Copper River - Regional Planning Organization update

Jun 6

In 2022, Governor Dunleavy signed a cooperative agreement with the Copper Valley Development Association (CVDA), establishing the first Alaska Regional (Transportation) Planning Organization in the Copper River Region.

This area has no organized boroughs or municipalities, therefore there is no central government. The RPO structure allows for local input on long-range transportation needs in a way that has not been previously available.

Copper River Census District. Credit: Copper Valley Development Association.

The CVDA and the Copper Valley RPO have stepped up, advising DOT on our local airport resurfacing needs, local flooding that occured in 2023 as well as 2024 to a much lesser extent, and now they are focused on working on summarizing area needs going forward.

On June 5th 2024, the Copper Valley RPO discussed these and other matters of interest to the local area. One pressing issue for the RPO continues to be support for a few private roads in the immediate Glennallen area that were flooded out in the last two years. The residents living in these areas received support from local volunteers, but the roads could use some technical improvements to ensure they have continued access if flooding occurs again.

It was noted that drainage patterns have changed in the local area in recent years due to record precipitation, as well as the construction of private roads in various areas, some that used to be natural drainage routes.

Extra culverts were added in 2023 to help Moose Creek (Glennallen) effectively drain, advised by the RPO. Image taken April 30th 2024, prior to high water. One day in May this summer, the water crested over the private road to the east and flooded the BLM Glennallen Field Office, but the damage otherwise was minimized.

Interior DOT noted that due to inflation in materials and other costs, some rural job bids are coming in many times higher than just a few years ago. Unfortunately, that required DOT staff to make some difficult decisions on prioritizing projects on the annual STIP. Some of the local Copper Valley highway projects have been moved out in time, and many rural projects were dropped altogether.

On the way to drafting a long-range local transportation plan, an important step is to map and document every highway, road, and access route in the basin. The RPO is looking at creative ways to partner with DOT, the Copper River Watershed Project, the Ahtna Intertribal Resources Commission and more to accomplish this feat.

There is a tremendous amount of work to do in District 36 ensuring our State agencies, including DOT are made aware of our local issues and concerns. The knowledge that our rural community members have about the local area history is incredibly valuable to their planning processes.

I will continue to support the effort by our local CVDA and the Copper Valley RPO to blaze this trail of developing a long-range transportation plan.

Perhaps Tok is next on the potential list of communities that would benefit from an RPO. There’s a very real need in our interior region to address transportation, especially given new developments such as the Manh Choh Gold mine in the Tetlin Region.

Hopefully the groundwork done here will allow several other District 36 unorganized communities to do the same.