Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions

STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS -- (Senate - January 08, 2007)

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Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I rise to introduce a bill that will allow the Environmental Protection Agency to continue to provide grant funding and technical assistance to remote communities in Alaska for critical water and sewer projects. These remote communities are only accessible by either aircraft or boat.

This important funding was originally authorized as part of the Safe Drinking Water Act Amendments of 1996 and was reauthorized in 2000. Every fiscal year, the EPA transfers funding authorized by this program to the State of Alaska's Village Safe Water Program, which is managed by the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation.

The water and sewer conditions in the villages in Alaska that still need this critical funding rival the conditions in rural communities in third world countries. For example, residents in some villages in Alaska have to go to a central source in the community to get fresh water. Instead of flushing toilets, residents of some villages have to use a device called a ``honeybucket.' This device is a large bucket with a toilet seat on top. When the honeybucket is full, it is usually dumped in a lagoon or on land. Sometimes, these dump locations are near sources of drinking water.

The Village Safe Water program has been a success over the years. Many homes in Alaska's remote communities now have plumbing due to funds authorized by this program. However, 34 percent of homes in these communities still do not have indoor plumbing. It is unacceptable that these Americans still do not have access to conventional plumbing in their homes in 2007.

Previously, the Office of Management and Budget published a Program Assessment Rating Tool report concerning this program. This report found several deficiencies concerning the administration of this program. In response to that report, the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation has put in place several changes to correct these deficiencies, including hiring additional accounting staff and initiating a memorandum of understanding with EPA Region 10 regarding program procedures and requirements.

This legislation reauthorizes the program through fiscal year 2010 and increases the authorized funding level from $40 million to $42 million, a modest five percent increase. Also, the legislation requires the State of Alaska to mandate that grant recipients clearly identify the scope and the goal of the project for which funding is sought and how the funds will be used to meet the specific, stated goal of the project; establish long-term goals for the program and carry out regular reviews of grantees to determine if the stated scope and goal of each grant are being met. This bill also requires the State of Alaska to submit an annual report to the EPA that addresses these issues. If a project-specific problem included in the report is not rectified within an amount of time agreed to by the State of Alaska and the EPA or if both entities are not able to agree on a timetable to fix the problem, the EPA will not disburse any additional funding for the project in question.

It is imperative that we reauthorize this critically important program soon. The health and well-being of rural Alaskans is at stake.

I ask unanimous consent that the text of this bill be printed in the RECORD.

By Ms. MURKOWSKI:

S. 200. A bill to require the Secretary of the Interior, acting through the Bureau of Reclamation and the United States Geological Survey, to conduct a study on groundwater resources in the State of Alaska, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, in 2005 I first introduced a measure of benefit to my home State of Alaska, the Alaska Water Resources Act, for a number of reasons. While the bill easily passed the U.S. Senate in 2005, it did not complete its journey to final passage, which is why I am reintroducing the bill today. The importance of water resource data collection to a State that has a resource-based economy cannot be overstated. Economic development is predicated on access to an adequate water supply, and in my State there is inadequate hydrologic data upon which to secure both economic development and the health and welfare of Alaskan citizens.

Alaska is an amazing State from a hydrological viewpoint. It is home to more than 3 million lakes--only about 100 being larger than 10 square miles--more than 12,000 rivers and uncounted thousands of streams, creeks and ponds. Together these water bodies hold about one-third of all the fresh water found in the United States.

Alaska is home to a number of large rivers. The Yukon, which originates in western Canada, runs 1,400 miles--discharging from 25,000 cubic feet of water per second in early spring to more than 600,000 cubic feet per second in May during the spring thaw. The Yukon drains roughly 330,000 square miles of Alaska and Canada, about one-third of the State. Besides the Yukon, Alaska is home to nine other major rivers and creeks all running more than 300 miles in length: the Porcupine, Koyukuk, Kuskokwim, Tanana, Innoko, Colville, Noatak, Kobuk and Birch Creek.

