Legislature(2011 - 2012)BUTROVICH 205
02/04/2011 03:30 PM Senate RESOURCES
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| Presentation: Department of Environmental Conservation Overview | |
| Adjourn |
* first hearing in first committee of referral
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+ teleconferenced
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ALASKA STATE LEGISLATURE
SENATE RESOURCES STANDING COMMITTEE
February 4, 2011
3:33 p.m.
MEMBERS PRESENT
Senator Thomas Wagoner, Co-Chair
Senator Joe Paskvan, Co-Chair - via teleconference
Senator Bill Wielechowski, Vice Chair - via teleconference
Senator Bert Stedman
Senator Hollis French
Senator Gary Stevens
MEMBERS ABSENT
Senator Lesil McGuire
OTHER LEGISTORS PRESENT
Senator Cathy Giessel
COMMITTEE CALENDAR
PRESENTATION: DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL CONSERVATION OVERVIEW
- HEARD
PREVIOUS COMMITTEE ACTION
No previous action to record
WITNESS REGISTER
LARRY HARTIG, Commissioner
Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC)
Anchorage, AK
POSITION STATEMENT: Presented Department of Environmental
Conservation (DEC) overview.
ACTION NARRATIVE
3:33:59 PM
CO-CHAIR THOMAS WAGONER called the Senate Resources Standing
Committee meeting to order at 3:33 p.m. Present at the call to
order were Senators Stedman, French, and Co-Chair Wagoner. He
noted that Senator Wielechowski and Co-Chair Paskvan will be
calling in.
3:34:40 PM
^Presentation: Department of Environmental Conservation Overview
Presentation: Department of Environmental Conservation Overview
CO-CHAIR WAGONER announced the Department of Environmental
Conservation overview as the only order of business today.
3:34:55 PM
LARRY HARTIG, Commissioner, Department of Environmental
Conservation (DEC), introduced his staff in the audience and
said he would talk about some of the department's challenges and
some of the successes that they have not quite met yet. DEC's
mission is to protect human health and the environment. These
two things are connected; protecting the environment is always
connected to human health. Also, he said, DEC is a science-based
process-driven agency; all their decisions fulfilling their
mission are science-based.
3:39:01 PM
SENATOR STEVENS joined the committee.
3:39:11 PM
COMMISSIONER HARTIG said many of their duties and authorities
are set out in Title 46 and Title 44, Chapter 46, and
regulations in 18.80(c). But also, many of their
responsibilities and functions come from federal law (the Clean
Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, the
Circle of Superfund, Oil Pollution Act, and more), and much of
their funding is federal money. With that funding comes
oversight by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and other
agencies. He and his directors interact daily with primarily the
EPA on regulatory programs and on-shore spill response and with
the US Coast Guard for off shore spills.
He explained that the way they carry out their mission is by
developing standards. In protecting human health, whether it's
the air or water or the food, they develop science-based
standards that are meant to assure that water, air, and food is
clean and safe for humans. For instance, the standards for water
quality took four to five years to develop and get approved by
the EPA. The public has four or five processes for comment to go
through a proposed standard and go through an appeal if they
don't like it, but once those standards are developed they are
used in the permits. For instance, how much mercury can be in
the water and still be considered safe for fish and human
consumption. So, when they look at a discharge, they consider
how much is in the water already from other dischargers, how
much occurs naturally, and what will be the ultimate
concentration, and then they have to decide how often it will
get monitored, etc.
3:42:51 PM
If they are not achieving compliance, depending on the
situation, they may try working on "compliance assistance,"
particularly if it's somebody new or a small community that is
trying to achieve a good result. On the other hand, if someone
is a repeat offender, they can do "high level" enforcement. The
work with the Attorney General's Office and can bring civil and
even criminal charges.
COMMISSIONER HARTIG said they respond to oil spills and protect
food safety. DEC also operates the State Environmental Health
Lab that is in Anchorage on Tudor Road next to the Human Health
Lab. This lab is where the state veterinarian who works for DEC
is housed. It does a lot of work with animals.
He said DEC regulates pesticides and does a lot of public
outreach and education, even though there is less money to do
it. Probably one of the most important things they do is
interact with the EPA federal requirements so they work in
Alaska, particularly rural Alaska.
