Alaskan native villages to receive $27.9 million in Recovery Act Funds to improve water services

Seattle, Wash. – Nearly 30 Native Villages in Alaska will receive $27.9 million in funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 for improved access to vital water services.

It’s part of the $90 million nationwide Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Health, and Human Service’s Indian Health Service are directing to infrastructure projects designed to better protect human and environmental health in Indian country and Alaska’s native villages.

“This infusion of funds is very important for our tribal communities,” said Michelle Pirzadeh, EPA’s acting Regional Administrator in Seattle. “This work is part of our commitment and trust responsibility to provide clean drinking water and healthy sanitation to tribal families.”

These funds will bring much needed drinking water and sanitation improvements to more than 3,200 families in some of Alaska’s most remote areas. Many of these households are in great need of modernized infrastructure to ensure clean drinking water and improved wastewater systems that are protective of people’s health and the environment.

EPA and IHS identified 95 wastewater and 64 drinking water priority projects to be completed by IHS’s Sanitation Facilities Construction Program through EPA Recovery Act funds. The projects exceed the Recovery Act requirement that 20 percent of funding is used for green infrastructure, water and energy efficiency improvements and other environmentally innovative projects.

When President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 February 17, 2009, he directed the Act be implemented with unprecedented transparency and accountability. To that end, the American people can see how every dollar is being invested at www.recovery.gov. Adapted from EPA press release July 9, 2009.