View

Notice

Tools

Share

Bonanza Creek, ADOT&PF- Dalton Highway MP 120-135, Notice of Application for State Water Quality Certification

Notice of Application for State Water Quality Certification
PN Reference Number: POA-2022-00511 v1.0
Waterway: Bonanza Creek

Any applicant for a federal license or permit to conduct an activity that might result in a discharge into navigable waters, in accordance with Section 401 of the Clean Water Act (CWA) of 1977 (PL95-217), also must apply for and obtain certification from the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation that the discharge will comply with the CWA, the Alaska Water Quality Standards, and other applicable State laws. 

Notice is hereby given that a request for a CWA §401 Water Quality Certification of a Department of the Army Permit application, Corps of Engineers’ PN Reference Number indicated above has been received for the discharge of dredged and/or fill materials into waters of the United States (WOUS), including wetlands, as described below, and shown on the project figures/drawings. The public notice and related project figures/drawings are accessible from the DEC website at https://dec.alaska.gov/water/wastewater/.

To comment on the project or request for a public hearing with respect to water quality, submit comments electronically via the DEC public notice site at https://water.alaskadec.commentinput.com?id=FKDNHV4ZJ  on or before the public notice expiration date listed above.

Applicant:  
DOT&PF, Kerri Martin, 2301 Peger Road Fairbanks, AK 99709; 907-451-5289; Keri.martin@alaska.gov.

Project Name:  
Dalton Highway MP 120-135

Location:  
The proposed activity is located within Section 6,7,18,19,30, T. 21N, R. 14W; Fairbanks Meridian; in Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area, Alaska. Project Site (Latitude, Longitude):  66.69810, -150.66420. With potential discharge location(s) as follows: 
• Beginning of Reconstruction -150.718413, 66.601134
• Middle of Reconstruction -150.664202, 66.698101
• Bonanza Creek Material Site -150.664202, 66.659152
• End of Reconstruction -150.687711, 66.780075
• Coldfoot Quarry Expansion -150.204368, 67.22632
 
Purpose: 
The applicant’s stated purpose is to improve safety of the Dalton Highway between MP 120 and MP 135 using current design standards. The project area requires frequent major maintenance operations due to design and safety issues such as narrow roadway, lack of shoulders, substandard embankment material, thawing permafrost, substandard horizontal and vertical geometric features, lack of pullouts for chain-up areas, and major drainage issues. In some areas, where it is not pragmatic to meet current design standards, design exceptions and waivers have been approved by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA).

Project Description: 
The Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities (DOT&PF) Northern Region is seeking to improve safety of the Dalton Highway between MP 120–135 using current design standards to reconstruct approximately 15 miles of the Dalton Highway.. This Dalton Highway MP 120–135 Reconstruction Project (project) includes structural embankment replacement, realignments, widening, and resurfacing of the15-mile segment. This is the first phase of a multi-phase project along the Dalton Highway between MP 109-144.

The proposed project will: 
• Widen the road from 11-foot lanes and variable shoulders to 12-foot lanes and 6-foot shoulders.
• Replace the structural section of roadway embankment to mitigate issues resulting from the existing frost-susceptible and moisture-sensitive embankment materials.
• Raise the road grade where needed to minimize the effects of aufeis and mitigate snow drifting. Grade raise in some areas is also required to keep the roadway operational while the embankment material is being replaced (minimum fill of 2 feet over the original ground has been determined as necessary to allow the highway traffic to pass through the corridor during construction).
• Lessen steep highway profile grades where practical.
• Resurface and restripe the highway with similar materials that currently exist (high float asphalt).
• Install new signage and delineators and replace guardrails.
• Replace guardrails leading to bridges to bring them to current standards.
• Realign sharp curves to bring features to current standards or improve the current design. There are four realignments due to curve flattening with the average length of the realignments approximately 1/3 mile.
• Improve drainage by installing new equalization culverts where needed, and by replacing all existing culverts. Temporary diversions and/or half-width construction may be necessary for larger-diameter or deep culverts.
• Construct thermal berms, as necessary, to separate thaw-induced settling from the structural component of the embankment.
• Install fish passage culverts at Pung’s Creek Crossing, South Fork Little Nasty Creek, and Little Nasty Creek.
• Realign portions of the channels of South Fork Little Nasty Creek and Little Nasty Creek.
• Develop a new material site (Bonanza Creek Material Site) on land managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) at MP 124.5 to provide suitable embankment materials.
• Expand an existing material site (Coldfoot Quarry) managed by BLM at MP 172.6 to provide armor rock, riprap, and air convection embankment (ACE) for the realignment that crosses undisturbed permafrost.
• Construct pullouts for vehicles to chain up along the project corridor.
• Clear vegetation within DOT&PF’s right-of-way (ROW) along the project corridor.

