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 asset database, field-checking node locations to within two centimeters this summer, and building a hydraulic model of Wasilla’s zones so engineers can analyze combined-system performance before any connection is designed. “We want to analyze a combined system because before we begin designing that system we need to know how each system works and how they’ll work together,” he said.

The HDL team described two alignment concepts from the feasibility work: a northern alternative along the Bogard/Selden corridor, roughly 44,000 feet and previously estimated around $32 million (2022 estimate), and a shorter southern route following Trunk Road and connecting near Old Matanuska/Fairview Loop at about 14,000 feet and an earlier estimate near $15 million. HDL and council members cautioned those early numbers require updating in a full design.

Council members pressed for clarity on what the borough and state grants would cover and on whether Wasilla needs internal upgrades before a connection. Public Works Director Eric told the council that recent grant awards and borough support are intended to fund design and preparatory work, not to build the full interconnect: “We’re leveraging the support from the borough… so we can propose complete projects” to federal funders that favor shovel-ready work, Eric said.

Multiple speakers stressed that Wasilla’s internal system requires upgrades—especially storage in Zone 4—before an interconnection would be a resilient asset. Kopsack and Bowman said modeling shows the Richmond (Zone 4) area needs additional storage; engineers and staff told council members they have rescoping under the progressive design-build to prioritize Zone 4 upgrades, including a proposed Herman Road reservoir, before a transmission main is built.

Funding and schedule questions dominated later remarks. Finance and project staff listed current and pending funds being used for design: two borough ARPA subgrants, a $2.1 million design/construction grant for the Old Matanuska booster/PRV work, a $750,000 legislative grant previously received, and a $2 million legislative grant under consideration through the borough. Borough manager Mike Brown confirmed the borough served as grantee on federal and state awards and that the borough matched and subgranted funds to Wasilla to execute the engineering work. Brown said the intent was to produce a usable design that could be leveraged for future federal construction funding.

Council members and staff noted deadlines tied to grant requirements: ARPA funds carried completion deadlines in 2026, and the legislative grants had performance windows into 2029. Staff said contracts for several of the subgrant-funded tasks are in place and that field work and modeling are expected to continue through the summer, with route selection to follow.

No formal decision was taken on routing or construction; council members asked for a follow-up memo from the city attorney on grant conditions and reporting liabilities. Council members indicated they expect to see updated engineer estimates and a clear breakdown of what each grant can and cannot pay before committing to a construction alignment.

Ending: HDL and city staff said the next technical steps will be completing the meter-to-node GIS field work, finishing the hydraulic model, and using that data to refine a route-selection study for the council and public. Staff signaled those refined designs will be used to pursue additional state and federal construction funding if the council elects to proceed.