October 19, 2023 • 39 mins
Did you know that water is not just a means of sustenance, but also holds immense cultural and spiritual significance for the Cherokee Nation? Join us for a captivating conversation with Billy Hix, the Senior Director of the Office of Environmental Health and Engineering with the Cherokee Nation, as we journey through the vital world of water and wastewater management in the Cherokee Nation.
From a science-obsessed child to a prominent water security advocate, Billy shares his intriguing journey and his deep-rooted connection to his community and the environment. Uncover the three crucial aspects of water security - quality, quantity, and equity - as we explore the intricate relationship between the Cherokee Nation and water. Take a deep dive into critical practices which assure the water is fit for drinking, recreation, and more.
The conversation further navigates the critical topic of clean water funding within the Cherokee Nation. Billy sheds light on essential acts like the Wilma P. Mankiller and Charlie Soap Act and the Indian Health Services agreement that play a pivotal role in providing funding for water infrastructure. As we wrap up, we delve into the challenges and opportunities in the water and wastewater management sector, and the initiatives taken towards ensuring water security for all. Fascinated? Tune in for an enriching discussion you wouldn't want to miss.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Not only do I get to do, you know what I love in the
place where I love, but it's thepeople that I love.
You know the family that I grewup around.
I've got a huge extended family.
My mom and my dad work fromreally large families so I've
got a ton of first cousins andsecond cousins and they're
scattered all over thereservation.
So when I think about you knowI'm going to do a job in a
(00:22):
particular community I think,well, you know, I've got, I've
got kin folks that live there,and I'm not only doing it for
that community, I'm doing it formy family.
That's one thing about beingCherokee, because when you do
these kinds of things yourealize that we're all family.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
All right, welcome to episode 16 of Small Talk.
Our podcast here at Communityis Unlimited.
My name is Chris Baker andjoining us today is Mr Billy
Hicks.
Billy is the senior director ofthe Office of Environmental
Health and Engineering with theCherokee Nation.
Billy, how are you today?
I'm doing great.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Chris, it's great to be here and thank you for having
me.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
I appreciate you being on.
Also joining us is anotherCommunity.
Is Unlimited employee HaileyReed Hailey, how are you?
Speaker 3 (01:04):
I'm good, I'm glad to be here.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
And guys.
We just wanted to sit down andtalk and introduce Mr Hicks,
talk about what he does for aliving, talk about how the
Cherokee Nation has interactedwith water and wastewater and
just kind of talk about thestate of things.
And to get things rolling Iguess I should tell you as well,
billy you are on the Communityis Unlimited board.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
Yes, that is correct.
I have been on the board for afew years now and really enjoy
it.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
And then also, are you still on the board at RCAP I
?
Speaker 1 (01:31):
am.
I will probably, if they willhave me, will be starting my
last three-year term as anat-large board member in a
couple of weeks.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Safe to say, you deal with water and wastewater a lot
, I do.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
I deal with it on many fronts.
I dealt with it here for about20 years give or take, and then
joined the RCAP board and thenlater joined the CU board, and
so I have been dealing with iton just a little different scale
and a little differentperspective in those two roles,
but it basically all boils downto trying to help rule
(02:03):
communities with their water andwastewater issues.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
And I guess we should really zoom out for just a
second and start with, can youintroduce us, Billy, to the
Cherokee Nation and telleverybody, if they are
unfamiliar, what it is sizethose kind of information?
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Sure.
So the Cherokee Nation is up inthe northeast corner of
Oklahoma and our reservationencompasses all or part of 14
counties.
I think there's six countiesthat are completely inside the
reservation and there's eightcounties that are partially
inside the reservation.
And within that reservation,you know, we encompass part of
(02:38):
the Tulsa metropolitan area.
So there's a large populationand I want to say there's around
60,000 or so Cherokee tribalmembers that live inside the
reservation.
And then of course there areother tribal members from other
tribes that live inside thereservation as well.
And from our perspective, withthe program that we administer
through Indian Health Service,we service not only the Cherokee
citizens who live in thereservation but also all of the
(03:02):
federally recognized tribes thatlive inside the reservation.
So we serve everywhere from,you know, the Cherokees that
live here, but Choctaws,chickasaws, muscogee, you know
there's a lot of small tribes byMiami in the very northeast
corner of Oklahoma, but a lot ofthem live on our side of the
boundary.
So we serve those tribalmembers up in that corner as
(03:22):
well.
In a typical year ourdepartment probably serves about
600 to 700 homes with variousdifferent services on water and
wastewater, and you know thevast majority of those are
Cherokees, but then we do serveother tribal members as well.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
So why water and wastewater for yourself?
How did you get involved in why, I guess?
Speaker 1 (03:45):
Well, you know, thinking back on it, my
childhood I was really I was ascience nerd, there was just no
easy way to put it.
I love science.
I grew up before the internet,so I consume PBS and shows like
Nova and Nature.
And there was a show that usedto come on PBS called
(04:05):
Connections and it was a BBCseries and I don't know if any
of you have ever seen it, but itwas just the coolest show and I
just ate it up.
And so when I was in highschool, I had a chemistry
teacher who had he was a retiredArmy officer and his name was
Tim Bodine and he reallyinstilled that love of science,
especially chemistry and physics, in me.
(04:25):
And so when I graduated highschool, I went to college and
graduated with a degree inchemistry.
While I was in school I wasworking my way through school I
got the opportunity to come towork for the Cherokee Nation as
a dispatcher for the EmergencyMedical Services Program and I
actually worked my way throughschool, while I was actually
working nights and weekends onan ambulance and working in the
dispatch center.
(04:46):
Well, when I graduated and gotmy degree, there was a job that
came open in the Cherokee NationEnvironmental Department and I
applied for that program and wasselected and transferred from
the EMS program over to theenvironmental program and I've
been here ever since.
It's going on almost 29 yearsnow.
I just love this work.
I love working for the CherokeeNation.
My parents are both from theCherokee Reservation and it gave
(05:09):
me the opportunity to make adifferent experience in my home
community and to live around myfamily and not have to move off
to some urban environment insome far off region of the
country and try to make a living.
And I was able to do that hereand it's really been beneficial
to me and to my family and Ijust love it.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
I find that within the tribal nations there is a
desire to give back to thatcommunity.
Is that part of it for you?
Speaker 1 (05:35):
It is.
It's a big part of it, becausenot only do I get to do what I
love in the place where I love,but it's the people that I love,
the family that I grew uparound.
