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Iowa Tribe in Kansas and Nebraska Benefits from Recovery Act Funds to Improve Water Services

Release Date: 07/08/2009
Contact Information: Kris Lancaster, (913) 551-7557, lancaster.kris@epa.gov

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Environmental News

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

(Kansas City, Kan., July 8, 2009) - The Iowa Tribe in Kansas and Nebraska will have improved access to vital water services through funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Service’s Indian Health Service (IHS) today announced $90 million nationwide in "shovel ready" infrastructure projects designed to better protect human and environmental health in Indian Country.

“The funds will help fix aging infrastructure, focus on green solutions and provide good-paying jobs,” said William Rice, Acting Regional Administrator. "Clean drinking water is essential for both healthy communities and healthy local economies."

The projects benefiting the Iowa Tribe will provide $161,500 for drinking water improvements. Continuing a tradition spanning 20 years, EPA and IHS’s combined effort to improve water services in Indian Country contributed to their identification of 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 the funds be used for green infrastructure, water and energy efficiency improvements and other environmentally innovative projects.

President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 on Feb. 17, 2009, and has directed that the Recovery Act be implemented with unprecedented transparency and accountability. To that end, the American people can see how every dollar is being invested at http://www.recovery.gov.

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More information about all the EPA Recovery Act water efforts