Who's watching the water?

How important is it to know existing conditions in local water bodies? What should the state's level of responsibility be for tracking water quality, and who should set that level?

Those questions and others are being asked by people involved with volunteer water monitoring programs around the state, as well as Department of Environmental Conservation officials and staff from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Volunteer water monitoring programs are looking for funding after expected grant funds from the Environmental Protection Agency were rerouted this year by DEC.

"This year's funds are going to groups that are working on impaired water bodies that are failing to support the needs of Alaskans," DEC Commissioner Ernesta Ballard said in a recent press release about the grant awards. "I conducted a careful review of our priorities and determined that these projects are on target with our statutory mandate, and they also help us identify and restore Alaska's most threatened water bodies."

Michelle McClure, district coordinator for the Wasilla Soil & Water Conservation District, through which several Valley creeks and rivers are monitored, said the funding cut comes at a crucial time in the district's monitoring process.

"This is our critical year for data collection," McClure said, noting that her group of volunteers are entering their fourth season of testing water quality in the area. "EPA requires five years of data for it to be viable baseline data. Now what happens?"

Why monitor the water?

Water monitoring, McClure said, does more than identify what's normal for a water body or stream -- it's also a tool to help recognize when a water body becomes impaired or polluted. The loss of funds for monitoring, she said, make it more likely such pollution will go unnoticed in its early -- and easily repairable -- phases.

"Part of it is, how can you know if something is impaired if you're not doing monitoring?" McClure asked. She explained that water quality monitors testing water along Cottonwood Creek have for years recorded high temperatures along the creek in the summer -- temperatures exceeding the state's maximum for fish habitat. Monitors recently began noticing the presence of a foamy residue. They documented its presence with photos and alerted WSWCD staff, who notified DEC staff of the problem. A chemical analysis of the residue and foam was one of 10 projects funded with the EPA grant money, but funding to continue monitoring along the creek was not -- something McClure said doesn't make sense.

John Koutsky, a chemistry teacher at Palmer High School, took part in the Wasilla Soil & Water Conservation District's first monitoring education program in 2000. He's been testing at the Schrock Road bridge over the Little Susitna River for the past three years and said he can't understand why the state would cut a volunteer program that has so many benefits for the little amount of money it uses.

"We need baseline data that we flat don't have," Koutsky said. "Valley rivers are heavily used and impacted … It's easier to fix things right when they happen than when it's too late."

Koutsky said he's involved in the program because he understands the importance of water quality and believes the testing and monitoring is a good way to preserve the resource as the area grows. At his testing site, he said, the effects of growth are obvious.

"During the day, it's party central for families and at night, it's party central for teen-agers," Koutsky said. "They're driving up and down the river in four-wheel-drive trucks for fun."

Koutsky said he's not against growth or development in the area, but believes development and growth can happen without destroying the surrounding environment -- if testing programs stay in place.

"It's not that we need to stop them … If we don't have a baseline, then we have absolutely no leg to stand on, legally," Koutsky said. "It's a tool for sound management."

Who pays for the program,

and why?

Through Section 319 (see related sidebar), the EPA awards grants to states through a complex funding formula. Between 1990 and 2001, according to information from the EPA, more than $1.3 billion was awarded to states, tribes and territories under Section 319.

Alaska has, for the past few years, received between $2 and 3 million in Section 319 funding. Typically, about half of that money has gone to DEC for operational funding and the other half as Alaska Clean Water Action grants to community-based groups and local governments for clean-water projects. This year, the focus of the ACWA grant funding was redirected.

"I don't know yet what the final split is going to be," said Jonne Slemons, DEC's nonpoint source pollution control program manager Thursday. About $376,000 was distributed to 10 ACWA grant applicants, a significant change from the previous half-and-half structure. Nonpoint source pollution occurs when stormwater or irrigation water runs over land or through the ground, picks up pollutants and deposits them into water bodies or introduces them to groundwater.

The projects being funded, Slemons said, focus on repairing or rehabilitating impaired water bodies. One such project was approved within the Mat-Su, a Cottonwood Creek Total Maximum Daily Load assessment, which will be performed by Aquatic Restoration and Research Institute at a cost of $14,155. The project, according to information from DEC, will analyze residue and foam that is present on Cottonwood Creek, evaluate all point source and nonpoint source inputs, conduct fish sampling, measure water chemistry, perform chemical analyses of the foam and seek to determine the presence, causes and sources of the foam in order to develop a recovery plan for the creek.

Seven of the remaining projects will concentrate on restoration, recovery or assessment of streams in the Southeast area. One will continue water monitoring at Chena Slough near Fairbanks and the last will continue monitoring within the Municipality of Anchorage, where the state's highest concentration of polluted water bodies is located.

"We're going to focus on our highest-priority work," Slemons said.

The rest of the pie

The half of the funding normally used as operational funds by DEC remains stable, Slemons said. And although Thursday she wasn't able to say exactly how the remaining money would be parceled out, she was able to say where it will go.

"We'll be reserving a certain amount of money for in-house work for impaired water bodies," Slemons said. Although more than 40 grants came in, applicants are presently free to choose or create a program for funding. The freedom of choice, she said, means some of the projects that need to be done for the good of a particular water body aren't being chosen. In an Anchorage Daily News article, "DEC pulls water quality funding," Ballard was paraphrased as saying DEC has "done a poor job overseeing the volunteer water monitoring … resulting in a patchwork of information that wasn't as useful as it might be."

