Description of Problem:



Iñupiaq Perspectives on Power, Water and Health

in Alaska’s Northwest Arctic Borough

Mid-term Report and Preliminary Findings

Laura Palen Eichelberger, MA

PhD Candidate

Department of Anthropology

University of Arizona

January 9, 2009

Acknowledgements:

This project is made possible by the generous support of the Community Forestry and Environmental Research Partnership (CFERP) Dissertation Fellowship, the National Science Foundation (NSF) Dissertation Improvement Fellowship, the Social and Behavioral Sciences Research Institute (SBSRI) at the University of Arizona, the Comins Fellowship Fund, the William and Nancy Sullivan Scholarship, and the Stanley R. Grant Scholarship Fund.

I am deeply grateful to the help and generosity of Mayor Siikauraq Whiting, Hiram Walker, Bobby Schaeffer, Glen Skin, Annabelle Alvite and the entire Northwest Arctic Borough Assembly and staff. Thank you all for your guidance and support.

My sincere thanks to Racheal Lee of the Maniilaq Association and Troy Ritter of the Alaska Native Health Consortium who generously helped me start this project and answered all of my questions about environmental health.

Most importantly, thank you to all the people in the communities who shared their perspectives with me. I owe a special heartfelt thanks to the people of Buckland and Ambler who opened their homes and hearts to me and taught me to like seal oil, hang fish, and cut caribou. Quyanna.

The author can be contacted by email at lpeichel@email.arizona.edu.

“…We can talk about the good ole days when we used to be able to afford to live here. Remember a few years ago I said that some day we won’t be able to live in our own hometown? Well, back to the music…”

-- KOTZ Radio DJ, Kotzebue

“Before, there was no payments.”

“There were no bills.”

“The lights, the toilet…it spoiled us. But we can’t go back and unravel it.”

“If there’s no fuel, there will be no electricity, there will be nothing. It will be a hard time. We’ll go back to cutting wood and hauling water. The kids will take over.”

“The kids?” The two ladies laughed, and then shook their heads. “The boys don’t know how to cut wood without a chainsaw. They have to learn to saw. Now they don’t want to cut if they don’t have a chainsaw.”

-- Two Iñupiaq elder women

Table of Contents

1. Introduction: Water Scarcity in Alaska’s Northwest Arctic 3

2. Description of Study 4

3. Iñupiaq Experiences and Perspectives: Preliminary Findings 5

3a. Water scarcity affects all members of the household, but especially women, elders, the disabled, and children. 5

Women:

- Hidden costs associated with hauling water and laundry 5

- Single women 5

Elders and the disabled: 6

- Elders and the disabled are particularly vulnerable in situations of water and energy scarcity.

- Elders and the disabled depend on others for help with their energy needs. 6

- Heating Assistance applications are often difficult to complete. 6

Children and community health: 7

- Heads of household and health aids are concerned about the toll water scarcity and infrastructure failures take on health, particularly of children.

3b. Community participation in water/sewer projects is important, but difficult in practice. 8

- Community leaders and residents express frustration that government agencies do not take their concerns and priorities into account.

- Some community members fear that government agencies will not support village infrastructure if these agencies understand local environmental factors. 9

- Many leaders and residents express frustration and suspicion when government agencies delay the release of project funding. 9

Further Research 9

Introduction: Water Scarcity in Alaska’s Northwest Arctic

Between 1984 and 1998, government agencies spent over $1.3 billion on improving water and wastewater infrastructure in rural Alaska Native villages (Berardi 1998a). Scholars and policy makers at that time identified several economic, social, and environmental factors that hindered access to water and sewer services. These included the remoteness of villages, small populations that made per household costs for service very high, limited cash economies and poverty, cultural differences and miscommunications between agencies and communities, and difficult geographic and weather conditions such as permafrost and seasonal flooding (Berardi 1998a; Berardi 1998b; EPA 1995). Ten years later, these problems persist. Many villages still experience water scarcity, defined as inadequate access to water and sewer to protect human health (Whiteford and Cortez-Lara 2005). Further, the energy crisis that continues to affect Alaska adds an additional factor not previously explored in water scarcity studies.

This research explores the myriad social, economic, and environmental factors that perpetuate water scarcity and how it affects Iñupiaq households in the Northwest Arctic Borough (NWAB). Although there are areas in Alaska experiencing greater water scarcity, I have chosen this region because NWAB villages represent varying levels of water and wastewater management from honey buckets, to flush haul, to in-home piped water. All face concerns about affordability, and all experience periodic water scarcity due to challenges in system operation and maintenance.

