Don Young: “This bill seeks to expand Alaska's water supply system and reduce flood threats. My State's combined water bodies…”

“This bill seeks to expand Alaska's water supply system and reduce flood threats. My State's combined water bodies comprise one-third of all the fresh water in the United States, but communities are struggling to provide drinking water due to the outdated water distribution system and lack of information on groundwater resources. For this reason, this bill will include a survey of potential water supplies in the City of Anchorage, the Matanuska-Susitna Borough, the City of Fairbanks and Fairbanks Northstar Borough. The bill also improves streamflow information to improve flood forecasting, resource extraction and fire management. Streamflow information in the form of USGS streamgaging stations is insufficient in Alaska compared to other States. In fact, Alaska has only 100 streamgage stations, which is less than 10 percent of the information available in many other States. This bill will help alleviate that situation. Again, I want to thank Mr. Rahall and Mrs. Napolitano of California for bringing this bill, and I urge passage of this legislation. Mr. Speaker, may I say that I am so happy today we are talking about water, water in California, water in Alaska, water in Nebraska. Water is going to be our next big crisis that we are going to be faced with in this Nation, it is energy now, and we must do something.”