Alaska - Bad water for many Alaskans

* In Hooper Bay, a sprawling Yup'ik Eskimo village of nearly 1,000 people and nearly no indoor plumbing, a 41-year-old man died and dozens of neighbors fell ill this past spring after drinking water from a village well. Dangerous levels of fluoride, intended in small doses to reduce tooth decay, were accidentally pumped into a holding tank. The village had a long history of water and sanitation problems, and like most villages, Hooper Bay didn't have a certified water operator. Also like many villages, Hooper Bay had done a spotty job of monitoring its water for contaminants, having gone nearly two years without submitting results of water monitoring to state regulators.