In NWAB, local environmental factors compound with social and economic challenges to hinder the successful operation and maintenance of water and wastewater facilities. In addition to extremely cold winter temperatures, many villages face seasonal challenges such as flooding and contaminated water during the spring melting period. Inland villages that in recent years could not receive barges due to low river levels now depend on air deliveries. This increases the costs of gasoline, stove oil, and other materials that are required for the production of water and the generation of electricity. High turnover rates of water plant operators and city administrators cause capacity problems, as each new employee must be retrained on the plant’s operation, maintenance, and budgeting.

Finally, economic factors loom large in the problem of operating and maintaining water utilities. Villages often face revenue shortages due to costs that surge with the price of electricity, fuel, and transportation. The fact that water plant designs are not standardized further compounds the problem. Some NWAB communities must order custom parts as far away as Germany, thus adding significant shipping costs to already expensive materials. When pumps fail or lines freeze up, some residents are forced to return to hauling water and using five gallon “honey buckets” to contain human waste.

These factors hinder the construction of in-home piped water and sewer systems for existing “honey bucket” villages, and contribute to operation and maintenance problems in villages with in-home piped systems. NWAB villages are thus threatened with both natural and contrived water scarcity (Whiteford and Cortez-Lara 2005): the inadequacy of clean water for human consumption and hygiene that results from these social and economic factors. (I use this term to draw attention to the social factors contributing to water scarcity, not to connote intent or blame.)

The problem for these villages is maintaining a sufficient supply of water for basic hygiene as well as drinking. NWAB rural communities live amid periodic water insecurity, when adequate quantities of clean water become inaccessible and residents respond with practices that threaten their health, such as rationing water (Whiteford and Whiteford 2005). Residents are therefore at risk for water-washed diseases (Whiteford and Whiteford 2005) that threaten to reverse decades of public health accomplishments that reduced Alaska Native morbidity and mortality through basic sanitation. Indeed, many studies have shown that water quantity, the piping of water into homes, and sanitation may in fact be more important to human health than water quality (Esrey and Habicht 1986). A recent study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium (ANTHC) linked the lack of in-home piped water and sewer in villages to increased rates of infectious disease (Hennessy, et al. 2008).

Though many studies have identified the general contributing factors of water scarcity in Alaska (Berardi 1998b; EPA 1995; Huskey 1992; Tussing 1982; Wiita and Haley 2003), little is known about household experiences for extended periods of time. Local Iñupiaq and other Alaska Native knowledge is conspicuously absent from most of the existing scholarship, despite calls for capacity building and participatory projects.

The true social and health costs for the Iñupiaq Eskimo people are yet unknown. The focus of this research is to explore these costs from the perspectives of these village residents.

Description of Study

It is at this point of contradiction – the desire for community participation but the absence of local knowledge in policy decisions - that this ethnographic project fits. The anthropological tool of ethnography, which involves in-depth research through interviews and observation over long periods of time, facilitates a deeper understanding of how rural residents experience water scarcity. Ethnography enables a fuller understanding of the connections between public policy, health, and social outcomes (Whiteford and Whiteford 2005b). I use ethnography to investigate how Iñupiaq community members and leaders respond to water scarcity, energy costs and shortages, and their experiences working with government agencies on village infrastructure projects.

Between March and December 2008, I visited five NWAB rural communities and interviewed 20 people from various state and federal agencies, and 57 village residents. I spent several months in two villages, where I learned about daily life and each community’s existing water projects. Throughout my fieldwork, I continue to consult with local leaders and community members for their input and guidance.

Iñupiaq Experiences and Perspectives: Preliminary Findings

The following are my preliminary findings based on interviews and observations I conducted during this intensive fieldwork. Here, I include community member narratives that best represent the perspectives I commonly hear and my own observations. I have edited some comments in order to protect the anonymity of my participants.

Water scarcity affects all members of the household, but especially women, children, elders, and the disabled.

Although everyone living in a household that lacks running water experiences water scarcity, certain members are affected more than others. The perspectives of female heads of households illustrate just how much the availability of water shapes their lives.

o Women who depend on a washeteria for laundry must factor in many costs, including time, gasoline for transportation, and tokens.

“I can’t wait for running water! Right now I have to wait to get paid before I can do all our laundry.”

