Erosion results in loss of revetment wall

Observation by Jeffrey Luther:

There is very high water on the river. The cement pillows have separated from the anchors and failed in the area in front of the village store. The downstream looks to be ok, we will have WSP, NHC Water, and GeoTek Alaska come and conduct studies on the revetement, water, and drilling at the rivers edge. Anica folks will be here on the 20th, and the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) - a USDA run program will be here on the 25th to work a plan on relocating Native Stores storage facilities (Connexes, storage building, and fuel station,and storage tanks away from the river bank).

LEO Says:

The cement pillows installed in 1985 have provided protection for many years, but conditions are changing. Environmental Coordinator Jeffrey Luther has been documenting the loss of the revetment and commenting on the vulnerable infrastructure, and plans to address them. At risk is a storage building, connexes fuel farm, fuel tanks, old water tank and the community store.

AI Comment from GPT 4.1:

The ongoing erosion threatening the cement pillow revetment continues a pattern of significant land loss and infrastructure risk that has been documented in Noatak over the past several years. Numerous previous posts highlight how riverbank and shoreline erosion have rapidly undermined essential community resources, most notably water lines and wells (June 2021 post; May 2022 post; August 2024 post). Emergency declarations and coordinated agency responses underscore the urgency of these threats (Gov. Dunleavy Emergency). Observations going back to at least 2010 point to compounding challenges from both active erosion and permafrost thaw, impacting not only riverbanks but also building and utility foundations (June 2010 post; November 2019 post). Such a history highlights the importance of the technical studies and relocation plans described in this observation, as past efforts and environmental changes have shown that solutions need to consider both surface erosion and underlying ground conditions.