or the first time since the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) established its Brownfields Program in 1995 to clean up polluted properties, four Alaska Native regional and village corporations were awarded grants. This year, grants of $2 million each were awarded to Ahtna, Inc., The Aleut Corporation, Cook Inlet Region, Inc., and Ounalashka Corporation. The funds allow the corporations to address contaminated lands conveyed through the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA).

The grants were awarded through EPA’s Multipurpose, Assessment, Revolving Loan Fund, and Cleanup program and the Technical Assistance to Brownfields program. Both programs received funding boosts from the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. In 2022, Congress added a new avenue specifically for ANCSA corporations and tribes in the Consolidated Appropriations Act. The new program makes $20 million available to build on the work started under the brownfields grants.

The EPA definition of a brownfield is “a property where the expansion, redevelopment, or reuse of which may be complicated by the presence or potential presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant, or contaminant.” Examples of possible brownfield sites in Alaska include abandoned tank farms, old US Bureau of Indian Affairs schools, old canneries, former dry cleaners, former gas stations, or former military sites.

EPA Region 10 administrator Casey Sixkiller says, “These grants will help communities assess and clean up contaminated properties, which is often a catalyst for revitalization.”

The Ahtna grant is meant for as many as twenty Phase I and up to seven Phase II environmental site assessments. The grant will also fund a reuse and revitalization plan and for conducting community engagement activities.

The Ahtna region encompasses the entire Copper River Basin.

Historically, after gold and copper miners swarmed the region, the federal government and private developers built telegraph lines, roads, bases, and airports to support mining. Additional roads, trails, and camps were built for Cold War training, and in 1974, the Trans Alaska Pipeline System was built across Ahtna lands. With the pipeline came construction camps, equipment, and unexpected spills.

Contamination left behind from these events impacted the fish, land, wildlife, and the cultural heritage of the Ahtna people. Ahtna communities still do not know the extent of contamination on their lands.

The grant provides Ahtna the necessary funds to begin the cleanup process. Through a collaborative effort between the corporation and the tribes and villages in its region, priority sites have been identified and grouped into three target areas. These target areas are along the highway systems and include an airport dump site, a cemetery, a depleted material site, a fire lookout tower, a former laundromat, a former railroad dumping ground, and a salvage yard.

The Aleut Corporation (TAC) is using the funds on Adak Island for eight Phase I environmental site assessments, developing an area-wide plan, completing Hazardous Building Materials Surveys, and conducting cleanup planning and community outreach activities.

The TAC region spans 1,100 miles from the western part of the Alaska Peninsula throughout the Aleutian Islands, including the Pribilof Islands. In 2002, TAC entered into a land exchange agreement with the US Department of the Navy and the US Department of the Interior which resulted in the conveyance of 47,150 acres of the former Adak Naval Complex, which was closed in 1997.

When the Navy departed Adak, it not only left behind vast remnants of base infrastructure, including barracks and base housing containing hazardous materials, but a large metal disposal and scrap yard, fuel-soaked lands, and numerous drums suspected of containing hazardous substances.

In some areas, unexploded munitions were left, too. Contaminants such as arsenic, asbestos, lead, mercury, and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) continue to pollute the area.

“The community-wide assessment grant will be used to evaluate sites throughout the city and will benefit not only the small rural community, which includes the Unangax̂ (or Aleut), the Indigenous people of the Aleutian Islands who fight to exist there, but also the extraordinary and fragile ecosystems that has been impacted over several decades,” says Julie Toomey, TAC’s vice president of regional affairs. “Being an EPA grant recipient jump starts the long overdue effort to rehabilitate Adak Island.”

While there are numerous contaminated areas across Adak Island that need to be assessed, the grant funding will focus on five specific target areas that are believed to both present the highest risk of hazardous materials as well as present the greatest opportunity for reuse. Most of the sites are in the heart of the Adak community and are central to the revitalization of the population center. The grant funding will be used to work cooperatively with the community to provide the most meaningful impact to Adak.

The EPA Brownfield Community-Wide Assessment grant allows TAC to identify, evaluate, prioritize, and select brownfield sites whose cleanup and reuse will result in the greatest and most meaningful impacts to health, safety, and economic welfare of the Adak community.

