The City of Kenai strategically planned to install a water transmission main along Beaver Loop Road during a state reconstruction project. But City Manager Rick Koch said the DOT is in a budget crunch and the Beaver Loop Project was put on the backburner.
Koch: “By the time the Department of Transportation undertakes the Beaver Loop reconstruction project, the money that we have available for a water transmission main will have expired; it will be gone. We worked hard to put that project together, and it was with the expectation that we would have solved our water production problem and have plenty of lines of water. Unfortunately that hasn’t happened in the way we anticipated.”
Koch said they asked the State to change the scope of the grant, so it can be used independently of the DOT project. Otherwise, Koch said lawmakers have been sweeping expired grants back into the general fund and that opportunity could disappear entirely.
The House Finance Committee included the grant change in their version of the budget this week, but it still has to pass a floor vote and a Senate revision before making it to the Governor.