STATEMENT OF MICHELE D. BROWN, COMMISSIONER
ALASKA DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL CONSERVATION
BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS
UNITED STATES SENATE
JUNE 6, 2000

Chairman and Members of the Committee: I am Michele Brown, Commissioner of the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation. On behalf of Alaska Governor Tony Knowles, I am pleased to testify that the state of Alaska supports the bill before you to create a separate region of the EPA for Alaska, which will foster a far more effective federal-state partnership to protect Alaska's environment and the health of its people.

Alaska's Environmental Challenges are Unique and Distinctive.

Alaska is a national treasure. You have participated in the debates over opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, about timber harvest levels in the Tongass National Forest, and over how to prevent and improve response to oil spills such as the Exxon Valdez. There is great passion in those debates. Alaska is America's proud symbol for environmental purity and primal wilderness. It should also be America's model for environmental management. Yet, the key federal agency charged in this country with environmental management has only a meager presence in Alaska.

EPA's 1992 report entitled "Implications of Establishing a Regional Office in and for Alaska" states that a new Alaska region should not be established because no one wants to live and work in Alaska. My 450 employees and I would like to tell you that when it comes to environmental splendor and to the ability to practice creative and meaningful environmental management, it simply doesn't get any better than Alaska.

For public health and environmental challenges, and for the opportunity to do development right, as Alaska's Governor Tony Knowles requires, Alaska is where the rubber meets the road.

Issues range:

· from addressing third world sanitation conditions in hundreds of inaccessible, tiny communities in a state where there is virtually no county or borough regional health management system, to regulating the U.S.'s most sophisticated and complex oil development, production and transportation system, one which yields 20% of the U.S.'s oil production. Another 30% of the U.S.'s proven oil reserves lies under Alaska's surface and we all know that Americans will not tolerate drilling those reserves without assurances that it can be safely managed.

· from protecting the water quality that produces and processes over 50% of the U.S.'s seafood production and houses the largest seafood landing port in the U.S., while regulating the discharges from the U.S.'s largest zinc and silver mines and the U.S.'s leading placer gold and tin production mines.

· from generating electricity from diesel engines for almost all of Alaska's numerous remote villages, and all the mines and oil and gas production facilities I just mentioned, because there is no other available power source, while assuring air quality for 2/3 of all the U.S.'s national parklands, the largest state park system in the U.S., and the U.S.'s largest national forests, as well as preserving the vistas and fresh air quality for the 1.4 million tourists who visit Alaska each year.

And, this all needs to be done over a land base that equals 20% of the U.S. As you can see from the map, when superimposed on the lower 48 states, Alaska extends north to south from the U.S. Canada border to Southern California and, east to west, from Tennessee to Texas and that's not even including the Aleutian Islands.

Alaska shares no border with another state and at our closest point is 2 « miles from Russia. Alaska has 7 ecosystems, including the U.S.'s only arctic and subarctic ecosystems. Alaska has 6,600 miles of coastline (3 times the coastlines of California and Florida combined), 34,000 miles of shoreline, 3000 rivers, 3 millions lakes over 20 acres each, and more wetlands than those in all the other states combined.

Alaska's entire economic base -- oil and gas, seafood, tourism, and mining -- depends upon its natural resources and its environment and how well they are managed. And, our nation too depends heavily on these products.

Alaska needs strong and effective environmental management from our federal agency partners. Virtually all pertinent federal agencies, with the notable exception of EPA, recognize both the importance and the difficulty in managing some of America's most important assets and have regional offices in Alaska. This includes not just land management agencies but also those with regulatory protection programs such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, the Corps of Engineers, and the Minerals Management Service. EPA alone tries to provide this management from Seattle with a small operations staff in Alaska. Region 10 covers the largest geographic areas of any EPA region, yet has the fewest staff of any region.

We believe that having a lean, but focussed EPA Region 11 can accomplish far more in effective environmental management than the so-called leveraging of its larger staff in Seattle.

It takes strong environmental management and standards to balance competing demands on the environment and to protect Alaska's national assets. Strong and effective management means setting priorities based on sound risk assessments and tailoring management to real-time conditions to produce on-the-ground, meaningful results. In the multilayered and increasingly complex federal/state/tribe/local system of environmental management that has developed in this country, Alaska needs a federal partner that is aware of and can produce solutions rather than rote and oft-times arbitrary applications of rules developed for other circumstances.

I am not here to criticize EPA but to highlight a serious problem in allocation of resources and attention. Let me explain why. I'd like to give you four reasons and some brief examples:

First, Alaska's Environment Needs More Effective Management.