3:45:53 PM
The DEC has five divisions. The Division of Administration: does
contracting, procurement, budget assistance, limited human
resource work, and houses the environmental crimes unit. This
unit has three investigators - two criminal investigators in
Fairbanks and one civil investigator in Anchorage. They work
closely with the Attorney General's Office to investigate
potential and more severe violations that could result in either
civil or criminal counts. They also work closely with the
federal agencies: US Department of Justice and the US Attorney's
Office on joint investigations.
The four other divisions are Air Quality, Environmental Health,
Spill Prevention and Response, and Water Quality.
3:47:11 PM
COMMISSIONER HARTIG began with the Air Quality Division, and
said unlike the other programs, the permitting program in the
Air Quality Division is largely supported by fees, a federal
requirement. So, these tend to be more complicated and expensive
for people to develop. It's a smaller division, but its rules
are from the more complicated areas of environmental law. They
regulate "point sources" (out of the stack emissions) as well as
"non-point sources," road vehicles, fugitive dust, things like
fine particulate matter in Fairbanks and discharges from power
plants, and get involved in auto emissions. Fairbanks and
Anchorage used to have carbon monoxide programs, and fortunately
both programs were so successful, largely because the cars are
cleaner these days, that both programs have either gone away or
are going away.
He said the Air Permits Program in the Air Quality Division
issues three types of permits: the construction permits (Title
1) and these are largely based on federal law and are the most
complicated to write. The next kinds of permits are the Title 5
(operating permits) that brings all the different requirements
relating to air emissions into one operating permit. They get
renewed every five years and these are for larger facilities.
Smaller facilities that want to avoid the more complicated
requirements under Title 1 or Title 5 permits can get a minor
permit and try to limit their emissions and thus not hit the
more complicated federal levels.
3:50:20 PM
COMMISSIONER HARTIG said several new EPA rules have come out on
green house gases and one is a reporting rule requiring larger
facilities, those that emit more green house gas emissions
(primarily carbon dioxide), to monitor those and report them to
EPA. That program is run by EPA, although DEC collects the data
and will use it when they write permits. Second, though, which
started in January and is more important to the state, is
regulating the larger emitting facilities for COThey must
2.
apply "best available control technology" to limit the amount of
their carbon emissions. So when the division writes a new permit
to a facility that needs a Title 1 or Title 5 permit he has to
evaluate what technology they are using to control their
emissions of carbon dioxide. When they look at that, they look
at economic environmental, energy use and other factors to
determine whether they are meeting the best available control
technology standard. There isn't a written standard at this
point.
Another challenge is the Fairbanks Air Quality. Fugitive dust
results from open air operations. For example, a large pile of
coal that sets out and it dries and the wind blows the dust
around. He said they are getting more and more complaints in the
state about two types of fugitive dust emissions; one is
material handling these piles of coal and other material like
that and the other is abrasive blasting like sand blasting of
boat hulls and bridges and that sort of thing. So, they are in
the process of coming up with regulations that will control
those.
COMMISSIONER HARTIG said gas line permitting and North Slope
Cumulative Air Quality are somewhat inter-related. On the North
Slope historically when new facilities were being developed that
would have air emissions they would be permitted and looked at
separately. Now because of the number of facilities up there,
the cumulative impacts have to be considered. So, if the
cumulative amount of particulate pollutants reaches a certain
level, that will stop development. So, it's important to get
ahead of that and track the emissions, model them and make
predictions.
3:54:34 PM
Gasline permitting: It is important to be doing this modeling
and data collecting now, because permitting these larger
facilities require at least a year's worth of air quality data
looking at all the different conditions on an annual basis. He
recalled that AGIA talks about permits in 2014; so that
permitting effort would have to occur by 2012/13 - now.
