Finally, there’s a crisis worthy pulling out Alaska’s prime resource. In this case, California’s drought crisis is drawing out a latent business opportunity in Alaska’s abundance of fresh water. It just needed the right crisis. Some forward thinking entrepreneurs from Sitka, Alaska are now preparing to ship water in tankers to ease California’s situation.
California is exactly where Garry White, the Executive Director of the Sitka Economic Development Association, hopes to send Sitka’s water again. Not bottled in plastic, but delivered in ships.
We hop out of his truck. Unfurled at our feet, like a glittering blue carpet, is Sawmill Creek, the freshwater outlet stream from Blue Lake, which provides hydropower and drinking water to the city of 9,000. The water from Blue Lake is so plentiful that household use is not metered and so clean that it’s not filtered before it goes to the tap. While it sounds like an Evian commercial, for White it’s a business opportunity.
“It’s a tough venture, but if people are thirsty enough and need the water enough and it makes fiscal sense, it can happen,” said White.
Sitka already built the infrastructure to draw the water from the lake to the shore. It’s behind us – a giant red nozzle poking up out of the ground. From there, a floating pipeline will carry the water into containers or bags loaded on big cargo ships. Just like oil. Sitka set the price point for water at 1 cent a gallon and can legally export 95 billion gallons a year. If you do the math, that’s quite a bit of money.
See Full Story at Alaska Public Media
