Nearly six inches of rain over a three-day period caused a washout on Power Creek Road Aug. 13, unearthing about 50 feet of buried hydroelectric transmission cable that carries Cordova’s primary power supply.
The damage is bad, and temporary fixes won’t solve the repeated problem, said Clay Koplin, chief executive officer of the Cordova Electric Cooperative.
Koplin, also Cordova’s mayor, said he was speaking in his role as CEC’s manager.
For the last five years, Power Creek has been filling up, silting in with glacial fill and gravel from the Hatchery Creek culverts up to CEC’s upper intake road on Power Creek Road, about a 1,500-foot area, he said.
“We’ve been having more severe road scour with smaller and smaller storms, and it finally culminated Aug. 13,” he said.
Koplin said he spoke with the local staff of the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities, and was told they expect to have the road repaired in the next few days.
“We can’t keep kicking this can down the road and talking about it,” Koplin said. “This must be fixed, and I feel strongly that it needs to get fixed this year.”
Without a permanent solution, the road will again wash out during fall storms in October and November, potentially taking out that hydroelectric transmission line, he said.
Koplin said the line that runs from Power Creek into Cordova could potentially short to ground, making a failure in the transmission line, “and that would also require a very costly repair. It would take days or weeks to get it back in service, there’d be high materials cost, and a very high construction cost,” he said.
Diesel fuel is costly. Operating at 100-percent hydro power out of Power Creek’s site is saving CEC and its residential, commercial and business users between $2.5 to $5 million annually in diesel fuel savings, he said.
“Even with the relatively low diesel (fuel) prices we’re enjoying right now, Power Creek saves over a million gallons of fuel a year. As of Aug. 15, at current prices, if we lost the Power Creek project, it would cost us over $600 an hour in diesel fuel. That’s over $15,000 a day to all users of electrical services. Electricity in Cordova would just about double in price,” he said.
Still going back to diesel generation, if Power Creek’s hydroelectric transmission line fails, or becomes inaccessible, will be the only option, he said. Humpback Creek, CEC’s small hydro project, could only supply Cordova with 5-precent of power. “The rest would have to be diesel,” he said.
“It’s going to happen at a very bad time, when the groundwater is very high, when the ground soil is super saturated with water, right where the road is all torn up, and we may have to rebuild part of the road just to get to the wires. It’s not a good thing,” he said.
It’s also likely to cause a huge electrical outage.
“We barely have enough diesel generation to meet all of the town’s needs during our peak loads that we’re having right now during pink salmon processing. If that line had washed out, besides adding hundreds of thousands of dollars of fuel costs to the community using diesel generation, we would be very marginal on (power) to meet the fish processing industry’s needs through this processing season. It’s critical infrastructure, there’s no question,” he said.
Koplin said he met with Cordova’s emergency manager, Joanie Behrends, disaster manager Dick Groff, and city manager Alan Lanning on Aug. 14, to discuss whether to declare the washout an emergency.
“We called Homeland Security, talked to DOT staff, and discussed if this merited a disaster declaration, so that we could be eligible for state assistance. We assume DOT doesn’t have the kind of money in their budget for a quick-response road upgrade,” Koplin said. “We’re still exploring options.”
One option could be the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Programs, designed to help reduce soil erosion, enhance water supplies, improve water quality, increase wildlife habitat, and reduce damages caused by floods and other natural disasters.
“State emergency management and Homeland Security felt Cordova would be a good candidate, and there are also some state of Alaska resources since this is a state road, which could come to bear,” Koplin said.
Behrends said she believes the immediate threat is being addressed by DOT.
“My concern is not for the road condition today, after this small storm surge. It is the road condition after a big storm this fall, or next fall. The big storm that we all know will eventually come,” she said.
“I cannot even pretend to be an expert about roads, particularly the Power Creek Road. I only know that the road is a challenge, from many different perspectives. It is tricky due to environmental concerns for salmon habitat, critical infrastructure that is involved, multiple agencies and jurisdictions involved in decisions for any major road repairs, and lack of (money) all around.”
Over the last several years, Cordova’s DOT has responded quickly when Power Creek Road has washed out.
“We want to work with DOT and not duplicate efforts,” Koplin said. “The local DOT maintenance office has previously jumped right in and fixed the road. They are sensitive to the needs of our power line to make sure the road is properly rebuilt around it, and restoring access to the project site, which we really need this time of year,” he said.
But Power Creek Road needs a long-term solution to these repeated washouts, such as installing culverts or bridges, or building the road up higher and armoring it, so it can’t be scoured out, he said.
Koplin said he talked with Valdez DOT District Superintendent Robert Dunning, who expects to visit Cordova in late August, and will inspect the washout site.
The Cordova Times tried several times to reach Dunning on Aug. 15 for further details, but he did not return calls.
“Dunning told us that he and a hydrologist will be coming to Cordova about the end of August, and evaluate the site, and then decide what would be a proper design and fix, see what kind of permitting will be required with Fish and Game, and then they’re going to try to plow forward with a longer-term plan,” Koplin said.
“We have passed the information on to the Alaska DOT and are giving them a little time and room to come up with a plan,” he said.