I've got a huge extended family.
My mom and my dad work fromreally large families so I've
got a ton of first cousins andsecond cousins and they're
(05:55):
scattered all over thereservation.
When I think about I'm going todo a job in a particular
community, I think, well, I'vegot kin folks that live there
and I'm not only doing it forthat community, I'm doing it for
my family.
That's one thing about beingCherokee, because when you do
these kinds of things yourealize that we're all family
and I'm sure if Hayley and I sitdown and talk long enough, we'd
realize we probably have commonkin folk and ancestors at some
(06:17):
point.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
There's all the time you find people are related and
you're like oh, Well, Healy, Iguess I want to bring you in now
and let you ask a couple of thequestions that you had.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
I know you were talking a lot about, you know
your family, but also I know inour culture water is sacred.
You know water or a ma inCherokee is really something
that I was taught to berespectful of and to.
Whenever I come into a you know, a body of water that I need to
leave it cleaner than when Icame.
(06:47):
Does that have any play intowhat you do and why you did it?
Speaker 1 (06:54):
It does.
It has a big impact on me.
When I, you know, came into thisworld, my parents had had to
move to Tulsa to find work and,as a lot of Cherokee families
did, there weren't a lot ofopportunities in those rural
communities back in the, youknow, in the 50s and 60s, so
they had moved to Tulsa andthat's where I was born.
I always remember when I wasyoung we would come back and
visit my, my mom's family andthat's that's where my Cherokee
(07:18):
lineage comes from is for mymom's family and they lived in a
little house here in CherokeeCounty and right behind their
house was a spring and if youknow that, the significance for
Cherokees and water, that springwas like almost like a sacred
spot and I remember as a childgoing down there and seeing that
spring and I was just in awethat there was this water coming
out of the side of the hill andit was cold and it was clear
(07:40):
and it was clean and you know,getting to, getting to
experience that really I thinkfostered that, that desire to
you know to be involved insomething that involved with
water Because, like you said,water is life.
And this is an audio onlypodcast, but my shirt has that
on it right here.
Water is life, and that'sthat's what we, we believe, and
(08:01):
that's that that is reallyingrained in everything we do.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
You had the spring and I kind of had the Illinois
River.
I still had family that hadland right off the Illinois
River and he also had a turkeyfarm right there and while his
farm's no longer there, I doknow that there has been growing
amounts of poultry farms in thearea and with that's been kind
of some growing concern aboutwhat it's doing to the water.
(08:26):
You have any thoughts oranything about that?
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Well, yeah, certainly , water quality is, is a big
issue and we we are certainlyattuned to that and we realize
that.
You know, we can't continue toexist if we let the water
quality degrade to a point whereit's no longer usable and that,
you know, that kind of bringsup the whole concept of water
security.
And when I talk about watersecurity, I'm not talking about,
you know, the fences around awater treatment plant or
(08:53):
cybersecurity.
I'm talking about a conceptthat in order to have water
security, you need three thingsyou need water quality, you need
water quantity and you needwater equity.
And those three three things.
If you think about a Venndiagram, where those three
circles converge in the centerand you have all three of those
elements, that's where you havewater security.
So if you don't have waterquality, you can't have water
(09:13):
security by definition.
You know surface water quality,those nonpoint source pollution
sources like poultry farms oreven, like you know, people that
let their cattle get down intothe river and degrade the water.
You know we like to haveriparian buffer zones where we
keep that kind of thing out ofthe river.
The farmers can certainly usethat water to water their cattle
(09:34):
, but we don't want the cattleto go into the water.
We want the water to go to thecattle.
You know, those types ofmanagement practices and
conservation measures wecertainly support because it
helps and keep that waterquality high.
You know, when I was little Iremember going down to Lake
Tinkiller and the water was soclear you can go out on a dock
and look down the water probably15 feet deep and see the bottom
.
Well, you can't do that now anda lot of that is because of the
(09:57):
high levels of nitrates andphosphates that are in the water
, that support that algae growth.
And now the algae in the waterhas got it to a point where you
can't see in the water more thanprobably a couple of feet.
And so those long term waterquality metrics are definitely
always in the front of our mindand trying to keep the water
quality to a point where it'susable.
It's not only for drinkingpurpose but for recreation and
(10:21):
for Cherokee's.
You know that cultural andspiritual perspective as well.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
You're talking about what appears to be potential
obstacles in water andwastewater.
I'm genuinely curious becauseI've been with communities in
limited for about a year inchange now and I got to be
honest, I didn't think aboutwater or wastewater in my own
life before now.
It was just there.
I guess my question to you isspecifically with your work with
the Cherokee Nation.
Is there any like uniqueobstacle situations that come up
(10:48):
with that kind of work in theCherokee Nation?
Speaker 1 (10:50):
I don't know that.
We have a lot of uniqueobstacles.
I think we have a lot of commonobstacles that most communities
face.
Certainly, water quality thatwe just discussed is a big issue
.
We see degradation of surfacewater and groundwater.
We also see declining amountsof water available in some areas
, so we see groundwater yieldsgoing down in communities and in
(11:15):
homes that depend ongroundwater as their primary
water source.
So water quantity is also anissue.
One of the big issues that we doface is that third element of
water security is water equity,and one of the things that we
really wanna focus on is tryingto make water affordable,
because if you have all thewater in the world and it's of
the highest quality, but peoplecan't afford it, it doesn't do
(11:36):
them any good, and so one of theissues that we wanna tackle is
trying to determine what is afair gauge of water equity.
How do you measure that?
How do you determine if wateris affordable?
You know the EPA has a metricthat they use.
It's 3% of the median householdincome.
Well, if you think about themedian household income, that's
the person right in the middle.
Half the people make more, halfthe people make less.
(11:57):
So if you're over on the rightside of the curve, you're fine,
but if you're way over on theleft side of the curve, what's
affordable for the guy in themiddle may not be affordable for
you.
So we wanna make sure that wethink about those folks and when
we're doing a project planningand we're looking at a project
to improve water quality orwater quantity in a community,
we also wanna look at what it'sgonna do to the water equity
(12:20):
side of that equation.
We wanna make sure that wemaximize the grant funding that
we can get for those communitiesto try to keep those water
rates low and still have thewater system be sustainable.
What we've seen over the last 20or 30 years, or maybe even
longer, is the lot of watersystems were faced with a choice
they can keep the wateraffordable or they can maintain
their system.
