State files environmental assessment, asks public input
The state agency that’s heading-up an effort to develop a veterans cemetery in Salcha achieved another milestone recently with completion of a draft environmental assessment of the project. The document includes the Alaska Interior Veterans Cemetery’s master plan.
The head of the state Office of Veterans Affairs says the 130-page draft EA that was issued last month is now available for public comment. Once that's done, the agency can take another step toward getting the go-ahead from the federal Department of Veterans Affairs.
“I think it closes out on the 25th of July,” Bowen said, “and then once that's completed, then we go through and review it. Then it is sent to the federal V-A as part of the package for this cemetery construction.”
State Veterans Affairs Office Director Verdie Bowen says it’s an important step toward getting nearly $18 million in grants from the federal V-A.
“We are approved for 17-million, 900-thousand dollars,” he said, “give or take a couple of pennies.”
It’s a complicated process to qualify for the grants needed to build what would become Alaska’s first state-owned veterans cemetery. The state Veterans Affairs office got a $7 million grant earlier this year to conduct studies and begin preliminary work on the project.
“We're talking hundreds of pages of documents,” he said. “The VA is actually working real close with us, to ensure we comply with their grant requirements. Then all of that information goes to the secretary of the V-A, and then he signs off on it, and then the V-A will fully fund us.”
If the federal VA approves the draft and final versions of the Environmental Assessment and authorizes the grants, Bowen says his office can begin soliciting bids from contractors for construction on the cemetery that’ll be located within the roughly 250-acre site off Johnson Road, south of Eielson Force Base.
“We actually have put out our preliminary bid documents. That’s on the webpage as well,” Bowen said. “So that allows people who are looking to bid on this contract an opportunity to review, to see it before it actually officially hits the streets.”
The documents are available on the state Department of Transportation and Public Facilities website’s procurement page. The department is working with the state Veterans Affairs Office on the project, that’ll be developed in two phases.
“We have phase one, which is going to be the first 11 acres,” he said. “We're trying to build as much as we possibly can the first go-around, as we develop this thing.”
Bowen says one of his office’s most important recent accomplishments is a partnership they’ve worked out with a new Salcha-based chapter of the American Legion.
“Post 99 is being developed now in Salcha. It's the newest American Legion Post in the state, which is going to be a huge benefit for our state veteran cemetery.He says when the cemetery opens three years from now, the American Legion members could among other things help with graveside ceremonies that honor their fellow veterans as they’re laid to rest.
