Borough begins court-ordered cleanup of long-running Badger Road junkyard; code enforcement caseload at record high

Kellen Spellman, the Fairbanks North Star Borough community planning director, told the Planning Commission on Aug. 12 that the borough obtained a court judgment clearing the way for a contractor to begin cleanup of a six-year junkyard and illegal landfill case near Badger Road.

The case, which opened in 2019, covers a roughly 2-acre parcel off Lacloy near a large gravel pit and the Homestead Pumping and Thawing site. The borough began on-site cleanup in early August after receiving final judgment two weeks earlier, Spellman said.

The work is the result of years of efforts to obtain voluntary compliance. Spellman said staff made roughly 47 site visits and engaged the property owner repeatedly before filing suit, and that those enforcement attempts “didn't come” to a lasting solution. "We just hit kind of an all time high in code enforcement cases. I think we have approximately 560 open code enforcement…