Fast-moving fire on Spokane Reservation prompts evacuations
July 21, 2021 5:41 PM
Updated:
Photo by Guido Jansen on Unsplash
WELLPINIT, Wash. A fire is burning on the Spokane Reservation on Drum Rd, prompting people to evacuate immediately.
The Spokane Tribe said in an alert that there is a fast-moving wildfire in the Drum Rd. and Cottonwood Rd. area and that people have to leave as soon as possible.
The tribe said there is a shelter at the Wellpinit High School.
This is a developing story.
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In December 2020, Indigenous advocates and allies from around the world joined a virtual town hall on the last operating conventional uranium mill in the United States. The White Mesa uranium mill sits on the doorstep of Utah’s Bears Ears National Monument, just a few miles up the road from the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe’s White Mesa community, and has been flying under the radar as a de facto dumping ground for low-level radioactive waste for decades.
The town hall, called “Indigenous People and Environmental Justice at White Mesa: Confronting the Last Uranium Mill in the U.S.,” gave attendees a chance to learn about the White Mesa Ute community’s and the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe s struggle against uranium pollution, as well as more about the nuclear fuel cycle’s impacts to Indigenous communities.
Despite internet challenges, teachers, parents and students on Spokane Reservation go extra mile to make remote learning work union-bulletin.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from union-bulletin.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Every Monday, Amber Payne and Drew Davis drive half a mile from their home near Ford on the Spokane Reservation to pick up packets of school work for their three kids, ages 5, 8 and 11.
They are among the majority of families on the reservation who don’t have an internet connection to participate in online classes after Wellpinit schools returned to remote learning amid rising COVID-19 cases. Teachers and administrators estimate about 1 in 4 students on the reservation have internet access at home, a deficit they say is hurting students’ learning and well-being.
The federal government stepped in to help when Congress passed a roughly $3 trillion pandemic relief package in March, sending $8 billion to tribal governments. The Spokane Tribe invested $4.7 million in a broadband project that would provide wireless internet to most of the reservation, but a year-end deadline to spend the funds threatens the critical infrastructure work.