Kodiak City Council Talks Composting Facility and KPAC

Members of the Kodiak City Council met at the library Tuesday night. Kayla Desroches/KMXT

 

Kayla Desroches/KMXT          

 

Kodiak city biosolids will soon end up in a new composting facility, and Kodiak may see a resurgence of one of its fisheries councils. These were both matters of discussion at the Kodiak City Council work session Tuesday night.

Julie Matweyou from the UAF Sea Grant Marine Advisory Program stopped by to seek the council’s approval as a possible facilitator of the Kodiak Fisheries Advisory Committee, or KFAC.  Matweyou says that borough Assemblywoman Rebecca Skinner asked her to consider taking the position in November. The suggestion comes as a move to revitalize the group. KFAC’s last official meeting was in Spring 2014.

Matweyou cites the original resolution that established KFAC in 2006, which describes the council as one created to provide recommendations to the Kodiak Borough Assembly and City Council on fishery issues. She says that KFAC could be a useful sounding board if brought back with regular meetings.

“As KFAC is not a decision making body, the value of the group is in the discussion and that open exchange. It has been an open exchange forum that members and community attendees find useful,” says Matweyou.

Councilmember Terry Haines referred back that idea when Councilman Charlie Davidson asked how KFAC would be different from the Kodiak Fisheries Work Group.

“The idea generally was that the committee would allow more and more discussion and more interaction amongst the various interested parties so that when they then attended the fish work group, they might be better prepared and having already had the preliminary discussions,” says Haines.

Council members expressed concern about KFAC’s goals and potential effectiveness. The Council left the matter of Matweyou’s KFAC facilitation undecided and made a note to bring it up at the next joint work session with the Borough Assembly.

At the work session, the Council also announced the appropriation stage of its plans to construct a new composting facility. Now, with the approval of a loan combined with its budget, the Council will have access to over 7 million dollars for the project. The City has contracted local company, Brechan Enterprises, for the construction. Councilman Haines pointed out that this development will provide Kodiak with a higher quality facility.

“It’ll be great to see a world-class A-composting go in because the b-composting we’re doing now is a lot smellier and a nice A-composting facility with a bio filter and everything else is going to be so much better,” says Haines.

The Council will discuss further composting plans at their upcoming regular meeting on Thursday night. The meeting is open to the public and will take place at the assembly chambers at 7:30pm.