The Emmonak City Council Tuesday night approved a proposal to start repairs on its crippled sewage treatment plant, which caught fire Monday.
The Council approved $20,000 to fix the roof of the plant, a first step before replacing a burned out pump, which caused the fire. City Manager Martin Moore says this cannot wait.
“The immediate problem is the families,” Moore said. “The families need to have potable water; they need to flush their toilets; and they need to flush the water from the bathtub and showers to the lagoon.”
The City Council did act quickly, approving Moore's proposal to enter into a contract with Rich Contracting Incorporated, who was already working on the plant at the time of the blaze.
The contractor estimates three days fix the roof, but Moore says the whole operation could be out of commission for weeks and this worries him.
“If the repair work for the vacuum pump is not done in time, it’s possible that the pipes at the west end and at the east end of town, which provides close to 300 homes, will probably freeze. And if it freezes, it will become a major disaster.”
Moore guesses, if a freeze happens, it could take months to fix. And then there would be another problem.
“We don’t have any money to repair the damages if that were to happen.”
Moore says it could cost over a million dollars and the village would have to go to the state to declare an emergency disaster.
Emmonak has gotten some relief funds already from the Alaska Native Health Consortium: $5,000 for the roof. And the village has requested help from the Rasmuson Foundation. Moore just hopes it will come in time.