Ninety-two Alaska water systems are listed as serious violators

Kotzebue's drinking water has been over the federal limit for disinfection byproducts since 2019, and over a second such limit since late 2023. The city's own water quality report tells residents that consuming water above those levels over many years may cause liver, kidney or central nervous system problems, and may increase the risk of cancer.

Kotzebue is one of 92 Alaska public water systems the Environmental Protection Agency lists as serious violators of the Safe Drinking Water Act, meaning their unresolved violations total 11 or more points on a federal severity scale. Together those systems serve 29,185 people. Alaska has 1,327 active public water systems, so about one in fourteen is on the list. Nationally the rate is about one in forty.

The EPA expects a system that lands on that list to return to compliance or face formal enforcement within six months. Thirty-nine of the 92, serving 12,197 people, have never had a formal action of any kind recorded against them. Fifty-three have, but 48 of those came before 2015, and the most recent one brought by the state was against Valley Water Company in Fairbanks on Aug. 10, 2020, six years ago. A formal action that resolves a system's violations removes it from the list, so everything still on it has violations nobody has resolved.

The one recent enforcement action was not the state's. The EPA acted against Metlakatla in April 2025, the only one of the 92 its database places in Indian country, where the EPA rather than the state holds authority. Nationally, about one in eight serious violators has a formal action against it.

The state has not been silent. Ninety of the 92 have been the subject of informal action — reminder letters, warning letters, notices of violation, field visits, phone calls — 2,487 of them in all, and 53 systems had their most recent this year. The Department of Environmental Conservation has described the federal scoring tool in its own planning documents as a way to direct attention and technical support toward systems significantly out of compliance, rather than as a penalty mechanism. What that assistance amounted to in any individual case, and whether any system is already funded for repairs and waiting on construction, is not in the record.

Four communities are boiling their water, and a fifth has not returned its certification. Peters Creek Terrace in Chugiak has been under a boil water notice since 2022 because it cannot hold pressure on its lower loop. Chignik Lake is under a long-term notice from pressure problems and water lost through aging pipe. Saint George went under after a main line break. Grayling stays under until it files monthly operator reports and samples consistently, and the state's note says nobody has collected coliform or chlorine residual samples there since a typhoon in October 2025.

Diomede Joint Utilities scores 130 for 83 people and carries 126 unresolved violations, more than any other system in the state. Kotzebue scores 99 for 3,234 people.

Ten systems have exceeded the federal action level for lead and 15 for copper, the concentrations at which a system has to start fixing the problem. Nine failed to tell their customers there was a problem at all.

Fourteen systems, serving 9,942 people, have been counted out of compliance in every one of the last twelve quarters. Seven of those have no formal enforcement action on record, among them Kotzebue, Hooper Bay, Emmonak, Kwethluk, Alakanuk and Grayling. Fifty-two of the 92 systems are owned by tribal governments, and all but Metlakatla are the state's to enforce.

The figures come from the EPA's compliance database, queried Sept. 9. The agency's own data dictionary notes that these determinations are alleged violations and do not necessarily represent a final adjudication.