Despite efforts by EPA Region 10 to be more responsive in Alaska, we have seen that managing for results simply does not work from a Seattle office. EPA's Alaska operations office basically does direct implementation of programs that have not been delegated to or are not shared with Alaska's regulators. Consequently, my staff interacts with Seattle 90% more than it does with the Alaska operations office. It's quite frustrating to see state regulators and facility operators troop to Seattle to meet with an EPA regulator who has never even viewed the facility's site.

Unfortunately, Seattle staff too often have neither the knowledge of Alaska's conditions and cultural diversity or the funds or time to travel and study. Lacking that core understanding and a sense of the big picture, they merely tackle what shows up on their desks. They do this by adhering to tunnel vision one-size-fits-all solutions prescribed in regulations and guidance while facing intense pressure under a large Region 10 workload and trying to advance EPA headquarters virtually endless assault of new initiatives. It's a hard job and one that leads to wasted time and resources without producing environmental results; and, at its worst, results in nonsensical situations.

Let me share some examples:

First, thousands of migratory birds die year after year in a wetlands estuary outside of Anchorage due to poisonous phosphorous from Army weapons. Two-thirds of Alaska is federally owned and managed, much with left over contamination such as this from past management practices. Yet, EPA, the federal agency charged with preventing and remediating fellow federal agencies' actions, has virtually no presence to address these hundreds of acres of contaminated wetlands.

At the same time, however, less than 15 air miles away, the Anchorage sewage treatment plant has been through three years of bureaucratic red tape to renew its permit in order to account for naturally occurring conditions in the Cook Inlet waters. The so-called 'pollution' being addressed is due to trace metals and high sediments caused by the glaciers grinding up the local mountains. Despite countless hours by EPA and Alaska's environmental staff, this permit is still not done and, even when it is finished, it will not improve water quality whatsoever.

Second, EPA imposed on Alaska an arsenic standard for point discharges that was virtually impossible for any discharger to meet due to naturally occurring arsenic in Alaska's waters. No arsenic was being added in the mine process. This discharge standard was 300% lower than the drinking water standard for arsenic. This meant that you could dip a glass into a stream and drink the water. That was safe. But if you didn't finish the water, you would not be allowed to pour it back into the stream because it would violate the arsenic discharge standard. It took four years to get this resolved while dozens of major and minor mine permits were substantially delayed or went through expensive, time-consuming paperwork processes to get around the requirement. Again, there was no resulting benefit in water quality for all this effort.

Third, Alaska has a desperate need for safe drinking water for thousands of public water systems serving less than 500 people, most located in isolated communities that lack any economic base. The average annual income in a village in Alaska is $13,000. EPA is generous with the construction funding granted by Congress, but the community is expected to maintain the system at its own expense once built. That's hard enough to do under the best of circumstances, but it becomes nearly impossible when the community has to meet EPA requirements that don't make sense in Alaska, such as testing for contaminants never found in Alaska or having to repeatedly re-draw and fly water quality samples to a lab because EPA rejects the results when arbitrary sample holding times cannot be met due to distance and frequent weather delays. Communities who fail these requirements don't get help; they face fines.

In short, Alaska wants and needs effective management. We do not want relaxed standards or to skate from requirements. But, neither do we want to go through pointless activities that don't produce environmental improvements. A Region 11 would allow Alaska to structure compliance in a way that works and to target resources on what truly engenders better environmental performance.

Second Public Health Infrastructure Programs Must Fit Arctic Conditions.

EPA's role in water, sanitation, and waste disposal infrastructure development in Alaska villages is unique in the region, if not the country, especially when you consider that there is virtually no road access to the villages, transportation corridors are only open when rivers aren't frozen, each village is autonomous, and system design and operation require the most extreme arctic engineering. EPA's assistance in funding construction is great, but its system management requirements can be frustrating and an enormous waste of time due to its lack of specific knowledge of Alaska's condition.

For instance, there's a new requirement that operators of small drinking water systems be trained and certified. That's good, but it is based upon a model that envisions that a single, certified operator will be able to circuit ride from one drinking water system to the next and serve as the certified operator for a number of systems in an area. This works fine when the circuit rider can drive from one system to the next and visit several systems in a day, but sure doesn't work in Alaska, where traveling from one system to another can often take two days, cost thousands of dollars in air fare, and involves overnighting when there are no facilities. Despite the pleas from Alaska to have alternative certification requirements, we're now scrambling to figure out how to comply.

The national rules for State Revolving Loan programs for drinking water and wastewater projects set the course for disbursing loan funds, for construction times, and for costs based upon a 9- or 12-month construction season. Those standards assume that materials can be purchased nearby and relatively easily trucked to a construction site. That simply isn't the case in Alaska. Even the best run, most cost-effective projects often take longer and cost more in Alaska.

