With its pristine landscapes, majestic wildlife and renowned national parks, Anchorage, Alaska, has always prized nature and the environment. Considering the region’s growth and activity—the Anchorage metro area’s roughly 400,000 residents now make up about half of the state’s population—environmental conservation has become even more paramount. 

For these reasons, it came as no surprise when the municipality of Anchorage recently opted to upgrade the city’s decades-old Solid Waste Services Central Transfer Station to ensure the most modern approach to handling the community’s recyclables, composting, trash and household hazardous waste.  

Today, thanks to support from the contracting team at Anchorage-­based Alcan Electrical & Engineering Inc., the city’s new Central Transfer Station is successfully and responsibly minimizing waste in area landfills and optimizing the degree to which waste can be reduced, reused and recycled in Anchorage.

“In 2021, Alcan Electrical & Engineering was proud to be chosen as the electrical contractor for the construction of the new Solid Waste Services Central Transfer Station in Anchorage,” said Chrys Fleming, Alcan Electrical’s president and owner. He also served as the project manager for the Central Transfer Station. “This monumental $7 million undertaking involved the construction of cutting-edge new facilities at Anchorage’s existing refuse drop-off site to handle residential, commercial and hazardous household waste and encompassed a diverse range of tasks that extended beyond conventional electrical installations.

“With roughly 80% of the municipality’s waste passing through this midtown hub on its way north to the Anchorage Regional Landfill, Alcan’s mission was to orchestrate the installation of high- and low-voltage electrical infrastructure and culminated in a comprehensive three-year endeavor,” he said. 

A monumental undertaking

David Gonzalez, business development manager at Alcan Electrical and a native of Anchorage, had been familiar with the area’s transfer station since childhood.

“Anchorage has one highway coming in and one going out, so you grow up here knowing where everything is, and I remember waiting in line at the transfer station with my family to dispose of the waste from spring cleaning and other big projects,” Gonzalez said. “As our community grew, however, the original transfer station got overrun and we outgrew that main drop-off site, at which point the municipality of Anchorage Solid Waste Services Department decided to expand and upgrade the facility.

“We have a strong relationship with the project’s general contractor, Anchorage-based Davis Constructors and Engineers, so we bid the job to them and moved forward,” he said. “Working alongside the teams from such partners as Davis Constructors, consultant/designer Tetra Tech and civil contractor Mass Excavation Inc., we started the project in 2021, were able to assist with efficiencies and recommendations to help move activities along, and we completed the bulk of the work by the end of 2023, though we still continue to support the station’s ongoing needs.”

In terms of the scope of work, “an all-new 80,000-square-foot complex of five buildings was built on a separate 26-acre piece of property next door to the original transfer station, which required our installation of general power distribution, lighting and controls across the entire campus,” Gonzalez said. 

“In addition to office space and an area designated for vehicle maintenance, one of the main structures of the new transfer station pushes waste into a pit, compresses it with excavation machinery, then loads and readies it for transport it to the main landfill at Eagle River Valley in greater Anchorage, which has large open cells for encapsulating and processing garbage,” he said.

An Alcan Electrical wireman works on a duct bank at the Central Transfer Station project prior to the concrete pour.

Among Alcan’s specific activities, “our team installed paralleling switchgear and microgrid controllers, seamlessly integrating on-site power generation through combined-heat-and-power turbines, as well as installing more than 1,000 LEDs to light everything from parking lots to office spaces,” Gonzalez said. “We also integrated nearly 5,000 linear feet of heat trace to optimize winter operations in preparation for Alaska’s harsh winter conditions and incorporated a cutting-edge battery energy storage system to power electric vehicle charging on-site.” 

Beyond electrical installations, he said, “We spearheaded the deployment of telecommunications infrastructure, including fiber backbone installation and interior and exterior data cabling, and ensured seamless Wi-Fi connectivity. And our security team bolstered the facility’s safety with the installation of CCTV systems and access controls.”

Addressing challenges

With up to 20 crew members on the project at its height, the Alcan Electrical team encountered its share of challenges over the three-year period.

“In addition to engineering changes, we faced a number of shipping delays during the pandemic, especially on switchboards and transformers, which [resulted in] extended lead times of over 60 weeks,” Gonzalez said. “Some of our crew members came down with COVID, which led to labor shortages, and we also had to deal with strict procedures and health and safety guidelines from the city of Anchorage on this municipal project, but we navigated them successfully as a team.”

