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ACWA 



ALASKA CLEAN WATER ALLIANCE 



CooKfvauon Fuhir| Sutktiiienct ToorUm PuMk Healiii 



B0< 1441. Hiioej AK 99827 Phone: (907) 766-2»6 Pm: -»90 B-«u)I •cwa«i|C.«pci>rt 



5/24/96 



Senator Frank Murkowski Chairmftn 



U.S. Senate Committee on Energy aod Natural Resources 



Fax- 202-228-0339 



Re: Testimony of Gershon Cohen, Executive Director of ACWA, on the Extension of 

 the Ketchikan Pulp Company Long Term Timber Contract 



Mr Chairman, and Members of the U.S. Senate Comminee on Energy and Natural 

 Resources, 



The Clean Water Act has slowly begun to reverse the dangerous decline in the 

 health of our nation's wateit. Yet according to the National Water Quality 

 Inventory, half of our nation's rivers, lakes, and estuaries are still not safe for 

 drinking, or harvesting ftsb ai>d shellfish. Although polluted waters and 

 sediments often begin by contaminating the smallest aquatic organisms: the 

 greatest concentration of poisons are eventually found at the top of the food 

 chain. In Alaska the animals at highest risk are whales, bears, eagles, and 

 people. 



Ward Cove, the site of the Ketchikan Pulp Company mill, has become one of the 

 most polluted water bodies in our nation. It is listed as an "impaired water 

 body", and ranks second out of over 2000 contaminated sites statewide. KPC's 

 facility consistently tops the EPA's Toxic Release Inventory list, meets the 

 federal criteria for Superfund, and last September was assessed the largest 

 penalty for water quality violations in the history of the Clean Water AcL 



Ward Cove historically supported a healthy and diverse aquatic community — 

 but fish kills were being recorded as early as 1957. only four years after the 

 opening of the pulp mill. Subsequent water quality studies testify to the Cove's 

 rapid and continuous decline. The waters and sediments in Ward Cove arc now 

 heavily contaminated after forty years of discharging -34 million gallons of 

 polluted wastewater every day. 



In 1994 EPA finally issued a standard industry permit for the mill, to replace 

 the mill's administratively extended permit, now twelve years old. This new 

 Ward Cove permit would have required the mill to comply with the minimal 



