Trans-Alaska Pipeline Is Working On Gulkana River Stabilization Project Near Pipeline Bridge

Eroding Riverbank Is Causing Problems Near A Pipeline Bridge Spanning 
Alaska's Gulkana River 

The Trans-Alaska Pipeline near Glennallen, south of the Gulkana River. (Archive Photo, Journal)

Alyeska Pipeline Service Company runs the Trans-Alaska Pipeline down along the Richardson Highway through the entire Copper River Valley. Alyeska is working on a project this summer to stabilize the Gulkana riverbank, and protect the pipeline bridge over the Gulkana from erosion.

The pipeline company says a rock boundary will prevent further erosion "while slowing high-water events" with an escape route across the access road "at a designated low point" and then back into the river downstream of the bridge abutment "through a designated swale." 

The work involves trucks, loaders and backhoes, Alyeska says. 

Alyeska said the project is in the Gulkana River Estates subdivision, downstream of Sourdough Campground. The access road is known as Draper Boulevard and follows the historic Ewan Lake Trail. Alyeska says the road isn't gated, but has critical value for pipeline operations, and for power and communications facility access across across public lands.

As background, Alyeska put out a flyer for community members saying that before and after the pipeline was built in the late 1970s, "significant gravel" was mined for the highway near an outside meander bend. "The river has completed eroded the mined area upstream of the bridge and now abruptly extends to the east across a 300-foot-long stretch of the prior bank there," Alyeska says. 

The company adds that riverside lots in the subdivision under the bridge have been subject to progressive and accelerating recent erosion. 

Locally-targeted flyer about the Alyeska Pipeline project.