The site assessments will:

• Identify and categorize abandoned and unlabeled waste at the legacy Navy facilities. It is anticipated 2,331 containers, including 682 unknown liquid wastes, will be evaluated as part of this assessment.
• Identify and report recognized environmental conditions, which may include hazardous or toxic waste or raw chemicals stored, spilled, or dumped at the site.
• Complete a hazardous building materials survey at twenty-seven buildings.
• Identify a suitable location, design, and permit a monofill at one or more of the Adak brownfield sites.

“As an Alaska Native corporation, seeing our lands and people thriving in our region is of utmost importance. The burden of cleaning up our land is financially overwhelming and should not be passed on to our shareholders. Restoring and protecting our lands is vital for the Unangax̂ community today and for generations to come,” Toomey says.

Cook Inlet Region, Inc.’s (CIRI) funds will be used to inventory sites and to conduct twenty Phase I and eighteen Phase II environmental site assessments; prepare eight reuse plans, eight cleanup plans, and one area-wide plan; and develop a community involvement plan. The target area for this grant is the Kenai Peninsula Borough in a remote area on the west side of Cook Inlet.

CIRI is Southcentral Alaska’s largest private landowner with 529,500 acres of surface estate and 1.6 million acres of subsurface land. “These lands are rich in natural resources, and the Athabascan people have relied on its streams and rivers for subsistence for thousands of years,” says Ethan Tyler, CIRI’s director of external affairs.

The focus of the grant is assessment followed by cleanup and eventually remediation. “From a broad perspective, receiving the EPA Brownfield grant is a first step in a process with the ultimate goal being remediation,” says Tyler. “It begins with assessment and planning for what it will take to rehabilitate these contaminated areas.” CIRI will continue working with the federal government to complete cleanup and remediation.

“CIRI has a responsibility to be good stewards of our land, part of which is to ensure that the promise made by the federal government to clean up these contaminated lands is fulfilled,” Tyler adds.

CIRI sees potential for both the development and conservation of its lands. The organization will continue to seek opportunities for its lands that benefit CIRI shareholders and descendants, while balancing development and conservation.

“The Alaska Native people of the Cook Inlet region have spent generations in accord with the land, growing with it, harvesting plants and animals from it, acting as its stewards,” says CIRI president and CEO Sophie Minich. “This funding from the EPA enables CIRI to assess what is needed to restore and protect these lands for CIRI shareholders and descendants, today and for future generations.”

Ounalashka Corporation’s grant is for twenty-four Phase I and fifteen Phase II environmental site assessments, eighteen cleanup plans, twelve site-specific reuse plans, one area-wide reuse plan, and a redevelopment-focused brownfield site inventory within the City of Unalaska.

The target areas for the grant include Bunker Hill/Little South America, Pyramid Valley, and Strawberry Hill. Subjected to intensive use by the US military during World War II, all three sites present area-wide contamination concerns that remain largely uninvestigated. Additional investigations include potential contamination associated with individual former military buildings.

Upon completion of the environmental site assessments and cleanup, the area-wide reuse plan will commence. The south end of the 190-acre Bunker Hill peninsula is a targeted area for the development of marine-oriented commercial businesses. The west side of the peninsula is the planned location of a new cruise ship dock. The north end of the peninsula is a key power distribution point for the Makushin Volcano Geothermal project that Ounalashka is developing with Chena Power.

Housing is a key component of planned reuses in the Pyramid Valley and Strawberry Hill target areas. In Strawberry Hill, projected reuses for the target areas include a mix of single-family and multi-family houses along with commercial and institutional uses, including a regional medical center. Plans for single family housing are in place in Pyramid Valley.

The lack of quality and affordable housing in the City of Unalaska has been repeatedly noted as a major obstacle for economic development. The city’s 2020 Comprehensive Plan included the following statement: “More housing—and more affordable housing—needs to be created within the city limits. This is the key to our future, without which Unalaska will not be able to retain its current residents or accommodate additional residents. Therefore, over the next ten years, it will be essential to make more land available for the development of quality, affordable housing.”

The city and the village corporation expect direct economic benefits from jobs created during construction of houses on remediated brownfield land. However, the indirect benefits are equally significant. The current housing shortage impacts residents and major employers in the Bering Sea fishing hub. With insufficient housing, Unalaska has difficulty hiring and retaining teachers, doctors, and other essential workers. Increased housing remedies that situation and will benefit the community for generations to come.

When the EPA grants were announced this spring, Senator Lisa Murkowski commented, “By cleaning up previously unusable lands, Alaskans will have access to cleaner and safer lands that their communities can finally use.”