And a lot of those systems,since they were governed by the
(12:43):
folks that were trying to keepthe water affordable, chose that
option and they kept theirrates too low to be sustainable
in the long run.
And now you've seen the effectsof 30 years of aging
infrastructure and they're facednow with the fact they need to
replace things.
Pumps have worn out, towersneed to be replaced.
Water lines are too small andthey don't have any money in the
bank because they've had thatobstacle to keep the water
(13:04):
affordable for their citizens.
And now we have to come in andtry to help them find a solution
to replace that infrastructureand try to help find a way to
keep that affordable.
You know there's a lot offinancing out there for water
projects but most of it is loanfunding and so if that water
system has to take on a loanthey have to pay the loan back.
Well, the water system doesn'texist without the customers, so
(13:24):
the customers have to pay theloan back and so if the rates go
up, what suddenly wasaffordable for the last 20 years
is no longer affordable.
You know there are federalprograms to help pay for folks
broadband If they meet incomequalifications.
There's programs to help thempay for their heating and air
conditioning and utility bills,but there's no program for water
and wastewater.
There was a program that wasstarted as part of the I believe
(13:47):
it was part of the coronavirusresponse effort, but it was a
temporary program and it's goingaway and so those folks that
qualified for that and were ableto get some relief on their
water and wastewater bills for afew years now are gonna be
faced with the fact that that'sgone, and so we have to try to
take that into account whenwe're doing a project.
But we also want to try to bean advocate for those folks and
(14:07):
for those communities to thinkabout.
You know, if the federalgovernment's gonna help
subsidize broadband for lowincome folks and heating and
electrical utility payments forlow income folks, let's think
about water and wastewater aswell.
I know there's broadband folksat CU that may disagree.
You can live without broadband,you can't live without water,
and that should be the top ofthe needs chart right there.
(14:29):
We need to help folks affordtheir water and that will help
those systems be sustainable.
If they can then charge a ratethat is sustainable, taking into
account those subsidies thatthose low income folks are gonna
get, then that makes that watersystem sustainable in the long
run, which is ultimately whatwe're after.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
Whenever I hear something like that and I always
learn something new almostdaily here at Communities
Unlimited that shocks me.
It seems like that's like ano-brainer right.
I don't know exactly what to doabout that, but I mean that
seems like it should be easilyand hopefully, you know, there's
lots of desire to get thataccomplished as well.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
You know the, while the federal government may be
kind of overlooking some of thewater wastewater things, it's
always great to see that theCherokee Nation isn't.
I get the Cherokee Nation, theCherokee Phoenix newspaper and I
follow them on social media andI've seen some kind of
legislation that's kind ofcaused some advancements
Possible, like in April of 2021,the Wilma P man Killer and
(15:28):
Charlie Soapwater Act that ledto at least two million in
additional funding to aid in theefforts at eliminating barriers
to clean water access in thereservation, and then again in
August of 2022, the IndianHealth Services, which has been
a blessing to me in many ways,but they have signed an
agreement that brought 11.8million in safe water
(15:50):
infrastructure and sewageupdates to 1,400 homes across
the Cherokee Nation.
How have these new acts andfunds affected your work and do
you have any more informationyou'd like to share on how it's
going now?
Speaker 1 (16:02):
Oh, yes, absolutely.
And if you get the CherokeePhoenix I don't know if you got
the most recent addition yet butwe are at the top of the front
page for a water project we justfinished in Chewy, oklahoma.
I know we're audio only, but Iwas sitting here nodding my head
up and down as you were readingall that I absolutely great
segue of what I wanted to getinto.
The man Killer Soapwater Act,passed by the Tribal Council
(16:24):
back in April of 2021, was ahuge effort and acknowledgement
on the part of the tribe torecognize the importance of
water, the issues that we facein this work and to set up a
program that is going to bereally instrumental in us moving
forward.
What the man Killer Soap didyou mentioned the $2 million.
(16:46):
That's probably the biggestpiece.
It was a tribal fundedinvestment in water in
perpetuity, until that manKiller Soap Act is either
amended or the Tribal Councilrepeals it for some reason.
That $2 million per year isgoing to be set aside for water
and wastewater infrastructurewithin the Cherokee Nation.
(17:08):
Now, what the man Killer SoapAct did, like you said, it is
for us to go out and try toidentify where those barriers
are.
There are three primaryelements that we are to do.
One thing is we are to try toidentify with, through a census
process, any Cherokee home thathas no water at all and then to
come up with a solution to getthem water as soon as possible.
(17:29):
The second thing is we aretrying to identify the number of
homes across the reservationthat don't have access to public
water.
So those are the homes that arestill on wells, that may be on
a cistern or using a spring andthey have a water source that
the EPA would consider that hometo be underserved because
they're not connected to apublic water supply.
So the second element of manKiller Soap is for us to
(17:50):
determine those homes and thethird thing is for us to
determine the mostinfrastructure deficient public
water systems across thereservation.
Those three elements arebasically what we do with the
man Killer Soap money on areoccurring basis.
We are to do that and toprovide a report back to the
council administration every twoyears on those data points and
then we are to try to come upwith solutions for those.
(18:13):
So what the man Killer Soap does, in my mind the biggest thing
is it gives us the tools to tryto identify where those barriers
are to break those barriersdown and then to help water
systems be more sustainable,reliable and affordable.
It was, like I said, anacknowledgement of the
importance of water and sincethat time, we've completed our
first report, which was due thislast November of 2022.
(18:36):
So we didn't have a lot of timeto gather data and to write
that report.
So we're going through now ourfirst full two year cycle and
that next report will be due inNovember of 2024.
And we're going to have a lotmore data and be able to have a
lot more exhaustive report witha lot more accuracy in the
recommendations that we're ableto make to council.
The other thing that the actdoes is it also also authorizes
(18:57):
the council to make additionalappropriations where they didn't
appropriate.
So if we come back with areport that identifies some
barriers that that $2 millionwon't solve, they can then
appropriate additional funds andgive to us to get those those
solutions implemented.
So it was really a huge, hugeeffort on their part and it has
really changed our operationsover here.
We were kind of reallydependent on the federal Indian
(19:21):
Health Service funding.
We had some tribal funds, butnothing like this, nothing that
really was geared towardplanning and data gathering
efforts that we needed toidentify where the issues were
and then do that.
So one of the things we're doing, we're we're actually doing a
evaluation of all the publicwater systems across the
Cherokee Nation.
There's 130, some of those, andwe're going to have all of
(19:43):
those done fairly shortly.
