Competitors are now being sought to design a long-term glacial flooding solution the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says will be built faster and cheaper than previous proposals — but they don’t know what the project is.
The intent is to select a project and industry partner for it by the end of the year, said Army Corps Brig. Gen. Clete Goetz during a press briefing Friday. He said the process will involve “a series of what we call pitch briefings”
that he compared to the reality TV show “Shark Tank.”
“We don’t have a price tag because we don’t know yet what it is that we’re building and how it will be built,” he said.
But U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, participating in the press event remotely, declared, “We’ve got innovative, creative approaches to this that can make it much faster and much cheaper.”
Similar words were used by Goetz and other participants in the briefing that included Republican U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, and local municipal and tribal leaders — and by officials in two previous press events where specifics of the project were lacking.
A Request for Qualifications published Friday asks bidders to submit plans for a project that keeps Suicide Basin from rising above 1,100 feet and limits flood discharges to 1,000 cubic feet per second. The basin reached a height of about 1,345 feet this year before a release occurred and HESCO barriers along the river are designed to handle a release of 63,500 cubic feet per second.
Goetz, reiterating comments from previous press events, said the new process will invoke President Donald Trump’s “Building Infrastructure, Not Paperwork” initiative, the declared intentions of which are to shorten permitting timelines and cut administrative red tape for Army Corps projects. Critics have questioned if the intent is to bypass environmental review of Corps’ projects.
Army Corps and officials have previously stated the decade-long timeline for a long-term solution is due to Suicide Basin being on U.S. Forest Service Land, which has specific development criteria, as well as taking the time necessary to ensure whatever is done with the basin’s water doesn’t have unintended and destructive impacts downstream.
Sullivan on Friday said the new approach is an “incredibly creative proposal that’s all about speed,” adding it’s “indicative of the leadership that’s happening from the top.” Goetz was asked Friday how officials can claim the project will be cheaper and faster without knowing its specifics, and why such an approach should be trusted as safe.
“We’re not taking shots in the dark and hoping that this will work,” Goetz said. “There will be a design here associated with this and we’ll do the appropriate analysis, and you know it will work because we’re going to address the conditions in Suicide Basin that lead to this.”
He noted that while the Army Corps has drafted a set of medium-term solutions that were being evaluated by local officials, including a steel wall that could cost up to $1.5 billion, those have been shelved in favor of the new long-term plans.
Officials discussing plans for the RFQ in recent weeks have often mentioned local mining companies as a prospective partner, noting their expertise in drilling and tunneling mountains in the area. One mining official has previously proposed a traditional drill-and-blast drainage tunnel for the basin that he claims will be quick and cost half as much as a “lake tap” solution the Army Corps at one point called its preferred solution.
The Army Corps also stated a lake tap could cost up to $1 billion and take more than a decade to complete. Many residents in flood risk areas, as well as some public officials, have stated they consider that too costly and too long a wait given the problems posed by major floods that have occurred annually for the past years.
The RFQ published Friday is for an “Emergency Water Conveyance Prototype.” The project requirements in a 13-page program solicitation consist of one long paragraph that defines goals rather than how to fulfill them.
“Develop and demonstrate a proof of concept for, and design and construct, a new EWCP to protect the Mendenhall Valley, Juneau, Alaska associated with the severe and escalating flood hazard from GLOFs originating in Suicide Basin,” the requirements state. “The intent of this project is to prevent water levels in Suicide Basin from reaching an elevation sufficient to produce enough hydraulic pressure against Mendenhall Glacier to initiate a GLOF event. The EWCP shall prevent water levels in the Suicide Basin GDL from rising above an elevation of 1,100 feet, NAVD88 while safely managing peak discharge rates of approximately 1,000 cubic feet per second (CFS) to protect downstream communities.”
An “industry day” to brief interested bidders is scheduled next Friday and the deadline to submit proposals is Sept. 4, Goetz said. Pitch presentations are tentatively scheduled Sept. 28-30, a preferred bidder selected Oct. 7 and an award agreement on a final project signed by Dec. 11.