The proposed repairs and upgrades consist of 55.38 acres of permanent impacts from the discharge of approximately 729,075 cubic yards of fill and 16.72 acres of temporary impacts from the discharge of 136,707 cubic yards of fill into waters of the U.S. (WOTUS), including wetlands.  

Discharges into Wetlands and Other WOTUS:
Project Feature Permanent Impact
to WOTUS (acres)		 Excavation in 
WOTUS (cubic yards)		 Fill in WOTUS (cubic yards) Temporary Impact to WOTUS (acres)
 Roadway  22.64 26,000 136,000 14.95
 Stream Crossings 0.12 3,075 707 1.77
 Bonanza Creek Material Site 32.62* 700,000 -  -
 Project Totals 55.38 729,075 136,707 16.72

*A large portion of the Bonanza Creek Material Site impact area will be converted to a pond with an unconsolidated bottom.

Applicant Proposed Mitigation: 
The applicant proposes the following mitigation measures to avoid, minimize, and compensate for impacts to WOTUS from activities involving discharges of dredged or fill material.

a. Avoidance and Minimization: The applicant has stated that complete avoidance of wetlands is not practicable as there is no reasonable, entirely upland alternative (location and/or alignment) along the existing highway route. The impacts to riverine and lacustrine waters of the U.S. have been avoided where possible. See Table 6 for avoidance and minimization measures proposed by the applicant.
Most of the reconstruction will occur within the existing footprint along the current alignment. Of the 15.03 miles of reconstruction, 92 percent (i.e., 13.82 miles) of the reconstructed road uses the current road embankment. All impacted WOTUS are near existing disturbance. The majority of impacted WOTUS are due to widening of the roadway embankment to provide a consistent lane and shoulder width. Realignment of the road onto undisturbed and wetland areas occurs only when necessary for safety. When safety issues can be appropriately mitigated (e.g., signage, addition of chain up areas), design exceptions that minimize impacts to WOTUS have been requested by project engineers and received from DOT&PF’s regional Preconstruction Engineer.  Examples include:
• Between stations 729+29 and 739+30, a design exception was approved for maintaining a profile grade exceeding design standards. Adhering to design standards would have raised the embankment 80 feet, thereby expanding the required toe of fill outward into WOTUS or would have required realignment that would construct 5 miles of new road over undisturbed ground.
• Between stations 936+42 and 940+75, a design exception was approved for a curve with a design speed of 40 miles per hour on this 50 mile per hour roadway. The existing embankment is surrounded by wetlands on both sides. Realignment of the highway to flatten this sharp curve would impact wetlands and a pond on the west side of the road.

At Gobbler’s Knob (Station 1154+14-1417+17), multiple design exceptions were approved to maintain or only partially improve the existing profile grades and horizontal curves. This approval prevented raising the embankment by 30 to 65 feet, which would have expanded the required toe of fill outward into WOTUS over 2 miles or would have required new construction of 30 miles of road on undisturbed land.

In areas of the project’s proposed road realignments, the abandoned roadway embankment will be reclaimed based on the presence of adjacent WOTUS:
• Where the abandoned realignment is adjacent to wetlands, the embankment material will be removed to approximately 1 foot below existing (surrounding) ground elevations. The area will then be re-sodded with topsoil and vegetative mat excavated from within the footprint of the new alignment. Approximately 6.8 acres of embankment will be removed, and the area will be revegetated.
• Where the abandoned roadway realignment is adjacent to upland, the old roadway embankment will be obliterated, meaning that the asphalt will be removed and the surface will be scarified. For approximately 100 feet at the beginning and end of these sections, the abandoned highway embankment will be removed down to existing (surrounding) ground elevations and will be seeded to promote revegetation and inhibit erosion.