Alaska residents from early spring to fall face substantial flood threats, from spring flooding caused by breakup and ice damming to fall's heavy rains, but the State has fewer than 100 stream gaging stations operated by the U.S. Geological Survey--Alaska having less than 10 percent of the stream flow information that is taken for granted by all other States in the Nation. Alaska averages one working gage for each 10,000 square miles, while, as an example, Pacific Northwest States average one gage for each 365 square miles. To emphasize the lack of data now available for Alaska, I would point out that to equal the stream gage density of the Pacific Northwest States my State would need to have over 1,600 total gage sites.

Alaska also supports the Nation's least modern and undeveloped potable water distribution system. Water for Alaska towns outside of the more densely populated ``Railbelt' comes predominately from groundwater sources. Surface water sources often result in supply/storage problems since these surface sources freeze and are not readily available for up to half of the year. The chances for water-borne contaminants to affect potable water supplies, including fecal matter from Alaska's plentiful wildlife populations, human waste from inquate or nonexistent sewage treatment facilities, and natural mineral deposits, natural arsenic levels in mineralized zone creeks frequently exceeding EPA standards) are present and increasing. In areas that predominately depend on groundwater sources, such as the ``Railbelt' there is only very limited knowledge of the nature and extent of aquifers that support those critical groundwater supplies. Extensive permafrost further complicates the potential for adverse impacts to Alaska. In portions of Southcentral Alaska where there is a dependence on groundwater as the source for an adequate healthy water supply, the availability of that supply is starting to be in jeopardy. Allocations of water need to be based on scientific data, and the data needed upon which the allocations are made is unavailable. Users of water are only beginning to realize the potential conflicts that may arise, and the limits on future economic development that may result from inadequate knowledge of the water resource, particularly in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough, on the Kenai Peninsula, and to a lesser extent in portions of the municipality of Anchorage and in the Fairbanks area, where groundwater provided by wells is a crucial part of the State's water distribution system, and where there is little known about the size, capacity, extent and recharge capability of the aquifers that these wells tap.

Alaska, according to the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation, still has some 16,000 homes in 71 generally Native villages not being served by piped water or enclosed water haul systems. There are still 55 villages in Alaska where up to 29 percent of the residents are not served by sanitary water systems, with more than 60 percent of residents not being served in 16 villages. Even though, since statehood in 1959, the State and Federal governments have spent $1.3 billion on rural water-sanitation system improvements, the State still has an estimated need for nearly $650 million in additional funding to complete installation of a modern water-sanitation system.

Planning and engineering for those locations cannot be easily completed without better information as to the availability and extent of supply of water and better analysis of new technologies that could be used for water system installations, including possible desalination for some island and coastal communities.

For all these reasons today I have reintroduced legislation authorizing the Department of the Interior's Commissioner of Reclamation and the Director of the U.S. Geological Survey to conduct a series of water resource studies in Alaska. The studies will include a survey of water treatment needs and technologies, including desalination treatment, which may be applicable to water resources developments in Alaska. The study will review the need for enhancement of the National Streamflow Information Program administered by the U.S. Geological Survey. The Streamflow review will determine whether more stream gaging stations are necessary for flood forecasting, aiding resource extraction, determining the risk to the state's transportation system, and for wildfire management. Groundwater resources will also be further evaluated and documented to determine the availability of water, the quality of that groundwater, and the extent of the aquifers in some urban areas.

This type of study, already conducted for most all other States in the Nation, should help Alaska better plan and design water systems and transportation infrastructure and also better prepare for floods and summer wildfires.

There is literally ``water, water everywhere' in Alaska, but too often, especially in communities such as Ketchikan that take water from surface sources, or the rapidly growing Mat-Su Valley where there may be less water to drink during unusually dry summers, there is a real and growing problem of maintaining an adequate healthy supply of pure water. This problem is only going to grow more severe with a growing population and economy. This bill is designed to provide more information to help communities plan for future water needs and to help State officials plan for flood and fire safety concerns and further economic development.

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