Half of Households on Native American Reservations Lack Access to Reliable Water Sources, Clean Drinking Water, or Adequate Sanitation

EDITOR NOTE: I was collecting information on banking and how it does not exist on many reservations - no banks, no ATM's?  Exactly: It's obvious that Third World reservations are not on anyone's radar, except Native People living on the rez.  It's obvious we are neglected in many modern systems... that is "their" playbook: NEGLECT.  What year is this?  

Then there is this: No Water?

(JULY 14, 2025) 

U.S. Senators Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.), and Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), along with U.S. Representatives Joe Neguse (D-Colo.) and Gwen Moore (D-Wis.), have introduced the Tribal Access to Clean Water Act, a bill aimed at significantly improving access to clean water in Tribal communities through major investments in water infrastructure.

The legislation would increase funding for water projects through the Indian Health Service, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the Bureau of Reclamation. These investments would support critical infrastructure development and help ensure that Native American households without reliable access to clean water are finally connected to safe, sustainable water sources.

“Too many Tribal communities in Colorado and across the country cannot access clean, safe water,” said Bennet. “This legislation builds on our efforts to improve access for Tribes in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. It fulfills the federal government’s promise to provide these communities with the clean water they deserve.”

“Nearly half of Native American households lack access to clean and reliable water supplies. That is completely unacceptable,” said Heinrich. “By addressing a significant backlog of infrastructure projects and removing barriers to federal programs that provide technical and financial assistance to Tribes, this legislation is an important step toward delivering clean drinking water to all families in Indian Country.”

“Clean drinking water is a basic necessity. Yet, so many of our Tribal communities have been left without the infrastructure. It’s unacceptable,” said Hickenlooper. “Let’s cut red tape and invest in modern resources to finally deliver safe, accessible water to every Tribe.”

“Access to clean water is a basic human right—and yet for far too long, Native American tribes have lacked access to safe and affordable water and reliable wastewater infrastructure. Our tribal communities deserve better,” said Neguse. “That’s why I’m honored to join Senator Bennet in introducing the Tribal Access to Clean Water Act, a bill that takes meaningful steps to close the gap between Native American households and access to clean and reliable water supplies.”

“An estimated 48 percent of homes on tribal lands lack access to clean drinking water or sanitation services. This is a serious public health issue that demands a federal response. I join my colleagues in supporting this important legislation, which will help tribes improve longstanding water infrastructure challenges and uphold trust and treaty obligations under the Constitution,” said Moore. 

Lack of access to clean drinking water is a significant barrier for many Native American communities.  According to data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Native American households are 19 times more likely than white households to lack indoor plumbing. A 2021 report commissioned by the Colorado River Water and Tribes Initiative documents the different barriers to accessing safe and reliable drinking water among tribes in the Colorado River Basin, along with some of the deficiencies in the federal programs designed to address this problem, and offers recommendations for improvement. Lack of access to drinking water negatively impacts health, education, economic development, and other aspects of daily life.

READ MORE: 

https://nativenewsonline.net/environment/half-of-households-on-native-american-reservations-lack-access-to-reliable-water-sources-clean-drinking-water-or-adequate-sanitation 

 

In Pine Ridge: I remember my relative Ellowyn Locke didn't have a land line or telephone until Bill Clinton was president.  That was in 1999.   Trace

What kind of adoptee are you? #NAAM

It's National Adoption Awareness Month. Yes, there is more than one kind of adoptee. Knowing your circumstances could really help you. Every adoptee needs history to understand their predicament.

• Are you an orphan baby? Were your first parents deceased? Think of Orphan Trains where children were taken off the city streets and shipped to farmlands in the midwest.

• Are you an abandoned or relinquished baby? Did your birth mother abandon you or give you up to authorities? Seven million (+) adoptees are now living in the USA, and most adoptees will fall into this category.

• Are you a rescue baby? Were you adopted from a Third World Country like Guatemala or Haiti (such as Operation Airlift) -  the result of oppressive poverty affecting babies and children, or were you sold by unscrupulous baby-selling operations?

