A recent injection of federal money into Southeast Alaska sustainable development projects is helping fund a new community-wide composting facility in Haines.
Takshanuk Watershed Council plans to build the facility on its property at the end of Sawmill Road, using a slice of a $25 million investment from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which announced awards for 70 projects across the region earlier this month.
“The plan is for it to be large enough to take close to all of the sawmill waste generated by local operators and fish waste from Haines Packing Company,” said Takshanuk executive director Derek Poinsette. He also said the facility would accept waste from the brewery and distillery, restaurants and possibly the school, which already composts lunch scraps with Takshanuk.
It’s still up in the air if residents will be able to drop off compostable household waste at the site. But Takshanuk plans to sell its product to the community, as fertilizer or to be mixed with sand into topsoil.
“Basically you’re diverting a waste product that has to be disposed of and you’re turning it into something valuable,” Poinsette explained.
Poinsette said construction is slated to begin next spring, and next summer likely will be used as an experimental period before full-scale operation gets underway in 2024.
“We’re developing a business plan now. The idea is that we have this grant to start the program, but as much as possible we’d like it to be self-supporting, almost like a for-profit business would be,” Poinsette.
Federal funding for the project is being distributed through the Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska. Poinsette declined to specify how much money Takshanuk would receive from the program.
The structure, which will be built where an old shop building was located across from Takshanuk’s main