[Senate Hearing 117-539]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 117-539
CONTAMINATED LAND CONVEYANCES: THE
ALASKA NATIVE CLAIMS SETTLEMENT ACT, THE DETRIMENTAL IMPACTS OF
CONTAMINATION ON NATIVE COMMUNITIES AND THE NEXT STEPS FOR
ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE
=======================================================================
FIELD HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON INDIAN AFFAIRS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
AUGUST 23, 2022
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Indian Affairs
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
50-235 PDF WASHINGTON : 2023
0COMMITTEE ON INDIAN AFFAIRS
BRIAN SCHATZ, Hawaii, Chairman
LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska, Vice Chairman
MARIA CANTWELL, Washington JOHN HOEVEN, North Dakota
JON TESTER, Montana JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma
CATHERINE CORTEZ MASTO, Nevada STEVE DAINES, Montana
TINA SMITH, Minnesota MIKE ROUNDS, South Dakota
BEN RAY LUJAN, New Mexico JERRY MORAN, Kansas
Jennifer Romero, Majority Staff Director and Chief Counsel
Lucy Murfitt, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Field hearing held on August 23, 2022............................ 1
Statement of Senator Murkowski................................... 1
Witnesses
Beasley, Lara Chief, Environmental Division, U.S. Army Corps
Engineers; accompanied by, Colonel Damon A. Delarosa, Commander 13
Prepared statement........................................... 15
Bissett, Hallie, Executive Director, Alaska Native Village
Corporation Association........................................ 24
Prepared statement........................................... 28
Brune, Hon. Jason, Commissioner, Alaska Department of
Environmental Conservation..................................... 18
Prepared statement........................................... 20
Cohn, Steven M., Alaska State Director, Bureau of Land
Management, U.S. Department of the Interior; accompanied by,
Erika Reed, Acting Associate State Director, Bureau of Land
Management..................................................... 5
Prepared statement........................................... 7
Tutiakoff, Hon. Vincent, Mayor, City of Unalaska; Chairman of the
Board, Unalaska Corporation; Traditional Chief, Qawalangin
Tribe.......................................................... 21
Prepared statement........................................... 22
Waterhouse, Carlton J.D., Ph.D., Deputy Assistant Administrator,
Office of Land and Emergency Management, U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency.............................................. 9
Prepared statement........................................... 11
Appendix
Anderson, Michelle, President, Ahtna, Incorporated, prepared
statement...................................................... 60
Contreras, Elise, Environmental Remediation Manager, Qawalangin
Tribe of Unalaska, prepared statement.......................... 59
Philemonof, Dimitri, President/CEO, Aleutian Pribilof Islands
Association, Inc., prepared statement.......................... 64
CONTAMINATED LAND CONVEYANCES: THE ALASKA NATIVE CLAIMS SETTLEMENT ACT,
THE DETRIMENTAL IMPACTS OF
CONTAMINATION ON NATIVE COMMUNITIES AND THE NEXT STEPS FOR
ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE
----------
TUESDAY, AUGUST 23, 2022
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Indian Affairs,
Unalaska, AK.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 12:00 p.m. AKT in
the City Council Chambers of Unalaska City Hall, 43 Raven Way,
Unalaska, Alaska, Hon. Lisa Murkowski, Vice Chairman of the
Committee, presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. LISA MURKOWSKI,
U.S. SENATOR FROM ALASKA
Senator Murkowski. Good afternoon, everyone. I am calling
to order this hearing of the Committee on Indian Affairs.
Thank you for the opportunity to gather here in Unalaska.
It is always an adventure, coming to Unalaska. Unalaska is in
itself an extraordinary and beautiful place, a beautiful land
with extraordinary people. So we are pleased to be with the
people.
But it is not without its challenges. I think part of that
challenge is just the traveling. Many of us at the dais here
today experienced a little bit of that challenge. Many of you
in the audience today either experienced that today or you do
on other occasions as well.
We recognize that travel here is a little bit different
than anywhere else in the Country. Many of our communities are
remote and some of them are extremely remote. We are not
connected by roads; we are not connected by much of anything
else. So it is planes and boats that bring us together, and it
is not without cost. The cost of an airplane ticket to get out
here is attention-getting, when it is close to $1,000 one way
to move you and your family. That is a problem. When you have
multiple cancellations and the airport packed with people
trying to come and trying to go, that is a problem.
So when it comes to planning a hearing like this, it
requires a fair amount of flexibility. We thank those who have
been flexible with us.
I hope that for those who have traveled here you have
gained some small sense of what the people who live here
experience every day, all throughout the year. Thank you to our
Federal witnesses in particular for sticking with this trip. I
hope that now you are in Unalaska, you can see that it is worth
it. It is not only worth it to be on the ground and to see for
yourself, but it is good to connect and understand a little bit
more what the people who live here and call this amazing place
home, what they accept as the day-to-day challenge of living in
a place like Unalaska.
Before we start, I want to pause and acknowledge that we
are present on the traditional homelands of the Native Unangan
people who have lived on the island of Unalaska for thousands
of years. It is these lands, it is these lands that the Federal
Government forced the Unangan to relinquish, in many cases
allowed the military to use them and then in later settlement
of aboriginal land claims, they conveyed them, and they
conveyed them many times with contamination to the Alaska
Native Corporations that Congress had created.
It is that injustice and the decades-long breach of the
Federal Government's trust responsibility that really brings us
here today.
A few housekeeping matters this afternoon. This is an
official United States Senate hearing. As such, the format will
be the same format that we use for our hearings in Washington,
D.C. I will take testimony from our six invited witnesses, and
then I will proceed to ask them questions.
After the hearing is over, anyone is welcome to submit
their own written testimony. I include those of you here. You
can submit that testimony to the Committee, and it will be made
part of that hearing record. That record will be kept open for
two weeks. Anyone who wants to send testimony should send it to
[email protected]. I will repeat that at the end of
the hearing.
I want to extend a special thank you to the community of
Unalaska for hosting us, I want to thank the city, the tribe,
the village corporation staff for working with all of my team
to pull together both this hearing as well as the field site
tour.
This hearing is entitled Contaminated Land Conveyances: The
Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, the Detrimental Impacts of
Contamination on Native Communities and Next Steps for
Environmental Justice. It is an opportunity for us to examine
the unique history and legacy of ANCSA, including the
conveyance of contaminated lands. It will allow us to reflect
on the progress made to inventory and to clean up a few of
those sites along with understanding the progress that have not
been made.
It is also a moment to determine what comes next, what all
of us from Alaska Native tribes, ANCs and tribal consortia, the
State of Alaska and our Federal agencies, all of us working
together to remedy this urgent problem. I will underscore what
we will hear from one of our witnesses later, another report is
not a remedy to this ongoing injustice. People are looking for
an actionable plan.
To me, what we are discussing today is really environmental
injustice, true environmental injustice. We are talking about
lands that the Federal Government conveyed to Alaska Native
Corporations to settle aboriginal land claims that were often
horribly contaminated, even in some areas that many would
consider or expect to be pristine when you simply look at the
place.
There are hundreds of known sites with contamination across
Alaska. More than 500 of them are classified as formerly used
defense sites. That means that their contamination was caused
by past military activity, and the Department of Defense is
responsible for cleaning them up. Many of these sites are on
Alaska Native lands, including those transferred under ANCSA.
Some of them are here on Unalaska Island, where we are today.
We will hear testimony from the Mayor, there are 51 areas of
concern impacting approximately 80,000 acres here on Unalaska
Island.
We will have a chance to see a FUDS site later today. At
that point we will learn more about the trilateral agreement
between Unalaska Corporation, the Qawalangin Tribe of Unalaska,
the City of Unalaska, but also the work of the local resource
advisory board and the collaboration between the Federal
Government, led by the Army Corps, and the State of Alaska.
This is, as I mentioned, an injustice, an environmental
injustice. I think it is also a crisis. The contamination on
Native lands across Alaska is contributing to very real and in
many instances truly awful health impacts, including clusters
of cancer and Parkinson's from activities as simple as
harvesting and eating berries. Traditional hunting and fishing
grounds have been affected, threatening food safety, food
security in Native culture, which is tied to the land and the
waters.
The impacts are only getting worse as erosion exposes
chemicals and waste that have been buried for decades. Yet
there doesn't seem to be the sense of urgency that I think is
the imperative here. This is the responsibility, this is an
obligation of the Federal Government to basically clean up its
own mess, and there is no urgency that we are seeing. If these
had been private entities that had left this level of
contamination, believe me, the attitude and the urgency to
address it would be entirely different.
To me, that is shameful. It is the type of thing that makes
Alaskans lose faith in our government, and continues to harm
innocent lives, families and communities. As the indigenous
people here know that this is not the first time the Federal
Government's lack of coordination and poor decisions have led
to human tragedy in this region. During World War II, the
United States government interned the Unangan people to squalid
relocation camps in southeast Alaska while their non-Native
neighbors were allowed to stay. Nearly 10 percent of internees
died at the camp, and those who were allowed to return found
their homes compromised by contamination.
We also cannot forget the especially tragic wartime
experience of the residents of the Village of Attu who were
taken by the Japanese and held as prisoners in Japan until the
end of the war. About half of them died. The survivors were
never allowed back to Attu. The entire village was lost. More
than half a century later, these World War II impacts are still
very real for the people who live there.
I have tried to make headway at the Federal level in
working on this matter, have been working on this matter for
years, working with many of you that are sitting around this
dais here. Progress has been slow; it has been difficult.
We now have inventories of ANCSA contaminated sites and
reports full of recommendations, including funding and land
exchanges. We also had to change the law to address liability
concerns, because up until 2018, ANCs were considered
potentially responsible parties for the contamination on the
lands that the Bureau of Land Management had conveyed to them.
These were lands that were contaminated by the government, BLM
conveys them and then says that the liability is to the ANCs.
You just can't make this stuff up.
So we are here today to shine a spotlight on these issues
yet again. We are asking for help, we are asking for leadership
from the Executive Branch. Yet it seems we still have more
people interested in avoiding blame than taking responsibility.
So we have to acknowledge a few of the recent bright spots,
including EPA's grant program focused on ANCSA contaminated
lands.
Even with that progress, the cold hard facts still remain.
That is that at the current rate of funding, the remediation
and cleanup of these lands will take decades, if not centuries.
That will mean needless human suffering and environmental
devastation in the meantime. That can't be acceptable for any
of us. The time to act is now, and this hearing is designed to
move us further along that path.
I have taken more time with an opening statement than I
usually care to do. It is important to set the table for the
dialogue.
We have a great panel of witnesses who have traveled with
us to be here today. We are going to lead off today's panel
with Mr. Steve Cohn. Steve is the Alaska State Director for the
Bureau of Land Management with the Department of the Interior.
He is based in Anchorage. He is accompanied by Erika Reed, who
is the Acting Associate State Director for BLM at the
Department of the Interior.
Next to Ms. Reed is Mr. Carlton Waterhouse. Mr. Waterhouse
is the Deputy Assistant Administrator for the Office of Land
and Emergency Management at the EPA, based in Washington, D.C.
We welcome you.
We have Lara Beasley, who is with the Chief, Environmental
Division at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, also in
Washington, D.C. Thank you for traveling so far. She is
accompanied by Colonel Damon Delarosa. Colonel Delarosa is
known to many of us around the State. He is the Commander, U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers for the Alaska District, and has been
working on many, many projects around the State. We know you
are a busy man, so thank you for being here.
The Commissioner of the Alaska Department of Environmental
Conservation, the Honorable Jason Brune, is with us here this
afternoon. Jason bases in Juneau and Anchorage, and usually on
Alaska Airlines, where we see one another quite frequently.
Thank you for making the trip.
Of course, our local leader, the Honorable Vincent
Tutiakoff, who is the Mayor here of the City of Unalaska. He is
also the Chairman of the Board of the Unalaska Corporation. He
is the traditional Chief of the Qawalangin Tribe. As Mayor, I
also call him my friend, Vince. I appreciate your leadership
over the years.
To round out our panel today is a woman who has been
leading on these issues of environmental contamination on ANCSA
lands for years now. Hallie Bissett is the Executive Director
of the Alaska Native Village Corporation Association. She has
just been a dynamo on these issues. Hallie, we are very, very
grateful that you are able to be with us today.
Each of our witnesses has been told that they have about
five minutes to deliver their testimony orally. We would ask
that you try to summarize, if you will. Your full written
testimony will be made part of the official hearing record.
Know that that will be fully incorporated, but we do hope that
we have an opportunity for more questions at the end. So if you
can keep your statements much shorter than mine, we are going
to do just fine.
[Laughter.]
Senator Murkowski. So with that, I will turn to you, Mr.
Cohn, with the Bureau of Land Management, if you would like to
start the discussion. Thank you.
STATEMENT OF STEVEN M. COHN, ALASKA STATE DIRECTOR, BUREAU OF
LAND MANAGEMENT, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR; ACCOMPANIED
BY, ERIKA REED, ACTING
ASSOCIATE STATE DIRECTOR, BUREAU OF LAND
MANAGEMENT
Mr. Cohn. Vice Chairman Murkowski, I am Steven Cohn. I am
the Alaska State Director with the Bureau of Land Management. I
am also accompanied by Erika Reed, Acting Associate State
Director for BLM Alaska.
We are pleased to be here to provide testimony regarding
contaminated sites conveyed out of Federal ownership to Alaska
Native Corporations through the Alaska Native Claims Settlement
Act of 1971, or ANCSA. Indigenous communities, communities of
color, rural communities, low-income families, and people in
the U.S. territories have long suffered disproportionate and
cumulative harm from the climate crisis and air and water
pollution.
Alaska Natives have been especially burdened with
contaminated sites on former Federal lands and facilities
conveyed through ANCSA. The Department of the Interior and the
BLM understand the health, safety, and environmental concerns
associated with these actions. We are committed to working with
our agency colleagues to chart a productive path forward.
The passage of ANCSA entitled Alaska Native communities to
select and receive title to 46 million acres of Federal land.
Since its enactment, over 44 million acres have been conveyed.
As the Secretary of the Interior's designated survey and
land and transfer agent, the BLM is responsible for
adjudicating land claims, conducting and finalizing cadastral
land surveys, and transferring legal title of Federal lands.
Under ANCSA, the BLM does not have discretion about whether to
transfer the lands once they are selected.
Over time, it has become clear that some of the land
conveyed under ANCSA included contaminated sites from former
Federal facilities. Initial recognition of the growing issue
led to the chartering of a Statement of Cooperation Group in
the 1990s by various Federal and State agencies which began the
first collaborative efforts to address contaminated sites.
To further understand the scope and scale of the issue, in
2016 the BLM provided Congress with a report which summarized
progress made through a collaborative effort to develop an
inventory of potentially contaminated sites conveyed known as
the Contaminated Lands Inventory, or CLI. The CLI represented
the first and only comprehensive geospatial inventory of
potentially contaminated sites.
Earlier this year, the BLM began to incorporate a new data
base provided by the Alaska Department of Environmental
Conservation into the CLI. Once the BLM completes assessment of
the State's data base, the BLM expects more detailed
information will be available to facilitate future action on
these sites.
The 2016 report to Congress further recommended the
establishment of a formal working group, which resulted in the
creation of the ANCSA Contaminated Sites Working Group. This
group includes the Department, the Alaska Department of
Environmental Conservation, and the EPA. Additionally, the
Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium's Contamination Support
Program helped established and continues to facilitate the
ANCSA Contaminated Lands Partnership Group.
The efforts provide an ongoing forum to share information
and create a strategic plan for cleaning up and restoring
contaminated sites using the combined resources and capacities
of the member agencies and organizations.
The Administration recently initiated the Arctic Executive
Steering Committee to focus on an action-based approach to
prioritizing the ANCSA contaminated sites issue. This
interagency group has a strengthened commitment to establish a
strategy that leverages Federal agency authorities through four
primary goals.
These goals include strengthening communication and
effective collaboration between Federal agencies, the State of
Alaska, Alaska Native Tribes, and Alaska Native Corporations
and determining what additional assessment and verification is
needed to determine the scope of contamination at sites. It
also includes identifying eligibility and prioritization
requirements for cleanup at contaminated sites, and most
importantly, initiating cleanup.
The Arctic Executive Steering Committee will complement the
existing Statement of Cooperation interagency collaboration by
establishing a Federal strategy that will successfully complete
critical milestones resulting in the cleanup of sites
statewide.
While the BLM's authorities under ANCSA are limited to
processing those actions involved in transferring land
ownership, the BLM has adapted its adjudication procedures for
future conveyances of land to Alaska Native Corporations to add
steps for providing notice of contamination identified through
existing data base review.
The Department of the Interior and the BLM support the
President's call to action to address current and historic
environmental injustices and ensure accountability. We are
committed to doing our part to address this important issue
here in Alaska.
Thank you again for the opportunity to be here today. We
look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Cohn follows:]
Prepared Statement of Steven M. Cohn, Alaska State Director, Bureau of
Land Management, U.S. Department of the Interior
Thank you for the opportunity to provide testimony regarding sites
conveyed out of Federal ownership to Alaska Native Corporations through
the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA). The Department of the
Interior (Department) and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM)
understand the health, safety, and environmental concerns associated
with contaminated Federal lands conveyed under ANCSA. We are committed
to doing our part to address this important issue by working with our
agency colleagues to chart a productive path forward.
Indigenous communities, communities of color, rural and low-income
families, and people in the U.S. territories have long suffered
disproportionate and cumulative harm from the climate crisis and air
and water pollution. Alaska Natives have been especially burdened with
contaminated sites on former Federal lands and facilities conveyed
through ANCSA. As we acknowledge that reality, the Biden-Harris
Administration has mobilized an all-of-government approach to advance
environmental justice. As directed in Executive Order 14008, Tackling
the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad, the Department has partnered
with agencies across the Federal government to develop a strategy to
address current and historic environmental injustices and ensure
accountability. This high-level, action-oriented initiative is being
conducted by the Arctic Executive Steering Committee (AESC) a White
House-led program to enhance coordination of national efforts in the
Arctic.
Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act
In 1971, Congress passed ANCSA, which settled aboriginal land
claims in Alaska and entitled Alaska Native communities to select and
receive title to 46 million acres of Federal land. ANCSA also
established a corporate structure for Native land ownership in Alaska
under which Alaska Natives would become shareholders in one of more
than 200 private, land-owning Alaska Native village, group, urban, and
reserve corporations and/or one of 12 private, for-profit, landowning
regional corporations. For Alaska Natives who were non-residents of the
State at the time the law was enacted, ANCSA authorized a non-
landowning 13th regional corporation. Today, most Alaska Natives are
enrolled in two corporations: the corporation representing the
community where they lived in 1970 and a regional corporation. Each
regional corporation encompasses a specific geographic area and is
associated with Alaska Natives who had traditionally lived in the area.
For each corporation, whether village or regional, ANCSA provided at
least two potential acreage entitlements through which it could select
and receive ownership of Federal lands.
As the Secretary of the Interior's designated survey and land
transfer agent, the BLM is the Federal agency responsible for
adjudicating land claims, conducting and finalizing cadastral land
surveys, and transferring legal title of Federal lands. These Federal
lands may be managed by any Federal agency. The BLM's Alaska Land
Transfer Program administers the implementation of the approximately
46-million-acre transfer of land to Alaska Native Corporations under
ANCSA. When the survey and conveyance work under ANCSA and similar laws
directing the transfer of Federal land (i.e., the Alaska Native
Allotment Act and the Alaska Statehood Act) is completed, over 150
million acres will have been transferred from Federal to State and
private ownership. This is equivalent to approximately 42 percent of
the land area in Alaska.
Contaminated Lands/Inventory
The Alaska Native community has expressed concerns over health,
safety, and economic issues relating to the presence of hazardous
materials or other forms of contamination on Federal lands conveyed to
them under ANCSA. The Department and the BLM share these concerns and
have redoubled our efforts to work with our Federal and State partners
to address them. While the BLM is responsible for processing land
conveyances pursuant to ANCSA, the BLM does not have discretion about
whether to transfer the lands once they are selected by Native
Corporations.
Some of the conveyed land contained facilities previously developed
and managed for handling large quantities of fuel, generating power,
disposing of solid waste, or discharging wastewater by various Federal
and nonfederal entities. In some instances, the presence of such
facilities and infrastructure created the potential for contaminants to
be released into the environment, and historical releases have been
documented at many such locations throughout Alaska. An unintended
consequence of ANCSA was that lands selected by corporations were
conveyed regardless of whether they were contaminated because the law
prioritizes speed of title transfer and completion of boundary surveys
and does not have a requirement for physical inspection of lands.
The explanatory statement accompanying the Consolidated and Further
Continuing Appropriations Act of 2015 (Public Law 113-235) directed the
BLM to develop a report regarding contaminated sites on lands conveyed
to ANCSA corporations. In 2016, the BLM provided Congress with its
report, Hazardous Substance Contamination of Alaska Native Claims
Settlement Act Lands in Alaska (Report), which summarized progress made
through a collaborative effort to develop an inventory of potentially
contaminated sites conveyed to ANCSA corporations. The Report provided
recommendations to fully address cleanup of contaminated sites conveyed
through ANCSA.
During development of the Report, the BLM created the Contaminated
Lands Inventory (CLI) database and map by consolidating information
from four databases held by the Alaska Department of Environmental
Conservation (ADEC), U.S. Air Force, Federal Aviation Administration,
and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The BLM worked closely with
Federal, State of Alaska, and Alaska Native stakeholders to obtain
additional spatial, location, and conveyance information for
incorporation in the Report and CLI database and map. The CLI
represents the first and only comprehensive geospatial inventory of
potentially contaminated sites conveyed through ANCSA. The database and
map contain information about each site's land and regulatory status,
including the entity to whom the property was conveyed, or is in the
process of being conveyed; coordinates, if known, for where the site is
located; the general understanding of the site's contamination, if
known; and potential data gaps. The CLI database also includes the
Orphan Site Database, which contains information on sites that do not
appear to be in a clean-up program. The CLI also tracks sites that are
identified as ``open,'' or being worked on, and sites that are
considered orphans and require further site assessment.
Earlier this year, the BLM began to incorporate a new database
provided by ADEC and to review new sites and site locations. Once the
BLM completes assessment of the ADEC database, the BLM expects more
detailed information will be available to facilitate future action on
these sites.
Working Groups
The 2016 Report to Congress further recommended the establishment
of a formal working group to address inventory and cleanup efforts. In
the early 1990s, a Statement of Cooperation (SOC) group was chartered
by various Federal and State agencies to work cooperatively to address
and resolve environmental issues in the State of Alaska. The SOC
established an Executive Steering Committee and working groups to
collaborate on addressing important contaminated site issues. The ANCSA
Contaminated Sites Working Group was established soon after the Report
was submitted. The Group is led by the Department, ADEC, and the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and continues to engage on
contaminated site issues.
Additionally, the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium's
Contamination Support Program helped establish and continues to
facilitate the ANCSA Contaminated Lands Partnership Group (Partnership
Group), which also includes Alaska Native Corporations and Tribes. The
Department, EPA, ADEC, the Department of Defense (DOD) agencies, and
other SOC agencies have participated extensively in both working
groups. These efforts continue to provide an ongoing forum to share
information and create a strategic plan for cleaning up and restoring
contaminated sites using the combined resources and capacities of the
member agencies and organizations.
