阿拉斯加村庄干涸，居民担心“未来没有水”

阿拉斯加村庄干涸，居民担心“未来没有水”

Residents are desperately trying to conserve water in the Native village of Nanwalek, located on Alaska's Kenai Peninsula south of Anchorage. The village, home to the Sugpiaq tribe, is currently in a severe drought.

安克雷奇以南，阿拉斯加基奈半岛上的南瓦莱克村，当地居民正竭尽全力节约用水。该村庄是Sugpiaq部落的家园，目前正处于严重干旱中。

Nina Kvasnikoff's family is eating off paper plates, collecting water from the ocean to flush toilets and washing themselves with sponges.

尼娜·克瓦斯尼科夫的家人目前用纸盘吃饭，用从海洋中收集的水来冲洗厕所，并用海绵清洗自己。

"It doesn't feel like you're clean. You feel like you're just splattering a little bit of water," she says.

“你并不觉得自己干净。感觉只是（往身上）撒了点水，”她说。

Last month, Nanwalek officials started shutting the water off for 12 hours every night, and the state has issued a "boil water" notice. But recently, Kvasnikoff decided she had had enough of the extreme conservation. She and her family jumped on an airplane to the nearest city for a break.

上个月，南瓦莱克村的官员开始每晚关闭供水12个小时，国家已经发布了“开水”的通知。但是最近，克瓦斯尼科夫决定她已经受够了这种极端的保护。她和她的家人乘飞机去最近的城市休息。

"So that's a lot of money to do that, but you do what you have to do," she says.

她说:“这需要一大笔钱，但你做了你必须做的事。”

Kvasnikoff says that she grew up without running water but that at least back then, fresh water felt plentiful.

克瓦斯尼科夫说她在没有自来水的环境下长大，但至少在那个时候，淡水是充足的。

A community crisis

一场社区危机

The village of Nanwalek usually receives roughly 6 inches of rain each summer, but this summer, it has only received about 1.5 inches.

南瓦莱克村每年夏天的降雨量通常约为6英寸，但今年夏天，降雨量仅为1.5英寸。

John Kvasnikoff is the village's chief and Nina Kvasnikoff's brother-in-law. He says Nanwalek's leaders realized its reservoir was running low about a month ago because of lack of rain and low snowpack.

约翰·克瓦斯尼科夫是该村的村长，尼娜·科斯尼科夫的姐夫。他说，南瓦莱克的领导人大约一个月前就意识到，由于缺少雨水和积雪少，水库的蓄水量正在减少。

"We really didn't have a plan, but then we started calling these agencies and [saying] 'Look we're running out of water,' " he says.

他说:“我们真的没有计划，但后来我们开始给这些机构打电话，说‘看，我们的水快用完了。’”

Local agencies, communities and the borough government have flown and barged water to the village. He says the water has gotten low before, but it hasn't caused an emergency since 2003. Kvasnikoff adds that the village's growing population of roughly 300 residents, and old leaky pipes aren't helping.

当地机构、社区和区政府已经用飞机和驳船将水送到了这个村庄。他说，水位曾一度下降，但自2003年以来就没有出现过紧急情况。克瓦斯尼科夫补充说，这个村子大约有300名居民，人口不断增长，老旧的漏水管道帮不上什么忙。

"We're in line to get a new water system to replace all the old beat up water line that we have now," he says.

他说:“我们正在等待购买一个新的供水系统，以取代我们现有的所有旧的破旧供水系统。”

The village is considering increasing the size of its reservoir and raising funds to buy a reverse osmosis machine so residents could purify water from the ocean for drinking.

这个村庄正在考虑扩大水库的规模，并筹集资金购买一台反渗透机器，以便居民净化从海洋中取得的水以供饮用。

Alaska's Department of Environmental Conservation says six communities dealt with water shortages this summer, more than any summer in recent memory.

阿拉斯加环境保护部门表示，今年夏天有6个社区遭遇了水资源短缺，超过了近年来的任何一个夏天。

"The warming climate will mean that we will want to be prepared in the future for these kinds of events," says Rick Thoman, a climatologist with the International Arctic Research Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

阿拉斯加费尔班克斯大学国际北极研究中心的气候学家里克·托曼说:“气候变暖意味着，我们将来要为这类事件做好准备。”