Tribes welcome infrastructure money

$11B to help expand internet, fix roads, address sanitation

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. — Tribes welcomed an infusion of money in the massive infrastructure bill to expand broadband coverage, fix roads and address water and sanitation needs, but they say real change will come only with sustained investment.

President Joe Biden this week signed the $1.2 trillion deal that includes about $11 billion in benefits for Indian Country, according to the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. About one-third of that, $3.5 billion, will go to the Indian Health Service, the federal agency tasked with providing health care for more than 2 million Native American and Alaska Natives.

The funding is enough to address more than 1,560 projects on the agency’s list of water and sanitation deficiencies in 12 regions, estimated to cost nearly $2.6 billion. Projects in Alaska and the Southwest region that covers the Navajo Nation — where many tribal members live without running water and indoor plumbing — collectively have the largest price tags.

“In these and several other tribal communities, sanitation and clean water systems would never be built because the annual appropriations were insufficient to cover all the deficiencies,” the National Indian Health Board said Wednesday.

Indian Health Service spokeswoman Jennifer Buschick said the agency will consult with tribes soon to determine how to allocate the funding.

Another $2.5 billion will go to fulfill tribal water rights settlements that already have been approved. The Interior Department hasn’t specified which agreements that quantify tribes’ rights to water are included. But the leaders of the Navajo Nation, which extends into parts of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah, and the White Mountain Apache Tribe in eastern Arizona said they expect to benefit from the funding.

Heather Tanana, who is Navajo and an assistant law professor at the University of Utah, is part of a group that released a roadmap Tuesday on how the federal government can move forward with the funding effectively. It includes coordination among federal agencies, working with tribes and through an existing tribal task force.