Council Approves Emergency Hill Repair Funds

Brianna Gibbs/KMXT
A rockslide on Shelikof Street last month has delayed construction on the Shelikof pedestrian improvement project and generated some unanticipated expenses. During Thursday’s city council meeting City Manager Aimee Kniaziowski explained an emergency engineering and construction services contract that was before the council.
Kniaziowski said the work needs to be done as soon as possible to reopen the road. A portion of Petro Marine Services’ property was also damaged, and the city needs to repair that as well. The construction is expected to cost $600,000, which Kniaziowski said is a large and unexpected sum of money.
“So we’ll take all remaining funds out of the Shelikof Street pedestrian improvement project, this phase of it, and put it toward the repair. And also we will take money as needed out of the street improvement fund and the pavement repair project fund. There’s a small drainage repair that was already on the books and we may have to use some money out of that.”
The council unanimously authorized the construction, which is expected to begin sometime next week and wrap up in early July.

“As folks are aware, the Shelikof project work by Brechan was conducted to cut back that rock face toward the end of Shelikof Street by Pier II, as part of the Shelikof pedestrian improvement project. The work was done on May 14 and everything appeared to be fine and stable. And on the 20th of May there was a slide reported late in the evening, I believe it was around 10 p.m.”
Kniaziowski said the city responded to the slide and shut down that section of the street.
“Staff contacted the resources that we had available both locally and out of town. DOWL is our design firm and they flew Howard Weston, who has a background in this type of work, they flew him to town. And we also had Golder Associates, who do our dam inspections, in town and they brought a fellow over to take a look at the slide.”
She said the two engineering firms worked together to craft a new plan for the area.
“Try to sink anchors into the rock face and make sure they hold, and then shotcrete the area. Apparently Golder has had quite a bit of success with this type of rock face stabilization.”