Further, there is a serious need to integrate the water and wastewater system activities with other federal agencies working in same field: Housing and Urban Development U.S. Department of Agriculture-Rural Development, Army Corps of Engineers, and Indian Health Service. It is critical to have master planning where housing, energy improvements, sewage lagoons, and water and sewer systems are all coordinated. All of these other agencies have key, decision-making offices in Alaska. EPA does not.

Third, Tribal Relations in Alaska Require More Relevant Participation.

Alaska's cultural diversity a 17% native population from five distinct ethnic groups -- and unique government to government tribal relationships requires more attention and coordination than Seattle has been able to offer. One-half of all federally recognized tribes are in Alaska, yet only one has a reservation land base. EPA out of Seattle is now forming environmental policy and passing large amounts of grant funds to 228 tribes in Alaska in a way that may make good sense in the other Region 10 states, but sure doesn't in Alaska.

For instance, EPA passed grant funds to tribes to collect and recycle batteries and other household hazardous materials. That was good in the other Region 10 states where there is both recycling opportunities and a road system to move these materials. When the village of Galena, located on the Yukon River, received funds to do that, villagers collected the hazardous materials and then started calling around to find someone to fly or boat hundreds of miles to pick up the materials. When they couldn't find anyone to volunteer to do that, the villagers dumped the batteries into the local, substandard landfill that was being closed out and created a serious water contamination threat.

As I previously mentioned, communities must operate and maintain their water and wastewater systems after construction is completed. This requires a community organization such as a tribal entity, a city government, or a non-profit. Several times, EPA's tribal office has passed funds to tribal entities to begin development of new water or sanitation systems in communities where villagers are already struggling to maintain a current system operated by a local government. The result, in a community with a few hundred people, is duplicate systems competing for ratepayers.

Facilitating the government to government relationship that EPA promotes must happen in a knowledgeable and sensitive way. It cannot be done by merely replicating activities undertaken with tribes with reservations. Surely, when half of the tribes that EPA deals with in the U.S. are in Alaska, a regional leader is critical to develop that government to government relationship in a meaningful and effective manner.

Fourth, Arctic Contamination is Becoming a Serious Threat to Alaska's Ecosystems and the People Who Rely Upon Arctic Resources.

The Arctic is a sink capturing chemicals coming from the former Soviet Union and Asia. Heavy metals and persistent organic pollutants concentrate in the Arctic due to air and water currents and persist longer in the Arctic than in more temperate climates. These chemicals accumulate in the ecosystem and, in particular, in fatty tissues in animals. These threatened ecosystems are relied upon for subsistence foods, for the seafood trade, and for traditional ways of life. Northern people rely on fatty animal foods and there is now increasing and frightening evidence of long-term health effects on Alaskans and other Arctic peoples.

EPA is participating in Arctic research and management to address these issues but in a fractured and uncoordinated fashion. Having a regional focus on this issue would greatly assist the State Department as it negotiates treaties on international management of these pollutants, would be a more effective partner with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, the US Fish and Wildlife Service and other federal agencies grappling with this issue, and could make valuable information available to subsistence users on the quality of their natural food sources.

Funding Region 11 Doesn't Have to Negatively Affect Region 10

Those are some of the reasons why a Region 11 would make a positive difference in promoting and effectuating meaningful environmental management in Alaska. However, I know it must be cost effective and must not lessen resources devoted to other Region 10 states.

EPA's 1992 report on costs --- I do not know if that has been updated --- says 84 FTEs in Region 10 work on Alaska issues. It also says that 40 FTEs could be removed from Region 10 without harm to other states' coverage.

There are currently 30 positions on the books for the Alaska operations office. Together, that makes 70 positions available for Alaska work without compromising the Region 10 workload, pretty close to the 84 EPA said work these issues already.

Somehow, however, EPA then adds about 130% more staff when it says in that same report that it needs 180 FTEs to run a Region 11 office. Even if the 84 FTEs it cites as working on Alaska issues does not include administrative or legal staff, surely a new Region would not need 96 more staff for these functions.

Maybe it would take 180 positions to open an ideal regional office. It would probably take a 130% increase to create an ideal Region 10 too. But, we're not asking for that. Rather, we're asking that an Alaska-proportionate share be placed in a regional office that can make knowledgeable, relevant decisions and be an equal voice as headquarters develops rules and guidance on how to achieve compliance in ways that make sense.

A thoughtful and gradual transition could ameliorate the costs. This is especially true if, through a core task analysis, staff were actually tasked with work that produced tangible environmental results. We believe that a Region 11 can be created that would not have negative consequences to the other Region 10 states.

Conclusion

Alaska wants and needs a true partner to manage Alaska's national treasures and provide a healthy quality of life for Alaskans. The best government is the one closest to the people and Alaskans need our federal EPA partner to be present in a way that furthers rather than frustrates our mutual goals.