Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 55:21 — 38.0MB) | Embed
There is no more basic need than clean drinking water. That’s a need that the Santee Sioux Reservation in Nebraska has been lacking since the Environmental Protection Agency issued a no drink order in 2019. Wells on the reservation are showing levels the mineral manganese as much as 50 times higher than the agency considers safe. A long-term solution could cost upwards of $40 million. There’s no identifiable source of any funding for even a fraction of that amount.
GUESTS
Chairman Alonzo Denney (Santee Sioux), chairman of the Santee Sioux Nation
Vice Chairman Kameron Runnels (Santee Sioux), vice chairman of the Santee Sioux Nation
Mike Crosley (Santee Sioux), land manager for the Santee Sioux Nation
Lisa Sockabasin (citizen of the Passamaquoddy Tribe), co-CEO of Wabanaki Public Health and Wellness
Break 1 Music: The Water Will Cleanse Me (song) Russell Wallace (artist) Russell Wallace (album)
Break 2 Music: Turtle Island Reggae (song) Quese IMC & Cempoalli 20 (artist) Osahwuh (album)
There is such a terrible problem with the large list of needs in the native communities. It seems that money is always part of the problem. I wish the government would be more responsive the their responsibility. In the mean time, as these issue work through the system. I am wondering. Have the many native nations and. Communities in North America ever considered pooling their financial resources and sharing them to help each other solve some of these things, while the fight goes on with them the governments?