Further, the Administration recently initiated the Arctic Executive
Steering Committee (AESC), through the White House Office of Science
and Technology Policy, to focus on an action-based approach to
prioritize the ANCSA contaminated site issue. This interagency group
has a strengthened commitment to establish a strategy that leverages
EPA, DOD, and Department authorities. In its March 30, 2022, meeting,
the AESC identified four primary goals: strengthening communication and
effective collaboration between Federal agencies, the State of Alaska,
Alaska Native Tribes, and Alaska Native Corporations; determining what
additional assessment and verification is needed to determine the scope
of contamination at sites; identifying eligibility and prioritization
requirements for cleanup at contaminated sites; and initiating cleanup.
Each agency will perform the parts of the strategy that align with
their legal authorities. The group will complement the existing SOC
interagency collaboration by establishing a Federal strategy that will
successfully complete critical milestones resulting in the cleanup of
sites, statewide.
BLM's Role
The BLM's role in surveying and patenting lands under ANCSA has
been administrative and the BLM's authorities are limited to processing
those actions involved in transferring land ownership. As such, the BLM
is not a Potentially Responsible Party pursuant to CERCLA purely by
nature of its role in administering the transfer of lands under ANCSA.
Nor are there any provisions in ANCSA that address responsibility for
the past release of contaminants to the environment on lands that are
subsequently conveyed under the Act. As a result, the BLM has no
continuing obligation for documenting or remediating contaminated sites
conveyed under ANCSA unless future documentation shows contamination
occurred while the BLM managed or controlled a particular parcel. Work
completed by the SOC's ANCSA Contaminated Sites Working Group has not
identified any such parcels to-date, and the BLM is unaware of any
parcels that would fall into this category. The BLM has adapted its
procedures for future conveyances of land to ANCSA corporations to add
steps for providing notice of contamination through existing database
review as part of the adjudication process. Whether the lands are
ultimately conveyed after BLM provides notice of potential
contamination is a decision that continues to rest with the Native
Corporation receiving the conveyance.
The Department is aware of and appreciates the concerns of the
Alaska Native community regarding the risks to health, safety, and the
environment due to contamination found on former Federal lands conveyed
to them under ANCSA. The BLM is committed to working with Alaska Native
partners in identifying priority sites for cleanup, with Federal
colleagues through the AESC interagency initiative, and with State
agencies directly to address this issue expeditiously.
Conclusion
The Department believes that a collaborative approach involving
Federal, State, Tribal, and local governments, as well as Alaska Native
Corporations and stakeholders, can successfully work to address these
important issues. The Department is hopeful that we can assist our
agency partners in effectively deploying their cleanup resources
through the AESC initiative. We will continue to work diligently and
collaboratively with our Federal, State, and Alaska Native partners,
affected communities, and others to chart a coordinated and strategic
path forward that is responsive to these concerns.
Senator Murkowski. Thank you, Mr. Cohn.
Let's next turn to Dr. Waterhouse.
STATEMENT OF CARLTON WATERHOUSE, J.D., Ph.D., DEPUTY ASSISTANT
ADMINISTRATOR, OFFICE OF LAND AND
EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT, U.S. ENVIRONMENTAL
PROTECTION AGENCY
Dr. Waterhouse. Thank you so much. Good morning, Senator
Murkowski. I am Carlton Waterhouse, Deputy Assistant
Administrator for the United States Environmental Protection
Agency's Office of Land and Emergency Management. I want to
thank you for the opportunity to testify today. Cleaning up
ANCSA sites is important, and I am grateful to be here with my
Federal colleagues to discuss how we can collaborate to produce
greater results for the people of Alaska.
As a former resident, Alaska and its people are near and
dear to my heart. The issues here are unique, and require
creative and thoughtful solutions. I recognize that ANCSA lands
present unique locations, remote locations, limited
transportation, equipment availability, climate change, climate
and the vastness of the State make cleanup more challenging.
I am excited to discuss how EPA is working to lead an
effort to bring the Federal family together to take on those
challenges and move forward with greater urgency to address the
legacy contamination on ANCSA lands. We are actively working
with our Federal and State partners to develop a robust
framework to achieve faster cleanups, informed decision making,
effective coordination, accountability, and commitment to using
a whole-of-government approach are critical to our success.
Today I join my colleagues across the Biden-Harris
Administration in a partnership to prioritize addressing the
contaminated threats that overburden Native villages and
tribes, and to achieve our goal of a cleaner, healthier, and
more equitable Nation for all people. Alaska Natives have long
been impacted by contamination where they eat, work and play.
Here in Unalaska, we know that Federal operations in the last
century left a legacy of contamination, including PCBs, heavy
metals, and asbestos. The independent approaches used in the
past have not been effective enough.
In partnership with ADEC, EPA is currently using our
available authorities, including our Superfund, Brownfields and
Underground Storage Tank program to address contaminated ANCSA
lands. We will continue to evaluate our authorities to expand
our efforts. While EPA's authorities under CERCLA might be most
useful as a tool for orphan sites, EPA has additional
authorities for land-related cleanups and can also provide
technical expertise and leadership.
Recently, EPA Region 10 expanded its existing CERCLA
cooperative agreement with ADEC with a specific focus on ANCSA
work, including site inventory and preliminary assessments.
This builds on EPA's previous work to evaluate sites for CERCLA
cleanup.
In June 2022, I joined senior Federal officials with the
White House Arctic Executive Steering Committee to launch a
collaborative initiative across the Federal family to leverage
collective resources and expedite progress to clean up
contaminated sites in service to this Administration's
commitment to addressing environmental justice. I am co-leading
the ANCSA Contaminated Lands Initiative in partnership with DOI
and DOD with the support of DOE, NOAA, and others. The
initiative strengthens collaboration between the Federal
Government, our State, tribal, and local partners to improve
the process to clean up those contaminated sites that have not
been addressed. We are working together to identify how best to
leverage our agency's available authorities and tools to
enhance this effort.
The initiative has four main components: enhanced
collaboration between Federal, State, Alaska Native tribes, and
Alaska Native Corporations. Two, a focus on data assessment and
verification to develop inventory and identify scope of
contamination. Three, identification of eligibility and
prioritization of cleanup sites. And four, an effort to move
forward with assessments and cleanup activities based on the
information gathered.
EPA stands ready to assist ADEC in developing and managing
an enhanced site inventory which is a critical first step under
a pending memorandum of understanding. Further, EPA appreciates
proposals that will support any activities that further the
work to address ANCSA sites and ensure that our tribal partners
are engaged and involved.
In the coming months, EPA will continue working on this
effort to improve the quality and pace of addressing ANCA
contaminated lands. We look forward to engaging directly with
our Alaska Native partners most affected by the legacy
contamination to advance cleanup efforts and produce faster and
greater results.
EPA recognizes that Alaska Natives have waited too long for
a solution, and it is now time for us to act.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify today, and I look
forward to our discussion.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Waterhouse follows:]
Prepared Statement of Carlton Waterhouse, J.D., Ph.D., Deputy Assistant
Administrator, Office of Land and Emergency Management, U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency
Good morning, Vice Chairman Murkowski. I am Carlton Waterhouse,
Deputy Assistant Administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency's Office of Land and Emergency Management, or OLEM. I want to
thank you and Chairman Schatz for the opportunity to testify today on
addressing legacy contamination on lands conveyed under the Alaska
Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA). This is an important issue to the
federal family, and I am grateful that my colleagues from the
Department of Defense and Department of the Interior have joined us
today to discuss how best to collaborate and proceed with a coordinated
approach to produce greater results for the people of Alaska.
The issues here in Alaska are unique and require creative and
thoughtful solutions. As a former resident of Alaska, the people and
the land are near and dear to my heart. Today's hearing allows me the
opportunity to discuss how EPA is leading an effort to move the federal
family forward in addressing legacy contamination of ANCSA lands by
using a new approach which brings people together to address a problem
that has taken too long to solve. We are actively working with our
federal partners to find common ground and to identify joint equities
to bring our collective resources and expertise to bear on this issue
along with our state partners. Accordingly, we at EPA commit our
eligible resources to support accelerated assessment and cleanup
efforts. We recognize that informed decisionmaking and effective
coordination at all levels of government is critical to the cleanup
progress, and we are committed to using a whole of government approach
to move this issue forward. Today, I join my colleagues at EPA and
across the Biden-Harris Administration in a commitment to prioritize
addressing the continued threats to human health and the environment
from contaminated lands that overburden native villages and tribes.
Through our partnerships, we can achieve our goal of a cleaner,
healthier, and more equitable Nation where all people have equal access
to safe and clean communities.
Background and Challenges
EPA recognizes that the conveyance of contaminated lands to the
Alaska Native Corporations under ANCSA is a significant concern to the
Alaska Native Corporations and Alaska Natives interested in using these
lands for beneficial use. EPA further acknowledges the significant
concerns raised by federally recognized tribes, corporations,
communities, and stakeholders regarding the slow pace of progress to
reach resolution on this important issue.
Alaska Natives have long been impacted by contamination where they
eat, work, and play. Here in Unalaska for example, we know that federal
operations in the last century left a legacy of contamination such as:
polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) leaks from transformers, contaminated
soils in underground tank farms, and heavy metal and asbestos in
abandoned structures.
Further, we recognize that ANCSA lands present unique challenges
that must be considered as we develop a coordinated approach to address
contamination. The remote locations, limited transportation options,
equipment availability and movement, and the sheer vastness of the
state make site assessment and cleanup more challenging than other
parts of the country. The approaches used in the past by federal and
state agencies to track these lands have also made it difficult to
develop a collective understanding of the universe of sites, to
prioritize them, and to communicate effectively across stakeholders.
EPA is committed to building a framework with our partners to address
this legacy contamination as we recognize it is more important than
ever to address the needs of a region with increased vulnerability to
the impacts of climate change. Assessment and cleanup of contamination
on ANCSA lands is critical to increasing the resiliency of these
communities and the region.
EPA's Ongoing Efforts
EPA is currently using our available authorities, including our
Brownfields program, to support Alaska Native communities in addressing
contaminated ANCSA lands. The state of Alaska receives a sizable
allocation of the funding under our CERCLA 128(a) authority to maintain
their State Response Program and provide site-specific assessments and
cleanups. Our partners at the Alaska Department of Environmental
Conservation (ADEC) are working to establish and update the database of
contaminated sites and to conduct Phase I and Phase II Environmental
Site Assessments to support data gathering efforts across the State.
Targeted Brownfields Assessments, for example, are a unique and
flexible tool for communities to begin the process of addressing
contaminated lands. These assessments are non-competitive, EPA-led
opportunities provided at no charge to communities. To date, 21 tribes
and tribal consortia in Alaska receive direct funding under CERCLA
128(a) for building Tribal Response Programs and their capacity to
address ANCSA sites. Alaskan communities have successfully applied for
Brownfields competitive grants for assessment and cleanup with recent
grants to the City of Unalaska, Yukon River Inter-Tribal Watershed
Council, Kawerak, Inc., and the Municipality of Anchorage. Alaskan
villages may also benefit from our Brownfields technical assistance to
communities, planning and redevelopment opportunities, and the
Brownfields Job Training Program.
Also operating under CERCLA authority, EPA's Pacific Northwest
Regional office recently expanded its existing Cooperative Agreement
with the state of Alaska with a specific focus on ANCSA work, including
work on the site inventory and other preliminary assessments under
Superfund. This builds on EPA's previous work to evaluate sites for
CERCLA cleanups by the Region's Superfund Site Assessment program.
Participation on the Arctic Executive Steering Committee (AESC)
In June 2022, I joined senior federal officials with the White
House Arctic Executive Steering Committee (AESC) in Alaska to launch an
initiative on ANCSA contaminated lands. This effort utilizes a
collaborative approach across the federal family to leverage collective
resources and expedite progress to clean up contaminated sites in
service to the Biden-Harris administration's commitment to addressing
environmental justice. In my role at EPA, I am co-leading the ANCSA
Contaminated Lands Initiative in partnership with the Department of the
Interior and Department of Defense with the support of the Department
of Energy, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and
others. The initiative strengthens collaboration between the federal
government, the state of Alaska, Alaska Native Corporations, tribes,
and Alaska Native Organizations to improve data and transparency and
initiate and prioritize cleanup of those contaminated sites that have
not been addressed. EPA, along with our federal partners, is working to
identify how best to leverage our Agency's available authorities and
tools to enhance this effort.
The ANCSA Contaminated Lands Initiative under AESC leadership has
four main components: (1) enhanced collaboration between federal,
state, Alaska Native tribes and Alaska Native Corporations; (2) a focus
on data assessment and verification to develop inventory and identify
scope of contamination; (3) identification of eligibility and
prioritization of cleanup; and (4) an effort to move forward with
assessments and cleanup activities based on the information gathered.
The critical first step is consolidating the information from
different databases. EPA stands ready to assist ADEC in developing and
managing an enhanced site inventory, or ``the Dashboard,'' under a
pending Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between federal and state
partners. Further, EPA acknowledges that the Congressionally Directed
Projects in the Explanatory Statement of the Senate FY 2023
Appropriations Bill sites could also support this effort and those that
will ensure that Alaska Native tribes and tribal organizations,
including the ANCSA Regional Corporations, are involved both in
assuring the accuracy of the inventory and in taking action to assess
and cleanup listed sites.
EPA's Authorities and Programs
EPA continues to evaluate how our existing authorities and
resources can be used to expand our efforts to address ANCSA
contaminated lands. Evaluation of eligibility and funding options under
CERCLA's Superfund and Brownfields programs is a top priority. EPA
could leverage additional resources and programs. For instance, the
Congressionally Directed Projects in the Explanatory Statement of the
Senate FY 2023 Appropriations Bill are to directly support the capacity
of Alaskan Native Villages and Alaskan Native Corporations to
meaningfully engage and collaborate with ADEC and other partners
through use of our environmental justice collaborative problem-solving
cooperative agreements. These collaborative efforts would further the
work EPA is currently undertaking and enhance future clean-up efforts
as well as potentially identify community-driven methods of more
immediately addressing the public health threats of concern to the
communities.
While EPA's authorities under CERCLA might be the most useful tool
for orphan sites in the ANCSA inventory, it is important to note that
EPA has additional authorities for land-related cleanups. Under CERCLA,
EPA oversees cleanup efforts undertaken by our federal partners at
ANCSA sites where they are the lead agency and the site is on the
National Priorities List. Further, for sites that meet the eligibility
requirements for leaking underground storage tanks, EPA stands ready to
provide assistance, in coordination with ADEC. Sites on ANCSA lands may
also be eligible for closure and post-closure care, as well as
enforcement actions, under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act.
In addition to work eligible under EPA's authorities, we are poised to
provide critical technical expertise and leadership for our partners in
their site assessment and cleanup efforts.
It is worth noting that the Agency's existing authorities have
inherent limitations for work in this space. Grants under EPA's
Brownfields Program must be awarded to communities, local governments,
and non-profits on a competitive basis; EPA recognizes that not all
ANCSA sites will meet the definition and eligibility requirements under
this program. Further, CERCLA also has a petroleum exemption.
Next Steps
In the coming months, in addition to co-signing the MOU for the
public facing dashboard, EPA will continue to lead through our role on
the AESC to improve the quality and pace of addressing ANCSA
contaminated lands. Additional EPA support, including the addition of a
new ANCSA Contaminated Sites Program Manager, is expected to be
available beginning this fall.
EPA looks forward to engaging directly with Alaska Native partners
and communities most affected by the legacy contamination. Leveraging
EPA's relationships with existing groups, like the Alaskan Native
Tribal Health Consortium (ANTHC): Tribal Lands Partnership Group, is
key to progress. Further, EPA intends to participate in the meeting of
Alaska Federation of Natives in October of this year to report on the
work that we are doing. Through frequent and effective communication
with these and other established networks, EPA will continue to
coordinate policy proposals and whole of government strategies to
advance cleanup efforts and produce faster and greater results.
Conclusion
EPA recognizes that Native Villages and tribes have waited decades
for cleanup to occur and seek immediate action to address the failures
of the past. I am here today to acknowledge that the time is now to
demonstrate our commitment to progress. While EPA is already engaged on
these critical issues, we know that additional opportunities exist to
lend our expertise and to enhance our relationships with the Alaska
Native partners, the state, and within the federal family to prioritize
and expedite progress in resolving this decades-long issue. Thank you
for the opportunity to testify today, and I look forward to our
discussion on this important topic.
Senator Murkowski. Thank you, Dr. Waterhouse.
Next, let's turn to Lara Beasley.
STATEMENT OF LARA BEASLEY, CHIEF, ENVIRONMENTAL
DIVISION, U.S. ARMY CORPS ENGINEERS; ACCOMPANIED BY, COLONEL
DAMON A. DELAROSA, COMMANDER, U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS,
ALASKA DISTRICT
Ms. Beasley. Vice Chairman Murkowski, I am Lara Beasley,
Environmental Division Chief for the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you
today to address the Corps' activities on behalf of the
Department of Defense in cleaning up contaminated lands that
were transferred under ANCSA.
The Corps supports the DOD's commitment to protecting our
environment and preserving resources for future generations.
Throughout our Nation's history, the DOD has used lands across
the United States. When this land was no longer needed for
these activities, the DOD cleaned up the land using the best
available practices and returned the land to private or public
use.
Today, the DOD continues the environmental cleanup of its
current and former lands. The Corps executes two programs on
behalf of the DOD to clean up hazardous substances, pollutants,
contaminants, including military munitions and debris that were
the result of DOD activities on Alaska Native lands. These
programs are the Native American Lands Environmental Mitigation
Program, referred to as NALEMP, and the Formerly Used Defense
Sites, or FUDS program.
In recognition of the Federal-tribal trust responsibility,
NALEMP specifically focuses on the effects of past DOD
activities on traditional ways of life. This includes the
ability of tribes to safely conduct activities for subsistence
or to access sites for cultural or religious purposes. Under
NALEMP, funds are provided to participating federally-
recognized tribes under cooperative agreements to carry out
environmental mitigation projects that are proposed and
prioritized by the tribes.
Since 1993, the DOD has invested over $100 million in
cooperative agreements with Alaska Native tribes, including $30
million in the last five years, the highest funding commitment
to a single State. The scope and magnitude of the FUDS program
in Alaska is significant. FUDS are properties that were
formerly owned by, leased to, or otherwise possessed by the
United States under the jurisdiction of the Secretary of
Defense.
Alaska has the greatest number of eligible FUDS in the
Country, with more than 500 properties. Many of these
properties are on Alaska Native lands, including lands
transferred under ANCSA. Since 1984, the DOD has invested over
$1 billion in cleanup of FUDS in Alaska. This includes over
$200 million over the last five years, more funding than any
other State in the Country. In Fiscal Year 2022, the Corps
plans to execute approximately 15 percent of the FUDS
appropriation on sites in Alaska.
Senator Murkowski, Colonel Damon Delarosa, Commander and
District Engineer for our Alaska District, has prepared oral
testimony as well to share local examples of how the Corps is
supporting DOD's commitment to protecting our environment and
restoring sites contaminated by past military activities on
ANCSA lands.
Senator Murkowski. Colonel Delarosa.
Colonel Delarosa. Thank you, ma'am. Good afternoon, Senator
Murkowski and distinguished members of the Committee. I am
Colonel Damon Delarosa.
The Alaska District is very busy right now, largely in part
due to your efforts, ma'am, so thank you. I would also like to
say thank you to the Unangan people who we respectfully
acknowledge you as the original people of this land. We are
grateful to be specifically discussing your ancestral homeland
and are thankful that you have welcomed us among you today.
Thank you, Senator, for an opportunity to discuss
contaminated ANCSA lands. The Alaska District provides critical
support, executing a significant amount of work for the FUDS
and NALEMP programs within the State of Alaska, as you heard
Ms. Beasley say. The success of the FUDS and NALEMP programs is
a credit to the extraordinary individuals at the staff level
and interagency cooperation in Alaska. The Corps values these
partnerships that improve consultation, communication,
coordination, and cooperation.
Through a chartered partnership of the State and Federal
agencies in Alaska known as the Statement of Cooperation, and
through the Arctic Executive Steering Committee, the Corps is
working side by side with numerous Federal and State agencies
with the tribes, Alaska Native Corporations and others to
foster a collaborative approach and leverage our collective
resources to expedite the process to clean up ANCSA
contaminated lands. These partnerships include EPA, DOI, DOE,
NOAA, the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation,
Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium, and others.
I have an Unalaska cleanup example to share with you at the
site known as the Amaknak FUDS Unalaska Valley. The Department
of Defense's use of Amaknak Island and Unalaska Island was
expansive. After the June 1942 Japanese bombing of Amaknak, the
Army moved to disperse its housing on Unalaska Island to areas
such as Unalaska Valley.
Following the passage of ANCSA, the Aleut Corporation
obtained subsurface rights and the Unalaska Corporation
obtained surface ownership in this area. The Corps has already
conducted extensive cleanup of Unalaska over the last 40 years.
However, in 2019, the community expressed overwhelming support
to form a restoration advisory board, or RAB. The RAB,
consisting of many of Unalaska's community leaders, has helped
develop the priorities for continued cleanup. Several cleanup
efforts are underway by the Unalaska Corporation Environmental
Services.
Senator Murkowski, in closing, we sincerely thank the
Committee for this opportunity to discuss the Corps'
environmental cleanup activities on ANCSA contained lands and
our support for collaboration. The Department of Defense has
made significant progress cleaning up ANCSA lands, and we will
continue to advance these efforts.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Beasley and Colonel Delarosa
follows:]
Prepared Statement of Lara Beasley, Chief, Environmental
Division, U.S. Army Corps Engineers and Colonel Damon A. Delarosa,
Commander
Vice Chairman Murkowski and distinguished Members of the Committee,
we appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today to address the
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' activities on behalf of the Department of
Defense (DoD) in cleaning up Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act
(ANCSA) Contaminated Lands.
Overview
The Army Corps of Engineers supports DoD's commitment to protect
the environment; ensure military readiness; protect the health of
military and civilian personnel and their families; ensure operations
do not affect the health or environment of surrounding communities; and
preserve resources for future generations. Throughout the Nation's
history, DoD has used land across the United States to train Soldiers,
Airmen, Sailors and Marines. When this land was no longer needed for
DoD activities, the Department cleaned up the land using the best
practices available at that time and returned it to private or public
uses. Today, DoD is continuing the environmental restoration (or
cleanup) of its current and former lands.
The Army Corps of Engineers executes two programs on behalf of the
DoD to address DoD contamination on Alaska Native lands.
First, as part of the Defense Environmental Restoration Program,
DoD through the Army delegated execution responsibility to the Army
Corps of Engineers for the Formerly Used Defense Sites (FUDS) Program.
FUDS are properties that were formerly owned by, leased to, or
otherwise possessed by the United States and under the jurisdiction of
the Secretary of Defense prior to October 1986. The goal of the FUDS
Program is to conduct necessary cleanup of contamination on former DoD
lands resulting from past DoD activities to ensure protection of human
health and the environment.
Second, the Army Corps of Engineers executes the Native American
Lands Environmental Mitigation Program (NALEMP) on behalf of the Deputy
Assistant Secretary of Defense for Environment & Energy Resilience. The
purpose of NALEMP is to mitigate environmental effects of past DoD
activities on Indian lands and on other locations where the DoD, an
Indian tribe, and the current land owner agree that such mitigation is
appropriate.