-- Female head of household, Buckland

“We (the adults) rarely have time to shower. The kids bathe about one time per week. They’re closing the washeteria starting today at 5 pm. We’ll have to convince the kids to do the laundry.”

LE: Who does the laundry now?

“I do or my 17 year-old son do laundry once a week. We’ll probably do it less now because of the 5pm closure. What kid will wake up early and wait line? We usually don’t have to wait if they’re open late…Laundry is very time consuming. It takes about 6-8 hours maybe, depending on how long you have to wait in line and the number of loads you do.”

-- Female head of household, Buckland

With the exception of the son referenced above, women and older daughters are much more likely to be responsible for the household laundry, often waiting in very long lines at the washeteria. Women in Buckland report that they spend as much as eight hours per trip washing and drying clothes, including waiting time. When washeterias limit their hours, women who work must wait until the weekend to do laundry, and employed adults are less likely to bathe. Limited hours increase the time individuals spend in line on weekends waiting to use the facilities. The significant time commitment required to do laundry takes these women away from other activities, including subsistence, that contribute to the household economy and social networks.

o Single women without in-home water must either pay someone or find strategies to haul water and do laundry without help.

Single women are particularly vulnerable in situations of water scarcity. All of the women I interviewed in Buckland describe the difficulty of hauling laundry to the washeteria, often making several trips. Single women have to shuttle back and forth themselves, and thus risk losing their place in a long line for only 2-3 functional washing machines that serve the entire village. Many elders report that they depend on others to do their laundry for them, and sometimes must pay non-family members out of their meager incomes for help. Elders and women in other villages facing periodic scarcity describe similar difficulties.

“It’s difficult for me to haul my laundry and water because I’m single and I don’t have my own vehicle.”

-- Single mother

“I have to run back and forth 5 or 6 times unless I borrow a larger bucket. I can do it in 15 minutes if I rush. I try to go after curfew so I can speed so that I can catch the same quarter in there.”

-- Single mother

o Elders and the disabled are particularly vulnerable in situations of water and energy scarcity.

When younger generations are unable to help their elders for various reasons, as is the case for several households in NWAB, elders and those who are disabled are left more vulnerable to situations of water and scarcity. The following narratives express the concerns of elders and their children in these rural communities.

“I don’t have running water because it froze up a few years ago and I can’t get it fixed. I have to do my laundry at my sisters’ and sons’ houses. When I have work, I help them out with fuel. But I’m over 60 and I want water and sewer. I can’t haul water by myself, and I have to go to their houses to do laundry and to wash. Right now my sons have to haul water for me, because I can only lift a gallon at a time. But they’re not always around. I can’t even grow anything in my garden because my pump broke.”

-- Single elder woman, disabled

o Elders and the disabled depend on others for help with their energy needs. Those whose children are unable to help them often must pay for necessary assistance out of their small incomes.

“I usually haul wood for my mom. Last spring I moved back from Anchorage to help her get wood and a few caribou, then I moved back…I don’t have time to help her with her heating assistance application because I have to work. It’s hard to have time to help her and get wood for her because I work.”

-- Male resident

“When no one is around to help me, I have to buy wood from people. Maybe one load of wood per month…One load costs about $60. Sometimes they sell me bad wood. Sometimes I pay people to help me move my [stove oil] drum to get filled and then to reattach it, and to haul and cut wood. I pay them between $20 and $50.”

-- Single woman, disabled, age 84

o Heating Assistance applications are often difficult for elders to complete because of the language used and required documentation. Many residents, regardless of age, are confused about their eligibility and do not want to apply for fear of being rejected.

During my fieldwork early this winter, several residents asked me to help them understand Alaska’s new Heating Assistance application. They were confused about their eligibility and how to determine their income levels. Many expressed to me that they were not likely to apply because they did not want to be rejected. My experience helping one elder illustrates the difficulty Iñupiaq rural residents have completing the application, particularly elders.

Ruth, age 80, lives alone after her husband died of cancer in the 1980s. She has two sons living in the village who help her obtain wood during the winter. Ruth relies on wood during the day and stove oil at night for her heat. In past years, her income disqualified her from receiving state heating assistance. This year, with the change in income requirements, Ruth hopes she is eligible for state support to help pay her high heating and electricity costs.

