Corps of Engineers plans 3 days of closed-door flood solution meetings with ‘stakeholders and community partners’
- Mark Sabbatini
- 2 days ago
- 2 min read
‘Opportunity to work with our partners without any kind of public scrutiny’ will allow more candid discussion of long-term proposals, spokesperson says
By Mark Sabbbatini
Juneau Independent
This story has been updated with details about attendees scheduled to attend the meetings.
Three days of meetings next week to discuss five possible long-term solutions to glacial flooding with "stakeholders and community partners" will be closed to the public, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which is overseeing the meetings and the project.
John Budnik, a USACE spokesperson, said in an interview no Juneau Assembly members or other officials who would violate open meetings laws via group participation will be present.
"This is a work meeting," he said. "And so we do reserve the right to have that opportunity to work with our partners without any kind of public scrutiny."
Budnik, referring to the full-day meetings scheduled next Tuesday through Thursday as a "charrette," said the purpose is "there's going to be a lot of open discussion."
"The reason why we're limiting the availability of the public, including the media, is we don't want anybody in the room to feel inhibited because they're going to be on the record," he said.
A list of nearly 90 attendees provided by USACE shows more than 40 are from that agency and more than 20 are affiliated with the Dallas-based infrastructure consulting firm AECOM. Other attendees include five emergency management or infrastructure officials for the City and Borough of Juneau, two emergency management officials with the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska, three National Weather Service experts, four U.S. Forest Service officials, and two experts involved in studies about the glacier area for the University of Alaska Southeast.
Press briefings will be held by two "subject-matter-experts" at the end of each day’s meetings, which are scheduled at The Huddle inside the Mendenhall Mall, according to a USACE email. A written report summarizing the meetings is scheduled to be released publicly by the agency in January.
The proposals being discussed to protect neighborhoods against flooding from Suicide Basin were projected in August to take up to a decade to implement, and potentially cost hundreds of millions of dollars in combined local, state and federal funds. USACE officials, after promising a speedier assessment in late October, said the project's completion timeline is unknown because the alternatives vary in complexity.
The five options include a drainage tunnel from Suicide Basin through a mountain, a bypass channel through the Mendenhall River floodplain, a dam at the outlet of Mendenhall Lake, a permanent levee around the lake and relocating residents in at-risk areas.
In October, USACE officials said they hoped to select a preferred alternative as early as December and complete an environmental review by May. Budnik said no decisions or official agreements are scheduled to be announced during next week’s meetings.
He also noted a 30-day public comment period was offered by the USACE starting Oct. 31 and that additional public comment periods and meetings will occur as the project progresses.
• Contact Mark Sabbatini at editor@juneauindependent.com or (907) 957-2306.
