to the Kenai Peninsula and spawn multiple business, economic, recreational and social opportunities around the lake. Hotels, marinas, float plane basins, fish ladders, housing, wind farms, tidal generators and a new deep water port are some of the possible developments that could be incorporated over time. The new developments and facilities would provide additional income to the area and increase Anchorage and surrounding area’s tax base. Being fed by drainage streams, the new lake would eventually be filled with freshwater. The causeway would be built higher than the highest tide to prevent contamination of the lake by saltwater. Boat locks could be included in the causeway to allow boat access to and from the Cook Inlet. Without tidal action constantly moving glacial silt around, stream deltas would increase in size and overtime become possible buildable areas. The lake could also be dredged to create buildable land and islands within the Lake. Tolls for access and use of the causeway would repay its construction.
The “Turnagain Lake” idea came about during a 1987 luncheon discussion between architects Alan Marugame and Ralph Clampitt, regarding Anchorage’s then-depressed economy and future without an income dependent on oil revenues. Mayor Mystrom’s 1990 “Imagine Anchorage” invitation provided an opportunity for Marugame and Clampitt to put their idea on paper. Sadly, Clampitt passed away a couple of years ago.
Alan Marugame
Anchorage
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