FUDS Program
The Army Corps of Engineers and DoD are dedicated to protecting
human health and the environment by investigating and, if required,
cleaning up contamination and munitions hazards that may remain on
these properties. Environmental cleanup at FUDS sites is conducted in
accordance with the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation
and Liability Act and includes identifying eligible properties,
investigating releases on the properties, and addressing releases of
hazardous substances, pollutants and contaminants, including military
munitions, that were the result of DoD activities.
The scope and magnitude of the FUDS Program in Alaska is
significant, with more than 500 properties, of which many are on Alaska
Native lands, including those transferred under ANCSA.
The work performed on FUDS properties in Alaska represents a large
percentage of the FUDS Program. Since 1984, the DoD has invested over
$1.0 billion in cleanup of FUDS in Alaska, including over $200 million
on FUDS in the last five years, the highest funding commitment to a
single state. In fiscal year (FY) 2022, the Army Corps of Engineers
plans to execute approximately 15 percent of the FUDS appropriation on
sites in Alaska.
The Army Corps of Engineers is committed to achieving the cleanup
program goals established by DoD and the Army. Coordination with and
input from our state, local, Tribal, and federal partners is an
important component of successful attainment of cleanup program goals.
Teams from Army Corps of Engineers district offices coordinate with
state environmental offices and the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) and provide for meaningful involvement by federally-
recognized Tribes, landowners (including ANCSA corporations), local
officials, and the public in performing its work. The focus remains on
continuous improvement in cleanup programs.
NALEMP
The NALEMP annual appropriation was first drafted in 1993 by
Senator Ted Stevens (Alaska) and Senator Daniel Inouye (Hawaii). It
funded a unique and successful partnership between participating
federally-recognized Tribes and the federal government. After years of
work under the appropriations process, the program was formally
codified in Section 2713, Chapter 160 of title 10, United States Code
in FY 2021.
The NALEMP has a specific focus on past DoD activities that may
have had adverse environmental effects on Tribal lands. Congress has
provided funds annually to mitigate environmental effects to Native
American lands including those transferred under ANCSA.
DoD screens sites identified by the Tribes for NALEMP eligibility.
A unique aspect of NALEMP is that it considers environmental effects to
life-ways, including the ability of Tribes to safely conduct
subsistence activities or access sites for cultural or religious
purposes. Under NALEMP, funds are provided to the Tribes under
cooperative agreements to carry out environmental mitigation projects
proposed and prioritized by the Tribes. In addition to completing the
projects, funding provides for training and technical assistance from
the Army Corps of Engineers, which helps build capabilities in the
Tribes to effectively complete the projects.
The work performed to date in Alaska under NALEMP is also
significant. Since 1993, DoD has invested over $100 million into
cooperative agreements with Alaska Native Tribes, including
approximately $30 million in the last five years, the highest funding
commitment in a single state.
Cleanup on Alaska Native Lands
The success of the FUDS Program and NALEMP is a credit to the
extraordinary individuals at the staff level and the interagency
cooperation in Alaska. The Army Corps of Engineers partners with
federal agencies, state agencies, local entities, ANCSA corporations,
and the Tribes. These partnerships improve consultation, communication,
coordination, and cooperation resulting in the protection of human
health and the environment through environmental restoration and
ensuring compliance with applicable state and federal laws and
regulations. To assist our partnership with the Alaska Department of
Environmental Conservation (ADEC), the State of Alaska receives an
average of over $400,000 per year under the Defense and State
Memorandum of Agreement (DSMOA) Program. The DSMOA Program provides
funding to the State of Alaska for requested services such as the
expedited review of technical documents, site visits, and public
participation support.
The Army Corps of Engineers values local community input and
recognizes the importance of public involvement at FUDS that require
environmental restoration. Restoration Advisory Boards (RABs) have been
formed in multiple communities to discuss cleanup issues or concerns
collaboratively with the Army Corps of Engineers and the state and
federal regulators. RABs include members from the Tribes, ANCSA
corporations, and local communities and reflect the diverse interests
in the communities that are impacted by the cleanup activities.
Arctic Executive Steering Committee ANCSA Contaminated Lands
Initiative
The Department, EPA, and the Department of the Interior (DOI) co-
lead this effort with the support of the Department of Energy, the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and others, to foster a
collaborative approach across the federal family to leverage collective
resources and expedite progress to clean up contaminated sites. The
goals of this initiative are to strengthen collaboration between the
federal government, the State of Alaska, Alaska Native Corporations,
Tribes, and Alaska Native Organizations; improve data and transparency
through the creation of a joint lands inventory; prioritize cleanup of
contaminated sites; and initiate cleanup of sites that have not yet
been addressed.
Statement of Cooperation Executive Steering Committee
The Army Corps of Engineers has been working cooperatively with the
EPA, ADEC, Alaska Native Corporations, the DOI and other federal
agencies for years to address contamination on ANCSA-conveyed lands.
The Army Corps of Engineers is a member of the ``Statement of
Cooperation Working Group,'' a chartered partnership of state and
federal agencies in Alaska to evaluate pollution impacts and prevention
and cleanup of contamination. The charter now includes 13 agencies, and
a committee for Contaminated ANCSA Lands.
The Army Corps of Engineers is supporting efforts to refine the DOI
joint lands inventory, share information on cleanup efforts, develop
approaches for managing complicated sites, research and categorize
sites, and identifying ways to better share this information with
stakeholders. The Army Corps of Engineers also provided FUDS data for
the Contaminated Site Inventory map, created by the Bureau of Land
Management (BLM).
Amaknak Island Cleanup Example
A great example of a cleanup success story is a site in Unalaska
called ``Amaknak FUDS Unalaska Valley.'' DoD's use of Amaknak Island
began with the Navy's acquisition of land for a radio station and other
naval facilities in the 1930s. The Navy constructed a Naval Operating
Base on Amaknak Island. The Army was ordered to defend the base and
collocated its facilities on the island. After the June 1942 Japanese
bombing of Amaknak, the Army moved to disperse its housing on Unalaska
Island to areas such as Unalaska Valley. In 1947, the last of the posts
were closed and the land transferred to the BLM. Following the passage
of ANCSA, the Aleut Corporation obtained subsurface rights and
Ounalashka Corporation obtained surface ownership of the Unalaska
Valley in 1974.
Buildings and debris at the site were removed by the Army Corps of
Engineers beginning in 1985 and continued into the 1990s. Historical
information, records, and maps of the area indicated that a number of
buildings potentially had underground storage tanks (USTs) associated
with them. From 1997 to 2016, extensive USTs and associated petroleum-
contaminated soil removal actions occurred throughout the Amaknak FUDS
including the removal of approximately 52,000 cubic yards of
contaminated soil, over 200 fuel storage tanks, and over 10,000 feet of
pipeline.
In the summer of 2019, the Army Corps of Engineers reassessed the
community's support for the formation of a RAB. This inquiry was met
with overwhelming support from the community in part due to the tri-
lateral agreement between Ounalashka Corporation, Qawalangin Tribe of
Unalaska, and the City of Unalaska. The RAB was formed in 2020. Board
members include many Unalaska community leaders and residents. Between
2020 and 2022, the RAB has expressed community cleanup priorities; top
among those priorities is the cleanup of Unalaska Valley. Cleanup of
seven individual UST sites in Unalaska Valley is underway by Ounalashka
Corporation Environmental Services, LLC.
Recently, the ninth Amaknak RAB meeting was held on August 3, 2022.
The Army Corps of Engineers will build on the success of the Unalaska
Valley cleanup by next addressing the RAB-identified areas of Little
South America and Summer Bay-Humpy Cove. Approximately $3.4 million
over six years is projected to be expended to address these community
priorities.
Challenges
Cleanup work in Alaska is logistically challenging. Many Alaska
FUDS and NALEMP sites are isolated from the Alaskan road system.
Equipment and workers are often flown and/or barged to the project
locations with limited infrastructure available to support cleanup
operations. Additionally, due to the arctic climate, the field season
is limited. To maximize the field season and minimize mobilization
costs, investigation work is often done concurrently with removal
actions. Additionally, large sites under investigation are broken into
smaller projects with achievable remediation solutions.
Conclusion
In closing, we sincerely thank the Committee for this opportunity
to discuss the Army Corps of Engineers environmental cleanup activities
on ANCSA contaminated lands. We are committed to addressing this
contamination resulting from past DoD activities in collaboration with
Alaska Native Tribes and ANCSA corporations, the State of Alaska, and
other federal agencies.
Senator Murkowski. Thank you, Colonel.
Let's go to Commissioner Brune, please.
STATEMENT OF HON. JASON BRUNE, COMMISSIONER, ALASKA DEPARTMENT
OF ENVIRONMENTAL CONSERVATION
Mr. Brune. Thank you, Senator Murkowski. I so appreciate
the champion you have been for this issue over the years. You
have long acknowledged that this is an issue that needs to be
dealt with. I am very grateful for your leadership on that.
We have heard a lot of talk today; we have heard a lot of
talk over the last few years. Actions speak louder than words.
In 1990, again in 1995, and once more in 2014, Congress
instructed the BLM to address this issue. Congress recognized
that Alaska Natives did in fact receive contaminated lands.
Again, Congress instructed the BLM to investigate these sites,
prepare cleanup plans for every contaminated site with express
timelines to do so. Then, they were to ultimately clean them
up.
In the 2016 report to Congress, they passed the buck onto
DEC with no funding to do this. As Senator Murkowski said in
her opening comments, if this was any other responsible party,
they would be the ones on the hook for doing this. The State of
Alaska has repeatedly requested the bureau of Land Management
to follow through with Congress' directions. To date, the BLM
has ignored these directives. They have prepared skeletal
reports, attempted to foist its duties onto the State, and
ultimately, they have ignored the plights of the indigenous
people, the Alaska Native people.
When I worked for an Alaska Native Corporation, I was the
chair of the ANCSA resource managers, which was the land
managers for all of the regional corporations. The number one
issue that we identified that needed to be addressed was ANCSA
contaminated sites. We wrote letters to then-President Obama.
We followed it with letters to President Trump. I left in the
middle of the Trump Administration to take this position; I am
honored to work for Governor Dunleavy on this, and Governor
Dunleavy was adamant that this was an issue we needed to
address. He wrote a letter to President Biden himself. I wrote
letters, along with our AG, to the Department of Interior, to
the Department of Defense and others.
We actually were really excited that Secretary Haaland, a
Native American woman, who grew up on the reservations in New
Mexico, in close proximity to contaminated lands, who
recognized environmental justice issues need to be dealt with,
we were so excited thinking that the Department would finally
do something. Instead, what we got was a letter in response to
the Governor's letter saying they are merely a real estate
agent for the Federal Government, and that they have ``no
authority'' to do any of the things Congress has repeatedly
directly BLM to do.
We had an opportunity in Secretary Haaland to practice what
she was preaching, and this is what we received. It was very
disappointing.
So at the end of the day, ultimately the State of Alaska
had no choice. We had to bring litigation against the
Department of the Interior, against the Bureau of Land
Management. We did not want to bring litigation. We have been
hoping and we have been trying to resolve this. We all
recognize this is an issue. Ultimately, the force of litigation
has ultimately brought us together.
I want to point out something that, Senator, I will make
sure I include in the record. Forty years ago or so, Tyonek
Village Corporation received a letter from the U.S. Government.
It wasn't from the Department of Interior or the Bureau of Land
Management. It was from the U.S. Government. So if not the BLM,
who denies responsibility, if not the Department of Interior,
then who? It is the U.S. Government.
The Village Corporations don't know the difference, nor
should they. These contaminated lands from a joint and several
liability perspective were contaminated when they were owned by
the Federal Government. The Federal Government, from an
environmental justice perspective alone, not to mention a legal
perspective, has a responsibility to clean those lands up and
clean them up expeditiously.
What I have heard today is that things were put in place
like the State of Cooperation. When Carlton Waterhouse was up
here a few months ago, and I want to give huge kudos to the
EPA, they have taken the leadership role on this, and I am
proud to work with them on this. They are trying to address
this issue. But they are not the landowners. But they are
trying to convene, through the Arctic Executive Steering
Committee, an effort to make this issue right. So thank you,
Carlton, for doing that.
However, when we talked about the SOC, no one from the
Department of Interior had ever attended an SOC meeting, no one
of them knew what had been discussed at the last meeting. Yet
this is what we are relying on for the effort to try to clean
these lands up. Actions speak louder than words, and we need
action, not talk.
I am excited and I have to give credit also to the
Department of Defense, they have been a good actor. But at
current levels of spending, it is going to take upwards of 200
to 250 years to get these lands cleaned up. That is not
environmental justice. These things need to get cleaned up and
now.
We do not need yet another broken promise to the indigenous
people of our Country. With that, I look forward to your
questions, and again, I appreciate your leadership on this,
Senator.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Brune follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Jason Brune, Commissioner, Alaska Department
of Environmental Conservation
Congress is very familiar with the problem of contaminated sites on
Alaska Native lands. It has, on no less than three occasions,
instructed BLM to investigate the extent of contamination on ANC lands
and prepare plans to remediate those sites. BLM says it can't. The
State insists it must. Congress has the ability to end the dispute.
In 1971, Congress passed the Alaska Native Settlement ACT (ANCSA)
to create a ``fair and just'' settlement of aboriginal land claims to
more than 360 million acres of land. Alaska Natives were to receive 44
million acres as consideration for the rights taken. What Congress did
not intend in 1971 was to compensate Alaska Natives with dirty land--
that is neither ``fair nor just'' in any sense of the word.
In 1990, again in 1995, and once more in 2014, Congress recognized
that Alaska Natives did in fact receive contaminated lands. And it
instructed BLM to investigate these sites and prepare a clean-up plan
for every contaminated site with express timelines to do so.
The State of Alaska has repeatedly requested the BLM to follow
through. To date, the BLM has ignored Congress' directives. It has
prepared skeletal reports, attempted to foist its duties onto the
State, ignored the plights of Alaska Natives, and most recently through
counsel stated that ``it is merely a real estate agent'' and ``has no
authority'' to do any of the things Congress has repeatedly directed
BLM to do.
Congress should do more than tell the BLM what it has already told
them. Congress should amend ANCSA to identify clear duties and include
express remedies to the State and Alaska Native corporations. To this
end, the State of Alaska has developed conceptual legislative proposals
that could avoid costly litigation, and put money and resources on the
ground.
Specifically, ANCSA should be amended to:
Expressly recognize that there are contaminated and
potentially contaminated sites on ANCSA lands that were
contaminated while owned by the United States.
Identify the Department of the Interior as the agency tasked
with characterization and cleanup of federally contaminated
sites on ANCSA lands.
Identify date-certain benchmarks for progress which, if not
met, trigger additional exchanges of land to Alaska Natives.
Identify the trigger for remedial action at any site is a
risk factor of 1 x 10-5, including at the site investigation
stage.
Require DOI, or any other federal agency involved, to pay
ADEC costs for oversight work.
The following amendments to CERCLA and RCRA would also provide
helpful clarification:
Amend CERCLA to expressly allow state claims against
formerly owned or operated federal facilities.
Amend RCRA to expressly allow citizen suits against formerly
owned or operated federal facilities.
Amend Section 113 to allow suit after a federal delay in
performing substantive response actions at a site of more than
three years.
For additional detail on this issue, a record of recent
correspondence between the State of Alaska and the federal government
is available at https://dec.alaska.gov/spar/csp/federal/formal-
correspondence/.
Senator Murkowski. Thank you, Commissioner.
Mayor Tutiakoff.
STATEMENT OF HON. VINCENT TUTIAKOFF, MAYOR, CITY OF UNALASKA;
CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD, UNALASKA
CORPORATION; TRADITIONAL CHIEF, QAWALANGIN TRIBE
Mr. Tutiakoff. Good afternoon, Senator Murkowski, agency
leaders, and participants. Thank you for the opportunity to
speak on such an important topic.
My name is Vincent M. Tutiakoff, Sr., the Mayor of the City
of Unalaska. I am also Chairman of the Board of the Unalaska
Corporation, the village corporation, formed under ANCSA. Also,
I am the Traditional Chief for the Qawalangin Tribe.
OC received 128,000 acres of land under ANCSA on Unalaska,
Amaknak, Umnak, and Sedanka Islands. I have lived in Unalaska
for almost 75 years and have been to several of these areas in
Alaska and the Aleutian Islands, and also have seen the
contamination in such villages as Nikolski, Atka, Attu, Shemya,
Adak, St. Paul, Chernofski, and Fort Glenn on Umnak Island.
Areas of concern that I have personally encountered,
growing up in Unalaska, we utilized building materials such as
windows, doors, siding, plumbing parts, et cetera. While
retrieving necessary material to keep our homes weatherized,
many of which were damaged by the military, many of the people
responded to the area of concern, such as asbestos, lead-based
paint covered material, PCBs in the ground and in the storage
buildings left by the military.
This has been the cause for many of our people getting
cancer, skin burns, loss of hair, and other sicknesses. Many of
our people died because of the contaminated watersheds. Fish
have disappeared from most streams for years after the war.
Within the last 25 years, some of those fish have returned.
Birds have starved and been found on beaches across Unalaska
and Amaknak Island from eating contaminated food. Clam beds
have been lost to contamination and in some cases are the cause
of death to the Aleut people.
When OC is constructing a project and contamination is
found, then the construction must stop. Remediation must be
completed before construction can again commence.
Alternatively, if we clean our lands first, OC risks not being
reimbursed. We are going through this now with APIA and the
Head Start Building.
The OC board, the tribal council and the City of Unalaska
have formed a trilateral group. The purpose is to bring
personal concerns and plans for remediation of our lands on
Amaknak and Unalaska that we as a group identified as World War
II contamination. We looked for the contamination on property
owned by these entities. Recently, OC, the Qawalangin Tribe and
the city have been working together to not only identify and
prioritize the contaminated sites, but also to move forward
with the cleanup.
Mitigation is important in order to address the physical
and chemical impacts from past military activities to protect
the health and safety and of the entire community and allow for
the safe practice of traditional cultural lifestyle.
The U.S. Department of Defense created the first military
outpost on Amaknak Island in 1912, and in 1940, the U.S. Navy
constructed the Dutch Harbor Naval Operating Base. During the
peak military activities in 1942 and 1943, the Navy, Army, and
Marines had 65,000 personnel in the area, including all
necessary infrastructure for the troops, such as housing,
support buildings, power plants, defensive structures that were
spread all across the island.
By the late 1950s, the military largely abandoned Unalaska/
Dutch Harbor, leaving behind a great deal of history, along
with over 100 contaminated sites and millions of dollars in
remediation costs. Even more than 70 years after the military
withdrew, OC and the tribe and the community continued to be
negatively impacted. We were impacted by hazardous materials
like lead-based paint, asbestos-containing materials,
munitions, unexploded ordnance, unsafe buildings and
structures, abandoned equipment, petroleum hydrocarbons from
underground and aboveground storage tanks, Rommel stakes in the
thousands, only some have been removed over the past years,
persistent organic pollutants, such as PCBs.
Currently, we have a known 51 areas of concern that range
in size of impacts from single underground storage tanks to
full military bases. The city recently received a Brownfield
Assessment grant and OC is in the process of applying for one
as well. There is no doubt this number will increase
significantly. These impacted areas represent approximately
80,000 acres. The Formerly Used Defense Sites program under the
Army Corps has been working on the island for over 30 years,
and the Native American Lands Environmental Mitigation program
for 20 years.
As we look to the future, we have estimated that at the
present rate of mitigation, it will take more than 100 years to
complete the necessary cleanup. The city, the tribe, and
Ounalashka Corporation have been collaborating to address the
highest priority sites that have impacted and threatened
community safety, health, and the environment based on what
limited available funding we have been able to procure.
Each impacted area has adversely affected tribal and
community economic, social, and cultural welfare and limited
full use of tribal lands and resources. The City, Tribe and the
Ounalashka Corporation are dedicated to mitigating these
impacts to restore safe access to tribal lands and create a
healthier and safer environment for the people, community, and
future generations. But the Federal Government needs to help
us. We did not ask for our lands to be contaminated, and we did
ask them to clean them up. We received the land from the
Government already contaminated.
We the Unangan People of Unalaska and other Alaska Native
groups want to ensure that our native corporations and tribal
governments be involved in the cleanup our own land. We also
want to prevent ancient burial sites and artifacts that have
been disturbed or removed from our communities. Tribal
sovereignty commands that the tribe and OC dictate such
actions.
Qagaasakung to Senator Murkowski and the other participants
for coming to Unalaska to hear our concerns. Thank you very
much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Tutiakoff follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Vincent Tutiakoff, Mayor, City of Unalaska;
Chairman of the Board, Unalaska Corporation; Traditional Chief,
Qawalangin Tribe
Good afternoon, Senator Murkowski, Agency Leads and participants.
Thank you for this opportunity to speak about such an important
topic.
I am Vincent M. Tutiakoff, Mayor of the City of Unalaska, Chairman
of the Qunalashka Corporation, an Alaska Native Village Corporation
formed under ANSCA, and Traditional Chief for the Qawalangin Tribe.
QC received 128,000 acres of land under ANCSA on Unalaska, Amaknak,
Umnak and Sedanka Islands.
I have lived in Unalaska for almost 75 years and have been to
several other areas of Alaska that are also contaminated, including
Nikolski, Atka, Attu, Shemya, and Adak.
Areas of concern that I personally have encountered include:
Growing up in Unalaska we utilized building material, such
as windows, doors, siding, plumbing parts, etc. But while
retrieving necessary material to keep our homes weatherized,
many of the people reported areas of concern--asbestos--lead
paint covered material--and PCBs in the ground and in storage
buildings left by the military. This has been the cause for
many of our people getting cancer, skin burns and loss of hair.
Many of our people died because of contaminated water sheds,
fish have disappeared from most streams for years after the
war. Within the last 25 years some of the fish have returned.
Birds have starved and been found on beaches across Unalaska
and Amaknak Islands from eating contaminated food. Clam beds
have been lost to contamination and in some cases are the cause
of death to the Aleut people.
When QC is constructing a project and contamination is found
all construction must stop and remediation must be complete
before construction can again commence. Alternatively, if we
clean our lands first, QC risks not being reimbursed. We are
going through this now with APIA and the Head Start Building.
The QC Board, Tribal Council, and the City of Unalaska have formed
a Tri-lateral Group. The purpose is to bring personal concerns and
plans for remediation of our lands on Amaknak and Unalaska, that we as
a group identified as WWII contamination. Recently OC, the Qawalangin
Tribe and the City have been working together to not only identify and
prioritize the contaminated sites, but also to move forward with the
clean-up.
Mitigation is important in order to address the physical and
chemical impacts from past military activities to protect the health
and safety of the entire community and allow for the safe practice of
traditional cultural lifeways.
The U.S. Department of Defense created the first military outpost
on Amaknak Island in 1911 and in 1940 the U.S. Navy constructed the
Dutch Harbor Naval Operating Base.
During the peak military activities in 1942 and 1943, the Navy,
Army, and Marines had 65,000 personnel in the area, including all
necessary infrastructure for the troops such as housing, support
buildings, power plants, and defensive structures that were spread all
across the island.
By 1950 the military largely abandoned Unalaska/Dutch Harbor
leaving behind a great deal of history, along with over 100
contaminated sites and millions of dollars in remediation costs.
