Unalaska, AK – This week's city council meeting included a rundown of the city's current capital improvement projects by public works director Nancy Peterson. Some of the highlights include a new energy saving system for the school. For about $300,000 the school is installing a direct digital control system for the air handling and environmental system that will help keep the school at a consistent temperature and save money.

"So if it's all tied in together in a digital system that can be monitored remotely it operates more efficiently therefore its much more cost effective and there's a lot greater savings in energy efficiency if everything works properly," Peterson explained.

The school would use leftover money from the school bond to pay for the new system.

Peterson is also waiting to hear about a grant to build new employee housing for teachers and others to replace the city trailers. The city would remove six trailers, build an 8-plex, move teachers from the Loop Road 4-plex into the new housing, then have eight units available for city employees. The grant would only partially fund the new project.

"It's the gap between what's the fair market rate that we can charge, and what we would have to charge to fully cover the construction costs," she said. "So if the fair market rate is $1300 a month but the actual construction, when you look at a 20-year construction cycle, would have to charge $1800 per month to fund the project, they would cover that balance between $1800 and $1300."

If the city gets the grant then construction on the new housing could start next year.

Another project in the works is a bike path for the S-curves. Peterson said about $60,000 was allocated for the project in previous council budgets, but the money wasn't enough given the logistical challenges.

"One of the reasons the pathways never got built in the first place was there wasn't enough room and they couldn't remove any more of the hillside because of the eagles' nests."

Now, the city is working with the Ounalashka Corporation to get additional space for building the path and they are applying for grant funding from the National Scenic Byways program through the National Wildlife Refuge. The grant is not due until February, so construction may not start next summer.

On the water, the city is still working on the new Carl E. Moses small boat harbor. The Army Corps of Engineers has still not secured all of the funding needed to build the floating breakwaters. They are about $10.5 million short. The city does have the funding to start work on the inner harbor. In November the public works department will review inner harbor designs from three different companies and run technical analyses on them. The public can give input on the preliminary designs through their city council members. Once the contractor is chosen, they will have public input periods to allow people to comment directly.

An element of the new boat harbor construction is an environmental mitigation project building 30 artificial reefs out of boulders near Little South America and Captain's Bay.

"They had to construct 30 small reefs for bird resting as part of the mitigation," Peterson said. "It's been a part of the project from the beginning. It's what came out of the environmental impact statement."

Peterson said the project was chosen by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and an Army Corps of Engineers biologist contributed to the project.

Another water project is a new float at the Iliuliuk Creek boat launch down by Alyeska. "It won't be anything big, just the smallest float we can possibly put in to allow people to get on a vessel from above the water."

Other current capital projects include improving road drainage around town and finalizing the road design for the new small boat harbor.