Rural Alaska has been hit hard by federal cutbacks this year, but there’s now one big exception. Thanks to the efforts of the Denali Commission, the Environmental Protection Agency has awarded 100 million dollars to help ten communities upgrade their fuel tank farms. Some have deteriorated so much that they are at risk of imminent failure.
“It's fair to say that some that are being funded by this initiative are just in the nick of time,” said Julie Kitka, the federal co-chair for the commission.
Kitka took the job last year, after she stepped down as President of the Alaska Federation of Natives, where she spent decades honing her expertise in channeling federal money to Rural Alaska.
Now those skills are being put to good use. Kitka calls this latest round of federal investment a historic investment, the largest appropriation in two decades for bulk fuel storage improvements in Alaska, the most in a single year.
“It is huge, and it's really good. And I especially love the fact that the ten villages are identified right in there, so people can be held accountable,” Kitka said.
These villages have spent a long time on a waiting list, and now, finally, their time has come, Kitka said.
Six are in Southwest Alaska: Shageluk, Russian Mission, Aniak, Tuluksak, Quinhagak and Eek. Four are in the Northwest: Wales, Kivalina, Kobuk, and Noatak.
The Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium will manage the three-year project and collaborate with the Alaska Energy Authority and the Alaska Village Electric Cooperative, or AVEC, which serves 58 communities.
Bill Stamm, the president of AVEC, says, combined, AVEC villages consume more than 9 million gallons of fuel a year. And that’s just the diesel fuel to generate electricity.
“It's really the backbone of all energy for rural communities, it's not just for electricity, but it's also the heating fuel and transportation,” Stamm said. “Everything that goes on in those communities is typically held in bulk fuel storage.”
The Denali Commission estimates there is at least a billion dollars of work needed. And while $100 million is only a fraction of that, Stamm says, “This is a large shot in the arm.”
If action isn’t taken soon to stabilize these tank farms, Stam says the Coast Guard or the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation could shut them down.
“If we get to a point where the facilities are deteriorated, there's no other options,” Stamm said. “It's not like there's another lifeline to provide energy for the community. They really need to be able to store fuel.”
Turn back the clock 25 years. That’s when the late Senator Ted Stevens created the Denali Commission. The Coast Guard had threatened to shut down bulk fuel tanks all over Western Alaska -- or fine communities 25,000 dollars a day.
The overwhelming costs paralyzed small villages until the Denali Commission stepped in to fund the work. The commission later expanded its mission to build health clinics and other essential infrastructure projects.
The Denali Commission now finds itself in the same role again, coordinating a huge effort to upgrade tank farms --only today’s problems are more challenging, as storms generated by climate change continue to eat away at shorelines. Stamm says some tanks not only need to be fixed but moved to safer ground.
“Part of the difficulty in meeting a three-year timeline is going to be figuring out where to put the tanks, determining where is an appropriate place to build facilities that you want to last for 20, 30, 40, 50, years, if erosion continues at the rate it is,” Stamm said.
He believes the funding will be a game-changer for these ten communities. The work will consolidate fuel tanks in one place, where they can be maintained more safely and more efficiently. He says the upgrades would lower costs for schools, village stores as well as city and tribal offices.
Julie Kitka says having a large grant like this allows the project partners to work on many fronts at once and will ultimately save money.
“We could line up contractors more efficiently. We can order things. We'll have cost savings by doing it,” Kitka said. But if communities don’t have enough money to complete the work from start to finish, she says it drags out the work over many seasons, driving up both the costs as well as the risks to life and safety.
Kitka says work is underway for Phase 2 and 3 of this project. The money for this first installment comes from various pots of unused federal money that a number of agencies transferred to the EPA for use in this project. Kitka hopes this can happen again.
Kitka credits the Alaska Congressional delegation for doing a good job of educating the Trump administration about the urgency of the need. She says the EPA administrator’s visit to Alaska in June was pivotal.
But while the federal government giveth with one hand, the other taketh away. In May, President Trump’s budget director Russell Vought wrote to the Senate Appropriations Committee, outlining plans to reduce the president’s discretionary spending budget by more than 22 percent.
Among the proposed cuts, the administration plans to eliminate six regional commissions, including the Denali Commission -- part of its overall strategy to reduce the federal bureaucracy by limiting the federal role in local economic development initiatives.
Kitka says it’s not time to panic yet. It’s still early in the budget process, she says, and the Office of Management and Budget’s discretionary budget request does not yet have the force of law. Kitka is hopeful the Denali Commission will survive the budget process, because there are signs the commission is being considered for funding in the House Appropriations Energy and Water Development Subcommittee for the 2026 fiscal year.