Even more than 70 years after the military withdraw, OC, the Tribe
and community continue to be negatively impacted by:
Hazardous materials like Lead-based paint and asbestos-
containing materials
Munitions
Unexploded ordnances
Unsafe buildings and structures
Abandoned equipment
Petroleum hydrocarbons from underground and aboveground
storage tanks
Rommel stakes--is in the thousands and only some have been
removed over the years Persistent organic pollutants such as
PCBs
Currently, we have a known 51 areas of concern (that range in size
from impacts from single underground storage tanks to full military
bases). The City recently received a Brownfield Assessment grant and QC
is in the process of applying for one as well. There is no doubt this
number will increase significantly These impacted areas represent
approximately 80,000 acres. The Formerly Used Defense Site program
under the Army Corp has been working on the island for the past 30
years and the Native American Lands Environmental Mitigation Program
for 20 years.
As we look to the future, we have estimated at the present rate of
mitigation it will take more than 100 years to complete the necessary
clean up.
The City, Tribe and Ounalashka Corporation have been collaborating
to address the highest priority sites that have impacts that threaten
community safety, health, and the environment based on what limited
available funding we have been able to procure.
Each impacted area has adversely affected Tribal and community
economic, social, or cultural welfare and limited full use of Tribal
lands and resources.
The City, Tribe and the Ounalashka Corporation are dedicated to
mitigating these impacts to restore safe access to Tribal lands and
create a healthier and safer environment for its people, community, and
future generations.
But the Federal Government needs to help.
We did not ask for our lands to be contaminated nor did we
contaminate them ourselves. We received the land from the Government
already contaminated.
We the Unangan People of Unalaska and other Alaska Native Groups
want to ensure that our native corporations be involved in the clean up
our own land. We also want to prevent ancient burial sites and
artifacts from being disturbed or removed from our communities. Tribal
Sovereignty commands that the Tribe and QC dictate such actions.
Qagaasakung to Senator Murkowski and the other participants for
coming to Unalaska to hear our concerns.
Senator Murkowski. Thank you, Vince.
Hallie Bissett.
STATEMENT OF HALLIE BISSETT, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, ALASKA NATIVE
VILLAGE CORPORATION ASSOCIATION
Ms. Bissett. Ent'e Chin'an GoOneenYoo Na'eda. Hello, thank
you for being here our friends, and especially the Honorable
Senator Murkowski, for your leadership on this issue. We
appreciate the opportunity to testify today in one of the most
affected villages in our State.
I want to point out, starting with the pledge of
allegiance, and it just reminded me that Alaska Native people
historically have been some of the most patriotic in our whole
entire Country. In fact, we sign up for the Armed Services at a
higher rate than any other ethnicity in the State, including
non-Native people.
Why is that? We fought right alongside our fellow citizens.
The majority of the people I talk to were just the most proud
we could have ever been to become part of this great Country
that we call the United States. We were the last people in the
United States to be allowed to vote. We at the time the Alaska
Native Claims Settlement Act passed had been fighting for 100
years, which was way less time than anybody else in the
indigenous community had had to fight for their land.
By the time that we signed the Alaska Native Claims
Settlement Act in 1971, the Federal Government was no longer
signing treaties with indigenous people. Instead, we had to
settle for this kind of negotiated agreement. We did have the
opportunity to have hindsight, though, we knew that we did not
want a paternalistic relationship with what we lovingly
referred to as the Boss Indians Around Department. We wanted to
own our land, fee simple title.
So that was kind of the idea behind owning our land and
being the managers of our own destiny. Self-determination, that
is what that is called. It is important to realize that from
1867 to around the 1960s, we were in a terrible era called the
Termination Era, which is an era that is referred to as Kill
the Indian, Save the Man. That is the type of thing that was
going on. Unfortunately, ANCSA contains a little bit of both
the self-determination and the termination era in that
document.
We consider it a living document. We don't consider this
issue resolved in any way, shape, or form. I am going to
quickly tell you a little bit about the Alaska Native Claims
Settlement Act, what is in it, and then we were going to jump
into contaminated lands and where we need to go.
We ended up retaining right around 10 percent of what was
100 percent ours, private land for 10,000 plus years by the
Alaska Native people in various locations around the States,
the Country. That is 44 million acres. In fact, we were
probably arguably the largest landowners in the entire world,
collectively, because we had 44 million acres of land as a
people. Which is a big deal, right?
It is important to point out that we only had five years to
select those lands. Meanwhile, the State of Alaska continues to
have as long as they want to select whatever lands they want.
The gentleman started out by saying, over 44 million acres has
been transferred. But I want to point out that we have not
received 100 percent of the ANCSA lands. That has not happened,
and it has been over 50 years.
The timeline of contaminated lands, you start in the late
1980s, early 1990s, Alaska Native people started noticing that
we were getting, handed over contaminated sites. So the Alaska
Federation of Natives, AFN, led the issue to Congress and they
got this 1998 report. In that report, they identified over 600
sites that needed to be cleaned up. They came up with these six
really great recommendations, forming a working group,
cooperative agency agreements, and then plans to clean up the
lands. There were about six different and really good
suggestions on what ought to be done on this.
ANVCA became involved in 2012, when one of our members
said, whatever happened with this 1998 report? So we started
asking. In 2014, through the great work of the Senators and our
Alaska delegation, we were able to get Congress to direct the
BLM and the DOI to do another report. So that culminated in the
2016 report that you heard about today. In that report, they
identified over 1,100 sites that had contaminations on them
that were ANCSA lands. What it also basically said was that
1998 report was great, but we didn't do any of those things.
So yes, there has been some cleanup, there has been some
sites that have been closed out. But let me talk about those
really quick. Many of the sites in those reports, as you read
through the reports, the 2016 report, are referred to as orphan
sites. My understanding is they are changing that term now. But
at the time of the 2016 report, an orphan site meant that that
site was not currently in and had no plan to be in any type of
cleanup program. Ninety percent of those sites were within two
miles of a village, poisoning our drinking water and the food
that we eat.
In 2018, the Senator mentioned that the legal liabilities
were lifted. I want to point out really quickly, 1,100 sites,
we estimate the cleanup cost of those sites to be $60 billion
and $100 billion, that is with a B. Up until 2018, we were
actually legally liable to clean those up. Excuse my language,
but it was like, here is your crap sandwich, and now you are
going to eat that.
So we are very grateful that the government was able to
lift the legal liability. But since that time, since 2018,
since 2016, have we seen an enormous amount of cleanup? Have we
had any land swaps? Sir, you mentioned that ANTHC continues to
have a working group that is meeting. To my knowledge, that
group has only met twice in 2018 and has had no meetings since
then.
We have heard stories of glow in the dark fish, of lakes
that are--up in in Utqiagvik, there is a lake that was the only
source of drinking water, completely contaminated. They cannot
drink out of it. But they had been. They had been for decades,
before the United States Government came out and started
putting signs up there that say, ``don't drink this water.''
In that village and in Unalakleet, same thing. There was an
Air Force base that was seeping jet fuel down into the water
that everybody in the village was drinking. High rates of
Parkinson's. If Unalakleet was here with us, they would tell
you their entire family has died of that disease. This man was
tested for a relationship between PCB consumption and
Parkinson's, because the health officials testing him knew or
thought. I looked it up, there is no sign of the study I am
mentioning, he was never told if that was actually the case or
not, that they were testing him because I thought there was.
What I can tell you is we didn't have Parkinson's in Alaska
Native villages before the last 100 years. So we know that
there is a direct link between these things.
We have heard stories of the military piling up tanks of
whatever, barrels of whatever on frozen lakes and then when
they melt, they will be gone, that problem will be gone. That
is not to point fingers; we didn't have the same kind of rules
that we do now around waste disposal that we had back then. In
this very village, the tribe wants to redo their subsistence.
There is a stream that leads up to a lake here, and that very
lake is exactly what I am talking about. The barrels of stuff
that were piled up on the ice, and then, you can't eat this
fish, you can't walk your dog up there. There is asbestos.
Teeny little signs that say ``don't go in there,'' which is
referred to as institutional controls, which is a high
percentage of a lot of these closed out sites. Institutional
controls means, we are just going to watch that area and make
sure nobody goes in there, put a sign up there and hopefully
nobody goes in there and drinks the water or eats the food.
So I just want to point out too that we are proud members
and citizens of the United States. Under the United States
Constitution, the Fifth Amendment says that you cannot take
private property for the public without just compensation.
Well, I just explained to you, people ask me all the time, what
is the percentage? According to a recent lawsuit filed by the
State of Alaska, 17.6 million acres were transferred at least
partially contaminated to our people.
Now, some of the village corporations might recognize that
number, because that is about the size of the land that we have
received so far, 17 million acres. That is 40 percent of the
land that we retained, which was less than 10 percent of our
State. I would like to know what percentage of the Federal
Government's land is contaminated or Alaska's land is
contaminated.
We have heard time and again when we ask for different land
or for cleanups, the solution has always been, you know what we
should do, we will do an inventory of the land that is out
there and we are going to make a plan, and we are going to do
this interagency cooperative thing. It is frustrating. It is
not that we don't appreciate it. We do. We appreciate the
action around this.
But putting another report out there for us to say, yes, we
did it, isn't good enough. We need actions. We need actual
cleanups. You cannot give in exchange, for, let's just talk
about the money for a minute. We are really proud of ANCSA. We
were able to hang onto what we could. In the past 50 years, we
have shared about $3 billion of resource revenue. The Alaska
Native Corporations are the highest-generating--we are a
quarter of the GDP right now. We bring in about $16 billion a
year into the State of Alaska. We have reversed the economic
model. We go outside the State, we bring the money back home.
But in that same period of time, the State of Alaska and
the Federal Government, I would imagine, have collected over
$200 billion in mineral and resource extraction monies. We got
a $60 billion to $100 billion contamination liability. Does
that sound like a good deal?
I know that none of you were here when this happened. What
I am asking you, because now that we are aware that this
happened, I would just ask you that we do something more
meaningful than putting fences around it and saying don't go in
there. We were promised self-determination, to get lands that
were of economic value. Let's talk about that really quickly
and then I will stop.
In the past 50 years, if we haven't been able to develop or
have these lands, or if we were having to remediate everything
that we dig up for a day care or whatever it is that we are
trying to do, that is a cost to us. How many economic losses do
you think there have been over the last 50 years? Buskin Beach,
where you are going in Kodiak, that site was specifically
selected so that the village could have a port or a harbor.
Fifty years of no harbor fees or dock fees to collect. What
does that look like?
Again, thank you for inviting us here. I know I am
passionate about this issue; I am grateful for the increase in
NALEMP funding which they mentioned was up to $30 million.
Thirty million dollars, though, for the entire United States,
this Administration in particular, Commissioner Brune mentioned
that they have completely kind of, well, we are not responsible
at all, which is a very different thing when they are trying to
lead environmental justice. This is easily the largest
environmental justice in our State. We still have not seen
anything but some more reports and we are grateful that there
is currently some money being set aside in the Appropriations
Bill. We hope we can hang onto that.
But $30 million split 500 ways in Indian Country is not
going to get us there. The recent ESHA [phonetically] bill
established a tribal superfund that completely left Alaska out.
We can work with tribe or village corporations, no matter how
it is written. But this particular tribal superfund was written
with a definition of tribal land that said, under trust
responsibility of the United States.
And there are some of those, that is basically Metlakatla,
in Alaska, there is one place that has that responsibility.
Like I said, we chose this model, because you will never meet a
more hard-working person, you guys, even if you are not Native,
you have been here five, six generations know that you can't
survive out here without being a hard-working individual.
So we didn't want to be wards of the State. We wanted to
work on our own economy. We are legally required to and we
proudly do provide for the social, economic, and culture of our
people in perpetuity. We can't do that on contaminated lands.
So I would ask you to consider the land swaps that we have
continuously brought to you. We need to have something that is
actually meaningful, just compensation for the lands we gave
up, which is 90 percent of our home.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify today.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Bissett follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hallie Bissett, Executive Director, Alaska Native
Village Corporation Association
Honorable Senators and visiting Agency leaders,
Ent'e Chin'an GooneenYoo Na'eda (Hello, thank you for being here
our friends) my name is Hallie Bissett, I am Upper Cook Inlet Dena'ina
Athabascan, Granddaughter of Nick Nicolai, last Traditional Chief of
Sunshine Village or what is now called Talkeetna and Daughter of Ron
and Debra Bissett, it is my great pleasure to welcome you to our
beautiful Country here in Alaska. We are grateful to have the Honorable
members of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, their staff, and the
many agency representatives who have traveled so far to hear from the
traditional stewards of these lands and our State leadership.
Often referred to as ``The Last Frontier'' as it relates to our
membership in the United States, Alaska was one of the last areas of
the World to experience Western colonization. We are here today to
discuss what has happened since that time, and we are seeking your
support for a long-awaited remedy to easily the greatest perpetual
environmental injustice in our State.
I will be speaking today of the issue of Alaska Native Claims
Settlement Act (ANCSA) Contaminated Lands. Lands that were transferred
as part of a settlement to the indigenous people of Alaska as
compensation for giving up title to nearly 90 percent of our homelands.
While my oral testimony will be limited, I am providing this written
statement to supplement.
Introduction
I am Dena'ina Athabascan, a shareholder and former board members of
Cook Inlet Regional Inc. (CIRI) the regional corporation that was
created in the most populated area of the State at the time ANCSA
passed. I am a current member of the Knik tribe, though my heritage is
closely tied to both Montana Creek and Chickaloon Tribes in the
beautiful Interior of Alaska. My ancestors and those of my fellow
Alaska Natives have called this place Home for tens of thousands of
years.
I am here before your committee as the Executive Director of the
Alaska Native Village Corporation Association (ANVCA). ANVCA is a
State-wide organization that represents the 177 Village Corporations
that were created by Congress over 50 years ago. Each of these entites
represent over 250 Alaska Native Villages and a shareholder base of
over 140,000 individuals and their families.
Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act
A departure from status quo, the Alaska Native Claims Settlement
Act (ANCSA) served as the modern day Indian Treaty between Alaska
Native People and The United States. It is important first to
understand the moment in time that ANCSA was passed in 1971 was long
after Congress had discontinued signing Treaties with Native Nations in
1867. At that time the United States entered the unfortunate ``Indian
Termination Era'' marked by forced adoptions as well as indigenous
children being forcibly removed from their homes and sent to boarding
schools, all in an attempt to ``Kill the Indian and Save the Man''.
Beginning in the 1960s, United States made a positive turn towards a
new era referred to as the ``Indian Self Determination Era''. It is
important to remember this because ANCSA straddles both markedly
different Indian policy approaches ANCSA includes elements of both. The
Act was supposed to settle long standing land claims that dated back
over one hundred years, beginning with the sale of Alaska to the United
States from Russia and accelerating with the passage of the Alaska
Statehood Act (1958) and a significant discovery of Oil deposits on
Alaska's North Slope.
In the late 1960s Aboriginal title was still left unsettled, as the
State and Federal Government began selecting lands during this
timeframe, Alaska Native people united and filed claims to 100 percent
of Alaska, working together through a newly established Native News
outlet the Tundra Times, our people were informed of the movement to
advocate for our lands.
Then Secretary of Department of Interior Stewart Udall responded by
instituting a ``Land Freeze'' and halted State and Federal selections
until an agreement was reached with Alaska Natives. As the State and
Federal Government were attempting to build a pipeline over 1000 miles
to transport crude oil they were incentivized to settle as quickly as
possible.
While negotiations were tense at times, they did reach a final
agreement that was signed on December 18, 1971. The Act created 12 in-
State Regional Corporations, and over 250 Village Corporations each
charge with providing for their people's economic social and cultural
wellbeing in perpetuity. This agreement provided Alaska Native people
with 44 million acres of land split Regional and village Corporations
the main difference being Regional Corporations has title to subsurface
estate and villages surface estate. In addition, a one-time cash
payment of $962.5 million. We owned our land fee simple title, a very
different model than the reservation system that we had by then learned
do much about.
Alaska Native people were able to retain close to 10 percent of
their lands, selected in what many feel was a rushed 5-year period.
These lands were selected from areas that the Federal Government
provided to us, that were not yet selected by the State and Federal
Government. It is important to point out that the State has an
indefinite timeline to select their lands, and that over 50 year later,
we still have not received full title to the lands in our agreement.
Contaminated Lands
There are over 1,100 known contaminated sites on land conveyed to
Alaska Native Corporations (ANCs) and additional sites on land pending
conveyance. These sites were contaminated under ownership and/or
responsibility of the federal government and then transferred to Native
ownership. In the 1980s Congress passed the Comprehensive Environmental
Response Compensations and Liability Act (CERCLA) and in that Act,
transferred he liability of that contamination to our people.
The Alaska Federation of Native immediately began advocating to
Congress that we were being given contaminated lands, which prompted an
investigation and report out from Congress. In 1998 the Department of
the Interior issued a report to Congress, entitled Report to Congress
Hazardous Substance Contamination 1998.
ANVCA became involved when this report was brought to our attention
in 2012 by one of our member Alaska Native Village Corporations. Since
2012, ANVCA has worked to educate Alaska's Federal delegation, the
State Legislature, members of Congress, and others to keep the issue in
the forefront. In 2014, Congress asked for an update to the 1998
report, to identify the status of each site, for example, if any
remediation had been done, and recommendations going forward. In June
of 2016 the update was released, 2016 Update Report to Congress--
Hazardous Substance Contamination of Alaska Native Claim Settlement Act
Lands in Alaska.
The 2016 report identified over 1100 sites that were transferred
contaminated and listed them in various stage of ``clean-up'' and again
recommended action items to remedy the problem and begin clean-up but
also brought to light that very little action had been taken since
1998.Many of these sites were in a status identified as ``orphan
sites'' and ``Institutional control'' the first meaning that there was
no plan or program identifies to clean them up the second meaning they
had decided it could not be cleaned and would essentially be off-
limits. 90 percent of these abandoned waste sites are within two miles
of a village, contaminating our drinking water and subsistence foods.
According to a recent legal filing from the State of Alaska, 17.6
million acres of land was transferred at least partially contaminated.
This equals 40 percent of the lands that Alaska Native received. The
estimated clean-up costs range from between $60-$100 billion. In
addition, our people have been held back from possible revenue
generating opportunities because of this contamination, in one instance
a valuable property was selected for a possible harbor port, and after
decade of clean-up came to learn it was not possible to clean.
Contaminated sites contain a variety of toxic materials including:
Arsenic
Solvents
PCBs
Asbestos
Mining Waste
Chemicals
Mercury
Toxic Metals
Unexploded Ordinances
Petroleum & Oil waste
Few studies have been conducted on the health and safety impacts of
the contamination on human health, however anecdotally villages report
higher rates of cancer and other illnesses linked to hazardous
substances like Parkinson's disease. Many of the rural contaminated
sites are Villages which practice subsistence lifestyles there has been
only limited research on the contaminants impacts to fish, berries, and
wildlife in these areas.
We have heard stories of fish that glow in the dark, or salmon that
appear to have grey squishy material that our Elder bury and hope not
to see again. One Elder reported that he had been part of a study to
determine if PCB exposure had caused his Parkinson's, but he was never
provided with the results.
In 2017, CERCLA was amended by Congress to lift the legal liability
for contamination that was caused by the Federal Government for ANCSA
lands specifically, but we have seen little action to clean these sites
since that time. While this was a huge step in the right direction, the
result has left agencies and others pointing fingers at each other for
liability and clean-up.
In 2022, the Biden Administration came to visit our State to hear
from our people about the issue. The remedy provided was to fund
another effort to gather data on the lands status and provide a plan
for remediation and clean-up. While we are grateful for the opportunity
to identify the remaining lands that perhaps were left unaccounted for
prior to liability being lifted, we are wondering how a report of the
issue with no follow-up action can be offered again as a remedy to the
situation. Currently there is money appropriated for Alaska Clean-ups
of $11 million, when the sites require billions to remediate. While we
were left out of recent legislation that created a Tribal Superfund for
clean-up funds that utilized a definition that left Alaska tribes and
ANCSA corporations Ineligible.
The United States Constitution under the 5th amendment provides
that private property cannot be taken for public use without just
compensation. While our people signed our rights away, they did so with
the promise of economic prosperity and self-determination. Instead, we
have been largely unable to develop even simple projects and that
equates to losses over a 50-year period that far outweigh the money and
lands received. We have watched as EPA and other agencies have
rewritten policies absolve themselves of responsibility to Alaska
Native Corporation lands that were contaminated by the Federal
Government.
To be clear, we do not view the receipt of contaminated lands as
just compensation, likewise we do not believe continuing to write
reports will result in the situation being resolved. Below are some of
ANVCA membership developed solutions that we respectfully submit for
your consideration to remedy the situation:
Swap undesirable ANCSA lands with unencumbered federal
property. See sample language. See language in appendix
Prioritize the clean-up of ANCSA contaminated lands in
existing FUDS program
Complete ANCSA Contaminated site database--provide ANVCA,
Alaska DEC, and ANTHC with needed resources
Include ANC lands in EPA Tribal clean up superfund--or
create $1billion in Alaska specific clean-up
Provide adequate funding for Brownfields program, NALEMP,
FUDS, etc.
Adopt mitigation clean-up credits and tax credits for clean-
up activities on ANCSA lands. See sample language in appendix.
Require a minimum of bi-annual agency reporting on the
status of clean-up on ANCSA lands.
Provide Native contractor preference for clean-up on Native
land.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify before this committee on
this issue, we are hopeful that a real remedy, and not just another
report to put on the shelf can be developed by working together to
correct this injustice. None of us at the table were part of the
problem, it is not your fault, but we are asking you to be a part of
the solution, surely the intent was not to provide contaminated sites
that result in a negative value.
APPENDIX
OTHER MATERIALS WITH WEB LINKS
Report to Congress Hazardous Substance Contamination 1998
2016 Update Report to Congress-- Hazardous Substance
Contamination of Alaska Native Claim Settlement Act Lands in
Alaska .
WATCH testimony from Afognak Board member Sarah Lukin to
Senate Environment and Public Works Committee HERE
LAND SWAP LANGUAGE
(a) Title 43, United States Code, is amended to insert section
1601(a), as follows:
`` 1601(a) Further Congressional findings and purpose
``(a) FINDINGS.--The Congress finds that--
``(1) Access to a healthy environment free from contaminants is
critical for the economic, social, and cultural self-determination of
Alaska Native communities.
``(2) Alaska Natives face continued obstacles in their access to
healthy environments, resulting in ongoing economic, social, and
cultural instability.
``(3) In 1998, the U.S. Department of the Interior reported to
Congress that the United States conveyed numerous contaminated lands to
Alaska Native Corporations pursuant to the Alaska Native Claims
Settlement Act for the settlement of aboriginal land claims. The
findings of the Department of the Interior's 1998 Report to Congress:
Hazardous Substance Contamination of Alaska Native Claims Settlement
Act Lands in Alaska are hereby recognized.
``(4) In 2016, the U.S. Department of the Interior reported to
Congress that 920 contaminated land sites were conveyed to Alaska
Native Corporations under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. At
least 338 of those land sites required additional cleanup. The full
number of currently contaminated lands conveyed pursuant to Alaska
Native Claims Settlement Act is unknown. The findings of the Department
of the Interior's 2016 Updated Report to Congress: Hazardous Substance
Contamination of Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act Lands in Alaska
are hereby recognized.
``(5) It is not, and was never, the intent of Congress to convey
contaminated lands, or lands with the risk of contamination, to Alaska
Native Corporations for the settlement of aboriginal land claims.
``(6) There is an immediate need to address the environmental and
health risks to Alaska Natives presented by the United States'
conveyance of contaminated lands, and lands at risk for contamination,
to Alaska Native Corporations. This should be done rapidly, with
certainty, without litigation, and in conformity with the real
economic, social, and cultural needs of Alaska Natives.
