Wasilla reviews engineering, modeling and early funding for proposed Palmer interconnect

Wasilla city leaders heard detailed engineering updates April 28 on a proposed water interconnect with the City of Palmer, a project HDL Engineering said is intended to increase regional resiliency, boost fire flows and enable future growth along the corridor.

HDL water/wastewater department manager Chris Bowman and water engineer Lane Kopsack summarized a 2022 feasibility study and the work now under way, including a digital GIS database, a hydraulic model for Wasilla’s pressure zones, and design work tied to a progressive design-build contract for the Old Matanuska booster station.

Bowman said the project traces to a federal requirement and local experience: “Everything sort of stems from a law passed in 2018, called the America’s Water Infrastructure Act... [that] required communities of over 3,300 people to develop and update a risk and resiliency assessment and emergency response plan,” Bowman said. He also told the council the 2021 valley windstorm revealed vulnerabilities—frozen booster pumps and damage to reservoirs—that motivated the interconnect study.

Kopsack outlined the technical work now under way: digitizing record drawings into an online GIS…