Nearly 1,600 individual water projects on tribal lands have now secured funding for construction because of the newly passed $1.2 trillion federal infrastructure legislation.
Those projects, according to the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, will see projects designed to build and upgrade water systems at a cost of around $2.6 billion.
Exactly $3.5 billion has been approved for the Indian Health Service Sanitation Facilities Construction Program.
An additional $2.5 billion will target already-approved tribal water rights settlements, which could benefit the White Mountain Apache Tribe in Arizona and the Navajo Nation, with lands in Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah.
The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act is also providing $216 million for a climate change resilience program under the auspices of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and $2 billion for a series of broadband infrastructure construction efforts.
Also on deck: $150 million for a new grant program designed to tackle well cleanup projects on tribal lands.
In a statement, Hawaiian Senator Brian Schatz said funding for tribal land projects within the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act is “critical to fulfilling our trust and treaty obligations to Native communities.”
Writing for the publication Indian Country Today, Stephan Roe Lewis, governor of the Gila River Indian Community, said the funding in the infrastructure bill for the various tribal land projects is important, “but even more significant for the future of the federal-tribal relationship is the acknowledgement that tribal infrastructure must be addressed after decades of underfunding.”
By Garry Boulard
