From oil and gas to mining, large-scale development projects have the potential for serious consequences, both positive and negative, for local communities. For decades, the Arctic Slope has been at the center of debate over the pros and cons of such development.
Now, the North Slope Borough has released a guiding document meant to help steer and standardize those conversations.
It's a health impact assessment guide for stakeholders, decision-makers, and project proponents and it includes information for everyone from community members to big business developers.
"This matters because it puts people and their health in the forefront of these projects, which hasn't been done ever on the North Slope," said Heather Dingman, who is from Barrow and spent eight years working with the borough's health department developing this document and the assessment program.
A health impact assessment, or HIA, is defined in the document as a process that "identifies how a specific project, policy, or program could affect the health of people in local communities and how those effects may be distributed within the population."
"It makes people think about health more [and] about things that they wouldn't otherwise think about when they're doing these projects and how that can trickle down to the communities," said Dingman.
These health assessments, like their more well-known counterparts -- the environmental impact assessments -- can often seem convoluted and impenetrable to the people who live in areas where development is being considered. They're often dense and lofty papers filled with industry jargon that skim over the human connections which ground the facts and figures for readers.
This guide is meant to walk different stakeholders through the assessment process in a way that's easy to follow by asking a simple question, said Dingman.
"What is the link between health and resource development?"
Within its pages, the guide has topics and questions to consider at different stages in the assessment process. Because there are often both positive and negative outcomes for a project, the guide provides examples of when and how varying factors intersect and what the results might look like.
For example, some of the health issues that should be considered before going ahead with a project are chronic disease, mental health, food security, cultural wellbeing, and employment and income.
Some common development project components are transportation, noise, employment and economy, and mobile, or transitory, workers.
When food security and nutrition intersect with economy and employment, you see a variety of outcomes. On one hand, with a larger employed population comes increased purchasing power for healthy foods. However, it can also lead to local inflation resulting in food insecurity.
By evaluating the interplay among these contributing factors in different villages or towns, project assessors can potentially weigh the good and the bad of the entire project more practically.
The same assessment tools can be used to evaluate a variety of environmental influences outside the scope of development, as well.
"We wanted to take a comprehensive look at what's going on in our communities, not just for oil and gas development but for climate change and how all of those impacts come together and play out in our communities," said Dingman.
The drawback is, like any document, the health assessment guide is only as good as the people who use it. Details and community feedback are open to interpretation. How it's used or not used is entirely up to those implementing the assessment.
But it does have the potential to call for certain checks and balances within the development process -- to set the ground rules, whether or not they are then followed.
"It gives us a better chance at looking at how we can adapt and how we can help our villages and our people to be more proactive at putting health at the forefront of these things," she said. "Because it's always been in the background in conversations but not ever addressed formally in any document. I think it's important that we keep it local and keep our voices heard."
Keeping community input in the conversation has been the impetus for many of the health impact assessments that have been conducted in the United States over the last few decades. According to the guide, these assessments have been used in other countries for many years but "have a relatively recent history" here.
On the North Slope, the first health assessment was performed in 2006 to investigate potential ramifications of a proposed oil and gas lease in the Northeast National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. It was conducted under the umbrella of a larger environmental assessment led by the Bureau of Land Management.
It was the first time a separate health component was integrated into a federal environmental assessment and resulted in parts of the reserve being withheld from development to protect local wildlife and access to traditional foods. It also led to new requirements for monitoring pollution in the area.
Currently, there is no statewide requirement for environmental assessments in Alaska. Instead they are guided by the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, at the federal level. Consequently, health impact assessments will not always be required by the state before development can take place, even if an environmental assessment is.
However, the guide suggests that it's appropriate to consider conducting a health assessment if there is significant public concern, among other reasons.
That's one of the potential benefits of having a guide that's accessible by industry representatives, project managers, and community members alike. It could even the playing field.
"It puts local voices on paper and makes people really think about how the work they're doing is impacting and how they can help and be here as a partner and not just an outsider," said Dingman.
From there, communities and developers have the chance, if they choose to put these tools to work, to consider ways of adapting and compromising for the benefit of all involved.
This story first appeared in The Arctic Sounder and is republished here with permission.