The Soldotna City Council allocated $60,000 for services to obtain a permit from the Department of Environmental Conservation to be compliant for regulations on water discharge into the Kenai River.
The Alaska National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit for Soldotna expired in 2005. Mayor Peter Sprague says since then the city has been operating under a temporary permit and negotiating with the DEC.
Mayor Sprague: “There’s some questions the city has raised about the renewal of our permit and what the administration is asking the council to do is appropriate $60,000 to contract with a consultant to help us work with the state and with the feds to facilitate renewing this permit.”
The questions from the city involve the copper and zinc levels in the water being discharged into the Kenai River. In a letter dated 2014, the DEC recommended that Soldotna partner with an agency to investigate how those elements being discharged into the river might affect it.
The $60,000 up for allocation by the Soldotna City Council would cover an evaluation of the process used to find Water Effect Ratios, finding a mixing model of the city’s discharge into the river, and ultimately a technical report.
On Wednesday night the council also passed a resolution to contract with HDR Alaska for the services to evaluate the city’s discharge into Kenai River.