3:55:19 PM
COMMISSIONER HARTIG explained that the EPA has set various
national, human, health-based, air quality standards. When this
occurs they look at the entire population - children, people
with asthma, pregnant women, and older folks. Recently, they set
an air quality standard for fine particulates at PM2.5 microns
for a 24 hour period. These really small particulates can get
deep into lungs and cause respiratory problems, which can be
severe. This standard is not being met in Fairbanks, primarily
because PM2.5 mainly arises from the burning of wood and other
hydrocarbon fuels. Around the time that EPA set this standard
was when home heating and diesel fuel prices shot up. A lot of
people in Fairbanks were turning to wood for heat and power, and
there was no way to stop it. So, Fairbanks has a "non-attainment
area" under the Clean Air Act, the state is required to come up
with a plan to bring them into attainment. That plan has to be
in place and approved by EPA by December 2012, and then there is
a compliance deadline of 2014. No one believes that Fairbanks
will be able to come back into compliance by 2014, but as long
as the steps are being taken, that deadline can be extended. He
emphasized the bottom line is not just complying with the
federal requirement, but about protecting human health, too.
He explained that the state has the responsibility of coming up
with this attainment plan. DEC has an MOU with Fairbanks North
Star Borough where they would take the lead in developing the
plan, working with the community, and they would provide the
technical support and expertise to help inform that plan. Also,
EPA has been heavily involved and cooperative in providing
information to help the community develop this plan. The bottom
line is this is difficult for the community of Fairbanks and he
didn't think it would be solved within the next 10 years. It is
important when asking people to change the way they do things to
be able to demonstrate that whatever they do will actually be
worth the sacrifice in terms of air quality that would be
achieved.
3:59:58 PM
CO-CHAIR WAGONER asked if Fairbanks is the only place that is
having that size of particulate matter problem.
COMMISSIONER HARTIG answered that it is the only area that is at
non-attainment right now, but other areas are close. Juneau is
close to non-attainment in the Mendenhall Valley. Juneau has
been proactive by having non-burn days when the air quality is
below a certain level. It is more difficult for Fairbanks
because it is colder. EPA is considering whether to lower this
PM2.5 standard and will make a decision next summer. If they do
that, Fairbanks would be back in and maybe Mat-Su Valley.
CO-CHAIR WAGONER said the reason he asked that question is
because he represents one place that burns a lot of beach coal
for home heating when it gets really cold. He was sure that
causes a lot of particulate matter, and he asked if there is
going to be a standard that has a certain number of days.
COMMISSIONER HARTIG answered that there may be areas within that
area where the air quality is not being met. But that does not
mean that they entire county or borough would be labeled as
such.
4:02:35 PM
SENATOR FRENCH asked if North Pole is also a non-attainment
area.
COMMISSIONER HARTIG answered yes. This is not easy for the
residents who are trying to keep their fuel costs down. The
community's reaction to this initiative was not well received. A
citizen's initiative was passed last summer that took away the
borough's ability to regulated home heating fuel devices and
that has "put the monkey on the state's back" as the regulator
for individual stoves and boilers. The borough is trying a
voluntary educational approach with a grant of $1 million from
the federal Department of Energy and they are changing out the
more dirty stoves to cleaner burning stoves, using dry wood and
dampering for a more efficient burn. They are having success
there and it will go a long ways to curing the problem, but they
don't anticipate getting them into total attainment. Other
sacrifices will have to be made. The problem they are going to
run into is they are going to run out of the $1 million and they
need another $4 million to get to all the rest of the stoves and
boilers they want to change out. They are searching for state
help and federal grant money as well.
CO-CHAIR WAGONER asked what types of stoves and boilers the
residents are replacing the current units with.
COMMISSIONER HARTIG answered that it is a combination of things.
Wood pellet stoves are being used and they are trying to use
more modern and fuel-efficient stoves. He would follow up on
that.
4:06:31 PM
COMMISSIONER HARTIG explained that even if individuals in
Fairbanks have clean burning stoves it won't necessarily help if
they use wet wood. One of their challenges is getting the
quantity of wood they need and having a place to dry it. They
have been having discussion with the Division of Forestry about
the Tanana Valley Forest; the problem with that is that the
forest is far from town and it's difficult for them to get wood
there. But the idea would be to trade out wet wood for dry wood.
4:08:04 PM
SENATOR STEDMAN said that it seems the solution to this problem
is to gasify Fairbanks and not use wood burning stoves. He asked
what percentage of the Fairbanks they need to get on natural gas
or propane to alleviate the problem.
