Water monitoring decision could cause long-term ripples

Frontiersman editorial board

In a decision that can only be described as bizarre, Alaska's Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Ernesta Ballard has decided to redirect nearly a million in federal flow-through dollars away from volunteer water monitoring programs and toward the recovery of bodies of water that are already considered impaired or polluted.

While the DEC commissioner describes the decision as a positive one that will concentrate funds where they are needed most, many experts in the field of environmental conservation disagree. In the past, the funds, which come from the Environmental Protection Agency, have been split 50/50 between grants and DEC operational funds. It is an agreement that the EPA was comfortable with, and that was intended to identify at-risk waters for action before their situation became critical -- and therefore more costly to remedy.

In the case of the Mat-Su Borough, the shift away from monitoring could greatly weaken the value of four years of monitoring data. The EPA requires five years of data to establish a baseline, and the borough has collected four years worth of water monitoring information, using large amounts of federal dollars. How can Ballard, who was appointed by the supposedly fiscally conservative Murkowski administration, justify such a blatant waste of dollars? DEC has said it would like to continue the monitoring program in the future, but has not committed to a timeline, and any significant pause would create a data gap that would diminish the effectiveness of the work already completed.

From an environmental point of view, this shifting of funds leaves unattended a fair amount of at-risk waters. Without constant monitoring, and more pre-emptive responses to potential problems, those waters could easily become polluted or impaired. Nobody disagrees that recovering polluted waters is more costly than saving threatened waters, and the damage done to wildlife and humans can never be recovered.

What is perhaps most troubling of all is the apparent disregard for public opinion and EPA input Ballard's decision seems to suggest. EPA representatives have already expressed displeasure with Ballard's decision, and it is clear that at least some of the implications of the move have serious enough implications to warrant public input.

While the EPA has said that DEC is entitled to the funds this year, and that it will release them, there is also the possibility that future grants could be reduced or delayed until an agreement that meets EPA's water quality requirements is met.

This is an issue that can't be ignored -- even for the short run. Water quality in Alaska affects the health of Alaskans and the health of our critical fishing industry. It is critical we implore the DEC to rethink this decision and continue the important task of monitoring our state waters, now and in the future.