Update on Metal Removal in Kodiak Villages

Kayla Desroches/KMXT

The Kodiak Island Borough is in the process of removing metal and hazardous waste from villages on the island.

Solid Waste Manager Joe Lipka says in 2013, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service granted the borough a $2.1 million grant under the Coastal Impact Assistance Program to do the removal. He explains the project follows similar efforts between 1994 and 2007 that the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council funded.   

He says they started working on the project about two years ago.

“The first part of the program is we’re addressing the metal accumulation. We’re removing the accumulated metals from the villages, and then subsequent to that we’re going to start looking at the hazardous materials and hazardous waste that’s also present on-site either as a result of the metals such as automobile carcasses, boat carcasses, things like that, but also just waste generated by the folks out there.”

Lipka says, to date, the borough and its partners have removed 752 tons of metals from the villages, with the most coming from Larsen Bay at 520 tons.

He says that material will end up in Soldotna.

“The metals are basically sorted, moved, staged to move to a beach or an area where the landing craft can basically come in, dock, the metals are loaded onto the landing craft and then the landing craft takes those back to Homer where the Alaska Scrap and Recycling folks offload the vessel and then take it to their yard in Soldtona.”
    
He says workers in Soldotna will further process the metals there.  

The Kodiak Island Borough only has a certain length of time to remove all the metals and hazardous waste from the villages. Lipka says the grant sunsets in December 2016.

“The focus this next field season – which is when the weather starts to get a little more predictable, a little less sporty – in the spring will be Port Lions, Old Harbor, and then finish up in Ouzinkie. We have some metals to load out still. Akhiok’s about halfway done, and then we’ll go from there.”

He says they are trying to prepare the villages to continue the project after the grant’s end date.

“The metals are sorted and basically prepped by the folks in the villages and then they’ve received training or have had previous training to go ahead and prep, say, the automobile carcasses or any engines or motors, drain the fluids, properly handle the fluids.”

Lipka says ideally they’d like to have a continual removal option instead of completing a major project every decade or so.