Apache is donating the engineering work, permits, and data collected on the North Road extension in Nikiski to the Kenai Peninsula Borough in order to continue the project following the oil and gas company’s announcement last month that they are withdrawing from Alaska.
Borough Mayor Mike Navarre…
KPB Mayor Navarre: “They’ve already purchased some materials for that project, including some culverts and some ty-par, things like that that they were talking about donating. They’ve also done a lot of environmental work, an environmental assessment, and also some design work on the road. And they’ve offered to turn that over to the Borough so we can use it as part of our 20 percent match requirement to the federal money.”
In 1998 the Borough was awarded a $6 million federal grant towards building an extension north of the Kenai Spur Highway but to access the grant funds the borough must first contribute a 20 percent match.
Mayor Navarre says he’s not sure how much of the donation will be allowed to go towards the matching funds the borough will have to provide.
KPB Mayor Navarre: “They have spent over a million dollars. Now we don’t know how much of that will qualify as in-kind match for the 20 percent that we have to match, it really is about a million dollars that we’re looking for, so we’ll see.”
The 20 percent match by the Borough equals approximately $1.2 million.