COMMISSIONER HARTIG answered that is what the mayor and people
would like to do. They do import some natural gas, and they are
looking at every which way to get more in. This is a longer term
solution. The 2012 deadline for the attainment plant and 2014 to
be able to demonstrate you're going to get there with reasonable
progress means they can't wait 10 years for a gas line.
Whatever they do would be an interim solution. He thought the
EPA would work with them if it looked like they would get the
gas.
SENATOR STEDMAN asked the commissioner to clarify what will
happen to the Fairbanks community should it chose to ignore this
initiative.
COMMISSIONER HARTIG answered three things. The state has the
responsibility to write the attainment plan, otherwise the EPA
will write it. If they didn't comply with the plan, the EPA can
limit the federal highway funds coming to the state (which they
have done in other states), and particularly to that community;
second, the new larger facilities that who need air permits
would have a more difficult time getting them; lastly, any
federal projects would have to show that they are not adding to
the issue. It would stifle economic development.
4:11:49 PM
COMMISSIONER HARTIG said that they are trying to develop a plan
with the community to find out where the most PM2.5 emissions
are coming from and figure out what options make the most sense.
4:12:38 PM
He said the Environmental Health Division is probably the most
diverse and the largest. It includes such things as public
drinking water system oversight and regulation largely driven by
federal law called "public drinking water rules." These rules
might limit things such as total coli form bacteria and require
purifications standards for ground or surface water. There could
be a particular type of bacteria that could come of concern
nationally and they would issue a rule on how to address that,
for instance. Again, these rules either fit well in Alaska or
they are very tough to administer particularly out in the rural
communities; they're costly because they are a relatively small
group of rate payers. DEC works very closely with these
communities. If the state does not maintain primacy with
drinking water compliance, than the EPA would do so.
The division does pesticide control, and writes an average of
five permits a year mainly for state agencies because any
application of pesticides by a state agency on state land
requires a permit. If it impacts water, a permit would have to
be issued for that. These permits can be very controversial. He
assured the committee the permits are very science-based they
work closely with the EPA in deciding what pesticides to use and
how they should be applied.
He said Solid Waste Management is another program DEC covers.
These are areas from an unregulated dump in a rural community to
an Anchorage land fill. They also have the Environmental Health
Laboratory. DEC does testing of chemical samples, animal and
fish tissue, animal necropsies. They monitor outbreak of disease
in the animal populations and work with Fish and Game or other
veterinarians around the state to investigate. It is important
to watch this, because it can affect the health of other animals
as well as jump from the animal population to commercial animals
or to humans. The lab tested Avian flu for instance when that
was a big issue. He said the Lab also looks for contaminants in
the environment and they monitor fish tissue that ADF&G sends in
from around the state. This is important for the reputation of
the Alaska Seafood and Marketing Industry, because in other
states before they allow Alaskan products to come in, they want
lab certification that it is free of contaminants.
4:17:23 PM
COMMISSIONER HARTIG said one of the challenges that the
Environmental Health Division has is the inspection of food. In
most states it is run by the counties. In Alaska that wouldn't
work. Anchorage is the only community that runs its own
restaurant inspection program; Fairbanks and Juneau rely on the
state to do it. It is very difficult to get inspectors out into
rural Alaska to investigate. The recommended rate of inspections
of more high risk restaurants is twice a year, rural Alaska gets
it once every four years. They try to deal with other things
like inspection programs and food handler certification programs
that provide another level of safety; however, they fall short
with inspections.
Another challenge is the solid waste landfills in rural Alaska.
The Denali Commission, the EPA, and the US Department of
Agriculture can fund landfill work, but it just falls down the
list of things. Because even though these projects could get
funded through the Village Safe Water Program, they are not as
high a priority as drinking water or waste water treatment.
He said the department does paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP)
testing for the growing shellfish industry in Alaska. This last
summer a couple of recreational users got sick from PSP and had
one fatality in Alaska. So, they are looking at what can be done
for the recreational users. They have come up with a pilot
program for $400,000 that would work with local communities
where they would collect the samples and send them to the
Environmental Health Lab. They would run the PSP tests, send it
back to the community and then the local government could post
the results. If there was a problem they could work with the
State Human Health People to evaluate the results and advise
people on the risk. There currently is no recreational testing.
