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ACWA 



ALASKA CLEAN WATER ALLIANCE 



Conservation Fishing Subsistence Tourism Public Health 



Box 1441. Haines AK 99827 Phone. (907) 766-2296 Fax -2290 E-mail acwa@igc ape org 



7/3/96 



Representative Don Young Chairman 

 US. House Committee on Natural Resources 

 U.S. Capitol 

 Washington D.C. 20510 



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. House Committee on Natural Resources. 



According to the National Water Quality Inventory, half of our nation's rivers, 

 lakes, and estuaries are still not safe for drinking, or harvesting fish and 

 shellfish Polluted waters and sediments often begin by contaminating the 

 smallest aquatic organisms; but the greatest concentration of poisons eventually 

 reachs 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, is one of the most 

 polluted water bodies in our nation. KPC consistently tops the National Toxic 

 Release Inventory List. KPC easily exceeds the criteria to be classified as a 

 Superfund pollution site. KPC was recently ranked as the second most polluted 

 site in Alaska out of over two thousand evaluated sites, with a score nearly ten 

 times the level necessary to be placed in the highest priority category. Last fall 

 KPC received the largest Clean Water Act fine ever imposed; plea bargaining 

 down to one felony and thirteen misdemeanor convictions. 



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. The waters and sediments in Ward Cove are now 

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

 polluted wastewater every day. 



On May 16th, several citizen's groups including ACWA, filed a lawsuit against 

 KPC for 283 violations of State and Federal pollution laws. More than a hundred 

 of these violations, totaling over a million gallons of illegal discharges, have 

 occurred since the consent decree settlement of KPC's felony conviction. The 