``(7) Permitting Alaska Native Corporations to exchange lands
conveyed pursuant to the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act,
regardless of existing proof of contamination, for other, non-
contaminated federal lands for lands will promote the welfare Alaska
Natives and their communities.
``(8) Alaskan Native Corporations have successfully assisted Alaska
Natives by supporting the preservation of traditional Alaskan Native
lifestyles, while providing for the economic needs of Alaskan Natives.
In support of Alaska Native self-determination, Alaska Native
Corporations must be full partners in the implementation of this
Chapter and in the exchange of lands conveyed pursuant to the Alaska
Native Claims Settlement Act.''
Report and Recommendations for Identification of Land Swaps
(a) Title 43, United States Code, is amended to insert section
1629(i), as follows:
`` 1629(i) Federal Land Swap Reports and Recommendations
``(a) As used in this section the term ``contaminant'' means a
hazardous substance harmful to public health or the environment,
including friable asbestos.
``(b) Within 6 months of January 1, 2019, and after consultation
with the Secretary of Agriculture, State of Alaska, and appropriate
Alaska Native Corporations and organizations, the Secretary shall
submit to the Committee on Resources of the House of Representatives
and the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources of the Senate, a
report addressing issues presented by the presence of contaminants on
lands conveyed or prioritized for conveyance to such corporations
pursuant to this chapter. Such report shall consist of--
``(1) existing information concerning the nature and types of
contaminants present on such lands prior to conveyance to Alaska Native
Corporations.
``(2) existing information identifying to the extent practicable
the existence and availability of potentially responsible parties for
the removal or remediation of the effects of such contaminants.
``(3) identification of existing remedies.
``(4) recommendations for any additional legislation that the
Secretary concludes is necessary to remedy the problem of contaminants
on the lands; and
``(5) in addition to the identification of contaminants,
identification of structures known to have asbestos present and
recommendations to inform Native landowners on the containment of
asbestos.
``(b) Within 6 months of January 1, 2019, and after consultation
with the Secretary of Agriculture, State of Alaska, and appropriate
Alaska Native Corporations and organizations, the Secretary shall
submit to the Committee on Resources of the House of Representatives
and the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources of the Senate, a
report recommending options for implementing an exchange of lands
conveyed to Alaska Native Corporations pursuant to the Alaska Native
Claims Settlement Act, for available federal lands of equivalent fair
market value. Such report shall consist of--
``(1) identification of existing non-contaminated federal lands
available for conveyance to Alaska Native Corporations;
``(2) identification of lands conveyed to Alaska Native
Corporations pursuant to the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, and
that the Alaska Native Corporation desires to exchange for available
federal lands of equivalent fair market value;
``(3) recommendations for legislation that the Secretary concludes
will facilitate the exchange of lands conveyed pursuant to the Alaska
Native Claims Settlement Act for available, non-contaminated federal
lands.''
MITIGATION BANKING FOR NATIVE ALASKAN BROWNFIELD SITES.
Section 104(k)(1) of the Comprehensive Environmental Response,
Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (42 U.S.C. 9604(k)(1)) (as
amended by sections 8 and 9) is amended by inserting after paragraph
(12) the following:
``(13) AUTHORIZATION OF MITIGATION BANKING FOR NATIVE ALASKAN
BROWNFIELD SITES.--
``(A) PURPOSE.--
``The purpose of this subpart is to establish standards and
criteria for the use of all types of compensatory mitigation, including
on-site and off-site permittee-responsible mitigation, mitigation
banks, and in-lieu fee mitigation, for the remediation of Native
Alaskan brownfield sites, and to provide credits for such remediation
that may be used for the issuance of permits by the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers (Corps) pursuant to section 404 of the Clean Water Act (33
U.S.C. 1344).''
(B) DEFINITIONS.--
``For the purposes of this subpart only, the following terms are
defined:
Compensatory mitigation means the restoration (re-establishment or
rehabilitation), establishment (creation), enhancement, and/or in
certain circumstances preservation of Native Alaskan brownfield sites
for the purposes of offsetting unavoidable adverse impacts which remain
after all appropriate and practicable avoidance and minimization has
been achieved.
Mitigation bank means a Native Alaskan brownfield site, or suite of
Native Alaskan brownfield sites, where resources are remediated
compensatory mitigation for impacts authorized by Department of the
Army permits. In general, a mitigation bank sells compensatory
mitigation credits to permittees whose obligation to provide
compensatory mitigation is then transferred to the mitigation bank
sponsor. The operation and use of a mitigation bank are governed by a
mitigation banking instrument.
Native Alaskan brownfield site shall mean a brownfield site, as
defined in this subchapter, owned or operated by Native Alaskan
Regional Corporations and Native Alaskan Village Corporations, as those
terms are defined in the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (43 U.S.C.
1601 and following) and the Metlakalta Indian community.
Credit means a unit of measure (e.g., a functional or areal measure
or other suitable metric) representing the accrual or attainment of
remedial functions at a compensatory mitigation site. The measure of
remedial functions is based on the resources restored, established,
enhanced, or preserved.
(C) MITIGATION AND MITIGATION BANKING REGULATIONS.-
``(1) To ensure opportunities for participation in Native Alaskan
brownfield site mitigation banking, the Secretary of the Army, acting
through the Chief of Engineers, shall issue regulations establishing
performance standards and criteria for the use, consistent with section
404 of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (33 U.S.C. 1344), of on-
site, off-site, and in-lieu fee mitigation and mitigation banking of
Native Alaskan brownfield sites as compensation for lost wetlands
functions in permits issued by the Secretary of the Army under such
section. To the maximum extent practicable, the regulatory standards
and criteria shall maximize available credits and opportunities for
mitigation, provide flexibility for regional variations in conditions,
functions and values, and apply equivalent standards and criteria to
each type of compensatory mitigation.
``(2) Final regulations shall be issued not later than two years
after the date of the enactment of this Act.
``(3) Applicability. This subpart does not alter the circumstances
under which compensatory mitigation is required.''
TAX CREDIT FOR NATIVE ALASKAN ENVIRONMENTAL REMEDIATION.
Subsection (h) of Section 198 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986
is amended--
(1) by striking the period and inserting a comma followed by:
``except as to expenditures paid or incurred in connection with
qualified contaminated sites owned or operated by Native Alaskan
Regional Corporations and Native Alaskan Village Corporations, as those
terms are defined in the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (43 U.S.C.
1601 and following) and the Metlakalta Indian community.''
Senator Murkowski. Hallie, thank you. We so appreciate that
and the passion with which you come today.
In listening, it seems almost obvious that we have a
Federal view to my left over here, and the State and tribal and
local view to my right. It wasn't intended to be that way, but
perhaps for levels of questions back and forth and the back and
forth, and I would hope that there would be an opportunity for
some of the issues that have been raised in both areas, for
people to be able to weigh in and to provide greater clarity
for the record.
Let's begin with the questions. I think it is important to
recognize that we are all talking about matters of
environmental justice here. I would hope that if there is any
agreement up here, it is with a recognition that when our
Native peoples, our indigenous peoples, are provided or given a
promise by the Federal Government that the very basic promise
will be kept and that it will be fair. I think we should be
able to stipulate that it is not fair that the lands that were
provided to many of our Alaska Native people through the
conveyance of ANCSA, it is not a fair deal when the lands are
tainted, when the lands are contaminated, when you cannot
derive economic value as was promised.
I want to start with you, Mr. Cohn. There has been a fair
amount of back and forth here about the role of the Department
of Interior and the reports that we have seen. I think you can
fully appreciate that when a report is asked for in 1998, and
then 20 years later you are still dealing with the fact that
you just have a report and now we have asked for yet another
updated report, and then we resolve the issue of liability in
2018, and then five years later we are here at a field hearing
to discuss collaboration, that from the perspective of those on
the ground another report is not the place where anybody wants
to be.
In 1998, with that report, the Department of Interior did
seem to recognize the environmental justice, that when you are
conveying contaminated lands to settle land claims through
ANCSA, that this needs to be reconciled. At that time in that
report, there was a commitment to take a leadership role to
coordinate the implementation of the report's recommendations
back then. So that was back in 1998.
Then in 2016, in the updated report, the BLL takes a
different view, to the point that the Commissioner raised
effectively, saying BLM doesn't have a responsibility for any
aspect of the contaminated lands problem. You reiterated that
here in your testimony saying that basically your role is the
transfer of lands, and you have characterized the agency as the
Federal Government's real estate agent, and basically placing
any coordinating role with the State of Alaska as well as EPA.
That has been pointed out, EPA is not the landholder here.
So I would ask if you would provide to me what you believe
the responsibility is that the Department and BLM specifically
have to Alaska Native peoples with regard to the contaminated
lands. Do you feel that you have no obligation other than what
you have mentioned? Going forward, you will provide notice that
these lands are contaminated? Is there no obligation
effectively with the agency itself as it relates to
contaminated lands that were conveyed?
Mr. Cohn. Thank you, Senator, for that question. Speaking
for myself, I do hear everything that is being said. I really
do appreciate and understand the injustice that has happened,
and want to recognize that. I do think it is a situation that
has developed literally over decades. So I understand the
frustration and the length of time that this issue continues to
be a problem for communities, for Alaska Native tribes and for
the State as a whole.
When ANCSA was passed in 1971, it was prior to really the
sort of modern environmental laws that really govern so much of
what we are talking about today. The role of the BLM in that
Act was fairly straightforward. It was really to act as the
agent that would adjudicate land claims, survey those claims,
and eventually transfer title. We have been doing that, both
with Alaska Native claims through ANCSA as well as with the
State of Alaska through the Statehood Act, diligently for the
last decades.
At that time, the statute was very clear that it is not a
discretionary action for the BLM. Our role is to convey those
lands pursuant to the Act. At the time that the Act was passed,
it did not contain a measure regarding evaluating those lands
for contamination. As we know, many of those lands were
selected in the 1970s. They were done prior to any
acknowledgement or recognition of the scope of the problem.
Senator Murkowski. So in 2014 then, with that Congressional
directive specific to BLM, BLM was effectively told, prepare a
cleanup plan for each of the contaminated sites that were
transferred pursuant to ANCSA. So I get what you are saying
about that period in between 1979, in 1971 with the passage of
ANCSA, and prior to this directive. But it seems to me that the
language in 2014 was pretty clear.
Now, that was not done. That was not included in the 2018
report. So you have a clear directive, it seems to me, to the
agency to do this. We haven't seen that. Are you working to do
that now?
Mr. Cohn. We have been working through following the
recommendations and the report, the 2016 report, with the
primary initial step of really, for the first time, trying to
have sort of a consolidation of all the information we have
from various sources through the State, through the other
Federal agencies, and putting that information into a
geospatial data base. So actually not only having sort of
written records or contemporaneous notes about these sites, but
actually beginning to map them, so that we have some sense of
what we are dealing with.
Some of these different data bases and different data
sources, they don't all agree. They have approached the
problems differently. So we might have one data base that
describes one site and another data base that might describe
the same area with ten sites. So we are trying to reconcile all
that. Our intention is to finalize that with the most current
data that we are receiving from the State, then to transfer all
of that information to the State as a central clearinghouse for
getting that information out.
Senator Murkowski. So your plan is to bring together a more
coherent inventory, and then give that to the State to fix? It
seems to me that the directive to the BLM was to prepare a
cleanup plan for each of the contaminated sites. So just
transferring it to the State, then, doesn't seem to be a very
fair plan for cleanup.
Mr. Cohn. I appreciate the question. I think our intention
here is to provide this information to the State given that the
State has the authority to basically identify the responsible
parties and to then work with those----
Senator Murkowski. We have already identified the
responsible parties. We have done that. That is what we began
to do in 1998. That is what we saw with that second report in
2014 and in 2016. We are not still identifying responsible
parties.
Mr. Cohn. I would defer to the State on that issue.
Senator Murkowski. Are we still identifying responsible
parties, or are we pointing fingers?
Mr. Brune. Senator Murkowski, through joint and several
liability, the Federal Government is a responsible party, full
stop. There are definitely other responsible parties, but the
Federal Government, who was a landowner during the time that
contamination occurred, is a responsible party. I don't know if
that is Department of Defense, if it is the Bureau of Land
Management, if it is the FAA or who it is, Senator, but it is
the U.S. Government.
And it is the responsibility, I would hope, of someone in
the Federal Government, to stop pointing fingers, to stop
saying it is the responsibility of a different Federal agency
other than themselves, and to put a plan together as instructed
by Congress to clean up these lands. The responsibility, full
stop, is the Federal Government, and the indigenous people, the
Alaska Native people have an expectation that the Federal
Government will work out who the responsible party is amongst
themselves, or who may have contaminated the lands when they
were in the ownership of the Federal Government, then they can
go after them.
But through joint and several liability, Senator, the
United States Government is the responsible party.
Senator Murkowski. So what we have been asking for, for
some period of time, is really to have that entity, that
Federal entity that is the coordinating agency, and I know
nobody wants it, everybody wants somebody else to take this on.
But it seems to me that the Department of Interior, that BLM,
is probably in the best position to act as coordinating agency
to help to coordinate all of this, to speed this up, to do
exactly what the Commissioner has just outlined. If there is an
issue about whether the contamination was caused by military or
by another Federal agency, to figure out how we prioritize
additional funding to pay for the cleanups, to provide land
exchanges as Hallie has suggested, to take back the damaged
lands, to allow the corporations to gain different lands,
useful lands, that will again address this longstanding issue.
It seems to me that that should be one of the outcomes from
what happens today, is that at a bare minimum here, we get some
commitment. I would hope the Department of Interior and you as
the new BLM State director would be willing to make that
commitment, step up and take on the coordinating agency role
here with respect to ANCSA contaminated lands.
We have got to stop saying that we are going to come
together, we are going to collaborate, we are going to create
these task forces, interagency working groups. I am all over
the Arctic Executive Steering Committee. But again, this is not
an issue that we need to study and study and study. What we
need to do is we need to have an actionable plan.
So I would ask if you can commit to me today that the
Department of Interior, through BLM here in the State, can take
on this coordinating role.
Mr. Cohn. Senator, I can certainly take that request back
to the Department.
Senator Murkowski. Ms. Reed, can you speak to that?
Ms. Reed. I think I would have to echo Steve's comment that
we will take that request back to the Department. But we are
committed to working with our Federal partners to correct this
injustice.
Senator Murkowski. Well, know that I have already asked
Secretary Haaland on this specific issue, have raised this
issue with her when she was before the Energy and Natural
Resources Committee, I don't believe that I have raised it at
an Indian Affairs Committee. But I have suggested that is
Interior, the Department of Interior, that would play a very
key and a very important role in terms of a coordinating
agency.
So I would like to know that by the end of this week, we
can get some kind of a determination from Interior as to a
commitment as a coordinating agency. Because for too long, we
have had lots of eyes on things. But when nobody is really
exercising the oversight, it is just too easy to not make
forward progress. I think that is where we have been with this
issue. Everyone recognizes there is environmental injustice
that has been done. Everybody recognizes that this has not been
just. Everyone recognizes that this is expensive. Nobody wants
to take it out of their budgets.
This is where I am going to turn to the EPA and bring you
into the conversation, Dr. Waterhouse. I want to echo what the
Commissioner has said. I think EPA has been willing to be a
partner working with us, certainly through the appropriations
process, to figure out what more we can do to actually start
the cleanup. The cleanup is where we want to be.
I don't want to be sitting here in another hearing to just
talk about what more we need to be doing on an inventory side.
I want to know actually what we have been doing to get these
specific sites cleaned up.
Let me ask you, Dr. Waterhouse, what does it mean to treat
the ANCSA contaminated lands issue as an environmental justice
issue? Is this something where, when you view it through this
lens and a recognition that there are opportunities, I think,
for resources, if we viewed these contaminated lands sites
through the lens of environmental justice and being able to tap
into different resources there? Talk to me a little bit about
that.
Dr. Waterhouse. Thank you so much for the question,
Senator. One, it means that we need to have an all hands on
deck approach. It means that we not only as a Federal family
need to reach across and beyond the silos that we have operated
in in the past, to be creative, to work with our State
partners, to work with the tribal corporations, to work with
the Native villages, to work on this problem.
It also means we need to have an all-of-EPA approach. What
we have done is look at the authorities that we have within our
agency to bring together different funding streams that we can
put together toward this problem. So it means that we are
working within our Superfund program to make additional
resources available for site assessment work.
We are working within our Brownfields program to make
additional resources available, to get Brownfields funding and
grants out to community members. We also are making more
persons within the Office of Land and Emergency Management
available to help oversee this work. It means that we are
working to prioritize this as something that we are dedicated
and committed to seeing done and seeing it through.
So, for us, because environmental justice is a priority
within the Administration, we have prioritized this work. That
is why we have already made past visits here and have other
visits planned. We have our staff in Region 10 who are working
very diligently with us to help oversee this work.
We are committed, Senator, to work with whatever resources
Congress provides that support the inventory, assessment, and
cleanup of contaminated lands. We plan on moving forward as
quickly as we can. We agree with you that there is an urgency.
And the urgency is part of our attention to the environmental
injustice which has been much too long going on.
Senator Murkowski. So when you talk about a whole-of-
government approach, I agree. I would just ask that through
BLM, through Interior, that they play a role as the
coordinating lead. Do you think that is important to how we are
able to execute a whole-of-government approach?
Dr. Waterhouse. I think we absolutely have to have
coordination to move forward. I think the problem of the past,
Senator, is the fact that we have had multiple agencies
working, but they are all working on their own tracks. We need
to work together to be effective to get this done.
With looking at cleanup work across the Country, I am going
to very candid with you, Senator, whether we are dealing with
issues in New Mexico and in Arizona and Colorado and Utah, with
the Navajo Nation, or whether we are dealing with cleanup
issues that are taking place in Alabama or in Michigan, I see
similar problems when we have Federal agencies that aren't
really working together, and they are working at cross
purposes. Even if DOI takes the lead as coordinating agency,
unless everybody is moving in the same direction, we still are
struggling with the same problem.
That is why I believe that the Arctic Executive Steering
Committee work moves beyond just saying, let's get a report
out. But it means working together to get a unified data base
and dashboard that is shared between all the Federal agencies
and our partners on the ground and Native corporations and
villages that is a public-facing tool that we all can use.
It is not an end, but it is a necessary step forward. Right
now, we have different data bases across different agencies.
Sitting right here at this dais, we don't all agree on exactly
where all the problems are.
So until we get that, it is going to be hard for us to get
solutions.
Senator Murkowski. So let me ask on that, I think you have
outlined the importance of making sure that you are
consolidating the information, that everybody is not using
different sources there. It kind of goes to what you were
saying, Steve, about additional inventory.
Yet, you have an imperative on this end of the table. You
have people out here that probably had important things to do
today but they really care about the fact that their drinking
water could be contaminated, that the berries, the salmon
berries that are ripe now, or the blueberries that they are
waiting for might be contaminated.
Nobody wants to hear that, well, we are doing additional
consolidation of information and additional inventory, that we
are not going to be able to see action on the ground. As we do
this, as we work to build out this coordinated dashboard, does
this mean that cleanup work is put on hold while we do all
this?
Dr. Waterhouse. I think it absolutely can't mean the
cleanup work. I think we have to, as my boss is fond of saying,
we have to learn how to fly and kind of build a plane at the
same time. That is why we are really excited about the
additional Brownfields funding that is available. We are
excited about the additional appropriations that have been kind
of set up for work on the ground. That is why we are excited
about using additional site assessment work to address orphan
sites and moving forward as urgently as we can while still
moving this data base that will be necessary for us to have
prioritization.
One of the things is, when you have a big problem, you have
to figure out exactly what has to be done first. Having the
data base allows us to then have a prioritization to say, this
is posing the greatest risk, we need to go there next. This
site is posing a lower risk, but it is greater than the rest,
we go there next. Those are essential steps that we have to
move forward to be successful.
Senator Murkowski. So let me ask you on the prioritization,
because it is something that we hear a lot about, I think we
recognize the longer the FUDS are contaminated, the more we see
the PCB pollution remain in the food chain, the more we see
associated health problems, we are seeing increased instances
of breast cancer amongst Alaska Native women attributed to the
PCBs from FUDS that we are seeing out in St. Lawrence Island.
They think that other chronic illnesses could be attributed to
them as well.
I understand there is no direct research to support the
claims that we are hearing out there. But again, we are hearing
too many of these health-related concerns to not be paying
attention to them. What active research programs do you have to
better understand the health effects of the contamination that
we know exists? How then is that information being used to help
prioritize the different sites for cleanup? How does that
factor in?
Dr. Waterhouse. Right now, because we have literally the
DOD, it has its important FUDS work that is going forward, its
cleanup work, we have BLM, which also has its footprint and
approach to this within DOI, we have work that we are doing for
assessment and work that we are doing for Brownfields. To be
honest, as of right now, we all have different work that is
going on. We don't have a unified approach. So we are directing
Brownfields and other resources based on what we are hearing
from people on the ground.
So when people on the ground are telling us, this is where
there is a problem, this is where we are trying to say, well,
let's see what we can do to try and assess that.
Senator Murkowski. You listen to the stories and the
anecdotes, you don't necessarily wait and say, well, we want to
have a study on that?
Dr. Waterhouse. I don't think so, but we do, under our
resources, we have to get scientists and engineers out there to
do sampling and to do investigation. That is what we are doing
in the Superfund program by making additional site assessment
resources available. We can inform the use of those resources
by talking with our partners on the ground, the consortia,
Native villages and others.
Senator Murkowski. And you are doing that in many of these
visits that you are doing in the State, aren't you?
Dr. Waterhouse. We are having a lot of public engagement,
and we are trying to meet. Yesterday I was meeting with the
Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium. These meetings are
essential for us to know where we need to direct our resources.
Senator Murkowski. This is a question for anyone over here,
Interior, Corps, or EPA. Does the Federal Government have an
estimate on the cost to investigate and remediate the ANCSA
contaminated sites? Hallie has suggested in her testimony that
it is somewhere between $60 billion and $100 billion is what is
estimated. Can any of you speak to that estimated number and
give me a gauge here?
Colonel Delarosa. In looking at the DOD-specific areas,
obviously there are more contaminated ANCSA lands than just
what the DOD is looking at, we estimate it to be about $1.65
billion for the whole State of Alaska, for the DOD FUDS
program, yes, ma'am.
Senator Murkowski. What about other lands that we have
identified that are non-DOD?
Mr. Cohn. Senator, I will speak a little bit for what BLM
has been doing. We have mostly in terms of our cleanup work on
the ground been focused on sites that you could characterize
mostly as abandoned mines. They were mined previously by
private entities. Those entities no longer exist or went
bankrupt and left the State. So we are working to clean up
sites of that nature.
It is a limited number of them, and we have cleaned up
several sites already around the State. Probably the largest
single site that we are working on right now is the Red Devil
Mine in the Kuskokwim, which is, it depends upon the final
cleanup in terms of the final remediation. But the cost could
range anywhere between $30 million and $200 million for that
one site. That is probably the longest single site that we are
trying to address in the State.
Senator Murkowski. But BLM has not more broadly identified
cost of remediation throughout the State?
Mr. Cohn. No, we haven't. We have only been focused
primarily on the sites where we know the responsible party for
those sites, or potential responsible party. Again, mostly
abandoned mine sites.
Senator Murkowski. Commissioner, do you have a handle on
what you believe remediation costs may be?
