World News Korner

The USDA plans to bring indoor plumbing to Alaska villages. Yeah, kind of a big deal.

Alaska honey bucket. No, there is nothing sweet about this.

Courtesy of ABC News:

A remote Alaska Native village where only half the homes have indoor plumbing is among rural communities nationwide that will receive upgrades to rural water and wastewater systems with $352 million in grants and loans from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack is scheduled to announce the funding Thursday at a convention of Alaska Natives in Anchorage.

In a telephone interview Tuesday, Vilsack told The Associated Press that ultimately, the future goal is to bring the entire nation into the modern world.

"It's really designed to make sure people live in communities and in areas that provide the basic protections and the guarantee of basic protections that we all, as Americans, ought to have," he said. "It's an adequate supply of quality water. It's the ability to treat sewage properly so that it doesn't to harm or damage to the environment."

This may seem almost impossible to believe for those living in the lower 48, and actually those of us in Alaska cities often forget about ti as well, but there are thousands of residents who have to carry their own waste to a dump site for disposal, rather than simply pulling a lever like most people in the modern world.

Not too long ago I worked with a client from a very small village in Western Alaska who had never been out of his community before.

He was taken from his village after an incident and transported to a mental health facility in Anchorage. It was the first time he had flown on a plane, or ridden in a car, but those two things did not freak him out as much as indoor plumbing did.

After check in one of the doctors noticed that he was hopping around and realized that boy, who did not yet speak hardly any English, had to use the facilities.

He was taken into a room, which completely confused him as his family went out of doors to relieve themselves, and was encourage by male staff to pee into the toilet bowl.

Finally unable to hold it, he did just that. However when the toilet was flushed he became terrified and ran out of the room and almost out the front door of the building in terror.

So yes, this would be an incredibly huge deal for rural Alaskans.

Oh and by the way. These are the kinds of things that happen under Democratic administrations. And the kinds of things facilitated by Democratic Senators.

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