He stressed that the Environmental Health Lab is not competing
with private industry. The commercial people don't want to do
the type of tests they are doing, because it's either not
profitable because there is not enough of that kind of work or
its cutting edge equipment and/or methodologies.
4:21:17 PM
He said regulation of food safety is one of the initiatives that
can be put in the "challenged" category, and they are working on
where to draw that line. They don't want to regulate small
charity events like potlucks.
CO-CHAIR WAGONER asked if someone in Ketchikan was raising
oysters, do they have to take their samples and send them all
the way to Anchorage. Did the UAS do testing at one time?
COMMISSIONER HARTIG answered that he would have to get back to
him on that. He said there are two different kinds of growers,
those that farm and those that collect in the wild. The
department would go out and do sampling in that area for those
that collect in the wild; it would have to be sampled regularly
because with PSP you can sample in an area for years and it's
clean, but then come back the next time and have PSP. It's hard
to predict. They are working on developing an alternative
methodology where sampling could be simplified to make it easier
to operate in the field. But it needs to be approved by the Food
and Drug Administration. PSP testing is fairly heavily
subsidized by the state recognizing it is a new and growing
industry where the tests are complicated and expensive.
4:24:10 PM
The Spill Prevention and Response Division (SPAR) tries to
initially prevent spills and if a spill happens, they respond.
Core service is emergency response and not to just oil, but to
other hazardous substances. The Hazmat Program is usually run at
a local level and the department provides oversight and
coordination with the fire department and such. They have their
Industry Preparedness Program with people who try to prevent
spills. State law requires having plans on how they will prevent
and respond if there is a spill. Those "C-plans" have to be
submitted to DEC for approval and have to go through a public
review and comment period, an appeal process, and all the larger
plans get appealed. Once a company is approved it has to have
the resources in place to comply with that plan and do spill
drills and other drills, both announced an unannounced. The next
step is if something goes wrong and there is a spill, then the
Prevention and Energy Response Program (PERP) people respond.
Before the Big Gulf spill people didn't realize that the person
who caused the spill has to respond to it. The government's
responsibility is to provide the oversight and to make sure the
person is responsible and their contractors respond. If they are
incapable of mounting the response and slow in mounting it, then
the government will step in with its resources, "but we don't
have a standing army of spill responders."
SENATOR FRENCH said he was curious about this year's
supplemental that has to do with the comprehensive oil and gas
infrastructure risk assessment that was funded with $5 million
in 2007. This year because of a change in the scope and
methodology, DEC is talking about giving back some of this
money. The note says: "The result of the study was confined to
the North Slope and did not include the level of detail
initially envisioned."
4:28:06 PM
COMMISSIONER HARTIG said he would come back to that, and went to
detail the Contaminated Site Program where the PERP people
assess what is causing a spill and then put together a health
safety response. Once the emergency issues are taken care, the
loose contamination has to be cleaned up. Clean up standards
have to set up and those plans have to be approved.
CO-CHAIR WAGONER asked where the abandoned drums are located.
COMMISSIONER HARTIG guessed it was an old military site, Sand
Point. He said several abandoned military sites have been
identified for contamination review and are being taken care of
one by one, and good progress is being made.
He touched on the declining prevention account fund that helps
fund the day to day operations of SPAR. He explained that most
of SPAR's operating budget comes from the Response Fund that is
the nickel a barrel tax (the 470 Fund). It is broken into a
Spill Prevention Account and a Response Account. The Prevention
Account gets 4 cents and the Response Account gets 1 cent. The
Prevention account helps fund the day to day operations of SPAR
- the people that review and approve the C-plans. The Response
Account has $50 million and that 1 cent kicks in when it goes
below that. When they respond to a spill they try to recover
costs from the person who is responsible for it. That would go
into a mitigation account and the legislature would consider
appropriating that back into the Response Fund to make it whole.
All of this is based on production, the commissioner said, and
with production declining it means the amount going in is going
down to the tune of 6 percent a year. Over the past few years
the nickel/barrel fund is in the red, but it has been made up by
the fund's historic surplus. SPAR will be completely in the red,
however, by 2014.