Mr. Brune. I think it is important to understand the extent
of the problem. Many of these sites, as you outlined in your
opening comments, are rural. Getting logistic support to rural
Alaska is extremely expensive, Senator. To get some drill rigs
out there, to actually understand, as BLM was instructed to do
by Congress in 2014 and 2016, to actually understand the extend
of the problem, we have to get boots on the ground.
So to make an estimate, Interior needs to do what they were
instructed to do by Congress already. What Colonel Delarosa was
saying, the $1.65 billion, that is what we know, prior to the
liability being removed. I was with the regional corporation at
the time. Folks were scared to say what they knew was
contaminated because they might be responsible for it. So I
think there are a lot more contaminated sites out there than we
even know about.
So Hallie's leadership on this effort has been amazing, and
she deserves huge credit. I think the number is significant. I
can't tell you what it is, but let me use Red Devil as an
example. That $30 million to $50 million cost, we had a mine
project proponent in Donlin ready to clean that area up for
mitigation. The Corps of Engineers said no and instructed them
to lock up lands. I was responsible for some of those
agreements when I was at SERI [phonetically] to lock up lands
for conservation for mitigation for what Donlin was going to
do. instead of cleaning up Red Devil and using their expertise.
That is the part of thing that we should be considering as
a win-win-win for the environment, for the watershed, and for
project proponents who want to help areas. That is an
opportunity where, if the Federal Government is going to be not
giving the money, you have the private sector willing to do it
for mitigation. That is an opportunity.
I think as we are talking about, we can't let a geospatial
data base or all that discussion get in the way of actually
getting boots on the ground for doing site delineation, finding
out the extent of the contamination, and actually doing the
cleanup. They need to be parallel approaches. We are not seeing
that. The scale of the funding that we are seeing today is so
minuscule, it is going to be decades.
I will conclude with an answer to that: we don't know the
number. But if, truly, Interior felt that this was a priority,
they would do what they have done for Ambler Road. They would
do a brand-new EIS on it even though they don't need to.
Because that EIS and that ROD was already done. They would
dedicate money that is being focused on fighting the State to
navigability cases, when we are trying to get rivers extended
to us. They would use that money.
Nope. They are not finding that extra money because it is
not a priority for them, Senator. I guarantee you if they
wanted to make it a priority, they would.
Senator Murkowski. Yes. I don't disagree with you, my
friend.
I want to get into this issue of, all right, we recognize
that it is going to be costly to clean up, so what are some of
the other proposals. There have been some suggestions here that
I want to follow up with.
But before I do that, I want to go over to the Corps for
just a moment. I asked Dr. Waterhouse a little bit about the
prioritization, when you have health and safety issues. Can you
explain to me the prioritization that DOD uses for FUDS
cleanup? We have over 530 FUDS sites in the States, 196 are on
Alaska Native lands, and 35 projects here on Unalaska and 20 on
Amaknak alone. Through DOD, how do you prioritize for FUDS
cleanup?
Ms. Beasley. Thank you, Senator, for the opportunity to
explain that. As I have said, we have a significant problem, a
significant issue with FUDS in Alaska as well as in the United
States. So when we prioritize a site for investigation and
cleanup, we follow a risk-based process. We address sites with
the highest risk to human health and the environment first. We
have two different ways of doing that, depending on the type of
site.
For sites that are contaminated with hazardous, toxic, and/
or radioactive waste, we use the relative risk site evaluation
score. Every single site that, HTRW site in the FUDS program
has a relative risk site evaluation score. For sites that have
contamination from military munitions, we use the military
munitions response site prioritization protocol, or MRSPP.
Every single site in the FUDS inventory that has military
munitions has been scored for the MRSPP. Those are not only
scores that we do within the Corps of Engineers and the
Department of Defense, but we work collaboratively on the data
that generates that information with our stakeholders, property
owners, and our regulators.
The Corps also develops a statewide management action plan
on a yearly basis with the State of Alaska. Our teams
coordinate cleanup activities with the State, EPA, and have
meaningful involvement by our tribes, landowners, including
ANCSA, corporations, local officials, and the public. Then at
the very local level, ma'am, we have the restoration advisory
boards. We are really proud of the very active restoration
advisory board here on Unalaska that meets quarterly.
Senator Murkowski. You mentioned the word coordination with
other agencies. I will urge you to be really focused on that as
you are working through the various cleanup sites. As most of
you know, I have been very aggressive over the years in trying
to get these legacy wells cleaned up on the North Slope. I
think we have made some progress, and that is good. But it is
in the category of about damned time we have made some
progress.
I have heard different stories about how we are not being
as efficient as we should be across our Federal agencies. It is
expensive to mobilize equipment to get up to the North Slope
for one season. The equipment is relatively specialized. What I
hear is, we will send it up, it will be up there for the period
of time that it needs to be, and then it is sent back down,
goes right back, right across the area where the Department of
Defense is working on another cleanup that needs the same
equipment.
But because one job is related to the legacy well and
another one is a FUDS site, we are not partnering as we might
want to, even within our own Federal agencies. The specifics I
am talking about was a cleanup on Point Lay, this was some
years ago. But it was just a reminder to me that we could be a
lot smarter with how we are moving things around and how we are
saving dollars on some of these cleanup projects.
Are there issues with regard to permitting that can be
approved? We are always talking about what we may want to do
with NEPA exemptions to just facilitate more readily some of
these projects. Is that something that would be important as
you try to advance some of these projects on a more expedited
timeline?
Colonel Delarosa. The challenges of having two people from
the same organization over here. Ma'am, obviously when we talk
about regulatory permitting, it is certainly a big topic. We
have had a lot of conversations with both yourself and
Commissioner Brune on this topic itself. The permitting of the
NEPA piece with regard to getting into the FUDS cleanup, they
are separate and distinct. So it is not impacting, changes to
the NEPA process doesn't impact how we go about doing our FUDS
cleanup.
Senator Murkowski. Okay.
Colonel Delarosa. So maybe I don't understand your
question.
Senator Murkowski. As we look at those things that we put
in our way, those barriers to getting the job done, I want to
know what the barriers are and if we can take some of those
down. It sounds to me like you are saying at least when it
comes to NEPA, that is not an issue for you. Maybe there are
other permitting issues?
Ms. Beasley. No, ma'am. I really am proud of the work that
we have done in the State of Alaska. We are a continually
improving organization. But we are getting work done, and we
are committed to continuing to clean up these sites. We have
spent more here than in any other State in the Country.
Senator Murkowski. Which we appreciate. But again, I think
we recognize that when you are talking about $30 million over
the last five years, I appreciate that it is the most for any
other State. But we know, we can go through $30 million awful
quick moving stuff around this State.
So, I don't know, when you were walking me through the
prioritization, if there is any way that you can prioritize
ANCSA lands within the FUDS selection process.
Ms. Beasley. We certainly take all of our environmental
justice requirements seriously when we do all of this, whether
it is a relative risk site evaluation or MRSPP, and in our
discussions with the State of Alaska and the statewide
management action plan where we do our prioritization.
Senator Murkowski. So then if we are recognizing that ANCSA
contaminated lands is an environmental justice issue, we are
going to try to encourage the Administration to commit to
utilizing environmental justice funds. So if that is the case,
can that not be incorporated as yet one of the considerations
for prioritization when you are looking at FUDS?
Ms. Beasley. I think that is a great question, and I think
it deserves a detailed response. But I would say I would like
to take that question back to the Department of Defense as
those prioritization protocols, those site evaluations are
policy from the Department of Defense. I think you deserve a
detailed response on that, Senator.
Senator Murkowski. I will await that response, and I would
encourage you to look at that critically. Again, when I think
about the matters that we are referring to as environmental
justice in the political world of Washington, D.C. today, I
can't think of any example where there has been greater
injustice done to our indigenous peoples than when it comes to
our own government's failure to respond to our matters of
contamination. So I would ask you to take that back.
I want to raise one very local issue here. This came to my
attention through the Mayor. This is a site that the Qawalangin
Tribe razed its Building 551, it is a former Navy mess hall at
the Dutch Harbor Naval Operating Base. It is located within the
Amaknak and the Unalaska Islands FUDS. It is a World War II era
building, was a former mess hall. The building and apparently
the lands are just full of PCB contamination.
This site was bombed by the Japanese. The site is not
eligible for remediation under the FUDS program based on the
high level of PCBs. It was not eligible for work under the
NALEMP program. But the tribe was actually told that this
building can't be cleaned up under NALEMP because the impact at
the site was caused by the Japanese bombing. It superseded the
DOD being there.
Now, to me this is one of those things that is like, wow,
it is hard to fathom why the DOD would not be willing to work
to address that. So as I understand it, and I am looking to
you, Mayor, for correction of this, but the burden, both
financial and health related, is now falling to the tribe and
to Ounalashka Corporation. So you are undertaking that.
It just seems to me that this is something that the
Department of Defense should be willing to work with the tribe
and the native corporation to address and fix this. I want to
make sure that I am detailing this correctly, Vince. So it is
my understanding that you are moving forward to address this,
because the Department of Defense will not. Is that correct?
Mr. Tutiakoff. Yes. And this is one of the issues that I
just don't understand. I worked for BLM early on in the program
in 1972 when we were doing the land selections for the village
of Unalaska. One of the concerns we had then was contamination.
This is one of the points that this specific building was hit
by machine gun fire from a Japanese plane at the time they
bombed. They were trying to bomb the building, missed it and
hit a contractor based vessel that is now sitting in Captain's
Bay, the Northwestern. That was part of the damage that was
done.
I just don't understand, because I worked for Standard Oil
for 20 years during that period. Of course, they came back,
said, well, Standard Oil, you are responsible because you were
using that building for storage. But that was 30 years later.
Yet the contamination was there.
It is proven, the City of Unalaska, I will speak to it
here, when they took over the power plant which we are using
now, we had to sue the Federal Government to clean it up. PCB
tunnels that ran from that building, 552, to the transformer to
the power plant, were all traced to the military. We didn't put
them in there. We don't have concrete vats plants, we don't
have equipment.
In fact, we weren't allowed on Amaknak Island until the
late 1950s as residents of Unalaska. If they caught us over
there or chased us down, we were arrested by shore patrol, and
the marshal would be called coming out of Cold Bay. You can't
make this stuff up.
And I am hearing some of these issues. My concern is that I
would like to see the Federal agencies get together and work,
talk about it. It is like you have your own little, you do,
most of you, have your own building and you are afraid to go
out and talk to the other one across the street. That has to
stop. Because this is a very important issue, and has been.
I appreciate the comments being made about trying to get it
done. But for me, and for probably many of the others that have
been on the OC board for many years, we are tired of it. Every
time we get a letter back, oh, we are going to confirm this,
then we are going to start a study.
Well, we have been studied enough. It is time to get the
funding, ask the Senator for more help there. Let's get these
programs, take all these studies and put them up on the shelf.
They have been studied enough. Come out here, send people out
here. When you send out people to do work in the Aleutian
Islands, you have to be ready and prepared to do it in a short
season, four to five months.
And it is going to cost. So we need to get it done. Thank
you.
Senator Murkowski. Thank you for that.
I would ask you, Colonel Delarosa, if you will commit to
work with me and with the tribe and the ANC to see if we can
address this.
Colonel Delarosa. Yes, ma'am. One thing I will say, I am
very, very proud of the RAB here in Unalaska. I think the
corporation is a leader, the community leaders that are
participating with that, my team from the Alaska District, they
know them very well. They know them on a first-name basis. They
see them regularly. I look out here and I see faces that know
me, and I know them.
So I do, hope you do understand that we do take this very
seriously, we do get on the ground and we do talk to these
folks. We do talk about the priorities. I am very familiar with
this building. I know it is a contentious issue. Sometimes
there are unfortunately things that get in the way. I think we
owe you a detailed response on this one.
Acts of war, unfortunately, don't get covered under the
FUDS. It creates problems with regard to CERCLA, which is what
we have to clean the FUDS projects up to. So there are
challenges within that.
I recognize that there are contaminants underneath this
building, which in and of itself creates a problem. How do you
clean up underneath a building? You demolish a building; you
clean everything underneath it. But we don't build the building
back.
So there are competing challenges with this particular
building. I feel for that community, and we have this
conversation, ma'am, and we commit to giving you a more
detailed response on this particular one. This is not one that
weighs lightly on us. We know this is one of the biggest issues
here. So we owe you a better response.
Senator Murkowski. It is just kind of tough here, you
recognize that it was here, it was here in the Aleutians where
this Country was invaded by the Japanese. Everybody else in the
lower 48, when they think of World War II and how America was
hit, it was Pearl Harbor. It was here. It was here. You had a
whole village that was completely removed from their homeland.
You had Alaska Native people, to Hallie's point, who were
standing watch, the Eskimo Scouts.
This needs to be addressed. It just needs to be addressed.
I will accept your offer to have further background to it,
but we owe it to these people here, not just Building 151, but
so many of these other issues in terms of prioritization and
what we can be doing to prioritize the cleanup on our Native
lands that have been transferred.
Some of you have suggested, all of you, but BLM and EPA in
particular, indicate that you have existing statutory
authorities that have some inherent limitations for work on
ANCSA contaminated lands. If you have limitations, part of what
I can do as a lawmaker is we can work to change those. We can
change the law. We can work to address some of these barriers.
Do any of you have for me right now a list of the
limitations that are kind of holding you back, or some proposed
changes to the law that would help you better facilitate what
we are trying to do here when it comes to remedying the
situation with our ANCSA contaminated lands? If you have that
quick list, I am happy to take it now. But know that I would
ask for more details on the specifics to this from the DOD,
from the EPA, from the DOI.
Would anyone care to comment on that at this point in time?
Or you can all get back to me.
[Laughter.]
Senator Murkowski. All right. I do see that as our EPA
representative down there, you are nodding your head. I am
going to look for a list of proposed changes from you.
Commissioner, were you going to weigh in on that?
Mr. Brune. I was just going to say, Senator, in the
testimony that I submitted, there is a list of recommendations
for potential statutory changes to ANCSA as well as to CERCLA
and RCRA that will help resolve many of the issues that we
have.
Senator Murkowski. Thank you for making the job easier for
those of our Federal partners. Hallie?
Ms. Bissett. Thank you, Senator. I just want to address one
thing, first, thank you so much for your service, and all the
hard work you do here in Alaska. I know you guys are working
hard, all of you, to address this issue. You are limited to
your constraints.
But $1.65 billion to clean up the entire State, if I just
took the example you used, $30 million to $200 million, well,
we will just use $30 million for one site times 1,100. I am not
super good at math, but I think that is like $30 billion. So I
don't know how you get from there to one. It is a matter of
putting those fences up and saying, well, these will never be
cleaned, so let's just put that under institutional controls,
or those are orphaned, we are just going to abandon those.
I think the number is closer to what I--well, we don't know
until we have this study. I just wanted to clarify that number
perhaps.
Senator Murkowski. So, I would like to turn to you because
you have raised the issue of exchange mitigation, both you and
Commissioner Brune. I think we recognize that when it comes to
land conveyances in this State, none of this is easy. I have
worked the Sealaska Lands Conveyance for how many years, we are
working the landless now, our Alaska Native veterans
allotments, these continue to remain challenges.
But I think we recognize that there are other ways to
address the issue. You have noted some in your written
testimony. I think those are appreciated. But as we look to
what will come out of this hearing, this dashboard and this
inventory that is perhaps better defined, but a plan for
remediation and cleanup isn't enough unless we actually act on
it.
What additional follow-on would you specifically recommend?
Ms. Bissett. Thank you, Senator, for that question. I think
first and foremost, when you take into consideration just the
size and scale of what needs to be done to clean up these lands
and then this one village, that will take 150 years to get
there, just in this one. And the 50 years past of lost economic
opportunity, I mean, is it reparations? I don't know. I think
it is land that is valuable, like I said. So this land swap, we
want the lands cleaned up, too.
Commissioner Brune actually was the first one to say, we
think we ought to get 100 acres of land for every one acre we
received contaminated. Sounds like a good plan to me. And
people in Congress will tell you it is really hard to get lands
in Alaska given over to private individuals. That might be
true, but it shouldn't be for Alaska Naive people who are in
this situation. Maybe for a private industrial development
company that is hard. But it shouldn't be hard for the people
who gave up 90 percent of their country for $60 billion or $30
billion, if we are going to be nice about it, worth of
contaminated liability.
There are also some creative solutions, Senator, that
again, Commissioner Brune was the first to bring to us. This is
around mitigation and cleanup. I know it is hard to get
government funds to do stuff, but right now, if you are going
to develop a project in Alaska, and I think it is everywhere in
the Country, but there is a 404 permit. You have to purchase
two acres of wetlands for every one acre that you impact. Well,
that is expensive, right? But we have to do what we have to do.
However, what if instead of having to buy two acres of
mitigation wetlands credits, you were able to buy a cleanup
credit, or you were able to actively clean up a site and get
credit for that, and to restore the mine or whatever it was
that was there to what it used to be, and you are still in kind
of a net zero in terms of impacts to the environment. I think
that is a beautiful idea. Private industry, Donlin Mine is a
great example, and Red Devil was brought up. They would have
loved to clean Red Devil up and have that be their mitigation
project.
But that kind of law just doesn't exist. We were nice and
provided you some suggested language in our written testimony
for you to consider. I think that is a really creative
solution. We understand that you don't have billions and
billions of dollars to give out for cleanup. But we cannot sit
around for the next 100 years continuing to lose on the lands
we did receive and continue to think that we got a fair shot at
this deal.
Senator Murkowski. And Mayor, that was one of the things
that you had mentioned in your comments as well, is that the
Ounalashka Corporation would like to be more included in
cleanup aspects of it, and recognizing that this builds
capacity and provides for economic opportunity. Cleaning up
somebody else's mess, but you are able to provide for jobs here
for your shareholders as well.
Mr. Tutiakoff. Yes, Senator. That was a point that we saw
early on in the formation of the corporation, that we had
contaminated lands. When we asked BLM or Department of
Interior, BIA, whomever, they would tell us, hey, you selected
it, it is your problem.
Well, it took us back to the point to, well, how are we
going to do that without an economic base, which was not
necessarily here then at the time. We didn't have fishing as we
have seen for the last 40 years at the time. Yet we continued
to move forward, work with the companies such as the cities,
other partners in industry, recognizing the fact that there
maybe, that they do not dig, you build from the ground up,
cover it, build from the ground up.
I know as far as a company like Unalaska Environmental,
which is an 8(a) company we formed because of necessity, we
wanted to be able to clean our own lands, identify when we do
run into soil movement, that we find sites where Unangan people
have lived for thousands of years, these midden sites, that we
be the ones to take care of that and bring these people to
where we can understand the life that they had before we put
them back into the ground again, which we do.
But yes, we would like to, and that is one of the reasons
we formed the 8(a), was to be the person, be the company. Now
in the past we have had companies come in and not only
companies but museums, in the late 1940s and 1950s through the
1950s, came in and dug up our lands and we didn't know what
they were doing, why they were here. They would tell us, well,
we are trying to find your culture and we will get back to you.
That didn't happen. A lot of that stuff was never returned.
It is a big part of our history that is now sitting in some
vault somewhere that nobody even knows about. So we want to
prevent that for any future Aleuts that are interested in their
culture.
But yes, we want to be the companies that do the work on
our land.
Senator Murkowski. And you have also mentioned that you
have to take the initiative to resolve some of these lands.
Otherwise, you can't make things happen within your own
communities. I think you mentioned a Head Start building here
in Unalaska. Walk me through exactly what you are dealing with
there. You obviously need to provide for your children in the
community. I suppose you could wait until somebody prioritizes
this as a cleanup project. But you haven't done that; you have
attempted to move forward and address these issues yourself.
But you are doing that at the city's own expense, is that
correct?
Mr. Tutiakoff. Yes, it is more of a working in partnership
with the tribe and APIA, which is a regional non-profit that
has put up this facility on behalf of the community. As we
identified early on, if you don't have a day care center or a
place to take their children, a lot of workers cannot work. So
that is one of the reasons. What happened was, after they did a
soil remediation, a test in the area of the building, where the
building was going to get built, while they were finishing the
foundation they were putting in their access road, secondary
access road. They went down into the gravel and dirt and found
fuel, it was an underground tank site.
Immediately stopped all work and rather than letting this
building sit all summer without getting built, APIA and the
corporation and the city also, to get the thing going, did the
remediation. Now APIA is seeking additional funding to get that
paid for.
But we are working with APIA, the tribe, to try and
remediate this property. It is a small area, I don't think it
is more than half an acre, quarter acre, if that, 200 by 100
feet or something like that. It is a stretch that it was an
underground tank, identified alter that there was a building
there. Just unfortunately that nobody knew it was there, wasn't
on our radar, nobody ever had been up there before.
But there are more sites like that on this island that we
don't even know about. They have been identified, 5,000, 6,000
buildings, but where are the tank? You have to dig to find
them, drill to find them. It is unfortunate, but that is what
we are dealing with here.
Senator Murkowski. Let me ask you one more question,
Commissioner. The State is in a position where we get to a
point where the level of cooperation and discussion is not
yielding the action. So the State has moved forward with
litigation that won't proceed. That is clearly a tool that the
State has.
As a member of the Federal delegation, and as somebody on
the Appropriations Committee, one of the tools that I have been
working in my tool box is trying to figure out, all right, can
we work with the folks in EPA to stand up a separate program?
We have funding in this next fiscal year, we are starting out
pretty skinny, but the fact that we have a new program in is
something that I am encouraged by and think that we have some
opportunities there. But I think we are all trying to figure
out, all right, how do we move this in different ways and
whether it is at the tribal level with the village corporations
doing what the State is doing, what we are doing, and the
agencies.
So this is kind of a general question. Do you feel that the
State has a fair working relationship with the Federal agencies
on this issue of contaminated lands? If not, what more can we
do to figure out how we are going to use this whole-of-
government approach? Because when I think of whole-of-
government, it can't just be the whole Federal Government. It
has to be all of government, at the State, the tribal, the
Federal. What more do we need to be doing?
Mr. Brune. If we thought the Federal Government was doing
enough, we wouldn't have brought the lawsuit, Senator. I have
talked with some folks off the record from the Federal
Government that have said, there is no way they are going to
settle this case that we have brought, which is disturbing to
me.
What we need are commitments. We need legally defensible
commitments from the Federal Government, a compliance order by
consent that will make commitments that they are going to
advocate for funding and they are going to put a timeline for
the cleanup of these sites.
We also want to ensure that, and again I need to give big
credit to Carlton for the efforts with the Arctic Executive
Steering Committee, but those groups come and go with
Administrations. We saw that group do nothing for the preceding
four years.
So those efforts need to be codified. We also need to
ensure that the plans that they are putting together, and when
Carlton was up with folks a couple of months ago, we told them,
it is imperative that it is not just the Federal Government
talking to themselves. They need to consult with the tribes.
They need to consult with the regional corporations and the
village corporations. They need to consult with the State. They
need to use, as the Mayor said, the regional and village
corporations to do this work, the 8(a)s. It would be a shame if
they did not utilize those efforts.
But we don't want to be told what they are going to be
doing. They need to be consulting with us, with them, in
developing the plans.
But consultation cannot get in the way of cleanup. We could
talk this one to death, we have for 50 years, Senator. We need
to see action, concurrently with consultation for these
efforts. And trust me, like I said, Senator, we did not want to
bring this litigation, but we had to. The only way we won't go
forward with this is if we see an agreement that will be
followed, that will be adhered to. We have already seen broken
promises or Federal law ignored. In 2016, you, Senator, along
with the rest of your colleagues, got at least the 51 votes and
whatever number in the House, you passed law that said the
Department of Interior, BLM, shall develop plans, and they
ignored it.