• Are you an adoptee from Korea or China or Russia or _____, where your governments decided you should be sent to the US and adopted? There are statistics for some (not all) intercountry adoptions. (see below)

• Are you a Native American adoptee? Were you taken from your reservation and parents as part of a program that systematically adopted out Indian Children to non-Indian parents - a program designed to kill the Indian in you (using cultural genocide via assmilation)? Over the past 100 years, it's hard to know the number of children who were subjected to this form of adoption.

• Are you a kinship adoptee? Were you adopted by a member of your own biological family?

The number of orphan visas issued for intercountry adoptions is tracked by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, Demographic Statistics Branch, Statistics Division. For more information on intercountry adoptions, visit the U.S. State Department's Web site, at http://travel.state.gov.

 

 

How Many Children Were Adopted in 2007 and 2008?
Series Title:	Numbers and Trends
Author(s):	Child Welfare Information Gateway
Availability:	View Download (PDF - 629KB) Order (Free) - Add to Cart
Year Published:	2011 - 32 pages
Provides national statistical estimates for the total number of children adopted in the United States in fiscal years 2007 and 2008. The report includes highlights of the data; findings on the numbers of public agency, intercountry, and other adoptions; and data aggregations in exhibits, tables, and appendices. Data were collected by State courts, State bureaus of vital records, the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Consular Affairs. http://www.childwelfare.gov/systemwide/statistics/adoption.cfm

What other kinds of adoptees are there? Please share a comment on this blog... Trace

Broken Circle: What is an orphan?

Adoption was invented for orphans, children who lost their parents and needed immediate attention and help - to save their lives literally. The family circle was broken with the death of parents.
Children were orphans because there were no other relatives to care for them.
We know how "adoption" created new families for these orphans. That makes sense - it was a safety net.

Ask yourself:  how is the word orphan to be interpreted today?
In the Third World and Indian Country, those places on Earth where the most destitute live in poverty, an orphan is not necessarily without parents: some of these children are without necessities: food, water, medicine and clothing.
We know Americans will rescue the child but not their parent. Americans will call these children orphans. Is that true? Is it not selfish for an American to choose a child over the parent of that child?
Are Americans OK with separating that child from their parent via closed adoption?
The numbers of adoptees (7-10 million) today answers that question - yes.

In Indian Country kinship adoption means an orphaned child is raised with an auntie, grandparent or other relative.  Families remain intact and the child will not lose their family, language or their culture.
America's closed adoption model for Indians was purely destructive, severing a child's contact with culture, language and tribal kin, erasing their sovereign membership and their treaty rights. A few Americans involved in the Indian Adoption Projects have apologized, so we know they admit they did this heinous thing.
Can you imagine - Native children (thousands!) removed by the Indian Adoption Projects for the sole purpose of destroying families and tribal nations? It happened and yes, it was devastating.

America still places a stranglehold on Indian people with its judgement of us. This has gone on many years. Every treaty that was made was broken; all because American leaders wanted to secure more land and what was on those lands (minerals, water and food).
Plot after plot, year after year, you see the American government screwing Indians and stealing from tribes, or turning us against one another, one way or the other.
It's about control. It's about creating poverty and making us fight each other over scraps. This America goverment does not want us to be united in our struggle. They'd prefer us fighting each other over what little we're lucky enough to be granted or given by them.
A Northern Cheyenne friend said they start a fire in your front yard so you don't know what they are doing in your backyard.  They divert our attention this way, and have used it many times successfully.
That is why states historically do not deal with Indians - only the federal government. This is supposed to mean the feds are more fair or the feds have a better grasp of treaties and history - yet they control us with their beauracy, laws and delays.

Fast forward. Do you see American kids being sent to Africa or Russia for adoption? No.
Americans are the biggest adopter in all the world.  It's their savior complex. Americans believe they offered a better life for Indians, International and Third World adoptees.
As an adoptee, it was real pain for me. I cannot grasp how deep that pain went or my confusion and fear when my mother disappeared after I was born. She never returned.  Eventually I stopped crying. I blanked out the hurt yet that deep pain reached into every aspect of my life. It took many years for me to step into the circle and rejoin my relatives... My mother was not dead but I was orphaned.

I hope you will leave a comment.