Nelson Lagoon is about to run out of water. The Alaska Native village of 40 people on the Alaska Peninsula expects its supply to run dry by March 20, after a January storm destroyed the underground pipeline connecting the community to its only water source.
Angela Johnson, president of the Native Village of Nelson Lagoon, said the storm washed out two miles of pipe that had just been reburied the previous fall, now exposing it to freezing temperatures.
“It was just crazy how one storm could do something so detrimental,” Johnson said.
After temperatures briefly rose, a small crew of community members spent 10-hour days repairing the damage — beating ice from the pipe and fusing broken sections back together. They eventually got water flowing again, but another cold snap set in and has lasted for several weeks. The pipes are still exposed.
“It still freezes up when it's that cold out,” Johnson said. “There's nothing we could do about that fact right now. We just have to wait it out until it warms up.”
When the tanks dry up, residents will rely entirely on bottled water that the tribe has been purchasing and shipping in, a cost Johnson said that the tribe cannot sustain long-term.
Residents have already begun collecting snow to use for dishes, sponge baths and flushing toilets. Johnson said those with boiler heating systems risk losing heat entirely if water pressure drops.
“Everybody's a little nervous,” Johnson said, “but we’re all sticking together ... we know we're going to make it through it.”
The village has babies who depend on formula and elders who need reliable access to clean water.
Johnson said there is no question about what’s causing the crisis long term.
“100% climate change,” she said. “We used to get a big ice bench in front of town ... by the time we had big storms, the sea ice was already there as a barrier.”
Nelson Lagoon has been seeking new, larger water holding tanks for years — a project that is estimated at roughly $4 million — that would eliminate the need to pump water during winter.
Johnson said the tribe has applied to Alaska Republican U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s appropriations bills every year for the past three years. A 2022 climate resiliency grant from the Bureau of Indian Affairs was also frozen under the new federal administration before eventually being released, causing significant delays.
“Now we're here in dire straits,” Johnson said. “Now people are finally like, ‘Oh man, we got to work on this. We got to help you guys out.’ And so this has been something that we have been vocal about, working on, trying to find solutions for — and it's just been kind of a headache.”
Nelson Lagoon has served as an Unangan fishing camp for generations, only becoming a year-round community in 1965 when a school was built.
Johnson hopes the crisis brings renewed urgency to the long-stalled infrastructure project.
“Hopefully after all this, we'll be getting a new water tank installed by next year,” she said.
For now, the community is waiting for warmer weather and for the replacement pipeline to arrive by charter plane from the Anchorage-based Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium.
“It feels like we continuously are watching our home get taken out by climate change,” Johnson said, “and there's not really anything we can do about it besides try to adapt.”
