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EPA Region 7 Tribal Program Awards Grants to Sac and Fox Nation of Missouri for Water Monitoring, Radon Protection

Release Date: 07/09/2012
Contact Information: Chris Whitley, 913-551-7394, whitley.christopher@epa.gov

Environmental News

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

(Kansas City, Kan., July 9, 2012) - EPA Region 7’s Office of Tribal Affairs has awarded a pair of grants to the Sac & Fox Nation of Missouri in Kansas and Nebraska to support the tribe’s environmental protection efforts.

The Sac & Fox Nation of Missouri in Kansas and Nebraska, headquartered at Reserve, Kan., occupies approximately 18,000 acres of reservation land in southeast Richardson County, Neb., and northeast Brown County, Kan. The tribe has more than 400 enrolled members, and a reservation population of 217.

A $135,000 performance partnership grant, expressed through a cooperative agreement, will provide administrative flexibility and support to the tribe’s Environmental Department, which has intermittently conducted surface water monitoring in partnership with EPA Region 7 since 2003.

Under this grant, the tribe will build on its existing water quality monitoring program to better inform the tribal council on the quality of the waters on the reservation. Creeks, rivers and ponds that exist on the reservation or its boundaries will be monitored for nutrients, turbidity, sediment and macroinvertibrate populations.

A separate grant of $32,712 will help to provide tribal members with current guidance, information and assistance related to radon safety, awareness, assessment, mitigation and preventive methods. Radon is an odorless naturally-occurring gas that can infiltrate homes and other buildings and pose serious health risks.

EPA provides financial assistance to states and tribes to help them implement environmental programs. States and tribes may receive these funds in individual environmental program categorical grants, or choose to combine grants in a performance partnership grant (PPG). PPGs, such as the one awarded to the Sac & Fox Nation of Missouri in Kansas and Nebraska, streamline administrative requirements, give states and tribes greater flexibility to direct resources to their most pressing environmental problems, and make it easier to fund efforts that cut across program boundaries.

The Sac & Fox Nation of Missouri in Kansas and Nebraska is one of nine federally recognized tribes within EPA Region 7.

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