Ruth was discouraged by the amount of documentation the application required. She read the application aloud, slowly and with effort, and asked me to explain the instructions. It took over four hours to locate only a few of the documents needed to report the different kinds of income she receives: retirement, social security, her late husband’s pension, and NANA dividends. Ruth was confused by the fact that she had to report dividends that would not count against her eligibility. She was unable to find pay stubs, recent bank statements, and utility bills. Ruth did not know her stove oil account number nor how much she paid for the last drum she purchased, and the local fuel vendor did not have those records. She asked me to call the heating assistance program for help because she feared she might not understand the operator. “If they ask me for more information, I’m just going give up.”

Her experience is not unique. Other elders asked me to interpret their official mail and to explain the application to them. The barriers these elders face to obtaining necessary services deserve attention.

Heads of household and health aids are concerned about the toll water scarcity and annual infrastructure failures take on health, particularly of children.

NWAB villages with piped water systems experience periods of water scarcity due to infrastructure failures: overflowing sewage lagoons and broken dykes, frozen pumps and lines, and shortages in critical spare parts. Currently, Kiana and Selawik residents have had to return to honey buckets because pump failures have led to loss of water/sewer services. Buckland’s existing water scarcity is made acute by their annual flood, which causes even flush/hold households to ration water. During the flood sewage from the old lagoon, discarded honey buckets, and severed lines pools in the springtime puddles where children play. It also spills out into the main road, right in front of the lagoon. This creates an unavoidable mass of sewage and river water that divides uptown and downtown. Residents in Buckland and villages that experience periodic water scarcity express concerns about related health risks.

“We see lots of viral infections: colds, sore throats, strep – both viral and bacterial. There needs to be more hand washing. The clinic encourages hand washing, but we don’t know how often people are changing their basin water. It’s recommended that you change it every hour. Kids get lots of illnesses. They crawl on the floor and put things in their mouth. We see a lot of kids with respiratory diseases. About every other month some one is referred out to Anchorage or Kotzebue, mostly kids…We’ve seen some kids with cuts that really have to be washed out before stitches. We don’t know what’s on the ground in puddles. They probably have honey bucket waste in them. We’ve had 3-4 kids needing stitches since right before the flood. There are a few people with “bad stomachs”: gassy. I’m not sure whether it’s related to the flood, but it passes person to person through hands probably.”

-- Heath aid, Buckland Clinic, just after the yearly spring flood that causes the sewage lagoon to overflow.

“Every May the road washes away with sewage for about a month, or until the culvert thaws. And we have to cross through it to get to town! One year I wouldn’t let my kids go to school for a whole week because of the sewage. I want the government to sample that water. The current lagoon is old and overburdened. The dykes are collapsing. The lagoon is too small and it’s too close to town.”

“There’s always so much illness going around the village. Who knows what it’s from. There’s always a lot of flus, so who knows. I attribute a lot of it to that.”

-- Male and female heads of household

“We have to ration our water in the spring, after the ice departs, because of all of the debris and dead animals in the water. The City issues a boil water notice then. About 3 months ago, the clinic ran out of Tylenol. The water was bad because it was turning into springtime. Everyone had diarrhea and vomiting. There was a boil notice. Everyone starting buying bottled water from the store. The water pumps were clogged and had to be changed out. They were clogged with debris. They had to switch from new underwater pump to the surface one next to the shore. It’s a problem in the spring because of trash and dead stuff sliding off the bank into the water.”

-- Female head of household

Community participation in water/sewer projects is important, but difficult in practice.

Community participation is often proposed as a strategy to manage water and encourage development (Allison 2002; Elmendorf and Isely 1983; Stanley 1990), but it has proven problematic in many contexts. Many have critiqued this approach in circumpolar regions as having the appearance of participation while still excluding those outside of the dominant power structure (Morrow and Hensel 1992; Nadasdy 2000; see also Schofield 2002).

However, abandoning community involvement is clearly not an option. Alaska Native populations strongly desire participation in local development, natural resource management, and research. Concerns about water and wastewater management inevitably involve questions of self-determination, sovereignty, and self-sustainability (Berardi 1998a). Further, partnerships between communities and agencies have produced improvements in the successful operation and maintenance of their water and wastewater facilities (Haley 2000).

Yet villages continue to suffer from water scarcity and related illnesses as they struggle with the operation and maintenance of their systems. The following are some of the concerns that village residents and leaders express about working with government agencies. I have edited them to maintain confidentiality.

o Community leaders and residents express frustration that government agencies do not take their concerns and priorities into account.

“I’m worried about where the old lagoon is. We told them we didn’t want it there, and they said that they would either put it there or we wouldn’t get a sewage lagoon. It leaches into the river, just upstream from the beach where the kids swim during the summer – and practically live when it’s hot out.”

o Some community members fear that government agencies will not support village infrastructure if these agencies understand local environmental factors.

“Don’t tell them we’ll be washed away. They won’t give us water and sewer!”

“I’m glad that you’re here and you’ll give reports to the government. It will help us. But then again, I’m worried that it could hurt us…The state might not want to continue with these sorts of projects if they see your information. On the other hand, they need this data to plan and design better.”

“We just got the report from the contractor about [the environmental issue] delaying our water/sewer upgrade project. He wrote it too broadly and made recommendations that might hurt our project. You can’t write something like that for the people we’re sending this to - our funding agencies - because you don’t want to give them any more opportunities to delay releasing the funds.”

o Many leaders and residents express frustration and suspicion when government agencies delay the release of project funding.

“What I don’t understand is why the federal government sits on the money. If you’ve got the money, put it in the project…It’s like they want us to fail.”

Further Research

In the next phase of research, I will engage community members in a participatory project to document more fully their experiences and concerns related to water and energy. This phase will produce data (photos, maps, and narratives) that will be accessible and relevant to a large portion of the community. In addition, the combination of ethnography and participatory research will provide agencies with an in-depth understanding of community needs and capacity that can lead to locally-based solutions (McQuiston, et al. 2005; Wallerstein, et al. 2005).

Works Cited:

Allison, Maria Clasina

2002 Balancing responsibility for sanitation. Social Science and Medicine 55:1559-1551.

Berardi, Gigi

1998a Application of participatory rural appraisal in Alaska. Human Organization 57(4):438-446.

—

1998b Natural Resource Policy, Unforgiving Geographies, and Persistent Poverty in Alaska Native Villages. Natural Resources Journal 38(1):85-108.

Elmendorf, Mary L., and Raymond B. Isely

1983 Public and Private Roles of Women in Water Supply and Sanitation Programs. Human Organization 42(3):195-204.

EPA

1995 Federal Field Work Group Report to Congress on Alaska Rural Sanitation: Water Division, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Esrey, Steven A., and Jean-Pierre Habicht

1986 Epidemiological Evidence for Health Benefits from Improved Water and Sanitation in Developing Countries. Epidemiological Reviews 8:117-128.

Haley, Sharman

2000 Evaluation of the Alaska Native Health Board Sanitation Facility Operation and Maintenance Program: Final Report on Phase III Volume II. Anchorage: Institute for Social and Economic Research.

Hennessy, Thomas W., et al.

2008 The relationship between in-home water service and the risk of infections of the lung, skin and gastrointestinal tract among Alaska Native persons. . American Journal of Public Health.

—

In press The relationship between in-home water service and the risk of infections of the lung, skin and gastrointestinal tract among Alaska Native persons. . American Journal of Public Health.

Huskey, Lee

1992 The Economy of Village Alaska. Anchorage, Alaska: University of Alaska, Institute of Social and Economic Research.

Morrow, Phyllis, and Chase Hensel

1992 Hidden Dissension: Minority-Majority Relationships and the Use of Contested Terminology. Arctic Anthropology 29(1):38-53.

Nadasdy, Paul

2000 The Politics of TEK: Power and the "Integration" of Knowledge. Arctic Anthropology 36(1-2):1-18.

Schofield, B.

2002 Partners in power: governing the self-sustaining community. Sociology: the Journal of the British Sociological Association 36.

Stanley, William R.

1990 Socioeconomic impact of oil in Nigeria. GeoJournal 22(1):67-79.

Tussing, Arlon R.

1982 Alaska: Precarious Riches and Stubborn Poverty. Anchorage, Alaska: University of Alaska, Institute of Social and Economic Research.

Whiteford, Linda M., and Scott Whiteford

2005 Paradigm Change. In Globalization, water, & health : resource management in times of scarcity. L.M. Whiteford and S. Whiteford, eds. Pp. 3-23. Santa Fe: School of American Research Press.

Whiteford, Scott, and Alfonso Cortez-Lara

2005 Good to the Last Drop: The Political Ecology of Water and Health on the Border. In Globalization, water, & health : resource management in times of scarcity. L.M. Whiteford and S. Whiteford, eds. Pp. 231-254. Santa Fe: School of American Research Press.

Wiita, Amy, and Sharman Haley

2003 Evaluation of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Water and Sanitation Project in the Village of Buckland, Alaska Phase 2. Anchorage, Alaska: Institute of Social and Economic Research.

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