Based on their locale, the weather also presented challenges.

“On the one hand, we worked through the hottest summer on record for our area; many days were over 70 degrees, which Alaskans aren’t used to,” Gonzalez said. (Annual temperatures in Anchorage typically range between –10ºF and 62ºF.) 

“At the same time, it’s common practice for winter temperatures in Alaska to hit 20 degrees below zero or even colder, so our team was careful to take regular breaks to warm up and to wear the right gloves, Arctic­-grade clothing and other PPE to stay protected when we were exposed to the elements,” he said.

With hot summers, cold, snowy winters and smoke issues caused by wildfires in the area all converging on Alcan Electrical’s crew members, “our conditions were all over the map, and the volatility of our weather during this time made it hard to plan and schedule activities,” he said. 

Finally, Gonzalez noted that the complexity of this venture was compounded by the presence of several specialty contractors engaged in concurrent operations, making collaboration more critical than ever. 

“In such a dynamic environment, the utmost emphasis was placed on cooperation and coordination to ensure the project’s safety and ultimate success,” he said.

Delivering excellence

“Alcan Electrical’s involvement in the Solid Waste Services Central Transfer Station project was a testament to our unwavering commitment to excellence,” Fleming said. “Among the innovations we brought to the construction, we implemented large underground duct banks and vaults to help streamline project success and efficiency, and our proposal to utilize aluminum feeder wire showcased our dedication to cost-effective, sustainable solutions.”

With safety prioritized as a core value, “our regular safety meetings throughout the project ensured that every worker remained informed and vigilant, and we’re proud to share that throughout the 43,000 man-hours dedicated to this project, we experienced only one minor incident,” Fleming said. “We actively collaborated with the general contractor and design team, and our further coordination with all stakeholders along with our commitment to the community guaranteed an environmentally responsible project. Alcan’s excellence in construction isn’t just about erecting structures but about advancing technology, ensuring safety and safeguarding the environment.” 

Gonzalez agreed. “Preservation is paramount in this beautiful environment we live in, and everything is scrutinized and planned for in order to ensure the smallest footprint possible,” he said. 

The project, which had 28,000 cubic yards of concrete poured so the floors weren’t permeable, was fortified with ice-prevention systems to avoid the risk of ice buildup and subsequent water runoff, and was equipped with massive air­-exchange systems to prevent the smell of garbage from permeating the community.

“Throughout the construction of Anchorage’s Solid Waste Services Central Transfer Station, it was important that community members not have to deal with unpleasant smells, traffic or visuals, and the team succeeded—as you drive by this facility, you’d never know that it handles waste,” Gonzalez said. “It’s a beautiful, state-of-the-art structure in Anchorage that thousands of people use every day. It has great air quality and is addressing waste in a clean, efficient and responsible manner.

“One of the municipality’s biggest goals was to provide an inviting area for people to bring their solid waste and recycling in Anchorage, and this facility has helped promote reuse and recycling in our community,” Gonzalez continued. “Area residents have really embraced those ideals, and the municipality of Anchorage is delighted with the new facility and the results of this project.”

Though he confirmed that Alcan Electrical works in all different sectors and has completed larger projects than the transfer station over the years, “this one really showcased the diversity of work we can do, especially during the pandemic, which makes this project particularly special for us,” Gonzalez said. “We’re proud to have had all hands on-deck and to have kept our union labor working on such an important project to both Anchorage and Alaska. We’re the largest commercial contractor in the state because we offer a full-service solution, from electrical infrastructure to telecom, fire systems, security and access control, and more. We provide solutions for all of it, and we addressed those components throughout the facility.”

“Ultimately, this building looks like a modern office campus and is beautiful to drive by, which was a critical consideration for our residents and tourists as well as for our whole team, including myself as a lifelong Anchorage resident,” he said. “All of the partners involved in this project took great care with these facilities, and we’re super proud to have been a part of it. We’re excited that this cutting-edge facility supports our city’s environmental goals while not detracting from—but rather complementing—the area’s aesthetics.”

Header image: An Alcan Electrical communications team member installs the core infrastructure for the Solid Waste Services Central Transfer Station project in Anchorage.

lena lee photography | Alcan Electrical & Engineering Inc. | Municipality of Anchorage Solid Waste Services Central Transfer Station