The village of Kivalina, northwest of Kotzebue, was already in grave danger. The barrier island on which it sits (bottom right) is forecast to be underwater before this decade is over. Then the remnants of Typhoon Merbok struck the Western Alaska coast in mid-September, scattering debris around the area (bottom left).

The village of Kivalina, northwest of Kotzebue, was already in grave danger. The barrier island on which it sits (below) is forecast to be underwater before this decade is over. Then the remnants of Typhoon Merbok struck the Western Alaska coast in mid-September, scattering debris around the area (far bottom).

Luckily, Kivalina was prepared. Work had begun earlier in the summer on rehabilitation of the village landfill, led by Delta Backhaul Co. “Due to the recent landfill cover and newly fenced-in waste collection area,” says company owner Doug Huntman, “environmental damage was kept to a minimum.”

Delta Backhaul, aided by local laborers, tidied up the 6.7-acre site, closing the majority of the old landfill through consolidation, compaction, and cover and developing a more manageable 1-acre site. All the better for Kivalina’s eventual relocation, whenever that massive effort takes place.

“This project will serve as a model for future landfill clean-up projects in rural Alaska,” Huntman says.

The Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) inspected the Kivalina landfill in 2018, resulting in a poor score of 14 percent. That report helped prioritize efforts to rehabilitate the landfill.

The most basic part of the rehab was a litter patrol. Sam Huntman, Zach Huntman, Robert Swan, Brett Norton, Brian Adams, and Kirk Koenig helped clean up the perimeter (above). By the end of the project, more than 500 tons of trash was removed from the old site.

A honey bucket trench has been established for village residents to dump their sewage (above left). “The improvements at the current site will greatly reduce the impacts from solid waste in Kivalina, protecting clean drinking water and substance resources,” Huntman says. The rehab also set up a staging area for electronics waste, which can be backhauled to a recycler (above right).

More than forty years’ worth of accumulated garbage was packed into 5-cubic-yard super sacks and staged on the beach (below). Due to funding shortfalls, the sacks are stuck for the winter until they can be shipped to Seattle in the spring for final disposal and a regulated landfill.

An unofficial inspection at the conclusion of the rehab improved the score to 60 percent. Huntman says Delta Backhaul is working with DEC’s solid waste program to permit the current site and bring the score up to 70 percent.

Kivalina’s new landfill has more than 800 linear feet of 60-foot fence, which Darin Hanley, Reid Casey, Sam Huntman, and Zach Huntman helped install (above).

Zach Huntman and Darin Hanley measure out fencing material for the installation of the fence (above and bottom left, above right) which is topped with barbed wire and is complete with a locking gate and landfill entrance signs.

As part of the project, Kivalina purchased a John Deere 544K wheel loader, which will be kept in the city garage for use by the landfill crew. Also, Summit Consulting Services of Anchorage is fabricating two 7-cubic-yard burn boxes, which will incinerate some trash and reduce its volume, extending the useful life of the landfill. That hardware is set to be delivered on the first barge of the spring.

While the relocation of Kivalina to higher ground is on hold, the village does have an evacuation road to escape the worst coastal storms. Once a new class III landfill has been established along the evacuation road, the current site will be fully closed out. Huntman explains that it will be covered with an additional 2 feet of dirt, re-graded to prevent ponding and erosion, and then seeded with vegetation, as if it were never there.