HJR 29-BLM LEGACY OIL WELL CLEAN UP  1:06:18 PM CO-CHAIR FEIGE announced that the first order of business would be HOUSE JOINT RESOLUTION NO. 29, Urging the United States Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management, to plug legacy wells properly and to reclaim the legacy well sites as soon as possible in order to protect the environment in the Arctic region. 1:07:08 PM JEFF TURNER, Staff, Representative Charisse Millett, Alaska State Legislature, on behalf of Representative Millett, prime sponsor, thanked the committee for taking up HJR 29 once again. He said the resolution urges the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to create a long-term plan to properly plug and clean up the legacy well sites in northern Alaska. The drilling stopped three decades ago and only a few wells have been plugged according to Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (AOGCC) standards. Dozens are still out of compliance and at least three can no longer be found. Now is the time for the legislature to make its voice heard in Washington, DC, and to get these wells cleaned up before any more contamination can take place. He said word about the resolution has gotten out and the sponsor has now heard from some environmental organizations and Native communities about the issue. The Alaska Conservation Alliance board of directors has issued a letter of support for HJR 29 and several Native communities are in favor of the resolution. In a sense, the resolution speaks for the legislature as well as for Alaskans across the board. REPRESENTATIVE HERRON asked whether the federal government has acknowledged that this is its fault and is sorry it happened. MR. TURNER replied that Representative Millett has not received any comment from the federal government in response to Representative Herron's request. 1:10:20 PM ESTHER HUGO, Mayor, Anaktuvuk Pass, testified that the area in which she lives has six or seven of the contaminated well sites, including Umiat. A road is not needed to clean up the sites, she said. The community has forbidden its children from swimming in Eleanor Lake near the village, which is contaminated according to a 2009 letter from the U.S. Department of Defense. However, when it is hot in the summer the children cannot be stopped from swimming in the lake. The resolution is a good start, she said, because the federal and state governments and the corporations should be held responsible for cleaning up. She reported that there are dozens of similar well sites on state land in the North Slope. She further noted that she was first told about this problem by her grandparents. MAYOR HUGO, in response to Co-Chair Seaton, agreed to provide a copy of the letter from the U.S. Department of Defense for the committee record. CO-CHAIR FEIGE requested that any allegations of wells on state land needing cleanup be forwarded in writing to the committee. MAYOR HUGO agreed to do so. 1:13:21 PM GEORGE EDWARDSON, President, Inupiat Community of the Arctic Slope, noted that he is speaking for the tribes of the eight North Slope Communities of Kaktovik, Nuiqsut, Anaktuvuk Pass, Atqasuk, Barrow, Wainwright, Point Lay, and Point Hope. He said he is in his twenty-third year as president of the regional tribal government. Regarding the legacy wells, he said he was with the [Barrow] Restoration Advisory Board (RAB) which included the U.S. Air Force and Navy, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, BLM, and State of Alaska. He related that of all the wells referred to by Mayor Hugo, 41 have collapsed and none of the sites have been cleaned. The wells were drilled, then the rig was taken to another location, and the contaminants were left; all the mud pits are still there as mud pits. 1:15:00 PM MR. EDWARDSON reported that 19 Distant Early Warning (DEW) Line sites were contaminated. So far 11 of them have been cleaned right down to the chemicals in the sand. The contaminated soil was put into containers for removal at a later date with the understanding that removal of those barrels was the responsibility of the United States. All of this contamination and damage was done before statehood, so the state had no hand in making this mess. He said he concentrated on cleaning the wells that were about to go into the ocean as a result of the shoreline receding from global warming; for example, the beach adjacent to Barrow has moved back one mile over the past 50 years. Nothing was done with the casing on the wells and no packing was put in and even if rubber packing had been installed it would now be over 70 years old, totally obsolete, and in need of being taken care of. The mud pits are still there and animals fall in and still die from the toxins in the soil. 1:17:21 PM MR. EDWARDSON noted that of the wells cleaned up, approximately six were about to fall into the ocean. The well mentioned [in the 2/8/12 hearing] that cost over $16 million [to plug and abandon] was less than 50 feet from the ocean and crude oil was bubbling out of the ground. The high cost was because a rig had to be brought in and the well cemented shut. The other wells have not been cleaned. He said Umiat was the last place he tried to clean up while on the RAB. The Umiat dump was being exposed and it contained polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) from the time when it was legal to dump PCBs. He found 368 transformers in the Umiat dump, but only 8 of them were brought out during the cleanup. Now the dump is in the Coleville River. He reported that burbot in the Coleville River, a fish that does not move and stays in place to eat, are so contaminated that the people have been told not to eat more than three a year. Over three years before the dump went into the river, he and others in the RAB tried to get it cleaned up, but the excuse from the federal government was that there was no funding. Now that the dump is in the Colville River it is scattered from Umiat all the way down the river and when the people of Nuiqsut eat fish they are eating PCB, thanks to the federal government. 