I just looked and we're up tothe 91 that we've done an
evaluation on.
So before this next report isdue we'll have every water
system evaluated and then we candetermine which of those are
the most infrastructuredeficient, what it's going to
take to fix that and then beable to report that back to
council and then also take it tothe federal agencies.
Do you say 130 water systems?
Yes, 100 water systems, 132,and that's just the ones that
(20:06):
are serving populations below25,000.
You know we're not countinglike the big systems, like the
city of Tulsa or Bartlesville orMuscogee.
We kind of feel that thosebigger systems they have large
tax bases, large customer bases,they have economies of scale
that the little systems don't.
So we wanted to focus ourefforts on the small system.
So we kind of chose that 25,000metric as the cutoff point,
(20:30):
knowing that probably the vastmajority of our work will be in
the small communities below 3300.
We have the capacity to serveup to 25,000.
We're going to evaluate them tosee what we find.
But I think what we're going tofind is the systems that are in
most need, have the lowestcapacity development scores and
the highest infrastructure needscores are going to be the
smallest systems in therestoration.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
Always amazed that whenever I get to talk to
someone who works in what wecall it CU Environmental
Services the water andwastewater area the variety and
scope of you know, rural watersystem setups it's just shocking
to me how much variety there is.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
Yeah, there's a huge variety both in scope and
capacity and service area.
What I was thinking the otherday, you know, rural Oklahoma is
on the electric side, is servedby a handful of electric co-ops
and they serve the entire state.
But across the state ofOklahoma I think there's like
800 and some public watersystems that serve less than
(21:30):
3300 population.
Imagine if, instead of having800 water systems, we only had
about 20 or 30 large watersystems that serve those rural
areas.
How much easier it would be forus to assess them, to assist
them and to make sure that theywere sustainable.
And I think eventually that'swhere we're going to go and it's
not going to be, you know,because of any grand effort of
one person to make that happen.
(21:52):
I think it's just going to be,as time goes on, those small
systems going to realize they'regoing to have to regionalize
and come together.
There's a lot of benefit toregionalization and I think
eventually those small systemsare going to come to that
realization.
We would like to bring themthere sooner rather than later,
but eventually I think it'sgoing to happen just because of
the natural order of things andthe way things, you know, go in
(22:14):
our world and a small systemthat could operate and be
feasible 50 or 70 years ago isjust simply not going to be that
you know, in the future.
So they're going to have tocome to these regional projects
and we are in the process oftrying to help some of those go
through that process, workingwith the staff at CU, working
with some of our local councilsof government to help them come
(22:38):
and do some feasibility studieson those regional projects to
see areas that we might be ableto help them partner together to
be sustainable and to have aviable future.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
And one of the things that I've also picked up on it
again, and I'm learning so muchabout water and wastewater in
just the year that I've beenhere.
Regionalization not an easytask.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
It's not.
You know, there's a lot ofbarriers to regionalization.
Sometimes we go in and there'slongstanding issues and disputes
between communities and we tryto come in as a third party a
neutral third party to try tohelp them work out those
differences and realize thatthey're better off working
together than they are trying tomaintain that separation and
their own individual littlekingdoms.
(23:17):
And you know, sometimes we canget over that hill and sometimes
we can't, but it doesn't meanwe're not going to try and we
see the long-term benefit toregionalization and we're
definitely going to keep blowingthat trumpet and we've got big
supporters at CU and at RCAP andother areas that are blowing
that horn as well.
And the EPA is trying to getthose folks to regionalize and
(23:40):
there's funding available andset aside to help facilitate
that and to make that happen andwe're definitely a champion of
that cause and will be in thefuture.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
I want to break in and remind everyone that we're
talking to Billy Hicks.
He's the senior director of theOffice of Environmental Health
and Engineering with theCherokee Nation.
He's also on the board at RCAPand that's, if you don't know,
is the Rural CommunityAssistance Partnership and he's
also a board member atCommunities Unlimited.
You're simultaneously, you areworking with the Cherokee Nation
Office of Environmental Healthand being on Communities
(24:11):
Unlimited's board.
Is that advantageous to yourwork in any way?
Speaker 1 (24:14):
Well it is.
It's definitely helped broadenmy perspective.
When I joined the RCAP board,you know, I had a good
understanding of water andwastewater work.
I knew about the federalprograms and getting to work
with RCAP I slowly began torealize that you know the folks
I had worked with at CU'spredecessor, crg, and then CU
(24:35):
itself.
I had a good understanding ofwhat they did, but what I did
not realize was how diverse theregions were within RCAP and
then the level of services thatthey had.
And so when I became a boardmember of CU, then I got to see
all of the other wonderful workthat CU is doing in our
communities.
You know, small business,lending and entrepreneurship and
(24:56):
economic development andbroadband and housing and all
those things that ruralcommunities need, not just water
and wastewater.
Being able to immersed myselfin that has helped me have that
broader perspective when I comeinto a rural community that
water and wastewater may be oneof their needs but it may not be
their only need and I need tolook outside of the water and
wastewater sphere to see ifthere are other needs that may
(25:17):
be contributing to the water andwastewater issues they're
having and then being able towork with the CU staff that can
bring in those resources.
And we've got a lot of programshere at the Cherokee Nation,
you know, housing programs andeconomic development programs
and commerce programs and careerservices and a lot of different
things that we can help thenbring into those communities
when we see the need.
So it's helped broaden myperspective for that and, I
(25:41):
think, be a better advocate forthose rural communities when I
go in there and work with them,you know, on their water and
wastewater issues.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
The advocacy part of it is such a big part of it for
rural communities it doesn'treally matter what area you're
talking about, but they needthose advocates and it doesn't
happen without them.
I have heard more than onceyour name mentioned as an
advocate, so kudos for that.
Speaker 3 (26:02):
Thank, you See, I heard you on the tap talk and I
also heard you mentioned CRG,our predecessor Now the tap talk
with the drinking water andrural America podcast, and they
asked you who your hero was andyou said that it was George
Tipton, who was a Cherokeeveteran, but you met him through
(26:22):
our predecessor, crg.
Would you like to talk aboutwhy you chose him?
Speaker 1 (26:28):
Oh, I would love to.
I never get tired of talkingabout George.
When I first kind of started inthis field and my boss at the
time said I need you to startgoing to these water meetings
and you know, seeing what'sgoing on in these communities
and coming back and seeing if wecan help them put projects
together, I kept going to thesemeetings and I would see George
and George was there.