So I don't know what else you could do. There has to be
something that is enforceable to ensure that the Federal
Government just doesn't put this energy today for the next two
years, and then in two years a new Administration comes into
play and ignores it again. We need commitment that is
enforceable from the Federal Government to make this. And
again, we need to make sure that the folks who are impacted are
part of that process in developing the cleanup plans as well as
the State.
Senator Murkowski. I have in my notes that I have taken
here, I have various actionable items that I have kind of
jotted down. But rather than me sharing with you what I think
they are, I would like to hear each of our witnesses today give
me what your takeaway from this hearing is, and your actionable
items as a follow-on, so we all can hear where the Department
of Interior, the EPA, the Department of Defense, the State, the
tribe and our village corporations feel like, okay, this is
what I am doing, my agency is doing as we leave from here.
I don't want to have people who live here feel that that
was a nice two and a half hours where people came together and
talked about a really important issue and it is just going to
be more of the same. We cannot continue with more of the same.
Because more of the same is an injustice to these people and to
Alaska Natives and people really all over our State and in our
Country. We have an obligation on the Federal side to clean up
messes that have been created by our own government.
How we keep that commitment for all the right reasons,
environmental justice, health, safety, just doing the right
thing, we need to do more than talk about it. We need to be
able to act on it and we need to be able to act on it now.
So I am going to begin with you, Steve, and we will just go
down the list as you were introduced in terms of your key
takeaway and what you plan to report back to me, the Committee,
the Congress, and to one another.
Mr. Cohn. Thank you, Senator, and thank you for the
opportunity to testify today.
There are two takeaways that I have in my notes. One is
very specific to the Department. It is your preference that the
Department play a key role in coordinating these Federal
agencies that are here today.
Senator Murkowski. I think it was beyond more than just a
key role. I think I asked you to be the coordinating agency.
Mr. Cohn. The key role. The coordinating agency. It is a
question that I will take back to the Department, and you are
looking for a response very soon, if not by the end of the
week.
The second was a general question for all of the Federal
agencies represented here today: what is holding us back, and
what, from a statutory perspective, what are the limitations
that we face, and do we have any thoughts or suggestions on
things that might help better facilitate our ability to make
more rapid progress on this very serious problem that is facing
all of us.
So those are the two that I wrote down. I will ask Erika if
she has any additional takeaways that we would like to bring
back with us.
Ms. Reed. I would just add a commitment to consulting with
the tribes, the ANCs, other Alaska Native entities, and with
the Alaska Department of Conservation in our efforts moving
forward.
Senator Murkowski. And with the State.
Ms. Reed. I think I said the Alaska Department of
Conservation, yes. That is what I meant.
Senator Murkowski. Good. Thank you.
Dr. Waterhouse. Thank you, Senator. For us, I see that we
want to go back and find out what are the restrictions that we
have and limitations and barriers that we can get your help
with, and the help of your fellow Senators and others to remove
that would keep us from being even more effective in helping to
address contaminated lands. That is the key takeaway.
But I should say that additionally, I am energized by the
conservation that we have had and hearing from our partners
across this dais, and looking for ways that we can lean in
further and more effectively in getting cleanups done
expeditiously while we continue to work toward building and
developing this data base.
Senator Murkowski. On the DOD side.
Ms. Beasley. Senator, again, thank you for having us here
today. In addition to our robust execution of the Formerly Used
Defense Sites program in Fiscal Year 2022, we are going to
spend about $45 million in the State of Alaska alone as well as
our execution of the NALEMP program. We have taken back that we
are going to research a more thorough answer to you on the
restrictions for cleanup of act of war sites specific to this
community but more broadly throughout our Alaska Native lands.
Then specific considerations, potentially, for ANCSA
considerations and our prioritization protocols. Then anything
else that may be holding us back from a statutory limitation.
Colonel Delarosa, did I miss anything?
Colonel Delarosa. No, ma'am, I think you got everything. I
guess what I would take away, obviously, if the Army doesn't
show up for participation [indiscernible], I am very proud of
the fact that we have cleaned up 65 percent of the known FUDS
sites here in the State of Alaska with the past billion
dollars. And as we said before, looking at about $1.65 billion
to clean up the remainder of it.
So I am very, very proud of this team that is here in the
communities. I take your point on consultation very seriously.
I spend probably about 200 days of my year out in the
communities here of Alaska. I am very proud of the teams that I
have with me that know these folks on a by-name basis. We take
that back with us as well.
Senator Murkowski. I know you can't necessarily speak to
it, but I believe if I ask you the question, do you think that
we appropriately or adequately fund the Native American Lands
Environmental Mitigation Program? Does that line item get
sufficient funds given the need?
Ms. Beasley. I believe that the President's budget
accurately reflects the requirements of the NALEMP program,
Senator.
Senator Murkowski. Colonel Delarosa, do you think you have
enough here in Alaska for the projects that you have?
Colonel Delarosa. Ma'am, I think we do. I think what the
challenge is, the challenge is we know there is a lot of work
to be done. We also have to be realistic in terms of how much,
what is the capacity of industry to accomplish what we are
trying to do. So what we are being funded annually, which is as
Ms. Beasley has said, is more than any other State in the
United States, we are executing it. We are pushing industry to
its extent.
So I think we are currently funded adequately annually at
this point.
Senator Murkowski. Okay. And maybe I framed it wrong. Maybe
it is not, is the budget adequate. Do we have the resources? We
have not only Ounalashka Corporation that has its own
environmental team, I know that many of our 8(a)s are forming
these. We are trying to build the capacity to do the projects
that are required.
So maybe we haven't built sufficient capacity. In other
words, we could be cleaning up more if we had greater ability
to do so. Are those some limitations that nobody has really
talked about today?
Colonel Delarosa. I think the answer is yes, ma'am. Having
more capacity obviously means the ability to do more work. At
the same time, it would also then feed my need for a larger
staff to maintain. So they do go together to get up to what you
are asking for.
We do have a very competitive, we do follow competitive
contracting rules, and we do a lot of work with our 8(a)s,
whether through 8(a) set-asides or sole source. As I stated
earlier, Ounalashka Environmental Services is already doing
seven projects actively right now for underground storage tank
removal here in Unalaska.
So there is room for growth if industry grows with it. We
are on the ragged edge of probably pushing what industry can
do, given our current funding.
Senator Murkowski. Thank you. Commissioner Brune, takeaways
for the State.
Mr. Brune. Thank you, Senator. My takeaway from this
hearing is that we need to continue to hold the Department of
Interior's feet to the fire. We need to continue our
litigation. The fact that they could not make a commitment on
the spot, knowing today that that question would have been
asked is kind of a face palm, it was amazing to me.
With that said, Senator, I am committed to working with our
Federal partners. Again, I am excited that Carlton has made
this a priority. Administrations change, so we need to ensure
though that whatever ends up coming as a settlement is
enforceable.
I am committed to working with our Federal partners on data
bases, on understanding orphan sites. Orphan sites is such a
misnomer. They are not orphan sites, the Federal Government is
the responsible party. Orphan site, that title normally is
given to when you don't know who the responsible party is.
Federal Government owned the lands when they were contaminated.
They are not orphan sites.
But we are committed to working with them to give them
suggestions for what work needs to be done on these sites. I
have worked with your team, Senator, and the Appropriations
Committee to give recommendations for earmarks or
Congressionally directed funding for what needs to be done to
delineate the extent of the contamination. But these should not
be Congressionally directed funds. These should be in the base
budgets of these agencies, because it is their responsibility.
Another takeaway, I am committed to providing you and with
our Federal partners legislative ideas that will help resolve
this issue so they can't point to reasons and statutes why they
can't do things. I am committed to working with the Corps of
Engineers, as I have said previously. Three years ago, I met
with the Corps in D.C. with my suggestions for mitigation
options.
I have given that suggestion as well to Dave Hagge
[phonetically] and to Sarah and to Colonel Delarosa. Alaska has
175 million acres of wetlands, more wetlands than the lower 48
combined. Yet when projects happen in the State, they want us
to create more. We also have more conservation system units
than the lower 48 does, 175 million acres of CSUs. More
wilderness than the lower 48 combined.
It is a no-brainer that we should be providing alternative
and working with the Corps of Engineers for mitigation
opportunities, to clean up watersheds, to use the private
sector, their funding and their desires from an ESG perspective
as well as from a doing what is right for the watershed to
change the law so that 404 mitigation opportunities to clean up
ANCSA contaminated lands, as Hallie brought up, is an option.
The final takeaway is I am committed to working with ANVCA
and the affected folks to identify the sites that I know have
not yet been put on one of these lists. There are sites,
because the fear was there, Senator, that they would be
responsible. We need to get an education campaign out there to
make sure the village corporations, the regional corporations,
know that the contamination that occurred before they owned
these lands is not their responsibility.
In conclusion, I am committed to working, but I am not
committed to being the lead entity. That entity, that
responsibility falls on the U.S. Government.
Senator Murkowski. Very good. Mayor? Actionable items.
Mr. Tutiakoff. I want to thank everyone who attended this
hearing from different Federal agencies. I know it sounds easy
for me to say, work together, get it done. I know you have a
process, every department has different goals, different maybe
even different agendas sometimes.
But you are affecting a community, small community, of our
people. The big picture of that whole thing is a community that
is 5,000, 6,000, and sometimes 9,000 to 12,000. We have gone
through, so many times, this process. This kind of hearing is a
first for me, but I have testified on behalf of the Unangan
people in regard to repatriation, when our people were taken
from six other communities besides Unalaska, from their homes.
So I understand there is a lot of issues. But we have to
clean this up, and our people are getting sick. A lot of them
have died in the last 45, 50 years, some my age I grew up with.
I know at least three of them died of cancer, from various
degrees of cancer. That is kind of alarming, that that is
happening. I think a lot of it has to do with the contamination
that was left here by the military, by the U.S. Government.
Some of these sites I mentioned are in other villages, they
were not necessarily done by the military. But they were done
by the U.S. Government, like the FAA, White Owl stations that
were put up many years ago after the war. Some of that has been
cleaned up, but a lot of it hasn't been only because they
didn't have enough funding.
The cost to put people out on these sites is four to five
times more than if you were doing it in downtown Anchorage or
Juneau or these other places where tens of thousands of people
live. We need to understand that it is costly. We know that.
But at least try and clean up the lands that are
economically viable for putting back into the community. We are
afraid to do that without being accused of giving up property
for homes and schools and things like that down the future and
then being told it is contaminated and not having the resources
to work to get it done, get it cleaned up.
So work with the corporations, work with the city and work
with the village. Find the areas that have priorities for this
community and work from there out. If we go way out there, 20,
30 miles out there and start cleaning up, I think it would be
good for OC but nobody else is going to be there to enjoy it.
In other words, downtown to Amaknak or the island of Amaknak,
downtown Unalaska is still contaminated. Some of these houses
are sitting on lands that were never cleaned.
Every time the city or GCI, who has been here for almost
six to eight months now, they are finding stuff. And they have
to stop and go to another location until it has been cleaned or
remediated or report, follow the process. It is costing them
another millions of dollars just to put that cable in. This is
the cost that I don't know who is going to pay to that company.
So work with us, and we will do all we can to support you
as industry, similar to what the companies that we have in this
community. Thank you, Senator, for what you do.
Senator Murkowski. Thank you, Mayor.
Hallie, you get the last word.
Ms. Bissett. All right. I just want to reiterate that the
leaders of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, Mayor
Tutiakoff being one of them, very much alive today, signed that
document with the promise of economic prosperity and self-
determination. Sadly, we have been largely unable to develop
these simple projects, and that equates to losses over a 50-
year period that far outweigh the money on lands that we
received. To be clear, we do not view receipt of contaminated
lands as just compensation. Likewise, we do not believe
continuing to write reports will result in the situation being
resolved.
So we have come up with, we have already talked about
swapping undesirable ANCSA lands with unencumbered Federal
property, prioritizing the cleanup of ANCSA contaminated lands
and existing FUDS program.
Just one comment on this that I want to highlight, I heard
you say the relative risk analyzing that you do in terms of
which sites to prioritize first. I used to do risk analysis at
BP when I worked there. One of the top things that goes into
the risk analysis is the number of people impacted by the
contamination. When you are looking at little tiny communities,
a larger picture of the United States in general, all that
money is going to be funneled into population centers that
don't include villages.
That is where we are hugely disconnected, right there we
get kicked out. We just have to have some kind of a rural plus-
up or something in the risk analysis of how you are doing that.
How many years have gone by that this site has been sitting
there? We have technology out there that can analyze how the
contamination is going to spread. We would like to see some of
that being done.
We need to complete the ANCSA contaminated site data base.
We agree with you. We look forward to working with you and we
are excited about getting some funding to do that, to finally
get a data base that talks to each other, that is
comprehensive, that talks about which various stages of cleanup
and which ones have been qualified as done when we don't
consider them done. Institutional controls is not good enough.
And if that is what it is, if we can't clean it up, we need
new land. We need to include ANCSA lands in EPA tribal cleanup
superfund, or create a $1 billion Alaska-specific cleanup fund.
And if you are right, sir, we will be done in one year.
Adopt mitigation credits, like we have talked about
already. Require minimum reports, let's do that biannually.
Let's just automatically write that report every other year to
give an update on where these cleanups are. SO then we don't
have to come for five years just to result in this other thing
that we have already done.
We need to provide the contractor preference that these
folks have talked about. A lot of times folks are showing up
the villages and they start doing cleanup projects and the city
and the village corporation are, what is going on? They have
been given no opportunity to participate in the sole source or
whatever. Even if it is a competitive bid, these guys know the
logistics. I am sure they would be competitive if they were
able to bid on the projects to do the cleanups.
So I think the biggest takeaway I have is after listening
to everything that has been said, we are clearly not on the
same page in terms of the cost. Getting that data base done,
getting the analysis done will get us to that point. I am
looking forward to working on tweaking anything and providing
some more suggestions to you on changes to the actual law that
are holding us back.
We have watched the tribal superfund cleanup as a great
example where the United States has said, oh, we only do
reservation cleanups. Well, that just means you are only going
to do your stuff, and oh, we are not responsible for private
lands. This was Congress' design to make it private, so that we
could be the owners of our own destiny. That is what self-
determination is. Now it is, no, that is not our problem, that
is your problem.
Again, that is just not good enough. So I think those are
all the comments I have. I want to say thank you one more time
for allowing us to be here today and talk about such an
important issue to our people.
Senator Murkowski. Thank you, Hallie. Thank you all. I
appreciate your contributions to the discussions. I think there
have been some very good and constructive takeaways that can be
done at the department, the agency level. Certainly at the
legislative level, whether it is appropriations, we will be
looking critically at some of these accounts.
Also, do we need to give more specific directive in
statute? So to your point, Commissioner, the enthusiasm doesn't
wane or the commitment to doing something doesn't disappear,
that we actually have statutory enforcement. But then if it is
statutory enforcement, then we need the Department to do what
the law says that it does. That is where I think BLM has
specifically failed in that.
But I do think there are some positive things that can be
done now. I want to encourage all of us that while greater
information gathering is coming together, whether it is
identifying those areas that have not yet been identified for a
host of different reasons, identifying costs, determining this
more fulsome inventory that does cross all of departments and
agencies here, that we make sure that we are not halting the
cleanup that is moving forward already.
I appreciate what the Department of Defense has shared in
terms of ensuring that Alaska is seeing significant resources
that are coming for that. We want to encourage that, but we
want to see more of that. I think how that all works
concurrently rather than kind of chronologically is going to be
important.
I am reminded that it was just a matter of weeks ago that
in the Congress, we passed pretty substantial legislation to
recognize the reality that our government actions sometimes
have consequences that are costly. All you need to do is look
to our national security, what we ask of our men and women who
will don the uniform, volunteer to serve and then who go
overseas to other areas and they are exposed to toxic
chemicals. We see the consequence of being in that environment.
It may or not be in a war environment.
But whether it is exposure to things like Agent Orange or
the burn pits that you see in Afghanistan Iraq, it is
expensive. It is expensive to make sure that those veterans who
come back and then test positive for cancer or disease or just
the health consequences that they bear, we look at that and
say, well, that is expensive. That is expensive.
But you know what? We should have thought about that before
we exposed them to these situations where their health is
compromised for perhaps the rest of their life. They may die
because of this exposure.
So we can talk about how much this is going to cost. But I
think we need to recognize that that cost to the environment,
we have to fix it. The cost that comes to human life and people
that pass of cancer, those who have been exposed again
unwittingly, you think that you can eat from the land and from
the ocean only to find out that you have been exposed to toxins
that have been sitting there for decades, through no fault of
your own. It is not like you needed to go out and research
this. You are living in a land that you thought was pretty
special, and it is pretty special.
We have an obligation to clean up the messes that we
create. Sometimes we just have to acknowledge that it is going
to cost money. But we don't walk away from it, particularly
when it is our government that has caused the problem, the
environmental degradation, just the devastation, and then the
human consequence and the loss of life.
So we have some work to do. We can't let this be another
hearing where we check back in later and we get another report.
We have action items that we need to move forward on. We have a
lot of different ways we can be working together. But we
cannot, we cannot continue to say it is somebody else's
responsibility.
So let's figure this out. Know that I am going to be
looking for some feedback very shortly from some of you. I
think we will figure out a way that we can reconvene to get
status reports, because I think we have some deliverables to
the people of Alaska.
With that, ladies and gentlemen, the Committee record is
going to be held open for another two weeks. Two weeks,
whatever that voice just said, we will just believe her.
[Laughter.]
Senator Murkowski. For those who are interested, a
recording of this hearing today is going to be posted on the
Committee's website, for your information. To those who were
either listening or who are here, know that you too are welcome
to submit your comments. We appreciate that.
Now we are officially adjourned. Thank you all.
[Whereupon, at 2:42 AKT, the hearing was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
Prepared Statement of Elise Contreras, Environmental Remediation
Manager, Qawalangin Tribe of Unalaska
The Ounalashka Corporation (OC) received 128,000 acres of land
under ANCSA on Unalaska, Amaknak, Umnak and Sedanka Islands. Unalaska
is located 800 miles from Anchorage, Alaska.
The U.S. Department of Defense created the first military outpost
on Amaknak Island in 1911 and in 1940 the U.S. Navy constructed the
Dutch Harbor Naval Operating Base. After the Japanese attacked Dutch
Harbor in 1942, the military added to, and upgraded its facilities,
eventually constructing over 1000 structures to support the U.S.
Soldiers.
During the peak military activities in 1942 and 1943, the Navy,
Army, and Marines had 65,000 personnel in the area, including all
necessary infrastructure for the troops such as housing, support
buildings, power plants, and defensive structures that were spread all
across the island.
Even more than 70 years after the military withdraw, the Tribe and
community continue to be negatively impacted by:
Hazardous materials like Lead-based paint and asbestos-
containing materials
Munitions
Unexploded ordnance
Unsafe buildings and structures
Abandoned equipment
Petroleum hydrocarbons from underground and aboveground
storage tanks
Screw pickets
Persistent organic pollutants such as PCBs
By 1950 the military largely abandoned the Unalaska/Dutch Harbor
area leaving behind a great deal of history, along with over 100
contaminated sites. Currently, we have 37 areas of concern (that range
in size from impacts from single underground storage tanks to full
military bases).
These impacted areas represent approximately 80,000 acres. The
Formerly Used Defense Sites (FUDS) program under the U.S. Army Corp of
Engineers (USACE) has been working on the island for the past 30 years
and the Native American Lands Environmental Mitigation Program (NALEMP)
for 20 years. However, as we look to the future we have estimated at
the current rate of mitigation, it will take more than 100 years to
complete the necessary cleanup.
Mitigation is important in order to address the physical and
chemical impacts from past military activities to protect the health
and safety of the Tribal community and allow for the safe practice of
traditional cultural lifestyles. The Qawalangin Tribe and Ounalashka
Corporation work in collaboration to address the highest priority sites
that impact community safety, health, and the environment based on what
limited funding we are able to obtain through NALEMP or the minimal
remediation that is done through the FUDS program.
The process in which remediation can be addressed under these
programs often requires years of lead time, assuming that all necessary
programmatic red tape and approvals are taken care of in advance. If
the Ounalashka Corporation is pursuing a development project and
contamination is found, all construction must stop and remediation must
be completed before construction can continue. If the Qawalangin Tribe
or the Ounalashka Corporation decide to tackle the cleanup work before
it is addressed under another program, both entities run the risk of
not being reimbursed for the associated cleanup costs.
The Qawalangin Tribe and Ounalashka Corporation have seen a larger
push from the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers to implement institutional
controls, or to approve ``alternative cleanup levels'' on FUDS, where
some level of contamination is left in place, and cleanup levels are
less stringent than state or other cleanup regulations respectively.
Unfortunately, by implementing institutional controls or alternative
cleanup levels, the future development of the land is limited.
Additional burden is caused by federal agencies arguing over
responsibility for cleanup, playing a game of ``hot potato'' that
ultimately prevents action and perpetuates harm to the community. A
clear example of this is the Building 551 site, which remains
unmitigated due to interpretation of laws and ``eligibility.'' The
Building 551 site, a former Navy Mess Hall at the Dutch Harbor Naval
Operating Base which is located within the Amaknak and Unalaska Islands
FUDS (FUDS Property No. F10AK0841). The Building 551 site is a parcel
containing a World War II-era building and the surrounding land
adjacent to East Point Road.
Building 551 was built as a mess hall for the Cantonment Area of
the Dutch Harbor Naval Base and the facilities consisted of a building
with a basement, access to a utilidor, and utility services. Under
military operations, transformers containing dielectric fluid with
polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) were put into use, operated and
maintained for electrical services to Building 551. These transformers
were located on the northeast side of the building. In addition to
installation, maintenance, and operations of the PCB-containing
devices, PCBs were likely distributed in the area due to the military
practice of dumping of waste oil along roadways for dust suppression.
Incidental to these long-term activities, the area was also bombed by
the Japanese during World War II on June 3 and 4 of 1942.
The Tribe has found high levels (greater than 1 part per million
[ppm]) of PCBs in both soil and mussel tissue in and adjacent to the
site. The release of PCBs from former World War II-era transformers and
the use of waste oil on adjacent roadways is believed to be the primary
source of contamination.
Based on PCB concentrations found, this site is not eligible for
PCB remediation under the FUDS program and more recently was found not
eligible to be considered for work under NALEMP even though previous
work at this site, including a hazardous materials survey, has been
allowed under NALEMP. Regarding the eligibility of Act of War sites,
the Office of Secretary of Defense (OSD) General Counsel (GC), Margy
Carlson, and
USACE GC, Ann Wright, specifically the Qawalangin Tribe of Unalaska
Building 551 recently determined that, ``the codified NALEMP language
still precludes this PCB project at Building 551. The NALEMP statute
only allows for environmental effects (10 USC Sec. 2713 (a)(1))
``attributable to past actions of the Department of Defense (DOD)'' and
the impact at this site was caused by the Japanese bombing. The
Japanese superseded any DOD action and are responsible for the release
of PCBs at this site. The DOD's presence in the area and being a target
for the Japanese is not an action that can be attributable to DOD under
the statutory language. Since NALEMP is included in Title 10 under
``Environmental Restoration'', all the existing law and policy
regarding the ``Act of War'' defense to cleanup in CERCLA and DERP
still applies to NALEMP.''
