Hooper Bay expects to fill the hole in its sewer lagoon, at least partially, by March 11. That should stop the sewage spill next to the community from growing. Hooper Bay’s plan to fix its sewer lagoon is to collect sand from the beach, fill large sand bags, and then use them to plug the hole in the sewer lagoon.
City Administrator Sandra Tall-Lake is hoping workers are able to fill a portion of the hole by Friday, March 11. It will only be a portion because the hole in the lagoon wall is large, 40 feet wide by 15 feet tall, and the community’s beach doesn’t have enough sand to fill it in completely.
For the past week, city workers have been trying to plow a path through heavy snow from the sewer lagoon to the beach. It’s a 3-mile stretch. The city administrator said that the community’s plows finally made it to the beach, and now city workers are in the process of filling sandbags and transporting them to the sewer lagoon. That should at least stop the sewage spill from getting bigger. In the past two weeks, community members have continued to use water and flush toilets, adding to the spill.
Almost two weeks ago, a sudden shift from extremely cold temperatures to rain caused Hooper Bay’s sewer lagoon wall to crack and then erode. That caused the entire contents of the sewer lagoon to spill out into an important subsistence location for the coastal community of about 1,100 residents.
Tall-Lake said that she doesn’t currently have a plan to fill the remainder of the hole. The long-term plan is to build a brand-new, larger sewer lagoon. This project had already been started when the existing lagoon, which was at the end of its life expectancy, broke. The new lagoon is expected to be completed in around three years.