4:33:18 PM
Another challenge is changing conditions on the North Slope -
aging infrastructure, declining production, talk of OCS
development, extended-reach drilling on BP's Liberty Project -
and the possibility of more challenging operating conditions. As
they saw a couple of weeks ago because of the incident at Pump
Station 1, they had very limited time to bring that line back up
before it froze.
Under Initiatives, they are trying to identify all the
historical contaminated sites in the area for potential
construction. They have also been working with the Coast Guard
on the Aleutian Island Risk Assessment with monies taken from
the Selendang Ayu criminal settlement. More and more traffic is
going through the Aleutian Island area, and upgrades in tracking
ships as well as having access to their information and adequate
tow ropes to keep them off reefs may help provide a template for
other areas in Alaska that are beginning to see more traffic
like the Bering Straits going north - because of OCS
development.
4:39:15 PM
Deepwater Horizon Lessons and Risk Assessment Work Plan:
Jurisdiction: It's difficult to understand a lot of different
agencies regulate oil spills. Commissioner Hartig explained what
pipelines are regulated by DEC and which are regulated federally
- the gather center at Pump Station 1 (crude oil pipeline). DEC
has some jurisdiction over leak detection requirements on TAPS.
The feds don't regulate flow lines; in fact, Alaska is the only
state that regulates flow lines. Two spills happened in 2006.
SENATOR FRENCH asked if the one in August was the largest spill
in the North Slope's history.
COMMISSIONER HARTIG answered yes; the leaks occurred on crude
oil pipelines. Many of the questions from the legislature he
received after this spill is what DEC is doing to prevent
another one. So, they proposed an Alaska risk assessment ($5
million capital appropriation) that would be divided into two
phases. The first phase would get nationally known contractors
to design the assessment and then go out to the public,
industry, and the National Academy of Science and ask them to
review that methodology for all TAPS facilities. They came back
with a detailed look at all the risks associated with all the
facilities, but it would go way beyond $5 million and could not
be implemented very easily. However, alternatives were suggested
like statistical analysis looking for trends. That information
was pulled together in a risk study for continuing North Slope
operations that was reviewed by an expert panel of consultants.
They identified the flow lines that DEC was regulating as the
biggest risk.
4:46:08 PM
SENATOR FRENCH asked for clarification on which flow lines he
meant - the ones downstream of the gathering centers or the
three-phase upstream flow lines to the wellhead.
COMMISSIONER HARTIG answered that they identified that in
general it's both pipelines - the crude oil transmission lines,
the flow lines, the facility and all the different types of
pipe.
COMMISSIONER HARTIG explained that he included everything from
the wellhead at Pump Station 1 to the gathering center
(regulated by the feds). If it is a pipeline it is riskier.
SENATOR STEDMAN asked him to wrap his information in his
presentation over the amount of reconditioning or rebuilding of
line segments that have been done the last few years.
COMMISSIONER HARTIG replied that he does not have those figures
with him, but will get them to him. He continued with the Alaska
Risk Assessment. Of the pipelines, the most risky subset would
be the three phase lines, not the flow lines. Prior to the this
risk assessment DEC had already done a number of things: put
together regulations for flow lines, got the information on
corrosion and monitoring control programs, did an inventory of
all the lines and triaged the most high risk ones, did
engineering reviews of the more high-risk lines looking at the
actual data from the companies, and did field inspections. So,
when the risk assessment identified the flow lines as the
highest risk areas, they had an expert panel come up with their
recommendations for mitigation measures beyond what they were
already doing. It looked at a standardized approach to
evaluating spills and collecting data on them in a systematic
way that would also trigger a deeper analysis (root cause
analysis) into all the root causes of a spill. It also looked at
coming up with key indicators that should be tracked in these
pipelines that would give early indication of corrosion or other
problems, and a way of reporting those to the agency, so the
public would also have that information. This report has been
published and they are now in the process of implementing these
changes.
COMMISSIONER HARTIG mentioned another way to regulate is by
looking at a company's management and risk control systems. At
this time, DEC has not gone to this kind of safety management
system, but they are looking at it. It is being used more by the
federal agencies, and the state doesn't want to have anything
that is inconsistent with that. He said they also put together a
GIS data base of the pipeline inventory, so issues can be
identified in future spills. There are still a few items left to
finish the risk assessment.
