Tuluksak doesn’t have easy access to drinking water right now. The village’s water purification plant burned down about two weeks ago. Donations have started coming in, but may not be enough.
The CDC recommends each person drinks eight glasses of water per day. With that math, a village like Tuluksak, with a population of about 457, should go through 1,600 gallons of drinking water a week. Or if you’re a visual person, imagine 20 big bath tubs. Or 320 5-gallon buckets. But in the first week after the fire, Tuluksak only received about six bath tubs of water, or 96 buckets.
The first few cases of bottled water came in from the Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corporation, and from a GoFundMe set up by an activist. But according to tribal administrator Melony Allain, that water was quickly reserved and rationed out to Elders and bottle-fed babies.
But Allain is used to rationing water; most people in the Y-K Delta are. “I've always been conserving my drinking water,” she said.
Allain said that she uses the Tuluksak River water for cleaning, but not for drinking. “I would never ever, no matter how thirsty I am, I wouldn't want to drink the Tuluksak water."
As the airplane runway and ice road conditions improved, more water donations started to trickle in. A spokesperson from Donlin Gold said that they delivered water over the weekend.
“Just from that Donlin Gold it was able to be only 1.5 gallons per household, which isn't enough. Pretty sure it lasted a day or two,” said Allain.
Indigenous activist CeeJay Johnson and her team of volunteers were able to get more water to the village. “Alaska Airlines flew in six pallets of water for us. In the six pallets alone, we sent 11,520 bottles of water,” said Johnson.
Tuluksak is also expecting more shipments from the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Indian Health Services, which are sending about a week’s worth of water to the village. Brian Lefferts, Director of Environmental Health & Engineering at the Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corporation, wrote in an email to KYUK that he knows of six pallets of water scheduled to be delivered, but did not say where the water was coming from. YKHC did not respond to follow up emails seeking clarification.
YKHC is also working on testing a portable water purification system. If it can purify Tuluksak’s river water the health corporation will send the purifier upriver, but the testing hasn’t been completed yet.
Not knowing when they can expect potable water again is stressful for Allain. “I don't know the timeline for the drinking water, that's why I'm so concerned for people in my community. I really wish there was a faster solution," she said.
So far, in total, 1,950 gallons of water have been delivered to Tuluksak; about 24 bath tubs worth.
