A national disaster declaration for the Oct. 9 Kodiak mudslides may soon go to the desk of President Barack Obama.

Speaking at the Borough Assembly work session Tuesday night, Borough Manager Rick Gifford said state authorities have decided to ask for a disaster declaration from the next level of government.

Gov. Sean Parnell declared the mudslides a state disaster earlier this month.

Gifford said if the federal government declared a disaster it would pay about 75 percent of the recovery that the state would have paid.

“It helps the state and it helps us,” he said. “The only unfortunate thing is the timing — because for a lot of these projects it’s freezing up and we won’t be able to go in to fix them until the springtime.”

Gifford said he expects a response on the federal disaster declaration in four to six weeks.

The U.S. has experienced 48 federally declared disasters in 2009, but only one in Alaska — the spring flooding of the Yukon River. Disaster declarations are usually related to winter storms or flooding, because the Federal Emergency Management Association (FEMA) has another category for fire disasters.

Gifford also said state Department of Transportation (DOT) estimates the repairs to Anton Larsen Bay Road would cost about $3 million, not including bridgework.

But an access road to the KEA Terror Lake facility was hardest hit by the storm.

Storms dumped 6.4 inches of rain on Kodiak on Oct. 9, the second rainiest day in Kodiak weather history.

The news about potential federal disaster relief came during a work session filled with frustrations with both state and federal funding mechanisms.

Assembly members reacted with disbelief to a $10 million state DOT initial estimate to sand and paint the Fred Zharoff Memorial Bridge to Near Island.

The state DOT also had a higher than anticipated initial estimate for a project to build lights on Rezanof Drive between the city and the Coast Guard Base.

Earlier this month, the borough put the lighting project on a list of priority projects for federal funding. But Gifford said federal funding is unlikely because statistics don’t show the roadway to be a serious enough safety risk.

Assembly member Pat Branson expressed frustration that Kodiak might not receive funding because it does not have a high rate of accidents.

“If it’s not a safety issue, no one is touching anything,” she said.“ And even then, when you look at how many accidents you have to have, you have to have the Seward Highway in your backyard to get something funded.”

The Seward Highway has a high rate of accidents.

Gifford also said the second half of the this summer’s Rezanof repaving project will not take place until the summer of 2011 because of challenges to make curbs compliant with the Americans with Disabilities act. The second half of the project takes the new pavement from the Y to Fort Abercrombie.