City Turning Extraction Site into Collection Site for Clean Fill

Pillar Mountain gravel pit, center, from Google Earth.

The gravel quarry about a half-mile beyond the City of Kodiak’s water treatment plant on Pillar Mountain Road could soon see a re-purposing. Action taken at Thursday’s city council meeting authorized a contract with engineers to design a way to use the site as a spot for clean construction fill – that is, rocks and soil.

“This would utilize about $9,300 that was left in the quarry project, the original project, and move the $50,000 in unspent funds from the design and construction and snow dump back into the quarry reclamation project to cover those project costs,” said City Manager Aimee Kniaziowski.

The project had been designed and funded before, but during the winter of 2013 and 14, the city was forced to turn its attention to storing snow plowed from city streets, because the state frowned on the practice of dumping it in the channel.

“We had to refocus and find a snow-dump location. So we took that money, even though it was in the same fund, and directed that to the design and construction of a snow storage yard, which we did,” the city manager said. “And there’s leftover funding from that project that we can put back into the, to finish the design award for Dowl.”

Kniaziowski explained that using the site for clean fill would benefit it, just as similar practices have provided fill for the site of the Kodiak Police station, a large area between Larch Street and Mill Bay Road, and South of Lilly Lake.

“It’s used to place clean fill that comes from city construction sites,” she said. “Clean dirt can go in there and that will work towards both saving money for projects because the contractors will know they have a disposal site that is of no cost to them, as well as the fact that it will help reclaim the site as we work to fill that area.”

The resolution authorizing the expenditure of about $47,000 and a contract with Dowl engineers of Anchorage passed the city council unanimously.

Check Also

Kodiak Fisheries Workgroup setting priorities and action items to help local fishers after four year hiatus

The Kodiak’s Fisheries Workgroup wants to host informational forums to speed along fish-related action items …

%d bloggers like this: