LETTER: EPA needs adequate funding

If you think the Environmental Protection Agency is not important for your health, the flooded oil refineries and leaking chemical factories left by Hurricane Harvey should convince you otherwise. EPA needs adequate funding to protect us from pollution related to natural disasters, but also to prevent the ongoing contamination of the air and water that sustains the lives of all of us. Here in Alaska, the need is more crucial, given of the long history of pollution and resource exploitation without regard for the health of nearby communities..

A well-funded EPA means healthy children and strong communities for Alaska. The President has proposed a devastating 31 percent cut to EPA’s budget. If these cuts are approved, no one stands to lose more than Alaska — especially rural Alaskans.

We won’t need to wait for a hurricane; Alaskans will start losing things right away. Things like safe drinking water and sewage treatment in rural Alaska, cleanup of Alaska's ten Superfund and brownfield hazardous waste sites, and air quality monitoring that warns us when it’s not safe to be outdoors.

It is time to stop using EPA as a political tool! Please contact Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan and tell them that Alaskans have the right to breathe clean air, drink clean water, and raise children whose health is not impaired by pollution.

— Samarys Seguinot Medina

Anchorage