Existing drainage patterns will be maintained or enhanced wherever possible, including replacement of damaged or failing culverts with pipes of equal or larger size. To enhance hydraulic connectivity of wetlands, all culverts within the project will be replaced. Existing 24-inch drainage culverts through the Dalton Highway embankment will be replaced with 36-inch-diameter or larger culverts to ensure sufficient hydraulic capacity and improve hydrologic connectivity. Culvert replacement will help improve water quality by reducing scour and erosion, will reduce flooding, and will provide improved habitat connectivity, resulting in some amount of ecological uplift for existing streams and wetlands adjacent to the roadway.

At three fish streams (Pung’s Crossing, South Fork Little Nasty Creek, and Little Nasty Creek), fish passage will be enhanced beyond the requirements from the ADF&G and DOT&PF Memorandum of Agreement for Implementing Safe Passage of Anadromous and Resident Fish While Maintaining and Improving State Transportation Infrastructure. The project will construct the following improvements:
• At Pung’s Crossing, the existing two 10-foot-diameter circular steel plate culverts will be replaced with a 19.5-foot-wide circular steel plate culvert designed to exceed ADF&G fish passage standards. The new crossing will improve the stream, which currently splits in order to pass through two culverts separated by 4-feet. The new large culvert will allow passage of the creek underneath the roadway as one stream, simulating the existing stream upstream and downstream of the roadway crossing. The single culvert will properly convey the stream without changing the stream characteristics. The new culvert will provide an opening that exceeds the requirements of the culvert based on the stream width observed almost immediately upstream and downstream of the culverts. Additionally, two 4-foot-diameter culverts will be constructed within the floodplain to alleviate ice damming.
• At the South Fork Little Nasty Creek, the existing twin 4-foot-diameter circular corrugated steel culverts will be replaced with a 14-foot-wide pipe arch culvert designed to exceed ADF&G fish passage standards.
• At Little Nasty Creek, the existing 10-foot-diameter circular steel plate culvert will be replaced with a 17-foot-wide pipe arch culvert designed to exceed ADF&G fish passage standards. Portions of the stream channel will be realigned to allow for a perpendicular stream crossing.
• A small stream realignment will occur at the South Fork of Little Nasty Creek. The stream realignment will remove the stream from the toe of the roadway embankment where fill from the road is actively eroding into the channel. This change will further minimize risk of spills entering and unnaturally altering the stream.
• Thermal berms have been reduced from the proposed 40-feet-wide to 10-15-feet-wide (i.e., the minimum needed to be effective) to reduce impacts to WOTUS.
• The excavated portion of the Bonanza Creek Material Site will be converted into a pond due to infilling with groundwater. The majority of the WOTUS impact from the new Bonanza Creek Material Site will be conversion from vegetated wetlands to pond with unconsolidated bottom.

Staging areas will be located in uplands or previously disturbed areas. The contractor will place fill material and riprap below ordinary high water during periods of low flow. Project contract specifications include utilization of certified weed-free seed mixture. Seed containing prohibited noxious weeds will not be incorporated into the project. The awarded contractor will be required to have an approved Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plan. The plan will clearly describe Best Management Practices (BMPs) required during construction to prevent erosion and runoff from entering aquatic habitats. The awarded contractor is required to have an approved Spill Prevention, Control, and Countermeasure Plan (SPCC) prepared for this project. Standard spill-prevention measures will be implemented during construction. 

Spill clean-up equipment (e.g., oil absorbent pads) will be available on-site during construction. Wetland water quality will be protected during construction through BMPs and appropriate erosion and sediment control measures (e.g., silt fences, 25-foot vegetative buffers) will be implemented on or at the perimeters of disturbed soil surfaces to minimize transport of sediment to WOTUS, and disturbed areas will be seeded with native perennial grasses. Construction will minimize impacts to existing natural hydrology of WOTUS, including wetlands. Construction methods will be chosen to prevent the draining of wetlands. All in-water work within will be isolated from flowing water. Work within standing water or emergent wetlands will be isolated using appropriate BMPs (e.g., silt curtains, cofferdams). A 25-foot-wide vegetative buffer will be the preferred method of perimeter protection for protecting wetlands. Where a 25-foot vegetative buffer is not available, appropriate BMPs will be used. All sediment control measures (e.g., silt curtains, certified weed-free straw wattles, and other structures) will be installed properly and maintained in a functioning manner where fill material and exposed soils might cause transport of sediment or turbidity beyond the immediate construction site.

