Trump’s EPA grant freeze could impact state program bringing running water to villages

President Donald Trump ordered a freeze on Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) grants, which could impact thousands of people living in rural Alaska.

The Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) gets $60 million of state and federal money for its Village Safe Water program. About half of that money comes from the EPA.

The program aims to end the honey bucket system in the Bush by installing plumbing for running water and sewer systems.

“There’s a direct link between human health and running water and sewer,” said Bill Griffith, DEC’s facility program manager. “In particular we know that instances of respiratory infections and skin infections are much higher in homes that don’t have running water and sewer.”

Griffith said there are around 8,000 people in 42 villages in Alaska that don’t have any kind of pipe system.

“Most of those villages are in western Alaska — Atmautluak, Oscarville,” he pointed out on a map.

Kivalina is also one of those villages. KTVA visited Reppi Swan’s home in September 2015. His family of eight was using the same water in a washbasin until the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium (ANTHC) installed a portable plumbing system to bring in fresh water.

“I like it. We have clean water to wash our face, wash our hair,” Swan said.

Steve Weaver, ANTHC’s senior director of the division of environmental health and engineering, said safe water is the cornerstone of a good public health system.

“The elimination of piped water and sewer, the elimination of safe water and adequate waste disposal results in huge medical issues, degradation of quality of life,” Weaver said. “So they’re really critical.”

Systems are expensive — outfitting an entire village could run up to $50 million. Teams participating in the Alaska Water and Sewer Challenge are trying to cut costs with prototypes, but that research project is also partially funded by the EPA.

“We’ve got a lot of work remaining,” Griffith said. “The total unmet need for capital projects in rural Alaska is over $1 billion, so at $60 million a year we barely take a bite out of that every year.”

It’s a slow process to bring sanitation to the Bush, one advocates hope isn’t further hindered by a lack of federal funding in the future.

KTVA 11’s Heather Hintze can be reached via email or on Facebook and Twitter.