In country plagued by random acts of vandalism, roadside mail boxes are scarce and only located along well-traveled major highways.

Reservation residents depend upon their local post offices to keep their mailed medicines and Social Security, veterans' benefit and other checks safe. They do their business at the post office, buying money orders to pay their monthly expenses. Customers of the Allen, Manderson and Wounded Knee post offices frequently walk long distances or wait days to use precious gas to collect their mail.

Now, those same people are staggered by the news that the U.S. Postal Service has placed the three post offices on a list of almost 3,700 post offices under review for possible closings. Eighty small post offices across South Dakota are on the list, including 11 on or near reservations.

"I don't know how we're going to handle it," said Anita Ecoffey, whose address is Wounded Knee. "There's a lot of chaos right now. People won't know how to handle it."

For tribal members struggling just to pay their bills or find reliable transportation, the Postal Service's suggestion that mail could be picked up in Hot Springs or Pine Ridge is beyond comprehension.

Like Ecoffey, Shannon County commissioner Lyla Hutchison's mail is currently delivered to a box at Wounded Knee eight miles away.

"I go once a week or every 10 days," Hutchison said. Construction projects on Highway 18 the past two years extended even that trip to 16 miles one way.

It's a one-way drive of 80 miles to Hot Springs where a recent survey asked her opinion on having her mailbox located.

That same letter advised her she could buy stamps and mail packages at Pine Ridge, 16 miles away.

"We were told there are approximately 280 boxes available in Pine Ridge and three boxes in Porcupine," said Tammy McGaa of Manderson. "That cannot even deal with the over 600 that make up the Manderson and Wounded Knee communities combined."

McGaa was also told that Manderson residents could go to Hot Springs or Pine Ridge, nearly 60 miles, to get their mail.

"For those who have transportation, this will be an extreme hardship," McGaa said. "For those who do not have transportation, it would be an impossibility."

Many people depend on the post office for the safe, secure delivery of vital, life-sustaining medications, as well as their monthly checks, she said.

"I do not believe the postal service has looked into all the facts, or is acknowledging all the facts in this case," McGaa said.

McGaa considers herself more fortunate than many of her neighbors on the reservation. She has a computer and Internet access.

"That's how I keep up on the news," she said.

But, her father relies on the daily arrival of his newspaper in his Manderson post office box.

In a land where many people can't afford television and often go without power because they can't pay the bill, the idea of using the Internet to pay the bills is beyond comprehension, Ecoffey said.

"We just can't do it. We just can't handle it," she said.

During recent meetings and in letters sent to patrons, the postal service has suggested locating "cluster boxes" in strategic areas or reservation housing areas.

All three women said it won't work because of the risk of vandalism and theft.

"No one wants cluster boxes. They don't feel they have the security," Ecoffey said. Even people living in housing areas object to the cluster boxes, she said.

A community post office located in a business that would sell stamps and accept packages is another option, according to USPS spokesman Peter Nowacki.

Nowacki said notes were taken at all community meetings and any written comments will become part of the record.

In Wounded Knee, where the post office resembles a walled bunker, more than a government building, there are no other businesses, Ecoffey said.

There is also the disturbing loss of the few jobs on the poverty-plagued reservation.

Ecoffey doesn't understand how putting a few people out of work will change things for the postal service.

Mark Strong, president of the National League of Postmasters of the United States, made a similar argument when he testified before the Postal Regulatory Commission on Sept. 26.

Closing thousands of rural post offices throughout the country will save less than three-tenths of one percent of the USPS' operating budget, according to Strong.

"I know that the postal service has said that they will be able to serve rural America just as well, if not better, once all these post offices are closed, but that is truly nonsense," he said.

Closing rural post offices because they lose money is against the law, Strong said.

"The postal service is required to provide rural America with the maximum degree of effective and regular service under the law."

Ecoffey is busy gathering letters to send to the postal service and the congressional delegation.

McGaa has also written letters, but neither woman is too optimistic after meetings were held in their areas.

There is a sense that the decision has already been made and it's just a matter of time before the post offices are closed.

"Apparently, those who are making decisions have no concept of rural areas," Ecoffey said.

Contact Andrea Cook at 394-8423 or andrea.cook@rapidcityjournal.com.