Clearing The Air

BUCKLAND - The 426 predominantly Inupiat Eskimo residents of Buckland, Alaska know a thing or two about being cold.

Located in the Northwest Arctic Borough almost 400 miles west of Fairbanks, during the warmest days - May 30th to September 8th - the temperature averages a not exactly balmy 53 degrees (https://weatherspark.com/y/145009/Average-Weather-at-Buckland-Airport-Alaska-United-States-Year-Round) Fahrenheit. During the deepest, darkest days of winter - November 13th to April 3rd - it averages 15 degrees.

Outside, Buckland residents bundle-up. When they're inside - which, like the rest of us is about 90 percent of the time the 2013 EPA National Indoor Human Activity (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11477521) report estimated - make sure the windows are shut, the doors shut and "their homes warm by sealing them up tightly, blocking ventilation systems with clothing or other household items," a HUDUser case study (www.huduser.gov/portal/casestudies/study-08012016-1.html) observed.

"Well, that's just common sense," you might think. "Nobody wants to be cold." And you would be sort of right. But also sort of wrong.

Because, the case study continued, "the sealed houses create closed areas that concentrate contaminants from cooking and heating with a wood stove" - and, of course, smoking - "as well as retain visible and invisible pollutants released from materials brought in from outside. The poor home ventilation can lead to asthma, pneumonia, and respiratory syncytial virus and other infections, as well as headaches, eye and throat irritation, worsened allergies, heart disease, and cancer."

"If we look at Alaska overall, and rural Alaska, in particular," Jack Hebert, executive director of The Cold Climate Housing Research Center recently told The Arctic Sounder, "we have the highest incidence of upper respiratory disease in children and Elders in the nation and a lot of it has to do with the indoor air quality and what the houses are like to live in."

Lives are at risk. Consider a 2018 study published The International Journal of Circumpolar Health (www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/22423982.2017.1422669?scroll=top&needAccess=true) in 2018 done by the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium propelled by the fact the pneumonia hospitalization rate for infants in the Yukon Kuskokwim Delta in southwest Alaska are "tenfold higher than for other U.S. infants" and hospitalization which "has nearly disappeared from the developed world, but is still frequently seen among southwest Alaska Native children."

It monitored the indoor air quality and the respiratory health of 214 children from one month to 13 years of age in 63 homes in 8 communities during the year before and the year after an "intervention" that included "installing passive vents, range hoods and or bathroom fans; replacing old leaky woodstoves with more efficient, EPA-certified models; fixing or replacing oil-fired furnaces and addressing moisture issues."

The results of the interventions? A "significant" improvement in indoor air quality and "decreases were noted for colds or runny nose, cough between colds, wet cough, wheezing with colds, wheezing between colds and need for inhalers or nebulizers. Reported school absenteeism decreased."

Compelling stuff and the very kind of evidence that caused HUD to launch a Tribal Healthy Homes Production grant program to, explained HUD Secretary Carson, "collaborate with tribal communities to ensure that their housing is healthy and safe."

Three of the program's first 12 winners in September 2018 serve Alaska Native households - the Organized Village of Kake, the Tlingit Haida Regional Housing Authority and the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium. In September, 2019, he announced four more grants to Alaskan Native organizations - Kenaitze Salamatof Tribal Designated Housing Entity, the Native Village of Buckland, and, again, the Tlingit Haida Authority and the Consortium.

The Tlingit-Haida Authority will use its 2019 award, says The Juneau Empire, (www.juneauempire.com/news/tlingit-and-haida-gets-more-than-1-million-in-housing-grants/) to "help fund things like dealing with mold, installing heat pumps, making sure there's no lead in the plumbing, and replacing water heaters" in homes in Skagway, Juneau, Angoon, and Saxman. The Taġiuġmiullu Nunamiullu Housing Authority is contracting with the Consortium to tackle issues at a 29-unit apartment building in Utqiaġvik that, reports The Sounder, was built in 1977 that has "seen little rehabilitation and updating in the years since." Buckland, The Sounder (www.thearcticsounder.com/article/1941buckland_housing_gets_boost_with_healthy) also reports,, will work with Cold Climate to "interview homeowners, check out the current condition of the" Village's older "homes and, from that, come up with individualized plans for weatherizing them" and also "do workforce training with Buckland residents, so they can be the ones to actually tighten up the houses."

All told, the 7 Healthy Homes Tribal Production grants in Alaska will identify and remediate hazardous conditions in more than 235 homes. Each project, explains the Consortium's A.J. Salkoski, is "looking at how people live in the house because we can build great houses, but if we don't live in them the way that they're designed, we can turn them into pretty unhealthy environments pretty quickly." The cost of "a couple of medevacs of a family member out of a rural village to a hub hospital," adds Cold Climate's Hebert, "can pay for the kind of work that we're going to initiate in homes.

"None of this important and pathbreaking work would be possible without the strong partnerships we have in Alaska from the Consortium to the Cold Climate Center, regional and public housing authorities, and the State of Alaska," said HUD Alaska Field Office Director Colleen Bickford. "They're proven themselves up to meeting any and every challenge."

"Healthy homes mean healthy families which, in turn, mean healthy, strong communities," said HUD Northwest Regional Administrator Jeff McMorris. "Alaskan communities face unique challenges and we are confident these grants will develop innovative and effective ways to address the health and safety hazards that beset their housing stocks."

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