The listing of the Cook Inlet beluga whale as an endangered species has raised awareness of water quality in Cook Inlet.
Protecting the pristine water of Cook Inlet has been a focus for us at the Anchorage Water and Wastewater Utility (AWWU) and a source of pride for the utility staff for decades. In the past 10 years, AWWU has invested more than $40 million in new technology at the John M. Asplund Water Pollution Control Facility (Asplund) to ensure the facility is in peak condition and current with standards of professional practice.
AWWU continually monitors treatment performance at Asplund, and the data prove that the facility's performance remains excellent. Asplund's exceeds typical primary treatment performance, easily surpassing the requirements of the EPA permit. Last year Asplund won a prestigious Gold Award from the National Association of Clean Water Agencies, placing the facility and its highly-skilled work force among the elite in the Clean Water industry.
Our success also stems from our monitoring and control of industrial discharges into the sewer system before they even get to the treatment plant. Our strict sewer use ordinance and the Municipal Household Hazardous Waste collection program keep toxic materials out of the waste stream altogether. In short, we go upstream to control pollutants entering our facility in order to protect the Inlet downstream, and it works.
We also know from over 20 years of independent, third-party field studies that the silty water, unstable cobble seafloor and swift tidal currents make the area around Point Woronzof a tough environment and a largely unproductive area for marine life.
Throughout these studies, scientists have repeatedly found:
1. no evidence of any negative impact from the plant's discharge on the water quality or biological characteristics of Cook Inlet;
2. no adverse effects on fish habitat; and
3. no detrimental effects on the marine biota, including the Cook Inlet beluga whale.
The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) concurred with these findings when the EPA renewed AWWU's treatment permit in 2000.
AWWU is currently working with the EPA and NMFS to further evaluate the effects of the Asplund facility's discharge on Cook Inlet water quality for beluga whales. This effort is being conducted by top scientists in the fields of environmental chemistry, oceanography and marine mammal biology.
The evaluation combines state-of-the-art mathematical models of tidal flows in the Inlet with current knowledge of the beluga whale population and habitat. Our goal is to quantify the whales' potential for exposure to treatment plant effluent anywhere in upper Cook Inlet. When complete, the analysis will answer whether municipal wastewater discharge is limiting the recovery of the beluga whale population. All findings will become public record.
AWWU's investment in sound science has a very practical purpose -- to enable us to protect public health and the environment based on good science while keeping utility rates reasonable. If our discharge is affecting beluga whales, we want to be the first to know. The issue is too important to our ratepayers and the citizens of Anchorage to be relegated to conjecture or loose speculation.
Maintaining good water quality for beluga whales and other marine species are top operational goals for AWWU. The long-term viability of the Cook Inlet beluga whale population is important to our traditions, our culture and our identity as a community. We continue our commitment to work with the federal government and other stakeholders to make sure that our actions are based on the best science available. We will continue to make our findings accessible to the public at www.awwu.biz/einfo.
Timothy M. Sullivan Sr. is chair of the AWWU Board of Directors.
By TIMOTHY M. SULLIVAN SR.