Thursday, Oct 20 2011 3:36PM
The sanitation work completed ensures residents have clean drinking water and limits their exposure to raw sewage, which can cause a variety of health consequences.
The Yukon River community Pitkas Point, Alaska, now has a water treatment plant and accompanying infrastructure after completing a project that began in 2004 with assistance from $11 million in funding, the Alaska Dispatch reports.
The sanitation work completed ensures residents have clean drinking water and limits their exposure to raw sewage, which can cause a variety of health consequences. According to the news source, about 18 percent of Alaska's villages lack water and sewer systems.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture, State of Alaska, Denali Commission and the Indian Health Service collaborated to fund the Pitkas Point project, including the construction of plumbing in residents' bathrooms and kitchens, the sewage cells, distribution pipes, ground water wells and more.
Efforts to establish and fund rural
community development programs to provide Alaskan residents with plumbing systems have been ongoing for more than a decade. The Alaska Native Tribal Healthcare Consortium has plans to develop plumbing and water systems in 30 of the villages which still lack services in 2012, although they depend on funding approval and availability.
This sort of development is a necessity to bring modern toilets, sinks, baths and showers to such villages, which cannot afford the expense of developing the facilities and infrastructure themselves.
For further reference, check out this source:
The Alaska Dispatch