Brian Jones has a near-daily routine — fill up five-gallon buckets of water at the village of Ambler’s water treatment plant, load a dozen of them into a trailer hitched to his four-wheeler and haul them home for his family of nine.
“Over 500 pounds. Each of these are about 40 pounds.”
Some days, he makes the trip twice. Most of the 120 gallons he’s hauling today will just be for laundry.
Ambler, a Northwest Arctic community of about 270 people, has been without water or sewer for more than five months, and state officials say full repairs could take at least two more months. The outage is straining residents’ health and daily routines, with no quick resolution in sight as winter approaches.
The emergency began in mid-February, when prolonged freezing temperatures, mechanical failures and human error led to a citywide water and sewer emergency.
According to the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities, about 85 percent of Ambler's main water lines are cracked, unable to hold pressure, and require replacement.
But not everyone can haul their own water. Some residents don’t have fourwheelers and some elders and others may not have the physical strength for it. It's also time consuming — time Jones said he’d normally spend getting salmon, whitefish and berries for winter.
Ambler was one of six Northwest Arctic Borough villages that experienced prolonged outages to their water and sewer systems during this winter’s cold snap. The state issued a disaster declaration in late March in response. According to Borough officials, Ambler is the only village in the region that still has no water or sewer from the disaster.
In an emailed statement, a representative from the state DOT said 6000 linear feet of water and sewer pipe need to be replaced before winter, work expected to take “a couple months.”
Ambler had also been under a boil water notice, which the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation lifted July 30. The community has two small filters and has relied on mostly bottled water, flown in by multiple organizations. Ambler Tribal officials said that a pallet of bottled water only supplies the community for one day.
Everything that comes to Ambler – supplies, pipes, fuel and equipment – has to be flown in. The water on the Kobuk River has been too low for a barge this year.
Sanitation – “a real 911 situation”
Bob Blechinger has lived in Ambler on and off for twenty years. He said there’s also sanitation issues, especially with honey buckets.
“I was over there at my buddy’s yard, and it's like a great big latrine,” Blechinger said. “He’s got honeydew bags and whatever can swell up, I expect everybody does unless they go to the dump on a regular basis. But the dump is not the place for it. The sewer lagoon is.”
Blechinger says what’s happening in Ambler is a “real 911 situation.”
Sarai Timothy is the acting tribal administrator and general manager for the Native Village of Ambler.
“This is a much bigger issue,” Timothy said “I’ve spoken with a lot of different medical and health aides that work in Ambler, and they have never seen such an influx of sickness.”
Timothy says the tribe has provided bottled water, honey buckets, portable washing machines and showers, cleaning and sanitation supplies and fuel to the community. The tribe also declared a water and sewer emergency in late February and requested assistance from the city, the Northwest Arctic Borough, NANA Regional Corporation and Maniilaq Association because of the imminent threat to public safety, she said.
“We reached out for assistance, and we heard nothing for weeks,” Timothy said. “Nobody had drinking water.”
State DOT officials said in a statement that contractors are building temporary showers and restrooms for the community until the water system is restored and that the agency is working with the Northwest Arctic Borough, the City of Ambler and community representatives to complete remaining repairs “as safely and quickly as possible.” DOT referred KOTZ to the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation for any additional questions.