You know these are meetingsthat happen at night and these
(26:50):
the rural communities, and it'dbe the water board and their
operator and maybe one or twoother customers.
And then be me and I'd go tothis board meeting and there
would be George and he'd behelping them talk about you know
, their needs and financing, andgo into rural development for
money and go into the SRF formoney, and I would come in and
I'd say, well, you know,cherokee Nation might be able to
help you as well.
We'd love to try to do that andI started working with George
(27:11):
and I'd go to one meeting andGeorge would be there, and I'd
go to another meeting and Georgewould be there.
It's George.
I think we're going to have toget to know each other really
well because I think we're goingto be working together.
And so over the years, you know,that relationship really
developed and I gained a lot ofrespect for George.
He had so much experience inthis field and he was willing to
kind of take me under his wingand share a lot of that
(27:33):
experience with me.
And you know, I wasn't awarereally that he was a Cherokee
veteran.
You know he didn't really talkabout that until one day I was
on the Cherokee Nation YouTubewebpage and looking at some of
the things they do, and one ofthe things they do is they have
like a veteran spotlight wherethey honor the Cherokee veteran
and there was my friend, georgeTipton, and I was like holy cow,
(27:54):
it's George.
And I couldn't believe, you know, that they had done that and
that he had been nominated andthey had chosen to be in one of
those veteran spotlights and itwas wonderful to see him and it
added to, you know, thatwonderful character that I
already knew about.
George had just added to hismystique.
I was really proud to see that.
But George was a great guy andI really enjoyed working with
(28:14):
him and you know all the folksthat see you have been wonderful
to work with George and PhilRoss at the time worked with a
lot of projects and then KarenConrad came and later worked
with.
You know Julie and Gailene getwork with Gailene.
You know when she was withRural Development that she
retired and came to see you, soknowing a lot of those folks for
(28:35):
a while.
But George was the one that gotit all started.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
Yeah, we've definitely had some kind of
water heroes here, people who'vebeen recognized throughout, and
it's really cool.
That is one thing I've reallyloved about working with
communities of limited and thenseeing, oh, we're working with
the Cherokee Nation.
It's amazing.
I love that we're helpingbridge those gaps.
But can you explain a littlebit how CU has been bridging
(28:58):
those gaps and bringing accessto clean water and wastewater?
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Absolutely so.
When we go into a communityfrom my perspective at Cherokee
Nation you know we go in and wehelp them try to first identify
what the problem is.
So a lot of times you know thesmall communities in order to
get any federal funding forwater and wastewater you have to
have an engineering report, youhave to have a cost estimate.
A lot of times you'll have tohave the environmental review
(29:22):
document done and they don'thave the resources to do that.
So one of the good things thatwe are able to do at Cherokee
Nation is we can go in and wecan help them.
We can use some tribal fundsthat the council has
appropriated, either through theman Killer Soap Act or through
another appropriation, and wecan help them get some of that
preliminary pre-constructionwork done.
Then the folks at CU you knowwe're there with them from day
(29:43):
one they can then take all ofthat information that
engineering report,environmental information
document and they can help thatcommunity then get through the
federal application process,either through the state
revolving fund or through ruraldevelopment.
And so we are able to accessmoney through the Indian Health
Service Sanitation FacilitiesConstruction Program to get a
pro-ratta share for a projectbased on the number of Indian
(30:06):
homes that are in that community.
And then CU helps thatcommunity get the funding
necessary to do the part of theproject that's not eligible for
the Indian Health Servicefunding.
The great thing is, you know,all of the IHS funding is a
grant.
Sometimes we can stack sometribal funds on top of that to
increase the grant.
That minimizes that amount ofloan that the community may have
to take out to get the projectdone and that helps keep them
(30:28):
keep those rates down, like wetalked about earlier, and help
that system be sustainable andcharge a rate but not have to
set aside so much of that ratefor the debt service that's
required for the loan.
It's really been a win-win forus because it's that trusted
partner that we can go into thatcommunity with and they can
help that community at no charge.
They do all of that workabsolutely free, just like we do
(30:49):
.
We can go out and then try tofind those tribally specific set
aside funds for the water andwastewater and then communities
on limited can go out and helpthem find the non-tribal element
of that project.
So it's been great and wecouldn't do what we do without
CU.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
You talked to Ben diagram that you were talking
about earlier.
The overlap is where the magichappens, you know.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
Absolutely Right there, down there in the core,
in the middle.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
Mr Hicks, we're getting towards the end of our
podcast time here, but I do wantto give you a little bit of
time to talk about what thefuture looks like in your field.
What are we working on?
Speaker 1 (31:26):
Well, you know, the last few years we have had the
bipartisan infrastructure law,we've had the American Rescue
Plan Act, we've had our regularfunding.
We've been inundated withproject funding and it's a good
problem to have.
We've had more money in thelast few years to dedicate to
water and wastewaterinfrastructure than we probably
(31:46):
have had in the previous 20.
Our challenge in the next fewyears is trying to get that
money out the door.
The ARPA money of course hasdeadlines.
We have to get those projectsunder development and committed
by the end of next year andexpended by the end of 2026.
So we've got those timehorizons that are rapidly
approaching.
In a water and wastewaterproject, if you haven't gotten
(32:07):
it scoped and gotten theengineering report and stuff
done, we're getting to the pointwhere it's not going to be able
to be committed to that projectby the end of 2024.
So we're trying to defineshovel-ready projects that we
can have on the list that ifsome more of these funds come
loose because we're approachingthe deadline, we can get those
funded and get the money out thedoor.
As far as mankiller soap, we'reapproaching that second report
(32:30):
cycle and we're going to havegood data for all the systems
where we've done the initialevaluation and then we're going
to try to go in and do some workbased on the data that we find.
So what we want to do is takethose systems that have the
lower technical, managerial andfinancial capacity scores and
work with them to try to getthose deficits corrected, try to
(32:51):
find where the gaps are thatthey have in their capacity
whether it be in training or inpolicies or whatever and try to
bolster them and get theirscores up and be sustainable in
the long run.
So we're going to see that kindof start to play out.
The other thing is we've got acouple of really high level
things that are happening at thefederal level.
One is the lead service lineinventories.
(33:11):
Lead service line, you know, isa big thing.
That happened because of theFlint Michigan crisis and now
every water system in the UnitedStates has to conduct an
inventory of the service linesin their system.
