In some of Alaska's most isolated spots, toxic waste and old community dumps are eroding into the ocean or rivers.The military is spending millions to stop the junk from entering the water - for example, moving entire Cold War-era landfills that teeter on the edge of the crumbling Beaufort Sea coast.

But at other eroding dumps - in particular, those in tiny villages with limited funds or on old military sites that don't qualify for federal cleanup dollars - a cleanup is elusive.

The dumps are in more danger than they were a few years earlier ago because of the increased rate of erosion in many areas along Alaska's coast, state officials say.

"We've got a bigger problem than we'd anticipated," said Jennifer Roberts, a program manager for federal facility restoration at the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation.

Old dumps aren't the only pollution risk. In some Bering Sea villages, coastal erosion during violent storms also has threatened to spill thousands of gallons of fuel stored in tank farms perched too close to the ocean.

The risk of pollution is a compound blow for villages. Several of them - Newtok, Kivalina and Shishmaref - also are scrambling to raise money to move inland because their homes are at risk of falling into the ocean.

The increased rate of erosion is linked to the dramatic loss of sea ice that forms each year off Alaska's coast. The ice protects the shoreline from attack by big waves created during winter storms.

The reduced sea ice has been tied to the Earth's overall warming climate, but even if humans are able to reverse climate change - by cutting their emissions of heat-trapping gases, such as carbon dioxide - erosion will always be a problem in Alaska, experts say.

From now on, state and federal regulators need to do a better job to prevent dumping in Alaska's erosion-prone areas, said Orson Smith, an Arctic engineering professor at the University of Alaska Anchorage.

HASTY CLEANUPS

In the past two years, federal agencies have staged several multimillion-dollar cleanups and repairs at defense radar stations and abandoned military exploratory oil wells along the Beaufort coast.

The Air Force, for example, barged tons of contaminated material from Oliktok - a historic radar station 30 miles northeast of Nuiqsut- to the Lower 48 last year.

This summer, the Air Force plans to barge hazardous waste from two other radar stations - Barter Island and Point Lonely - also threatened by erosion.

Problems at the old dump at the Barter Island radar station, next to Kaktovik, have already prompted several emergency repairs in recent years. Last fall, the ocean breached a seawall that had protected the dump from erosion.

"We've been tracking it extremely close," said Col. Brent Johnson, the Air Force commander who runs the logistics for 40 remote Alaska military sites, including radar stations.

In November, the Air Force flew excavators to Barter Island to dig out the "dirty dirt" from the edge of the sea, moving it inland. This summer, the Air Force plans to move the entire landfill inland, Johnson said.

Other federal agencies have also done hasty cleanups. For example, the Bureau of Land Management spent more than $7 million two years ago to clean out the JW Dalton exploration well in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.

Erosion from the Beaufort Sea had carved 300 feet from the shore, exposing the well casing and breaching its reserve pit, where drilling wastes containing high amounts of heavy metals were dumped, according to the agency's reports.

NO CLEANUP

State regulators said they are concerned that at least five abandoned military dumps in the Arctic and the Aleutians aren't scheduled for any clean-up.

One of them, at a former radar station along the Kogru River, is spilling into the river, but it doesn't appear to qualify for a cleanup through the Army Corps of Engineers' abandoned defense site cleanup program, state officials said. The dump contains batteries, military drums and heavy metals. An oily sheen has stained the river.

"A (dump) is kind of like a Pandora's box of surprises," said Tamar Stephens with the state Department of Environmental Conservation.

The Department of Defense allows the Corps to remove "unsafe debris," but those clean-ups are given a low priority for funding unless tests show they have severe contamination, state regulators said.

The Corps handles more than 600 "formerly used defense sites" around Alaska, but funding for cleaning them has declined in recent years.

VILLAGE DUMPS

Last year, dramatic erosion caused a old dump at Point Heiden on the Alaska Peninsula to start spilling onto the beach near subsistence clam beds.

"The erosion has been going so fast, it just kind of broke open last year," said Scott Anderson, the environmental director for Port Heiden's tribal council. Residents are worried about contamination in their food supply. The erosion is also creeping toward the village's fuel tanks, he said.

"We've yet to come up with a funding source to take care of it," he said.

Last summer, the Corps pulled out about 2,400 55-gallon military drums. But the Corps suspended its cleanup when it found old household trash buried beneath.

To get funding for emergency cleanup, Port Heiden must show that the contamination is hazardous, Anderson said.

In November, DEC regulators traveled to Port Heiden to investigate an oil sheen next to the dump.

By the time the DEC staff arrived, the sheen had dissipated, but more chunks of the landfill had disappeared into the Bering Sea, state regulators said.

Until the cleanup money becomes available, Anderson said tribal staff will monitor the landfill for certain hazardous items - such as old batteries - eroding onto the beach.

"My office is capable of dealing with that," he said.