Pretty much every community in Alaska struggles to get rid of junk like worn-out cars, appliances and electronics, most of which contain hazardous substances that can harm human health. But the problem is especially acute in remote communities located far off the road system, where the stuff accumulates because it’s prohibitively expensive to remove.

“That’s where the struggle is, because from there we really need to take out the material – stuff that’s legacy waste from years ago,” says Doug Huntman who directs the Green Star Program, an effort supported by Anchorage-based Alaska Forum. “But the transportation costs are just so expensive. It’s very difficult to do that.”

A network of partnerships between nonprofit organizations, government agencies and private-sector recycling companies is planning to step up efforts to clean up junk and electronic waste that’s been accumulating for decades in remote communities around Alaska. The partnerships are racing to clean up as much of the stuff as possible by 2020 when federal funding for the projects is scheduled to run out.

Huntman said during a break in the Alaska forum’s environmental conference last week that members of his organization and its partners plan to find out exactly how expensive and difficult that is when they visit those communities this summer to plan cleanups next year.

“We’re going out to the communities on the middle Kuskokwim – which is a tough area in the state – to try and remove that stuff,” he said. Those communities include Upper and Lower Kalskag, Aniak, Chuathbaluk, Napaimute, Sleetmute, Stony River, Crooked Creek, and possibly Red Devil, said Dave Cannon, the solid-waste coordinator with Aniak-based Kuskokwim River Watershed Council. The council has organized smaller cleanups along the river in recent years and is now working with Huntman to figure out how to remove junk that’s accumulated in those villages.

Cannon says that includes old junk cars, “and in some villages, we have white waste – things like refrigerators, freezers. But batteries, boat and automotive batteries, probably are the biggest concern that we have.”

Cannon says the so-called legacy waste must be loaded onto a barge and taken to Anchorage. But first, it must be drained of hazardous wastes and other such substances. It’s a logistically challenging and costly endeavor. Even more so, because Cannon says it’s not known how much of the stuff is out there. And in some landfills and junkyards, it’s mixed in with other unknown substances. “There’s a myriad of drums with who knows what materials in them,” he said. “There’s even things like household hazardous waste.”

To read the full story, visit http://www.ktoo.org/2017/02/18/organizations-race-haul-junk-villages-epa-funding-cuts.

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