And that's not only the serviceline on the water district side
of the meter, that's theservice line on the customer
side of the meter as well, whichin the past has never been the
responsibility of the watersystem.
That's always been just thecustomer's responsibility.
(33:33):
But under this lead serviceline inventory.
The water district is going tobe responsible for surveying
that entire line, from the watermain to the meter and from the
meter to the house.
So we are working with EPA and,glad to say, we just received
some grant funding.
We are going to help all of thesmall public water systems in
the Cherokee Reservation getthat lead service line inventory
(33:54):
done before the deadline, whichis October 16th of 2024.
So it's coming quick.
And the other issue is emergingcontaminants, and the big thing
is PFAS.
The bad thing is we don't knowwhat we don't know and right now
we really don't know the levelof PFAS contamination because
there simply hasn't been a lotof testing done.
(34:14):
What my desire is in the nextcoming months and years is to
try to get a lot of samplingdone, to try to find out where
there are issues and get aheadof the curve so we can have
solutions ready to go when moneycomes down to implement those
solutions, because a lot of oursmall systems, if a small system
has to add some type ofadditional treatment to their
(34:36):
water treatment plant I don'teven know if it's going to be in
the hundreds of thousands ofdollars or millions of dollars,
it will probably depend on thetype of treatment and the scale,
but those systems aren't goingto just be able to go to the
bank and write a check for that,but until they do, they're
going to be out of complianceand we're going to have out of
compliance water systems allover the reservation.
That's my fear and we're goingto have to be able to stand in
(34:57):
that gap and help them get overthat hump and get those
solutions implemented.
So those are the things thatkeep me up at night you know
PFAS and those emergencycontaminants and hopefully we'll
be able to get some goodsampling done here in the next
12, 18 months and try to findout where the problems are and
then start working on what thesolutions are going to be to get
(35:18):
it fixed.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
Your to-do list is not very short, is it?
Speaker 1 (35:21):
No, it is not.
It is very long, and that'sjust the three things I can
think of.
If we had a couple of morehours on this podcast, I'm sure
I could give you a lot morethings on my list, but those are
the big things right now thelead service line inventories
and the PFAS, the emergingcontaminant issue.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
You know, one of the things that I hear from our
environmental services teamquite a bit is that one of the
challenges they face is gettingyounger, fresher blood into the
water and wastewater field.
Do you have any thoughts onthat as it relates to the
Cherokee Nation?
Is that the same challenge?
Speaker 1 (35:54):
It is.
I think that's a universalchallenge.
One thing that I think that theCherokee Nation probably has
that we can use to our benefitis we have a lot of Cherokees
that were probably like me, thatwould like to have a good job
but don't want to move to theEast or West Coast, that want to
stay home.
That type of a job gives youthe ability to stay in your home
community and make a differenceand to be a public health
(36:15):
professional, which is whatwater and wastewater operators
are they're public healthprofessionals and to make a
difference in their homecommunities.
And so, you know, there's beena lot of movement at the federal
level to try to encourage folksto get into the water and
wastewater field throughapprenticeship programs and even
pre-apprenticeship programsthat they're working on now at
the high school level.
What I would like for us to dois to, you know, play a role in
(36:37):
that.
We have a career servicesprogram that helps people train
for careers in different fields,and I don't see why water and
wastewater couldn't be one ofthose, and we could partner with
a lot of folks that arecurrently doing water and
wastewater apprenticeship workand training and, you know,
recruitment and trying to getfolks to enter those fields and
we certainly have the contactsyou know with all the water
systems across the reservationwhere we could help place those
(37:01):
folks when they graduated fromthat program.
You know, I use this exampleall the time.
When you go to a convention ofwater operators, what you
commonly see are a bunch of oldguys like me in overalls, and
now a lot of them are usingcanes and these are the guys
that are having.
You know, if there's a leak,they got to get down the ditch
and fix the leak.
They're simply nearing the endof the ability to do that and
(37:24):
we've got to try to recruityounger, more tech savvy folks,
because a lot of the watertechnology is coming up and it's
all cloud based and it's allused from your phone and from
your computer.
And those old guys they're oldschool, they want things that
you can control with a wrenchand a dial up telephone and the
new stuff isn't that way.
So getting that younger bloodinto the system, getting those
(37:47):
guys trained by thoseprofessionals because that's
what they are, the professionalsand those guys that have got 40
years of experience you don'treplace that overnight.
They've got to have some timeto mentor those younger folks
that are coming along with whatthey've learned over their
career, so that you know whenthey eventually do retire.
Those folks that are going totake their place have got that
skill set built in and they'reable to pick up where they left
(38:08):
off and carry on with business.
So we're all in favor of that.
Speaker 2 (38:12):
Billy Hicks, who serves on the board at RCAP, the
board at Communities Unlimited,also the senior director of the
Office of Environmental Healthand Engineering with the
Cherokee Nation.
One thing we can work on let'sget you a shorter title.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
Yeah, but we could just say just that.
You could say senior directorOEH&E.
That's what we do out here.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
Well, yeah, we love our acronyms too.
I can't remember them all.
Tla's three letter acronymsWell, I appreciate your time,
Hailey.
Thank you for your time as welland your input into the
discussion, because it was vitalin to get that first person
perspective.
Speaker 3 (38:41):
Yeah, and a would-oh, or thank you for having me and
again, thank you, billy, fortalking.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
Absolutely, and it was great to meet you, Hailey
and Chris.
Thank you for this and thankyou for everything.
Speaker 2 (38:52):
You're listening to Small Talk with Communities
Unlimited.
We will have a new, freshepisode for you in a couple of
weeks.
Not only do I get to do, you know what I love in the
place where I love, but it's thepeople that I love.
You know the family that I grewup around.
I've got a huge extended family.
My mom and my dad work fromreally large families so I've
got a ton of first cousins andsecond cousins and they're
scattered all over thereservation.
So when I think about you knowI'm going to do a job in a
(00:22):
particular community I think,well, you know, I've got, I've
got kin folks that live there,and I'm not only doing it for
that community, I'm doing it formy family.
That's one thing about beingCherokee, because when you do
these kinds of things yourealize that we're all family.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
All right, welcome to episode 16 of Small Talk.
Our podcast here at Communityis Unlimited.
My name is Chris Baker andjoining us today is Mr Billy
Hicks.
Billy is the senior director ofthe Office of Environmental
Health and Engineering with theCherokee Nation.
Billy, how are you today?