This kind of determination and subjective interpretation is
frustrating regarding cleanup progress when the DOD is responsible for
the base, troops and infrastructure brought to Unalaska in the first
place. Regardless of whether the release of contaminants was
intentional, unintentional or a combination of the two the financial
and health related burden should not fall on the Qawalangin Tribe and
the Ounalashka Corporation.
This PCB impact at Building 551 is also identified in the Alaska
Department of Conservation (ADEC) contaminated sites database, since
levels exceed the ADEC criteria of 1 mg/kg of total PCBs (18 Alaska
Administrative Code 75 Article 3). Elsewhere on this site, there are
other military impacts (petroleum releases) being addressed under the
FUDS program. Although these impacts are nearly 80 years old, free
product still remains at the site with no remediation time-frame
estimated.
Each impacted area has adversely affected Tribal and community
economic, social, or cultural welfare and limited full use of Tribal
lands and resources. The Qawalangin Tribe and the Ounalashka
Corporation are dedicated to mitigating these impacts to restore safe
access to Tribal lands and create a healthier and safer environment for
its people, community, and future generations.
______
Prepared Statement of Michelle Anderson, President, Ahtna, Incorporated
My name is Michelle Anderson, and I am the President of Ahtna,
Incorporated. Ahtna is an Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA)
regional corporation. I would like to provide testimony on behalf of
Ahtna and its shareholders. I was raised in the Copper River region and
am a tribal member of the Native Village of Gulkana and a member of the
Udzisyu (Caribou) clan of the Ahtna Athabascan people. I am an original
Ahtna shareholder.
Ahtna is one of the 13 regional corporations organized under ANCSA.
Each region is comprised of Native people who had aboriginal ownership
of their lands. Ahtna represents more than 2,000 shareholders who are
of Ahtna Athabascan descent. Ahtna has 8 villages, but we are unique
because 7 of the village corporations merged with Ahtna in 1980. We now
speak for the 7 merged villages on land issues and customary and
traditional subsistence issues.
Ahtna's land entitlement under ANCSA is approximately 1.7 million
acres. The historic Ahtna aboriginal territory is over 24 million acres
and larger than 12 of the states. We are adjacent to and own inholdings
in the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, the largest in the nation, and
adjacent to the Denali National Park, the third largest in the nation.
The Wrangell-St. Elias National Park was established under the Alaska
National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) in 1980. Much of the
Wrangell-St. Elias National Park is comprised of Ahtna's historic
lands. We have had historic and cultural claims to use these public
lands since time immemorial.
The Ahtna people's customary and traditional (C&T) way of life
remains the cornerstone of everything that Ahtna does. For us, C&T does
not just refer to cultural activities like hunting, fishing, trapping
and the like; it is actually the successful continuation of a lifestyle
that has existed for thousands of years--a lifestyle that is the
foundation of Ahtna's culture, values and vision. Ahtna, unlike many of
the other ANCSA corporations, made its land selections based on C&T
values, not for minerals or economic exploitation.
Although the Ahtna region is highway-accessible and fairly
modernized, our people still practice a C&T lifestyle whenever
possible. Our region's fish and game resources and proximity to major
urban centers make it a popular location for hunting, fishing and other
recreational activities, which makes maintaining our lifestyle
challenging. As a result of this constant influx of outside parties,
our people have to compete more and more for the resources (game, fish
and plant life) located on traditional Ahtna lands.
These resources and the cultural practices surrounding them play a
significant role in maintaining our C&T way of life and, because of
this, we are constantly seeking ways to continue or further that way of
life through cultural education programs aimed at future generations of
Ahtna; partnerships with local, state and federal agencies;
consultation with our region's tribes, villages and local
organizations; and continuous dialogue with our most important
constituents--our Elders and shareholders. The protection of these
resources is paramount to the Ahtna people's very existence.
One of the principal risks to the Ahtna people's way of life is the
contamination of the land. The Ahtna region has been significantly
impacted by exploration and development. Starting in the mid-19th
century, gold and copper miners flooded the copper river valley and the
Valdez creek area near Cantwell. The mining activity left scars in the
land, abandoned equipment, railroads, towns, telegraph lines, camps and
waste scattered along our precious rivers. The world's largest Copper
Mine, leaching plant and processing mill operated from 1911 to 1938 in
the Ahtna region and was abandoned along with a railroad, maintenance
camps and towns. Many of these sites have been transferred to Ahtna
with no assessment for contamination done. During the period following
the 1889 gold rush through 1945, the United States Army brought
significant equipment into the region to build telegraph lines, roads,
bases, airports, and other infrastructure to support exploration,
mining operations, WWI and WWII. As the war efforts wound down, the
military transported materials using the road system and the Gulkana
Airport to dispose of surplus equipment, fuel drums and hazardous
materials. These materials were abandoned or buried.
During the 1950s through the 1970s, the military used the Ahtna
region for training and recreation sites to support the cold war
efforts. Many roads, trails and camps were developed and then abandoned
leaving waste materials, unexploded ordnance and equipment scattered
throughout the region. From 1905 to 1956 the Alaska Road Commission
constructed roads and developed material sites, construction camps and
maintenance camps. The Alaska Road Commission was originally part of
the War Department and was transferred to the US Department of the
Interior in 1932. \1\ These sites were contaminated by disposal of
solid waste, buried equipment, used oil, antifreeze and lubricants.
From 1974 to present, the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System, which has
supplied up to 20 percent of our nation's oil, was built and operates
across Ahtna lands, introducing more abandoned materials, equipment,
and contamination.
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\1\ Alaska Road Commission Historical Narrative, 1983 Report Number
1983-06-01, found at: https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/40615.
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Faye Ewan, an Ahtna shareholder, and member of the Native Village
of Kluti-Kaah, spoke to the issue in the Copper River Record:
Ewan also spoke of hazardous waste dumping in the area during
World War II and subsequent military exercises. ``That has a
lot to do with what is happening here today,'' she said.
``There was no protection of our land. It was a free-for-all.
All of that contaminated waste was dumped right in Dry Creek
and now the community is cleaning that up,'' she said. Ewan
wonders whether some cases of cancer among the community could
be attributed to inappropriate waste disposal. \2\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ Excerpt taken from the Copper River Record, Powerful Public
Testimony at CRNA Climate Change Plan Meeting, found at: https://
www.copperriverrecord.net/tributaries/powerful-public-testimony-at-
crna-climate-change-plan-meeting.
Our land is the most important thing to the Ahtna people, and we
know that the contamination left behind by the invasion of western
society has impacted our people and will continue to do so until it is
cleaned up. While not evidenced by any formal medical studies, we are
seeing high rates of cancers and other illnesses in our villages. We
attribute this to contamination in our water and our food. \3\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ There have been some studies of contamination buildup in moose
populations. More needs to be done to determine the impact of that
contamination on the consumer. See, e.g., Arnold et al. 2006 Public
health evaluation of cadmium concentrations in liver and kidney of
moose; Larter and Kandola 2010 Levels of arsenic, cadmium, lead,
mercury, selenium, and zinc in various tissues of moose harvested in
the Dehcho, Northwest Territories; Danielsson and Frank 2009 Cadmium in
moose kidney and liver--age and gender dependency, and standardization
for environmental monitoring.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Federal Material Sites
Ahtna has received title to 98 former Federal Material Sites. These
sites were established under the Federal Highway Act of November 9,
1921, to help develop the highway system in Alaska. In the Ahtna
region, there is a long history of use of these sites by the Alaska
Road Commission starting back in at least the 1920s, during the
upgrades to the Richardson Highway, through WWII with the construction
of the Glenn Highway. During this time, it was common practice to
dispose of waste associated with road construction by burying it at
these material sites. After statehood, the United States Bureau of Land
Management granted the State of Alaska rights-of-way to these sites for
the continued construction and maintenance of the highway. Prior to
modern environmental laws, and perhaps for some time after, it is very
likely that the State also used these sites to dump waste.
After ANCSA, the United States conveyed the surface and subsurface
estates encompassing the material sites to Ahtna ``subject to'' the
``[r]ights-of-way for Federal Aid material sites.'' Ahtna now
administers these sites with little to no authority to dictate the
State's activities or uses.
We do not have a good inventory of the contamination buried at
these sites. Over the years, our staff, shareholders, and tribal
members have discovered buried barrels, equipment, road-building
material, and hazardous substances buried in and around our villages.
The United States Government did not conduct any hazardous material
studies or surveys prior to conveying these sites to Ahtna.
Brownfields Funding
On December 1, 2021, Ahtna, Inc. requested funding for the FY 2022
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Community Wide Assessment Grants
for States and Tribes (Funding Opportunity Number: EPA-OLEM-OBLR-21-04)
to assess 15 of the higher priority material sites. This proposal was
not funded with the agency stating that the proposal did not score high
enough. Ahtna received a debrief on this proposal and is working to
resubmit it during the next funding cycle. There are some items that
the SCIA should be aware of to make this program more beneficial to
Alaska Natives. Since its inception, the Brownfield grant program has
allocated more than $250,000,000 annually. \4\ Of this, only three
grants in the amount of $1,096,533 have been awarded to Alaska Native
Tribes or Tribal Consortiums, and no grants have been awarded to an
Alaska Native Corporation. This is far less than 1 percent of the
funding. Alaska has 40 percent of the tribes on the Federally
Recognized tribes list and 100 percent of the Alaska Native
Corporations. This distribution percentage is far from equitable. The
eligibility in Alaska is limited to ANCSA Corporations, yet no grant
has been awarded to an ANCSA Corporation. It would be helpful to have a
priority made for assessments on lands transferred to ANCSA
Corporations that did not have assessments done in the past.
Consideration should be given to lands transferred that have known
military and federal agency use prior to transfer.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ The EPA Brownfield Grant Fact Sheet, found at: https://
cfpub.epa.gov/bf_factsheets/index.cfm.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ahtna Tribes
Of the eight tribes in the Ahtna region, at least three of them
have applied for funding under the Native American Lands Environmental
Mitigation Program (NALEMP). One of our significant frustrations is the
limited availability of funds for the landowner, the corporation, to
clean up its own lands. To date, the clean-up of Ahtna lands has either
been funded by Ahtna, Incorporated (private) or in conjunction with our
tribes using federal grant funds. To date, there is simply not enough
money available to even determine the extent of the problem, let alone,
clean it up.
Gulkana
The Native Village of Gulkana has had an active NALEMP since 2003.
Notably, in 2008 a Tier I Reconnaissance Report prepared for the
Gulkana Village Council identified five areas impacted by former
Department of Defense activities during the construction of the
``Alaska Highway.'' The five areas identified in the report were found
to have buried hazardous materials including, oil and diesel fuel, and
a ``tar-like preservative'' coating buried structures. Based upon field
observations and analytical results, the report indicated that soil and
groundwater are impacted in the village. \5\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ Further details about this project can be found at: https://
dec.alaska.gov/Applications/SPAR/PublicMVC/CSP/SiteReport/26750.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tazlina
The Native Village of Tazlina has several significant NALEMP
projects identified to locate hazardous materials and clean up the
lands around the village. One significant project to clean up hazardous
material at the former Gulkana Prepositioning Area & Army Site began in
2017. The project includes the removal of an abandoned 315,000-gallon
aboveground storage tank and debris, including tires, food service
unit, stove, water cooler, vehicle batteries, propane tanks, 5-gallon
paint buckets, and several 55-gallon drums. \6\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\ Further details about this project can be found at: https://
dec.alaska.gov/Applications/SPAR/PublicMVC/CSP/SiteReport/26751.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tazlina Village NALEMP Program Coordinator Rick Young described the
project and the history of contamination:
When the military came in 1944 or `43 the village was there.
The military came in and they told the people in the village,
``OK, we're going to build a military base here. You guys have
to leave.'' It was pretty short notice. And the homes--
particularly the one that comes to mind is the Stickwan home
that was in the village--they burned their homes.
The site was used after the war for maneuvers for the army.
They dug foxholes and did all kinds of things, just staying
prepared for war. I graduated from high school in 1970 and
there were still maneuvers going on. At that time [the
military] had huge fuel supplies and some stored ammunition.
It was sometime in the `70s that the military quit. A lot of
the debris they just dumped in the woods, the way the military
did things in those days. There were big debris piles. They
would drive things off into Dry Creek into the creek bed and
just leave them. Some was buried. I understand there are still
caterpillars and all kinds of equipment that was just buried.
There's an old--it looks like a tank and had a gun turret on
top--used for transporting military personnel. They unhooked
the tracks and drove it off the tracks and let it sink in the
moss. Over across the road in the state park there's huge slabs
of cement out in the woods. They had military hospitals, it
goes further over in that direction to the northwest of there.
There's some Native allotments that were contaminated.
It's too much for a small village to do. Most of our work is
contracted out. It's going to be going on for years.
We've spent quite a bit of money on tests and we've found
contaminated ground with fuel. We've found lead. There's
contamination like you would expect from batteries. This summer
we're going to be doing more soil sampling. We expect there's
more contaminated soil. We know there's contamination that we
found and we don't know how much we haven't found. It is
something that can be dangerous to one's health. I've told
people not to pick berries or mushrooms [in certain places].
\7\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\7\ Excerpt taken from the Copper River Record, Tazlina Village
Cleans Up After World War II, found at: https://
www.copperriverrecord.net/tributaries/tazlina-village-cleans-up-after-
world-war-ii.
Gakona
The Native Village of Gakona (NVG) became a partner in the NALEMP
in FY 2008 with the signing of their first Cooperative Agreement (CA).
The NVG has a land base of 61.3 square miles and is located 175 miles
northeast of Anchorage, Alaska at the convergence of the Copper and
Gakona Rivers. The United States Air Force operated the Aurora Radio
Relay Site (RRS) from 1960 until 1983 and the communications station
was a part of the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System of the White
Alice Communication System. The Aurora RRS is located by the Copper
River near the NVG and has a total land surface area of 73.71 square
miles. The Aurora RRS was bought by AT&T Alascom, Inc., in 1983; AT&T
Alascom, Inc. remains the owner of the surface and subsurface lands to
the site. Ahtna holds the title to affected surface and subsurface
lands next to and surrounding the Aurora RRS.
One project in 2010 funded the cleanup of 28, 55-gallon drum tops,
5 grounding posts, 100 pieces of metal strapping, one Army truck
tailgate, and one rusted metal stove, among other debris from 5.62
acres of Ahtna land adjacent to the RRS site. In addition, analysis of
samples collected and tested confirmed earlier findings that neither
soil nor groundwater on affected Ahtna land was contaminated by
petroleum products. There is still much work to be done to determine
the extent of contamination in and around NVG.
Conclusion
The sad conclusion to this story is that even 50 years after the
passage of ANCSA, the Ahtna people still do not know how much
contamination they received in their land entitlement. The little
investigation and clean-up work that has been done so far is limited by
Ahtna's own money and the paltry funds made available to Alaska tribes
to clean up ANCSA lands. Further, the federal funds that are available
under many clean-up programs are not equitably distributed to Alaska
Natives. We are in desperate need of more, specifically targeted
federal dollars, to investigate and clean-up ANCSA lands.
______
Prepared Statement of Dimitri Philemonof, President/CEO, Aleutian
Pribilof Islands Association, Inc.
Dear Vice-Chairman Murkowski,
Please accept our deep appreciation for the Senate Field Hearing in
Unalaska on AN CSA Contaminated Sites and the ongoing impacts. I share
my regrets missing it as I attend to our previously-scheduled Board of
Directors Meeting.
The Aleutian Pribilof Islands Association, Inc. (APIA) is an Alaska
Native non-profit consortium of the thirteen federally-recognized
Unangax (Aleut) Tribes of the Aleutian Chain, Pribilof Islands, and
lower Alaska Peninsula. APIA provides primary and behavioral health
care, public safety and family protection, cultural and language
revitalization, and environmental advocacy and technical support. By
continually inhabiting our lands, and thriving on the riches from our
waters for over 10,000 years, we demonstrate our unity as a people and
our stewardship of the region's bountiful resources. We want to share
information on two areas of Board priority: environmental advocacy and
economic development.
Our Region
From ancient village sites on every island throughout the region,
the currently-inhabited Unangax region consists of 12 communities:
thirteen federally-recognized Tribes in ten regional Tribal communities
and two regional non-Tribal communities. These are the most remote
communities with some of the highest costs of living in the state. 2020
Census data counts 8,652 residents, with seasonal commercial fishing
and processing increasing local populations substantially. Stretching
over 1,500 miles west to east, the Unangax traditional lands cover over
7,000 square miles and almost 100,000 square miles of the Bering Sea
and North Pacific Ocean. The Aleutian Chain, as the most southern
extent of the U.S. Arctic, makes the Unangax people Arctic Council
Permanent Participants through the Aleut International Association.
This and our location as the heart of the North Pacific Great Circle
marine transportation route and with the Bering Sea as the primary
gateway to the Arctic, cement our international role and interests
beyond our vast region.
Environmental Impacts
APIA keenly understands the scope and scale of impacts previous
military and federal activities have brought to the region. From the
direct losses of Unangax lives and communities in World War II,
permanently displacing many families and scarring the individuals
subjected to internment, to the legacy of contamination and land-use
restrictions, these impacts are still felt today. While we have worked
to address many of these losses, significant work remains to be done.
Our work has shown us the long-term successes that can be achieved when
our Tribes and their authorized representatives prioritize and lead
these efforts in partnership with the responsible agencies. We
collaborate with the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) on the
important cultural and historic considerations as we address the
impacts of Formerly Used Defense Sites (FUDS). APIA and Tribal
partnerships with Native American Lands Environmental Mitigation
Program (NALEMP) allow for local prioritization and execution to
appropriately address FUDS issues impacting our communities.
Unfortunately, the largest projects are frequently left to outside
contractors and remote project management of these responses. Seventy-
seven (J7) years after WWII's impacts on our lands, (40) FUDS sites
still remain awaiting clean-up. Around (30) sites have been addressed
since the 1990's, but because many of those site closures were
accomplished without full remediation, but by requiring perpetual
institution control. Many of these (30) sites retain caveats excluding
or limiting future development, highlighting one of the most evident
regional environmental justice concerns.
One of the most important, longstanding and successful ways that
APIA serves the environmental justice needs in our region is through
the capacity that we develop and maintain with EPA IGAP Program
support. Staff turnover, changing EPA administrative requirements, and
evolving technical needs perpetuate our Tribal Environmental Programs
requests for the customized regional support provided by APIA's IGAP
Tribal Consortia funding, the future of which has been made uncertain
by recent AIEO policy discussions. Our work ensures the capacity to
address our region's environmental justice efforts as we also directly
care for our environmental issues in partnership with the responsible
agencies.
IGAP allows our Tribal governments to have the support for trained
personnel to staff and build their local Environmental Programs. The
community benefits from IGAP funding are visually evident in improved
solid waste management and the community's environment, with direct
economic impacts of year-round local employment, and climate
considerations found in mandatory environmental planning. EP A's
Brownfields Program, particularly the Tribal Response Program (fRP) are
important opportunities to grow beyond the capacity-only IGAP funds,
but higher TRP ceilings and removing matching requirements for Tribes
and small communities from other Brownfields funding would improve
regional participation, where the best outcomes can be found. Our
region cannot address environmental justice without mentioning Amchitka
Island and the nuclear testing that has left a perpetual threat in our
midst. After an unsatisfactory partnership with DOE Office of Legacy
Management was ended abruptly at the end of 2021, APIA is working
closely with DOE's Arctic Energy Office to address this environmental
justice issue that impacts all our regional organizations and interest,
including the Aleut Corporation and our village ANCSA corporations.
Economic Impacts: An Unalaska Example
In Unalaska, suitable buildable lands are limited by more than the
mountains meeting the ocean. Primarily owned by the Ounalashka
Corporation of Unalaska, these lands are likely to be impacted by
previous WWII military and other historic, mostly federal, activities,
creating cleanup costs and substantially increasing construction costs.
APIA provides Head Start Early Learning delivery to the community of
Unalaska, including investing in our long-term service provision by
planning and constructing a purpose-built Head Start beginning in 2021.
Despite having a Phase 1 Site Assessment completed, contamination was
found during construction. The limited contamination was common low-
level fuels, but the delays until reporting, sampling, analysis,
remediation and contaminant transportation were completed, added months
and thousands of dollars to the project. As climate change impacts our
region and the fisheries we are almost entirely reliant on, our
longterm economic opportunities rely on improving basic societal
services and infrastructure. Delayed infrastructure investments are
hampering the settlement of very populations that this infrastructure
would serve. Resilient communities are built on sustainable economics
and the support brought by economies of scale. Air transportation
routes allow for (6) of the (13) regional Tribes' members to access
Unalaska as a sub-regional hub for medical care, regional conferences,
essential trainings, and other goods and services.
Dutch Harbor is America's largest fishing port by volume and the
nation's largest fisheries are executed annually in the Bering Sea.
Protecting our invaluable renewable resources makes economic sense,
most simply in the nearly billion dollars of annual revenue.
Environmental protections for the millions of seabirds and thousands
marine mammals, many of them endangered or threatened, are also
benefited by well patrolled waters.
The specific needs for greater environmental protection and
enforcement capacity in the region have been outlined in the Aleutian
Islands Risk Assessment, driven by foreign-majority innocent passage
vessel traffic. Whether these ships are accessing the Bering Sea as the
primary gateway to the Arctic, or using the North Pacific Great Circle
marine transportation route, our regional spill and grounding risks are
large, and poised to grow substantially with Northern Sea Route traffic
development. Whether in Unalaska or Adak, greater environmental
response capacity requires appropriate lands to site infrastructure. In
the current context of our very limited response assets, greater
enforcement capacity is key.
Improving in-region search and rescue capacity saves lives.
Increasing storminess and shifting fisheries distributions add to the
inherent danger of making one's living at sea. Growing regional and
Arctic eco-tourism places the relatively inexperienced in some of the
world's harshest and most remote locations. As local subsistence users
venture farther in our vast region for traditional foods, every hour
counts should they require the same response resources that are taken
for granted in the lower 48. Increased US Coast Guard presence in the
region through re-stationing permanent assets requires usable and
uncontaminated land.
The Unangax have been the sentinels of our lands and waters for
over 10,000 years. As many of your initiatives have demonstrated, we
are also committed to ensuring the continued security of our people and
resources. Strategic investments building towards our future that
address shared economic, environmental and security concerns can
literally be built on the solid ground reclaimed from the errors of the
past, securing us all far greater rewards than matching short-sighted
provocations. While military reuse is priority, widespread
remilitarization of our region could result in reiterations of the many
WWII impacts we continue to suffer, including those seemingly
irrecoverable losses like the Village of Attu and all those western
dialect speakers. We work to revitalize our language and cultural
practices and train the next generation oflanguage teachers. With the
loss of the Village of Attu, Atka is the last remaining community
speaking our western dialect of U nangam Tunuu. We work closely with
the Aleut Corporation to support the community of Adak, its
infrastructure and public safety for the residents. We are working with
the Qawalangin Tribe of Unalaska to rebuild the health care services
that were lost when the BIA Alaska Native Service Hospital was
destroyed in WWII.
Please let us know if we can host you or any of your team at our
main office in Anchorage on your way out to on upon your return from
our beautiful region.
Thank you very much for your interest in our storied lands and our
resilient people. Your efforts on our behalf and continued leadership
for all of Alaska is greatly appreciated.