Exactly $7.5 million in new funding has been secured for a long-planned project that will see the construction of 18 miles of new waterline infrastructure on land belonging to the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe.
The support is coming through the Department of the Interior and will ultimately fund the planning, design, and building of modern raw water delivery and drinking water treatment facilities for the historic tribe, whose offices are headquartered in the southwestern Colorado town of Towoac.
The larger Ute Mountain Ute Tribe’s land comprises nearly 700 square miles in the four corners of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Arizona.
According to federal documents, a significant proportion of the more than 1,600 people living on the tribal lands have for decades been without access to a reliable and safe source of drinking water.
In announcing the funding, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said: “Investing in water infrastructure projects is crucial to ensuring the health, safety, and economic prosperity of indigenous communities.”
The issue of water availability on tribal lands is one with a long and sad past. “When the federal government established reservations for Native American Tribes, it promised a permanent and livable homeland for those it had displaced from their ancestral lands,” Colorado Democrat Senator Michael Bennet said in a statement.
Remarking that Washington’s initial promise has for too long gone unrealized, Bennet added: “Critical tribal infrastructure like this pipeline should be a priority for the federal government.”
Earlier this spring the Bureau of Reclamation, working with the Interior Department, announced that up to $320 million in federal funds have been made available to pay for the planning, design, and building of similar Tribal land water pipeline projects across the country.
November 7, 2024
By Garry Boulard
