Healthy Alaskans

Providing wellness by improving water infrastructure around the state

By Rachael Kvapil

laska Native Tribal Health Consortium, or ANTHC, has an ambitious vision: to make Alaska Native people the healthiest in the world.

As a non-profit tribal health organization, ANTHC provides several world-class health programs and services. ANTHC’s Division of Environmental Health and Engineering, or DEHE, plays a significant role in creating healthy homes by ensuring that communities have access to safe, reliable, and sustainable water and sanitation.

With funding secured through the federal Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, or IIJA, ANTHC is beginning the process to build community water and sewer systems that will serve more than 2,000 homes in more than twenty-four communities. However, ANTHC leaders know accomplishing such a large vision requires a team effort.

“It’s a big endeavor to serve the unserved and underserved,” says Jerod Jones, director of project operations. “We can’t complete all the work ourselves.”

Formed in 1998, ANTHC is the largest, most comprehensive tribal health organization in the US. It’s also Alaska’s second-largest health employer, with more than 3,000 employees. The consortium takes a multi-disciplined approach to health and wellness for Alaska Natives throughout the state. In addition to health and medical services, ANTHC focuses on prevention, research and data, medical technology, advocacy, and education. Through its environmental health and engineering team, ANTHC takes an active role in updating aging water and sanitation facilities and, in some cases, building new facilities in remote communities that completely lack system-wide plumbing.

“In communities without in-home plumbing, infants are five times more likely to be hospitalized with RSV and eleven times more likely to be hospitalized due to pneumonia compared to communities with piped water and sewer,” says David Beveridge, vice president of Environmental Health and Engineering, at ANTHC. “COVID really highlighted the need for safe water to clean and wash hands. IIJA funding allows us to deliver that.”

The IIJA, passed in 2021, allocated $3.5 billion over five years, or $700 million annually, to the US Indian Health Service to construct sanitation infrastructure for Alaska Native and American Indian tribes nationwide. The Alaska Area Indian Health Service, or IHS, received $271 million in FY22 to fund the design and construction of 115 projects and the planning for another 116 more. In FY23, Alaska Area IHS received $440 million to design and build another 39 projects. About 168 projects, estimated at around $1.5 billion, remain on a prioritized project list known as the Legacy List.

Because of this funding, many rural communities will receive in-home running water and sewer for the first time. In Akiachak, for example, only half of the homes had running water until recently. Over the past few years, ANTHC has worked to upgrade the water facility and connect pipes to the remaining 100 homes in need of running water and sewer services. In the 90s, the western part of the community was connected to the water facility, while the eastern side hauled water and relied on honey buckets dumped at residential collection points. Last summer, the last of the remaining homes were able to turn on their faucets for the first time.

DEHE started a multi-year project in Shageluk in 2021 to build and install water and sewer services to thirty-four homes and two public buildings, in addition to upgrading the water treatment plant. Like other smaller villages, a washeteria was the main way residents could access clean water, showers, washers, and dryers. A few public buildings in Shageluk, such as the school, clinic, post office, and city offices, already had running water. This project is being completed through a competitively bid construction contract. By this summer, ANTHC anticipates all residential homes will have indoor plumbing.

Also in the works is a project in Stebbins, with a population of about 550, to build a community-wide piped water distribution and wastewater collection system that replaces the need to haul water, use honey buckets, or solely rely on the washeteria. Richard Wooten, contract delivery team manager for ANTHC, says outfitting the community with in-home plumbing for the first time will require a high level of collaboration from everyone involved.

“We need to work together to ensure that we develop the project in a way that best serves the community,” says Wooten.

In Akiachak, more than 100 homes received running water for the first time in 2023. ANTHC hopes to achieve the same success in other rural communities that lack indoor plumbing facilities.

One frequent collaborator, Sturgeon Electric Company, Inc., has worked with ANTHC on several heat recovery projects in rural Alaska. Sturgeon is currently working on a wind-to-heat project at the water treatment plant in Kotzebue. Sturgeon is a large-scale electrical contractor based in Colorado with an office in Anchorage. Tracy Wolf, estimator and project manager for Sturgeon, speaks positively about the company’s relationship with ANTHC. He says ANTHC appreciates Sturgeon’s detailed paperwork and extensive visual documentation. Wolf says Sturgeon staff work well with ANTHC project managers and keep open lines of communication about needed changes, logistics, material procurements, etc.

“They’re great to work with,” says Wolf. “I try to bid on every project they put out.”

ANTHC has been an AGC member since May 2010. Jones says ANTHC frequently uses AGC’s plans room and appreciates access to AK-CESCL training for its field personnel. Wooten says networking with other AGC members is a big plus when identifying companies for future collaborations. Jones says he hopes that some of the future collaborations include a few IIJA-funded Legacy List projects.