A water project that will benefit three reservations and nine counties in rural South Dakota needs more funds, a water manager says.

The House has passed a bill to provide $22 million for the Mni Wiconi "Water is Life" project. But of that amount, only $15 million can be used on the construction of a system to provide water to 50,000 people on the Pine Ridge Reservation, the Rosebud Sioux Reservation and the Lower Brule Sioux Reservation.

If more money isn't added by the Senate, the project will be set back four years, according to Mike Kurle, the manager of West River/Lyman Jones Rural Water Systems. An engineer for the Oglala Sioux Tribe says an average of $47.4 million is needed to complete work by 2008.

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Mni Wiconi deadline looms (The Rapid City Journal 5/26)