GAP OF INTENT

The reasons for the situation in Alaska are complex, but one thing in particular deserves attention: the belief of the water and sanitation service providers that they are doing everything they can within the intent of the laws, regulations, and policies that apply to them, even though they may be falling short. Increasingly what you find in organizations is that somewhere between intent and mission rests the plight of the underserved. It is in this gap of intent between the responsibilities of law, regulation, and policy and the obligation of mission that the substantive work of organizations to assist the underserved largely resides.

Consider a related example. The mission of the agencies tasked to implement the federal Safe Drinking Water Act is to protect human health through regulation of the nation's drinking water supply. Not captured in the intent of the law and its regulations are the 13 percent of American Indian and Alaska Native homes lacking access to safe water and wastewater disposal infrastructure. In the gap between the mission to protect human health and the law to regulate public water systems lies the immediate challenge to work with the underserved living in homes without access to safe water.

It is highly unlikely that the unaddressed issues of the underserved in the gap of intent will resolve of their own accord. Moreover, they will continue to play out in unexpected and costly ways. For instance, in the areas of rural Alaska with the lowest level of water and sanitation practice, afflictions related to poor hygiene are the third-leading cause of hospitalization. Hospitalization to treat diseases resulting from poor sanitation, instead of preventing these diseases in the first place, is a costly outcome of an inadequate sanitation system.