I'm doing great.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Chris, it's great to be here and thank you for having
me.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
I appreciate you being on.
Also joining us is anotherCommunity.
Is Unlimited employee HaileyReed Hailey, how are you?
Speaker 3 (01:04):
I'm good, I'm glad to be here.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
And guys.
We just wanted to sit down andtalk and introduce Mr Hicks,
talk about what he does for aliving, talk about how the
Cherokee Nation has interactedwith water and wastewater and
just kind of talk about thestate of things.
And to get things rolling Iguess I should tell you as well,
billy you are on the Communityis Unlimited board.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
Yes, that is correct.
I have been on the board for afew years now and really enjoy
it.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
And then also, are you still on the board at RCAP I
?
Speaker 1 (01:31):
am.
I will probably, if they willhave me, will be starting my
last three-year term as anat-large board member in a
couple of weeks.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Safe to say, you deal with water and wastewater a lot
, I do.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
I deal with it on many fronts.
I dealt with it here for about20 years give or take, and then
joined the RCAP board and thenlater joined the CU board, and
so I have been dealing with iton just a little different scale
and a little differentperspective in those two roles,
but it basically all boils downto trying to help rule
(02:03):
communities with their water andwastewater issues.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
And I guess we should really zoom out for just a
second and start with, can youintroduce us, Billy, to the
Cherokee Nation and telleverybody, if they are
unfamiliar, what it is sizethose kind of information?
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Sure.
So the Cherokee Nation is up inthe northeast corner of
Oklahoma and our reservationencompasses all or part of 14
counties.
I think there's six countiesthat are completely inside the
reservation and there's eightcounties that are partially
inside the reservation.
And within that reservation,you know, we encompass part of
(02:38):
the Tulsa metropolitan area.
So there's a large populationand I want to say there's around
60,000 or so Cherokee tribalmembers that live inside the
reservation.
And then of course there areother tribal members from other
tribes that live inside thereservation as well.
And from our perspective, withthe program that we administer
through Indian Health Service,we service not only the Cherokee
citizens who live in thereservation but also all of the
(03:02):
federally recognized tribes thatlive inside the reservation.
So we serve everywhere from,you know, the Cherokees that
live here, but Choctaws,chickasaws, muscogee, you know
there's a lot of small tribes byMiami in the very northeast
corner of Oklahoma, but a lot ofthem live on our side of the
boundary.
So we serve those tribalmembers up in that corner as
(03:22):
well.
In a typical year ourdepartment probably serves about
600 to 700 homes with variousdifferent services on water and
wastewater, and you know thevast majority of those are
Cherokees, but then we do serveother tribal members as well.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
So why water and wastewater for yourself?
How did you get involved in why, I guess?
Speaker 1 (03:45):
Well, you know, thinking back on it, my
childhood I was really I was ascience nerd, there was just no
easy way to put it.
I love science.
I grew up before the internet,so I consume PBS and shows like
Nova and Nature.
And there was a show that usedto come on PBS called
(04:05):
Connections and it was a BBCseries and I don't know if any
of you have ever seen it, but itwas just the coolest show and I
just ate it up.
And so when I was in highschool, I had a chemistry
teacher who had he was a retiredArmy officer and his name was
Tim Bodine and he reallyinstilled that love of science,
especially chemistry and physics, in me.
(04:25):
And so when I graduated highschool, I went to college and
graduated with a degree inchemistry.
While I was in school I wasworking my way through school I
got the opportunity to come towork for the Cherokee Nation as
a dispatcher for the EmergencyMedical Services Program and I
actually worked my way throughschool, while I was actually
working nights and weekends onan ambulance and working in the
dispatch center.
(04:46):
Well, when I graduated and gotmy degree, there was a job that
came open in the Cherokee NationEnvironmental Department and I
applied for that program and wasselected and transferred from
the EMS program over to theenvironmental program and I've
been here ever since.
It's going on almost 29 yearsnow.
I just love this work.
I love working for the CherokeeNation.
My parents are both from theCherokee Reservation and it gave
(05:09):
me the opportunity to make adifferent experience in my home
community and to live around myfamily and not have to move off
to some urban environment insome far off region of the
country and try to make a living.
And I was able to do that hereand it's really been beneficial
to me and to my family and Ijust love it.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
I find that within the tribal nations there is a
desire to give back to thatcommunity.
Is that part of it for you?
Speaker 1 (05:35):
It is.
It's a big part of it, becausenot only do I get to do what I
love in the place where I love,but it's the people that I love,
the family that I grew uparound.
I've got a huge extended family.
My mom and my dad work fromreally large families so I've
got a ton of first cousins andsecond cousins and they're
(05:55):
scattered all over thereservation.
When I think about I'm going todo a job in a particular
community, I think, well, I'vegot kin folks that live there
and I'm not only doing it forthat community, I'm doing it for
my family.
That's one thing about beingCherokee, because when you do
these kinds of things yourealize that we're all family
and I'm sure if Hayley and I sitdown and talk long enough, we'd
realize we probably have commonkin folk and ancestors at some
(06:17):
point.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
There's all the time you find people are related and
you're like oh, Well, Healy, Iguess I want to bring you in now
and let you ask a couple of thequestions that you had.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
I know you were talking a lot about, you know
your family, but also I know inour culture water is sacred.
You know water or a ma inCherokee is really something
that I was taught to berespectful of and to.
Whenever I come into a you know, a body of water that I need to
leave it cleaner than when Icame.
(06:47):
Does that have any play intowhat you do and why you did it?
Speaker 1 (06:54):
It does.
It has a big impact on me.
When I, you know, came into thisworld, my parents had had to
move to Tulsa to find work and,as a lot of Cherokee families
did, there weren't a lot ofopportunities in those rural
communities back in the, youknow, in the 50s and 60s, so
they had moved to Tulsa andthat's where I was born.
I always remember when I wasyoung we would come back and
visit my, my mom's family andthat's that's where my Cherokee
(07:18):
lineage comes from is for mymom's family and they lived in a
little house here in CherokeeCounty and right behind their
house was a spring and if youknow that, the significance for
Cherokees and water, that springwas like almost like a sacred
spot and I remember as a childgoing down there and seeing that
spring and I was just in awethat there was this water coming
out of the side of the hill andit was cold and it was clear
(07:40):
and it was clean and you know,getting to, getting to
experience that really I thinkfostered that, that desire to
you know to be involved insomething that involved with
water Because, like you said,water is life.
And this is an audio onlypodcast, but my shirt has that
on it right here.