“We’ll receive white papers from industry with their technical approach, and we’ll hold a series of what we call pitch briefings,” Goetz said. “If you’ve seen the show ‘Shark Tank,’ think that, where we’ll have those meetings with industry and from there we’ll select the best qualified to form an agreement with to design this.”
Murkowski saw the glacial outburst release from above on Wednesday afternoon.
That morning she sat down with the Army Corps team present in Juneau, as well as emergency management leaders from the City and Borough of Juneau and the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska’s public safety team.
During the flyover of the Mendenhall Glacier, she said she learned about the community adjusting to around five miles of HESCO barriers stretching along the Mendenhall River and an earthen berm constructed near Back Loop Road this year.
She said she also took in just how quickly the water released.
“We saw it in real time. You can see the hole in the ice at the base, the toe of the glacier, where it is flowing through,” Murkowski said. “And we saw it first on our way up the glacier, and you could see the current. But 25 minutes after our flight, going back over the same path, you could see how the volume of water had increased in just that time period.”
Murkowski said it’s important for Juneau residents to understand how impressed she is with the collaborative effort between the Corps and the city to keep properties as safe as possible in the short-term approach.
“But we’re also thinking about the longer term and what that is going to mean,” she said. “This is where I really appreciate the vision of the Corps in saying, ‘We’re not just going to treat this as any Corps project that’s going to take a decade and millions and millions of dollars to advance.’”
José Sánchez, director of engineering and business for the Corps’ Pacific Ocean Division, said the urgency of the situation requires out-of-the-box thinking.
He said this thought process applies not only to what kind of solution is sought, but also the ways it is acquired, which is why the Corps is inviting industries to submit concepts. He said the flyover provided scale for engineers to realize how difficult a long-term solution could be.
Sánchez said they aren’t pinpointing a lake tunnel solution at this time, but the approach will focus on maintaining a certain water level in the basin to avoid downstream flooding.
“That’s all we’re saying because we want all ideas to be brought on the table,” he said during a press briefing following the helicopter ride.
Murkowski said since her last visit to the capital city in June, she has seen the Corps do “a 180 in terms of its level of interest, its level of commitment, its level of engagement, and not just here within the Alaska division, but elevated all the way up to the top.”
She said she is advocating for the Corps to bore a tunnel through Bullard Mountain to drain Suicide Basin.
Sánchez said while the “lake tap” isn’t being announced as the chosen long-term solution, the work the Corps has completed is still being taken into consideration. A lake tap solution was selected as a preferred long-term solution by the Forest Service, CBJ and Tlingit and Haida last December, with the Corps reaffirming it was the front-runner in March.
“We are going to be working on what we have already investigated and we have already learned from the efforts that started even before December of last year,” Sánchez said. “So all that engineering and all of that discussion we had at that time with the federal partners, with the city, with private entities as well — we even have private contractors involved in that — we’re going to use that information to progress us in a faster manner.”
The senator and Sánchez said the 35 Army Corps personnel on the ground during this year’s flood — as well as the federal agency’s largest concentration of pumps being set up in Juneau to mitigate seepage by HESCO barriers — proves the project is being treated with importance.
“Our plan is to move ahead with all the authorities that we have in place, and also plan on future authorities that we may have on this project,” Sánchez said. “We’re not slowing down.”
Murkowski said the path of soliciting industry proposals under emergency authorities is an aggressive approach for expediting a long-term fix and the Water Resources Development Act is another avenue. The bill aims to fast-track a permanent engineering solution by speeding up Army Corps paperwork. It has yet to pass the U.S. Senate and House. Congress must also appropriate funding.
“It is hard on the people in this community. It’s hard for those that are waiting,” Murkowski said.
She also visited the unprotected neighborhood of View Drive during her visit Wednesday. Following the 14.7-foot river crest Thursday afternoon, resident Emily Rosenfeld wondered if the unannounced solution would apply to her street.
“The intent of us is to be able to manage the water out of the Suicide Basin in a way that it will not impact the residents downstream,” Sánchez said at the Wednesday press briefing. “So that includes everybody downstream.”
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This story was originally published by Juneau Independent and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.
