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 .
“…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.”