Since the record-breaking glacial outburst flood damaged hundreds of homes in August, the City and Borough of Juneau has been focused on its short-term plan to install flood barriers along the Mendenhall River in hopes of holding back the next glacial outburst.
It’d be a temporary measure, but city leaders have maintained that it’s imperative. Some residents from flood-prone neighborhoods don’t see it that way. Starting next week, residents in Juneau’s Mendenhall Valley will be asked to weigh in on the proposal, and some, like Noah Teshner of Lakeview Court, said they’ll vote against it.
Teshner is part of a small group of well-organized homeowners that are calling themselves the Juneau Flood Solution Advocates. They’ve held community meetings attended by more than a hundred residents from flooded neighborhoods. Teshner said many would rather see a long-term solution to flooding, and they feel rushed by the city’s plan.
“It doesn’t give people the opportunity to make an educated decision,” he said. “It’s like a drowning man. You’re going to reach out and cling to the first thing that you can that you think is going to save you.”
City Manager Katie Koester said she wants a more permenant flood prevention plan too, and earlier this month she visited Washington, D.C., along with other representatives from the city and from the Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska to seek funding for it. But she said its success will depend on more immediate action, and the barriers are a critical way to buy time before next summer’s glacial outburst flood.
“We’re really concerned that if we don’t have a temporary, short-term solution, we won’t have much to protect,” she said.
The barrier installation would cost homeowners nearly $8,000 each over the next 10 years. A long-term solution would almost certainly be more–but homeowners might be less likely to have to foot the bill.
Juneau Flood Solution Advocates released a video earlier this month to draw attention the August flood and a Fairbanks project that they believe is a good example for Juneau. After a devastating city-wide flood in 1967, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers took on the massive Chena River Lakes Flood Control Project. Teshner wants something like that to control the flow of water at Mendenhall Lake.
And Koester said the Corps might be interested in pursuing that, but any long-term flood prevention project will require a lot of study, permitting and funding. For instance, it took six years for Chena River Lakes Flood Control Project to break ground and more than a decade to complete construction.
Koester says the Army Corps suggested the barrier plan as a first step.
“We really need to follow their advice, because they are our partner in finding a long term solution to this problem,”
For Debbie Penrose Fisher, president of the Juneau Flood Solution Advocates, the city’s focus on the barrier plan has been scary. She worries that if she and her neighbors don’t go along with it, they won’t receive any help at all. And she said she’s willing to wait for a long-term solution, even if that means flooding again.
“I choose not to be told scare tactics, and ‘It’s this or nothing,'” she said. “I think if I’ve seen from the community that we’re strong and we can come together and until they solve this in a long term way.”
She wants the city to develop a plan that makes the flood season easier on her and her neighbors–something with details for a better warning system, evacuation plan and sandbag deployment ahead of next year’s flood.
Penrose Fischer and nearly 500 other homeowners will weigh in on the barrier proposal over the next few weeks. They’ll have the opportunity for public comment at the regular Assembly meeting on Monday, Dec. 16th.