1:19:55 PM MR. EDWARDSON said that every documenting paper for what he has mentioned is in the RAB files. He said he bullied the federal government to clean up the wells because he has to live with it, as do his children and grandchildren. His grandchildren do not know where it is unsafe to play. If the federal government is trying to let the state clean up the wells, then the tribe will stand beside the state to ensure that this is done because it has to be done. This is his home that has been contaminated and he is glad to see the committee attempting to clean it; he urged that the job be done. MR. EDWARDSON, in response to Representative P. Wilson, agreed to provide the committee with a copy of the letter telling people not to eat more than three fish a year. He said he would get the letter from the [North Slope Borough Department of Wildlife Management] because they are the ones that tested the fish. He said that cleaning up the dump would have stopped the river from being contaminated and he is not accepting the federal government's excuse. 1:21:44 PM REPRESENTATIVE GARDNER remarked that Mr. Edwardson's outrage is contagious. She asked whether the containers with contaminated soil from the cleaned well sites on the DEW Line are still there. MR. EDWARDSON replied that some of the containers are still there. He said the containers are plastic lined so the rain and snow cannot get in and are stored in a place where they are ready for shipment. Now, however, a permit cannot be gotten for hauling out that contaminated soil. The previous containers went to a naval site near Seattle. As mentioned by Mayor Hugo, contamination has been done by both the state and the federal government. The utilidor in Barrow is laced with 10.5 million board feet of pentachlorobiphenyl-treated wood, and the contaminant is now throughout the town. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built the utilidor and the borough was the contractor. During construction of the utilidor, half a dozen women lost their babies from broken umbilical cords, a habit of this particular contaminant. These people were painting and cutting the wood without proper protection. Regarding the DEW Lines, he said that through the tribal government he had the federal government admitting it was their mess. 1:24:17 PM DAVE THERIAULT, Legislative and Outreach Director, Alaska Conservation Alliance, offered his organization's support for HJR 29 and thanked the sponsor for bringing the resolution forward. 1:24:57 PM REPRESENTATIVE GARDNER commented there is no reason to expect that this resolution will bring results from the federal government. It is an expression of the legislature's outrage that the state's lands are contaminated and that this has been known for a long time with little done to remedy it. She asked whether anything else might be done to make this problem broadly known and encourage some sort of resolution. CATHERINE FOERSTER, Engineering Commissioner, Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (AOGCC), replied that she has been worrying this problem since she arrived at AOGCC in 2005 and she has finally decided that the only thing that can be done is to embarrass the federal government in the court of public opinion. The local BLM folks are Alaskans too, she said, and would like to see it cleaned up, but their budget is only $1 million annually and that is hardly enough to pay for the Alaska BLM's staff and share of the building and the paperwork to keep up with the status of these wells. The Alaska BLM certainly does not get enough money to plug the wells. She said this needs to be discussed with Alaska's Congressional Delegation, environmental groups, and others and noise must be made to make this a priority that the federal government allocates budget to. Ms. Foerster added that the local BLM folks have this issue as a high priority with no money. Mr. [Ted] Murphy of the Alaska BLM has committed to collaborate with AOGCC and she is meeting with him next week to share data to ensure that everyone has the same data and same understanding of the status of all 136 wells. There will likely also be an agreement for a way forward about what to do next. She said she will keep the committee informed as to what is done; however, the bottom line is that until there is a budget for the Alaska BLM, the meetings will just be a dusting off of furniture. 1:27:52 PM REPRESENTATIVE P. WILSON inquired whether this situation would get taken care of if it were in the Lower 48. MS. FOERSTER responded that if this were in an area that had a larger and more vocal population with easier access for people to see, it would be gone. Alaska's situation is out of sight, out of mind except for the few people who live out there. She offered her appreciation for the committee's championing of this effort. REPRESENTATIVE P. WILSON offered her belief that if more of the organizations concerned about contamination were to jump on the bandwagon there would be more results. MS. FOERSTER agreed and said that if Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, and other bigger organizations with lobbying emphasis in Washington, DC, were to put their horsepower behind this the issue would be taken care of. 1:29:30 PM REPRESENTATIVE FOSTER surmised that if there are a lot of wells in the Lower 48 that need plugging, Alaska will be at the end of a very long line. However, he continued surmising, if there are only a few such wells perhaps Alaska would be next in line if there was some movement. He asked which scenario is the case. MS. FOERSTER replied she does not think there are many wells managed by the federal government in the Lower 48. However, there may be some in Montana and Wyoming and they probably have some of the same issues as Alaska as far as out of sight, out of mind and a small population that is not influential. REPRESENTATIVE DICK quipped that the federal government is too busy setting up sting operations for Amish farmers bringing unpasteurized milk across the Pennsylvania border and therefore does not have the funds for something as "insignificant" as this. 1:31:00 PM CO-CHAIR FEIGE closed public testimony on HJR 29. CO-CHAIR SEATON moved to report HJR 29 out of committee with individual recommendations and the accompanying zero fiscal notes. There being no objection, HJR 29 was reported from the House Resources Standing Committee.