Federal officials announced a new round of funding to help tribes access clean drinking water.

As Alex Hager reports for the Mountain West News Bureau, that includes nearly $35 million for tribes in Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Wyoming.

Across the country, nearly half of all tribal homes do not have access to reliable clean drinking water.

This money, which comes from the Inflation Reduction Act, is part of a federal effort to change that.

The Ute Mountain Ute tribe in Colorado and the San Carlos Apache tribe in Arizona are among those getting money to plan, build, and maintain pipelines and water treatment plants.

The Biden Administration says this pool of money will help it stay on track with a goal to give 40% of its climate spending to marginalized communities.

This comes as tribes in the Southwest are asking for a bigger say in talks about how to use the Colorado River.

They’ve been largely excluded from negotiations about the river since the earliest days of its management.

America’s Warrior Partnership lead Jessy Lakin delivers firewood to an Alaskan Veteran. (Courtesy Jessy Lakin)

Alaskan winters are some of the coldest winters in the world.

With record breaking snow falls and temperatures reaching the negatives, Alaskans prepare months ahead of time for the long, cold winter months.

For some people, even staying warm becomes a challenge and is the reality for many veterans living in Alaska, including Native veterans.

Jessy Lakin is a combat veteran, who served two deployments in Iraq.

After his service, he moved to Alaska and started volunteering for organizations, such as the National Wild Turkey Federation, and created a non-profit called Battle Dawgs, helping veterans suffering with PTSD and addiction.

A few years after Lakin moved to Alaska, he spoke with an Alaska State Trooper, who said he had just delivered fire wood to a veteran, and told him of the dire situation many veterans face in Alaska.

“He said that he had responded to four deaths at that point, that he knew were veterans, and he was telling me that he was frustrated because there wasn’t really anything in place to help seniors, with snow removal, and fire wood, and the problem was, that we found, was veterans like to isolate. They don’t have anybody checking on them.”

Lakin says the four veterans who died, all showed signs of struggle when they were found.

They had burned all of their wood furniture, and their oven doors were found open, indicating they tried to warm their homes with the oven.

He said he knew he had to do something.

“There was no real tracking system here in the state, nobody is really paying attention to that, and there was no kind of program designed to support them. So, we got proactive, we started thinking about how to help. And we created the Mat-Su winter project.”

The project started out small, with Lakin and some veteran friends reaching out to other veterans, to deliver firewood, and remove snow from by their home.

He soon changed the name to the Alaska Warrior Partnership.

Here is Lakin talking about one of his experiences.

“When we found him, he was barely moving, he had his dog inside of his jacket, and then I think every piece of clothing on him possible. Hadn’t had fire in three days and it was negative 40 degrees.”

But the story has a happy ending.

“We took care of him, and then got him off the program, got him moved into a better house in town that had electric heat. Got him connected to other services as well.”

Lakin says he’s responded to many residences in similar situations.

More information about the program is posted on the America’s Warrior Partnership Facebook page.

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