The patchwork, Slemons said, was more the result of the agency having little control about where information was being gathered or what grant proposals were sent in response to the request for proposals.

"The RFP said 'Bring us cool projects,'" Slemons said. "We had no way of saying, 'By the way, … we would like for you to give consideration to these priorities.'"

The rest of the EPA money, Slemons said, will be used this year to work on combining the ACWA grant process with EPA requirements for the state. The department, she said, has been working with two priority lists -- the list of problem water bodies they're required to submit to the EPA, and the list of ACWA-funded projects. The two lists, and their adjoining databases of information, will be combined into one list of priorities, one list of water body rankings, Slemons said.

It's a process she said she expects to take a year and a half. Then, when the ACWA RFP goes out, it'll be directed at specific projects, with information about what projects need to take place and what the parameters of the projects are.

Along with that process, Slemons said, a statewide monitoring strategy will be developed.

"We cannot establish a priority for monitoring unless we really take a look at what the strategy is," Slemons said. That strategy, she said, will be developed during the next year. Slemons, Thursday, was unable to say how much public involvement will be included.

"We're still mapping out how we're going to approach this work effort," Slemons said. "The public involvement in ACWA generally is pretty strong. We want for that public involvement to continue, and if possible, to increase."

Slemons was also unable to say Thursday to what extent area watershed monitoring groups will be part of the development of the monitoring strategy.

"I'm glad they want to be a part of it. What I can't say right now is that they'll certainly be included," Slemons said.

That's not to say the monitoring effort will be shucked, Slemons said. With the strategy in hand, the department hopes to bring it back.

"We want to get to the point where we can restore monitoring as a funded activity for our 319 funds," Slemons said. "We value monitoring; we recognize the value of it."

Neither will the data be lost, she said.

"The data that has already been collected … through our funds, we don't intend to let it sit and rot and get lost," Slemons said. It will be captured and incorporated into the state's Storet program and preserved for future use.

And although most monitoring projects appear to be on hold, Slemons said she's confident this time-out will result in a better, more efficient and effective program.

"It's unfortunate that it's a drastic situation this year, in having to step back and get organized," Slemons said, "but I really do believe when we finish this work … people can tailor their application and no one will be wasting time proposing grants that don't serve high-priority purposes."

Funds on hold, but monitoring may continue

DEC's decision to change the allocation of those EPA funds isn't sitting so well with the EPA. Greg Kellogg at the EPA, along with other officials from that agency, met with Ballard and other Alaska officials Wednesday. Although the meeting brought about little change this year, Kellogg said, changes are on the way, and the pass-through portion of the Section 319 money won't be turned loose until those changes are made.

"I stopped the pass-through piece until we reach agreement," Kellogg said. "They're ultimately going to get this money -- they're entitled to it."

First, however, the two agencies must reach agreement as to the intent of the Section 319 funding.

"We have a different opinion of how the money should be spent than the state does, and that has to be re-negotiated," Kellogg said.

For years, he said, the EPA has had an informal agreement with the state on how the Section 319 funds should be spent -- half to the state agencies and half to community groups. Personnel changes, both at EPA and the state, necessitate that the agreement be reassessed, and he said public comment will be invited.

"It will be a public participation process," Kellogg said. "I'm not sure what form it will take. I would hope that process would begin in early August -- that's my hope."

In the meantime, Kellogg said he's scraping around for funding to help the monitoring programs keep running for another year. A longtime supporter of citizen monitoring programs, Kellogg said he saw firsthand how the lack of such basic data could cost, both monetarily and environmentally. As an on-site coordinator for the EPA after the Exxon Valdez oil spill, there was no information to tell them what streams and rivers in the area were like normally.

"There was no baseline data," Kellogg said. "In the case of the oil spill, it had to do with punitive damages -- we had nothing."

Although simply providing documentation of existing conditions is important, Kellogg said citizen monitoring programs do much more. They teach stewardship, they empower people to contribute to their area, they bring communities together to serve a common goal and, in the long run, they help people understand changes taking place in their communities and allow them to take measures to protect their area.

"They're providing a service to all the citizens of Alaska as volunteers," Kellogg said of those who have been involved in the citizen monitoring programs across the state.

He said although the programs are apparently being placed on hold right now, the information they've collected won't go to waste, even if local data hasn't reached the five-year benchmark for baseline data. "The data they've collected is not in any way worthless -- it's trained analysis."

While Kellogg looks for more funding to keep the monitoring programs afloat until they're funded again, McClure said her department has enough funding to continue monitoring area water bodies into October, and she's looking for ways to fund the program further. Lynn Fuller, who coordinates the Mat-Su Borough lake monitoring program, said funding to continue that program may be available through borough contingency funds -- funds set aside by the borough assembly in case of unexpected funding shortages elsewhere.

And Rachel Morse, the district coordinator for the Alaska Soil & Water Conservation District, who coordinated training in communities along the Kobuk River in rural Alaska, said she, too, is working to identify other funding sources, a task complicated by the last-minute announcement of the cuts.

"For the last fiscal year, we knew ahead of time that we had this funding. We were able to properly plan for a summer field season and start using the funding July 1st," Morse said. "We're into July now, and

we have to work on identifying other sources of funding and pull off a summer field season, so we're in a bit of a scramble. We should have known about these changes before the application process and certainly before July 1st. If that had happened, I'd have a solution by now instead of saying, 'We're working

on it.'"