The Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly enacted an ordinance that appropriates $300,000 from the General Fund to establish temporary firewise slash disposal sites. The 2022 Community Wildfire Protection Plan identifies public slash disposal as a high-priority mitigation strategy for fire hazards throughout the Kenai Peninsula. The borough is identified as a key agency in addressing this identified strategy as the Central Peninsula Landfill has been overwhelmed and inundated by the quantities of woody debris and dramatic influx of slash as the spruce bark beetle outbreak progresses throughout the Central Peninsula.
Marcus Mueller, Land Management Officer for the Kenai Peninsula Borough told the Assembly:
“We’re going to do this by a request for proposals that’ll go out to property owners. We’ll probably going put out, particularly mailings, to gravel pit owners because gravel pit owners are probably going to be in a good position to catch this material. We will set up parameters for hours of operation, evaluate based on access and the quality-of-service that they could provide. Those private operators who would then own that material and see if they could secondarily process it or do burn operations, they could charge commercial folks for razing it as well. This would be for personal use residential. Then, we also have a standing site in Cooper Landing. Some of these funds would go to the management of the Cooper site as well.”
The Borough’s Land Management Division, in collaboration with the City of Kenai, identified the need for firewise slash disposal sites to serve each community within the Central Peninsula in light of the increasing woody debris resulting from the spruce bark beetle mortality. Kenai agreed to commit $50,000 to develop their slash disposal site.
Private property owners throughout Cooper Landing, Sterling, Soldotna, Kenai, Nikiski, and Kasilof have increased amounts of woody debris as a result of taking firewise actions to remove dead and dying spruce trees on their properties. Exact locations of temporary sites have not been selected.