During rural Alaska tour, EPA chief says she'll fight to protect funding

Published on July 28th, 2010

By ALEX DEMARBAN

After visiting Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta villages that lack running water and sewer, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency told leaders in the region's hub city of Bethel that she'll fight to protect programs in rural Alaska as she considers potential budget cuts.

She pointed out that some cuts to her agency's budget, a possibility in light of the president's commitment to hold domestic funding flat, would have a "devastating impact here."

That commitment, as she called it, came during a round-table meeting Tuesday at the Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corp., the primary health provider in the Southwest Alaska region, following a visit to the villages of Chefornak, Kasigluk and Napakiak.

Most homes in Chefornak and Kasigluk lack flush toilets and running water, while Napakiak enjoys plumbing for sinks and low-flush toilets.

The delta region is home to 56 Yup'ik villages that rely on subsistence hunting and fishing, as well as the Wade-Hampton Census Area along the lower Yukon River, one of the nation's poorest corners.

Jackson told local leaders that the tour, part of her first trip to Alaska, opened her eyes to critical disparities with the rest of the country, such as the lack of sanitary wastewater systems.

"You have my commitment that we'll continue to do everything we can to put money into programs that benefit Alaska Natives, but we're still trying to make up for lost time in funding those programs," she said.

The roughly 45-minute meeting was part of a listening tour in rural Alaska designed in part to enhance relations between the EPA and tribal governments. The effort follows a presidential executive order requiring regular consultation between federal agencies and tribes, Jackson told reporters in Anchorage on Monday.

Alaska has many of the nation's 564 federally recognized tribes.

Jackson is scheduled to be in the Bristol Bay region today, which includes a tour of the Dillingham boat harbor, eroding areas and a listening session on the Pebble copper and gold prospect.

In the coastal village of Chefornak, Jackson toured a riverbank that's creeping closer to homes because warmer temperatures in recent years have thawed and weakened the permafrost, said Jonathan Lewis, tribal administrator in the village.

Jackson and other top EPA officials saw the undersized landfill and sewage lagoon that blanket the village with stench when the wind blows the wrong way. They learned how the villagers use small buckets for toilets and dump the waste into the lagoon -- or pay a honeybucket hauler if they can afford it.

Getting drinking water means filling drums at spigots around town called watering points. When those are contaminated with salt water, residents collect rain in tanks or cut ice blocks from a local pond.

Jackson's visit was the first time a member of the presidential administration visited the village of 500.

"First time I've seen someone from down states come and see first hand how we are living, what kind of problems we face in small villages," Lewis said. "It was a big deal for us."

Residents are hopeful the visit could lead to improvements like a new landfill and sewage lagoon managed by local workers who control public access to prevent diseases from spreading, he said.

"Even the elders are optimistic," he said.

At the roundtable Tuesday evening, a reporter listened in by phone.

Gene Peltola, chief executive of tribally run YKHC, thanked Jackson for EPA's role in providing money for water and wastewater projects in Alaska.

But he pointed out that too many are getting sick because so many homes still lack running water.

"We'd like to see to see the continuation of funding to meet the devastating sewer and water needs in our villages," said Peltola. "It's totally deplorable that some of our villages are living in third-world country (conditions)."

Matthew Nicolai, president of Calista Corp., the regional Native corporation, said he hopes EPA and other agencies who will play a role in permitting the region's proposed Donlin Creek gold mine provide a "fair and equitable" process untainted by outside groups who don't have Alaska's interests in mind.

Nicolai gave the officials a letter also signed by Myron Naneng, president of the Association of Village Council Presidents, which provides social services in the region.

Studies show that providing adequate water and sewer in the region will cost $248 million, about 25 percent of the need in Alaska, the letter said.

"Rural Alaska has been largely ignored when it comes to water and sewer services in the form of piped water," the letter said, noting there's a long waiting list to receive state and federal money for those projects.

"Many Alaska village residents continue to suffer, having to use 5-gallon paint buckets as toilets and keep them in the home until they can be disposed of when they become full," it said.

The letter said the region also needs millions of dollars for improved boardwalks, landfills, sewage lagoons, renewable energy projects and to create energy raters to provide weatherization audits of homes.

Jackson said she was most surprised to learn from villagers that despite their challenges getting clean water, they cite riverbank erosion and loss of land due to global warming as their top environmental concern.

"That's pretty surprising for someone like me who takes for granted clean drinking water and sewer," she said.

She offered the group a second commitment.

After returning to Washington, D.C., she promised to urge other federal agencies to establish an "on the ground" relationship with rural Alaska.

"Everyone should know that still in this country there are communities, and these are not the only ones, that are struggling to have the things we take for granted in the Lower 48," she said.