Residents of two reservations in South Dakota are being hit hard by high costs of heating.
Aldena Pretty Weasel lives on the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation. It costs her nearly $400 a month to heat her home with propane.
"You try to keep your heat down all day, but you go home, and it's cold, and you have to put your heat up. It's hard; it's really hard," she tells The Rapid City Journal.
Residents on the Pine Ridge Reservation only have one local propane supplier. It costs $120 for a minimum order of 53 gallons, which lasts less than a week.
The Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe used a $357,148 grant from the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program to help tribal members with heating costs but it already ran out. Another $470,000 grant from CITGO Petroleum Corp. is almost gone.
The Oglala Sioux Tribe has already used up almost all of its $739,625 grant. Another $600,000 from CITGO is almost gone too.
Get the Story:Warmth a precious commodity for reservation homes (The Rapid City Journal 1/25) $rl Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program - http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/liheap