Several years ago they got a $240,000 appropriation for a marine
traffic risk assessment for Cook Inlet. This is not just for
Tesoro and its crude oil operations but as they bring in more
aviation gas for the International Airport. They worry about the
ice conditions and tides et cetera. The money was enough for a
work plan, but it wasn't enough to execute the risk assessment
itself.
4:56:12 PM
The Water Division, Facilities Section, of the DEC makes sure
that the water you drink is safe, but it also makes sure those
who are operating water facilities are doing their job. They do
not just regulate these facilities, they run projects. The
Village Safe Water Program is for communities of 600 people or
less is in this section and the department does grants on water
and sewer projects. Those grants are 75 percent federal money
coming from EPA or the US Department of Agriculture, Rural
Development Program, with a 25 percent general fund match by the
state. When this program was started about 30 years ago, less
than 50 percent of communities in rural Alaska had this kind of
service; now it's closer to 90 percent. The biggest challenge
for that program is money. He said federal funding has decline
by 40 percent in the last seven years, which means a
corresponding 40 percent drop on the state match. So, as they
get to the last 10 percent, those are the harder to serve
communities with water issues or permafrost. In addition to
this, there are facilities that have been running for 30 years,
so facilities need to be upgraded and/or replaced or replaced
because the community is growing.
The Facilities Program has the Municipal Grant and Loan program
for the larger communities. It is primarily a loan program and
primarily state funded. The state puts up a match and if you're
community is larger your match has to be larger. If they can
find federal money that can be used for their match, but
typically it is local money. Typically is has been $23 million a
year, but this year in the governor's proposed budget it is $20
million.
COMMISSIONER HARTIG explained the way the program works is they
solicit applications in the fall, they have published criteria
where the projects are ranked, and then they give the list to
the legislature.
The biggest challenge is the declining federal money. Each year
they go through the same cycle and in some years people do
better than others. It depends on who applies and what the
products are. In some instances a project just won't ever score
well but it is really a legitimate needed project. And then
there would be an opportunity to do an appropriation outside the
Municipal Loan Program for that. DEC would be called on to
advise the governor about a potential veto and weigh the
importance of the project. This program is highly at risk of
going away because it's too much of an Alaskan earmark. There
are other federal loan programs, but those don't work as well on
the smaller communities; and he emphasized that he saw a 40-
percent cut on those by the new Republican House that is coming
into power now.
5:02:01 PM
The other side the water quality programs is setting water
quality standards - how to protect the uses of water for
recreation, for drinking, for use by fish or aquatic life,
fishing, and boating. They also look at what kind of treatment
technology can achieve; whatever of those is more stringent that
is what they apply in writing a permit.
The challenges for the Water Division are largely the declining
federal funding in the Village Safe Water Program, the
incredible backlog of permits as EPA transfers the Water
Permitting Program to DEC, and new requirements being imposed by
the EPA for these permits over which they have veto authority.
5:05:12 PM
CO-CHAIR WAGONER asked if his department had drafted nuc1ear
energy regulations as outlined in SB 220.
COMMISSIONER HARTIG answered they had not yet done so, but they
also had not received any applications. Other states are going
through the same thing right now, and their plan is to see what
they are coming up with. If he saw any movement towards a
nuclear facility he would speed that up.
CO-CHAIR PASKVAN thanked the commissioner for responding to the
request that he provide in-depth information on the challenges
that the department was facing in particular parts of the state.
SENATOR WIELECHOWSKI said he would like to see at some point any
recommendations the commissioner had on funding for the Oil
Spill Response and Prevention Fund. He also wanted to hear more
about the transition from federal oversight to state oversight
under the Clean Water Act. He said he would submit his questions
in writing.
5:07:49 PM
CO-CHAIR WAGONER found no further testimony and adjourned the
meeting at 5:07 p.m.
| Document Name | Date/Time | Subjects |
|---|---|---|
| DEC Overview (S) RES.pdf |
SRES 2/4/2011 3:30:00 PM |