By: Yereth Rosen, Alaska Beacon
Permafrost thaw, erosion, storm surges, and other climate-change impacts in Alaska’s rural Native villages are not being properly addressed by federal programs because residents have too much trouble overcoming bureaucratic hurdles, said a report issued by the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium.
“Legislative and programmatic changes are needed to remove barriers faced by small rural communities and to create more effective and equitable systems to deliver resources and services,” said the report, titled “The Unmet Needs of Environmentally Threatened Alaska Native Villages.”
In all, there is an estimated shortfall of about $80 million a year in federal funding to address problems across the more than 200 Indigenous villages in the state, said the report, issued on Monday.
Addressing those needs properly will save money in the long run, the report argues. While $4.3 billion is expected to be needed over 50 years to mitigate infrastructure damage, each $1 spent on hazard mitigation will save $6 in recovery costs, the report said. A focus on hazard mitigation to prevent problems could save over $25 billion in response and recovery costs, the report said.
The report, intended for members of Congress and other policymakers, includes several recommendations for ways to make existing programs more effective.
One recommendation is to rank communities by need rather than by the quality of grant applications that local residents may not have the capacity to submit. There are 144 communities that have been identified as facing some sort of infrastructure damage from permafrost thaw, erosion, flooding or some combination of those forces, the report said. And the smallest of those communities have trouble getting their problems addressed, said Jacqualine Qataliña Schaeffer, director of ANTHC’s climate initiatives program.
“These small villages don’t have planning departments or grant departments. They have one or two people trying to maneuver in that space, and it’s inequitable,” she said.
Another recommendation is to designate a central agency or office to coordinate programs between federal agencies that may not be communicating with each other.
The Denali Commission is a good option for coordinating agency actions and funding, Schaeffer said.
“I think the Denali Commission plays a critical piece to our state because you could take any of those federal dollars and run them through the Denali Commission, and it becomes this finance machine that removes some of the restrictive deadline barriers for funding,” she said.
Establishing the Denali Commission as that type of hub, however, would require insulating it from political caprices, the ANTHC report said. The commission itself is an example of how progress has been “significantly hampered by past political transitions that eliminated or reduced funding for effective programs,” the report said.
In 2015, the Obama White House directed the commission to lead the coordination of the federal response to erosion, flooding and permafrost thaw. But under the Trump administration, those efforts were dropped. The Trump administration also attempted to kill the commission multiple times, and it aimed at other programs that focus on rural Alaska.
Another helpful change, Schaffer said, would be an expansion of the federal Stafford Act, the law under which aid is disbursed to respond to natural disasters. Aid under the law as it is currently structured is for acute, one-time events, but Alaska Native organizations have argued in recent years that the law should be altered so that aid can be granted for ongoing climate change-related problems like coastal erosion. That proposal goes back several years; in 2017, the Alaska Federation of Natives passed a resolution calling for Congress to amend the law to make it more applicable to the villages’ situation.
Discussions with the Federal Management Emergency Agency have been underway to try to get more flexibility for climate-related problems, Schaeffer said.
The ANTHC report builds on previous examinations of programs intended to address climate change impacts in Alaska villages. That work includes a 2022 report from the federal Government Accountability Office that found the villages in need have difficulty accessing help from the 10 different federal agencies with the relevant responsibilities. Like the ANTHC unmet needs report, the GAO report recommended that a single coordinating agency be designated to direct funding to where it is most needed.
The ANTHC report describes how climate change impacts are health impacts – affecting water quality, infection transmissions, food security and public safety.
Schaeffer said there is a cumulative effect on physical and mental health.
“When you’re constantly in response mode, emergency response every season brings a different type of threat. You don’t have the luxury of time or planning. You’re basically in this constant response mode. And so that does a lot to the body — body and soul,” she said. “You’re mentally stressed, and there is no cure for stress.”
Recommendations in the ANTHC report, if enacted, can be replicated and possibly expanded to address similar effects like erosion and flooding happening outside of Alaska, she said. “It’s much easier if you find solutions that could be scaled up versus scaled down,” she said.
