The giant Mni Wiconi water project is ready to deliver the first Missouri River water to Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, two decades after Congress first authorized the pipeline project.
South Dakota's congressional delegation will join officials from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and three Lakota tribes Wednesday for a ceremony in Wanblee to mark the first delivery of river water on the reservation.
The Mni Wiconi Rural Water System is designed to provide good quality water to more than 50,000 people in nine counties and three American Indian reservations west of the Missouri River. The project stretches from Fort Pierre, where Missouri River water is treated and pumped into a pipeline, to the Pine Ridge reservation, parts of which are more than 200 miles from the treatment plant.
The pipeline has been pumping Missouri River water to some areas for years, but the delivery of water to the Pine Ridge reservation is a milestone, said Mike Watson, head engineer for the Oglala Sioux Tribe, the lead sponsoring agency for Mni Wiconi.
"It's a very historic moment for the Oglala Sioux Tribe, which has been very patient in waiting for the water to get to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation," said Watson, of Helena, Mont.
Congress authorized the project to deliver clean water to the three reservations and other western South Dakota communities that lacked good quality water.
The West River-Lyman-Jones Rural Water System, which is distributing water to non-Indian communities, began building some project components in the early 1990s. The intake and water treatment plant on the Missouri River started pumping water into the system by 2002, and the core line had been extended by late last year to Murdo and Kadoka.
Water already has been delivered to the Lower Brule and Rosebud Sioux Indian Reservations.
Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., who has been credited with securing federal money to build Mni Wiconi, said he is proud to have helped authorize the project in 1988.
"This has been a long road and miles of pipeline, but finally Missouri River water is flowing. This pledge of clean drinking water shows what we can accomplish when we work together, ranchers and farmers, tribes and the federal government, to improve our communities," Johnson said in an e-mail message to The Associated Press.
Watson said officials estimated that spending on the project will reach $364 million this year, with the total cost of the 4,200-mile pipeline system to reach about $450 million by the time it is completed in about five years. The federal government is paying the whole cost for reservations and 80 percent of the non-reservation portion.
The project is considered 80 percent complete now, with the rest to consist of small-diameter pipes that will deliver water to people, Watson said. Mni Wiconi is designed to serve 52,000 people but will reach more, he said.
"We'll just have to see 50 years from now how it's working out," Watson said.
Willard Clifford, a Mni Wiconi official on the Pine Ridge reservation, said rural pipelines have been built on the reservation for more than a decade. The project has used treated groundwater so far but now will add Missouri River water, he said.
The water system on the Pine Ridge reservation eventually will use half groundwater and half river water.
The project will provide better quality water to homes, industries and livestock, Clifford said.
"You'll see where we build the pipeline, houses are built there, and people move back to their land where there was no water before. Now, there is water," Clifford said.
Red Shirt village on the northwest corner of the Pine Ridge reservation used to get water from a 2,500-foot-deep geothermal well. The hot water contained so much iron and manganese people could not even use it to wash their laundry, but the community has been getting treated groundwater since last year, Clifford said.
