When the Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe landed a $19.9 million grant from the Environmental Protection Agency in early January, Robert Byrnes was elated. As a grant writer for the tribe, he and a few other employees had pulled 60-hour weeks during the holidays to ensure the agency had all the paperwork it needed to award the funds. The much-needed money would be put to use on the tribe’s reservation in South Dakota, repairing a historic bridge that had been razed a few years ago due to safety concerns, replacing asphalt roofs, and establishing resilience hubs to help tribal members during extreme weather. The grant was, as Byrnes put it, the “hugest” the tribe ever received for environmental work.
Once the agreement was inked on January 10, the tribe got access to the money through the Automated Standard Application for Payments, an online portal that grant recipients use to submit reimbursements and draw down their funds. In the weeks that followed, the tribe made a call for bids, hired contractors, and bought roofing materials, construction supplies, safety equipment, and freeze-dried food to stock the re... Read more