In-water work at Little Nasty Creek and South Fork Little Nasty Creek will be limited to what is needed to shift the channel to accommodate the natural drainage patterns of the creek, remove the existing fish passage culverts, reestablish the stream bed, and place riprap armoring.
Roadway construction temporary wetland impacts will be limited within a 10-foot-wide work area. Work areas will be used for driving by construction equipment. Any incidental fill placed in the 10-foot work areas designated as wetlands will be removed, and those wetlands will be restored to original ground surface elevations. Wetland and stream banks left with exposed soils because of construction will also be restored to original ground surface elevations. Wetland and stream banks left with exposed soils because of construction will also be seeded with a native, perennial grass seed mixture to provide vegetation stabilization.

b. Compensatory Mitigation: The applicant is not proposing compensatory mitigation. The applicant’s justification is that “The project falls within the South Fork Koyukuk River eight-digit hydrologic unit code (HUC 19090102) watershed and the Koyukuk River six-digit HUC (190901) watershed. 

The Koyukuk River watershed encompasses an area greater than 20,100,000 acres. Existing disturbance within the watershed is minimal and represented primarily by the Dalton Highway, infrastructure associated with Trans-Alaska Pipeline System, and few small towns or villages including Coldfoot, Wiseman, Huslia, Bettles, Anaktuvuk Pass, Hughes, and Allakaket. Disturbed or filled areas represent less than 6,000 acres, or approximately 0.03 percent of the watershed USFWS National Wetlands Inventory (NWI) mapping has been completed for approximately 2,200,000 acres, or roughly 11 percent of the watershed. Of the area mapped by NWI, roughly 50 percent has been mapped as wetlands or waterbodies. This demonstrates the enormous abundance of pristine aquatic resources in the watershed, relative to the project footprint; therefore, compensatory mitigation is not appropriate for the relatively insignificant areal extent of the project within the watershed.

There are no mitigation banks or in-lieu fee agencies with service areas that cover the project’s watershed; therefore, compensatory mitigation through these channels is not available. Permittee responsible restoration or creation opportunities (if available) would likely face formidable challenges due to widespread continuous permafrost, and access would be difficult due to the remoteness of the region. The minimal private land availability and an overall lack of realistic compensatory mitigation options make compensatory mitigation not practicable to offset the minimal loss of functions on the overall landscape. Based on BLM Surface Management Agency land ownership records of the area (BLM 2022), BLM is the largest landowner within the larger watershed (32 percent), followed by USFWS (25 percent), the National Park Service (18 percent), and the State of Alaska (14 percent). Private land accounts for less than 0.01 percent of the Koyukuk River watershed.

After reviewing the application, the Department may certify there is reasonable assurance the activity, and any discharge that might result, will comply with the CWA, the Alaska Water Quality Standards, and other applicable State laws. The Department also may deny or waive certification.
The permit application and associated documents are available for review. For inquires or to request copies of the documents, contact dec-401cert@alaska.gov, or call 907-269-6285. 

Disability Reasonable Accommodation Notice
The State of Alaska, Department of Environmental Conservation complies with Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990. If you are a person with a disability who may need special accommodation in order to participate in this public process, please contact ADA Coordinator Megan Kohler at 907-269-4198 or TDD Relay Service 1-800-770-8973/TTY or dial 711 prior to the expiration date of this public notice to ensure that any necessary accommodations can be provided.
 

Attachments, History, Details

Attachments

None

Revision History

Created 6/7/2023 4:20:46 PM by jrschlosser
Modified 6/7/2023 4:22:18 PM by jrschlosser
Modified 6/7/2023 4:23:46 PM by jrschlosser
Modified 6/7/2023 4:26:03 PM by jrschlosser

Details

Department: Environmental Conservation
Category: Public Notices
Sub-Category:
Location(s): Statewide
Project/Regulation #:
 
Publish Date: 6/7/2023
Archive Date: 7/10/2023
 
Events/Deadlines: