Legislature(2021 - 2022)DAVIS 106
03/15/2022 08:00 AM House TRIBAL AFFAIRS
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| Audio | Topic |
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| Start | |
| Presentation(s): Rural Wastewater and Sanitation | |
| Adjourn |
* first hearing in first committee of referral
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
| + | TELECONFERENCED | ||
| + | TELECONFERENCED |
ALASKA STATE LEGISLATURE
HOUSE SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON TRIBAL AFFAIRS
March 15, 2022
8:03 a.m.
MEMBERS PRESENT
Representative Tiffany Zulkosky, Chair
Representative Dan Ortiz
Representative Zack Fields
Representative Geran Tarr
Representative Mike Cronk
MEMBERS ABSENT
All members present
COMMITTEE CALENDAR
PRESENTATION(S): RURAL WASTEWATER AND SANITATION
- HEARD
PREVIOUS COMMITTEE ACTION
No previous action to record
WITNESS REGISTER
JULIE SANDE, Commissioner Designee
Department of Commerce, Community, and Economic Development
Juneau, Alaska
POSITION STATEMENT: Co-provided a PowerPoint presentation on
Rural Wastewater and Sanitation.
JASON BRUNE, Commissioner
Department of Environmental Conservation
Juneau, Alaska
POSITION STATEMENT: Co-provided a PowerPoint presentation on
Rural Wastewater and Sanitation.
CARRIE BOHAN, Facilities Program Manager
Division of Water
Department of Environmental Conservation
Juneau, Alaska
POSITION STATEMENT: Co-provided a PowerPoint presentation on
Rural Wastewater and Sanitation.
ALBERTA UNOK, President and CEO
Alaska Native Health Board
Anchorage, Alaska
POSITION STATEMENT: Provided a PowerPoint presentation on
ANHB's role related to the Presentation on Rural Wastewater and
Sanitation.
BRIAN LEFFERTS, Director of Public Health
Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corporation
Bethel, Alaska
POSITION STATEMENT: Provided a PowerPoint presentation, titled
"Water & Wastewater in Rural Alaska," during the presentation on
Rural Wastewater and Sanitation.
FRANCINE MORENO, Manager of Utility Operations
Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium
Anchorage, Alaska
POSITION STATEMENT: Provided a PowerPoint during the
presentation on Rural Wastewater and Sanitation.
ACTION NARRATIVE
8:03:15 AM
CHAIR TIFFANY ZULKOSKY called the House Special Committee on
Tribal Affairs meeting to order at 8:03 a.m. Representatives
Cronk, Ortiz, and Zulkosky were present at the call to order.
Representatives Tarr and Fields arrived as the meeting was in
progress.
^PRESENTATION(S): Rural Wastewater and Sanitation
PRESENTATION(S): Rural Wastewater and Sanitation
8:03:53 AM
CHAIR ZULKOSKY announced that the only order of business would
be a Presentation on Rural Wastewater and Sanitation.
8:04:56 AM
JULIE SANDE, Commissioner Designee, Department of Commerce,
Community, and Economic Development (DCCED), co-provided a
PowerPoint presentation on Rural Wastewater and Sanitation. She
provided introductory remarks.
CARRIE BOHAN, Facilities Program Manager, Division of Water,
Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), co-provided a
PowerPoint presentation on Rural Wastewater and Sanitation [hard
copy included in the committee packet]. Village Safe Water's
(VSW) goal was to assist communities in realizing health
benefits from improved sanitation by building sustainable
utilities. VSW received $70 million in annual funding from the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) and the U.S.
Department of Agriculture (USDA) Rural Development with a
required 25 percent match. DEC administered the funding and
supported 70 communities in implementing the infrastructure
projects. States were obligated to ensure that public water
systems are equipped with adequate financial, technical, and
managerial capacity, otherwise known as "capacity development,
per the Safe Drinking Water Act. The USEPA delegated primacy of
drinking water regulations to DEC. DEC and DCCED implemented
the Remote Maintenance Worker (RMW) program and the Rural
Utility Business Advisor (RUBA) program to specifically address
capacity development. Operations and Maintenance Best Practices
were developed through a two-year collaborative effort between
DEC, RUBA, and the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium
(ANTHC). She detailed the scoring system assessment system used
for VSW and other project funding eligibility. In response to
committee questions, she explained that as the lead agency, DEC
assigned an engineer to each community who was responsible for
documenting sanitation needs in the Indian Health Service (IHS)
Sanitation Deficiency System (SDS) database, assisting with
funding applications, and overseeing the implementation of
projects. IHS funding did not require a state match; however,
many projects were ineligible for that funding source, for which
VSW funding was a likely candidate.
JASON BRUNE, Commissioner, Department of Environmental
Conservation (DEC), co-provided a PowerPoint presentation on
Rural Wastewater and Sanitation. In response to committee
questions, he described the remote maintenance workers as the
"heroes of Alaska" for doing the difficult job of restoring
generators and water systems to rural Alaska in minus 30-degree
weather. He explained that the "easy" communities had already
been serviced; however, there were 30 more difficult
communities left unserved. In those remaining communities, the
average cost of hooking up each home [to a water system] was
between $600,000 and $800,000. The Sewar and Water Challenge
was a collaborative project between the University of Alaska
(UA) and the USEPA that looked for affordable systems for
processing water and wastewater.
9:01:55 AM
ALBERTA UNOK, President/CEO, Alaska Native Health Board (ANHB),
gave a PowerPoint presentation on ANHB's role in rural
wastewater and sanitation. Established in 1968, the ANHB was
the statewide advocacy voice for the Alaska Tribal health
system. Water and sanitation had been a longstanding priority
for the board. The United Nations recognize access to clean
drinking water and sanitation as an essential human right. ANHB
had worked for decades to achieve funding to reduce barriers for
communities to receive piped water systems. During the Covid-19
Pandemic, ANHB knew that the limited access to clean water and
sanitation represented a risk factor for rural communities,
which already suffered from higher rates of respiratory diseases
due to the lack of services. Washing hands was not an option
for all. The current method of funding distribution supported
system barriers and allowed communities with the greatest need
to be left out. In December 2020, ANHB passed Resolution No,
01-2020, which called for the removal of Best Practice score for
state allocated funding to support projects through the VSW.
Federal statute 25 U.S.C. Section 1632 provided precedent for
preventing barriers in Native water and sanitation programs.
She emphasized that every Alaskan deserved the dignity of access
to water and sanitation, and rural communities were no
different.
9:09:39 AM
BRIAN LEFFERTS, Director of Public Health, Yukon-Kuskokwim
Health Corporation, gave a PowerPoint presentation, titled
"Water & Wastewater in Rural Alaska," during the presentation on
Rural Wastewater and Sanitation. He described the service
delivery types in the Yukon-Kuskokwim (YK) Delta: honey buckets;
small, closed haul systems; and piped systems. To avoid the
transmission of "water-washed" diseases, 25 gallons of water per
person, per day, was required. The health impacts from a lack
of water include increased respiratory disease infections. A
2008 study found that one in three infants in communities
without piped water were hospitalized due to respiratory
infections. Rates of hospitalization for pneumonia were also 11
times higher in these communities. A recent report found that
moving unserved communities in the YK Delta to a fully piped
community could prevent over 4,600 illnesses and 60 deaths per
year, resulting in an estimated $7 million per year in avoided
healthcare costs and $586 million per year in mortality risk
reduction. Construction was a huge barrier to entry. In the YK
Delta alone, there was $587 million in funding needed to address
the dire sanitation condition. Two state policy requirements
were preventing the funding from going to projects to address
the most severe sanitation deficiencies in Alaska: the
affordability matrix and Best Practice scores. He argued that
existing research did not support these metrics for the measure
of future sustainability. Best Practices from un-piped
communities was a poor predictor of the community's ability to
operate a pipe system, he said, while the affordability matrix
was an unrealistic measure of a household's willingness to pay
for an essential service. He further explained the "catch-22"
with Best Practice scores: pipe systems were essential to create
an economy of scale for a high score; however, systems need a
high score to qualify for funding. In addition, not one of the
existing pipe, water, and sewer systems in the YK Delta would
have been funded if the affordability matrix were a requirement
when they were built. He concluded by emphasizing that health
disparities in rural Alaska were unintended consequences of a
failure in policy associated with the state's sustainability
plan and Best Practice requirements.
9:26:34 AM
FRANCINE MORENO, Manager of Utility Operations, Alaska Native
Tribal Health Consortium (ANTH), gave a PowerPoint presentation,
titled "ANTHC Presentation on Rural Sanitation Funding" [hard
copy included in the committee packet. She pointed out that the
lack of water service in many rural communities created extreme
challenges in practicing basic COVID-19 prevention techniques.
In addition, multiple generations of families living within the
same household made it challenging to avoid close contact. Over
the next five years, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law would
allocate $3.5 billion to IHS sanitation funding, of which $1.9
billion was needed to bring a level of sanitation service to the
unserved and underserved communities in Alaska. Of the $1.9
billion, communities would need $363 million in non-IHS
contributions, which could be funded by the Denali Commission or
through USDA or USEPA, all of which require a state match. In
the first year of Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funding, Alaska
should expect to see $196 million in funding with approximately
$24 million in contributions. Failure to meet Best Practice
criteria could make communities ineligible for the non-IHS
grants needed as contributions for the IHS funding. She
reiterated that currently, Best Practice scores worked
effectively for training, building capacity, and evaluating the
understanding of water and sewer operations for newly built or
existing infrastructure; however, its use for determining
funding eligibility created a barrier to receiving service.
Furthermore, nearly all the underserved and unserved communities
would be denied funding if the existing affordability index were
used. In conclusion, Ms. Moreno said the Best Practice scores
and RUBA program's training efforts were critical for rural
communities to understand how to operate and maintain existing
and new systems. Nonetheless, she urged the State to
discontinue the use of Best Practice criteria and the
affordability index to determine a community's funding
eligibility.
10:00:14 AM
ADJOURNMENT
There being no further business before the committee, the House
Special Committee on Tribal Affairs meeting was adjourned at
10:00 a.m.
| Document Name | Date/Time | Subjects |
|---|---|---|
| 2022 Unserved Communities w rate info.pdf |
HTRB 3/15/2022 8:00:00 AM |
|
| ANHB Rural Wasterwater & Sanitation Presentation 3.15.2022.pdf |
HTRB 3/15/2022 8:00:00 AM |
|
| ANTHC Tribal Affairs Committee Presentation 3-15-22.pdf |
HTRB 3/15/2022 8:00:00 AM |
|
| DCCED HTA RUBA PPT 3.15.22 FINAL.pdf |
HTRB 3/15/2022 8:00:00 AM |
|
| DEC HTA Presentation 03.15.22.pdf |
HTRB 3/15/2022 8:00:00 AM |
|
| Tribal Affairs Hearing on Sanitation 2022 YKHC.pdf |
HTRB 3/15/2022 8:00:00 AM |