Water is life, and that'sthat's what we, we believe, and
(08:01):
that's that that is reallyingrained in everything we do.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
You had the spring and I kind of had the Illinois
River.
I still had family that hadland right off the Illinois
River and he also had a turkeyfarm right there and while his
farm's no longer there, I doknow that there has been growing
amounts of poultry farms in thearea and with that's been kind
of some growing concern aboutwhat it's doing to the water.
(08:26):
You have any thoughts oranything about that?
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Well, yeah, certainly , water quality is, is a big
issue and we we are certainlyattuned to that and we realize
that.
You know, we can't continue toexist if we let the water
quality degrade to a point whereit's no longer usable and that,
you know, that kind of bringsup the whole concept of water
security.
And when I talk about watersecurity, I'm not talking about,
you know, the fences around awater treatment plant or
(08:53):
cybersecurity.
I'm talking about a conceptthat in order to have water
security, you need three thingsyou need water quality, you need
water quantity and you needwater equity.
And those three three things.
If you think about a Venndiagram, where those three
circles converge in the centerand you have all three of those
elements, that's where you havewater security.
So if you don't have waterquality, you can't have water
(09:13):
security by definition.
You know surface water quality,those nonpoint source pollution
sources like poultry farms oreven, like you know, people that
let their cattle get down intothe river and degrade the water.
You know we like to haveriparian buffer zones where we
keep that kind of thing out ofthe river.
The farmers can certainly usethat water to water their cattle
(09:34):
, but we don't want the cattleto go into the water.
We want the water to go to thecattle.
You know, those types ofmanagement practices and
conservation measures wecertainly support because it
helps and keep that waterquality high.
You know, when I was little Iremember going down to Lake
Tinkiller and the water was soclear you can go out on a dock
and look down the water probably15 feet deep and see the bottom
.
Well, you can't do that now anda lot of that is because of the
(09:57):
high levels of nitrates andphosphates that are in the water
, that support that algae growth.
And now the algae in the waterhas got it to a point where you
can't see in the water more thanprobably a couple of feet.
And so those long term waterquality metrics are definitely
always in the front of our mindand trying to keep the water
quality to a point where it'susable.
It's not only for drinkingpurpose but for recreation and
(10:21):
for Cherokee's.
You know that cultural andspiritual perspective as well.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
You're talking about what appears to be potential
obstacles in water andwastewater.
I'm genuinely curious becauseI've been with communities in
limited for about a year inchange now and I got to be
honest, I didn't think aboutwater or wastewater in my own
life before now.
It was just there.
I guess my question to you isspecifically with your work with
the Cherokee Nation.
Is there any like uniqueobstacle situations that come up
(10:48):
with that kind of work in theCherokee Nation?
Speaker 1 (10:50):
I don't know that.
We have a lot of uniqueobstacles.
I think we have a lot of commonobstacles that most communities
face.
Certainly, water quality thatwe just discussed is a big issue
.
We see degradation of surfacewater and groundwater.
We also see declining amountsof water available in some areas
, so we see groundwater yieldsgoing down in communities and in
(11:15):
homes that depend ongroundwater as their primary
water source.
So water quantity is also anissue.
One of the big issues that we doface is that third element of
water security is water equity,and one of the things that we
really wanna focus on is tryingto make water affordable,
because if you have all thewater in the world and it's of
the highest quality, but peoplecan't afford it, it doesn't do
(11:36):
them any good, and so one of theissues that we wanna tackle is
trying to determine what is afair gauge of water equity.
How do you measure that?
How do you determine if wateris affordable?
You know the EPA has a metricthat they use.
It's 3% of the median householdincome.
Well, if you think about themedian household income, that's
the person right in the middle.
Half the people make more, halfthe people make less.
(11:57):
So if you're over on the rightside of the curve, you're fine,
but if you're way over on theleft side of the curve, what's
affordable for the guy in themiddle may not be affordable for
you.
So we wanna make sure that wethink about those folks and when
we're doing a project planningand we're looking at a project
to improve water quality orwater quantity in a community,
we also wanna look at what it'sgonna do to the water equity
(12:20):
side of that equation.
We wanna make sure that wemaximize the grant funding that
we can get for those communitiesto try to keep those water
rates low and still have thewater system be sustainable.
What we've seen over the last 20or 30 years, or maybe even
longer, is the lot of watersystems were faced with a choice
they can keep the wateraffordable or they can maintain
their system.
And a lot of those systems,since they were governed by the
(12:43):
folks that were trying to keepthe water affordable, chose that
option and they kept theirrates too low to be sustainable
in the long run.
And now you've seen the effectsof 30 years of aging
infrastructure and they're facednow with the fact they need to
replace things.
Pumps have worn out, towersneed to be replaced.
Water lines are too small andthey don't have any money in the
bank because they've had thatobstacle to keep the water
(13:04):
affordable for their citizens.
And now we have to come in andtry to help them find a solution
to replace that infrastructureand try to help find a way to
keep that affordable.
You know there's a lot offinancing out there for water
projects but most of it is loanfunding and so if that water
system has to take on a loanthey have to pay the loan back.
Well, the water system doesn'texist without the customers, so
(13:24):
the customers have to pay theloan back and so if the rates go
up, what suddenly wasaffordable for the last 20 years
is no longer affordable.
You know there are federalprograms to help pay for folks
broadband If they meet incomequalifications.
There's programs to help thempay for their heating and air
conditioning and utility bills,but there's no program for water
and wastewater.
There was a program that wasstarted as part of the I believe
(13:47):
it was part of the coronavirusresponse effort, but it was a
temporary program and it's goingaway and so those folks that
qualified for that and were ableto get some relief on their
water and wastewater bills for afew years now are gonna be
faced with the fact that that'sgone, and so we have to try to
take that into account whenwe're doing a project.
But we also want to try to bean advocate for those folks and
(14:07):
for those communities to thinkabout.
You know, if the federalgovernment's gonna help
subsidize broadband for lowincome folks and heating and
electrical utility payments forlow income folks, let's think
about water and wastewater aswell.
I know there's broadband folksat CU that may disagree.
You can live without broadband,you can't live without water,
and that should be the top ofthe needs chart right there.
(14:29):
We need to help folks affordtheir water and that will help
those systems be sustainable.
If they can then charge a ratethat is sustainable, taking into
account those subsidies thatthose low income folks are gonna
get, then that makes that watersystem sustainable in the long
run, which is ultimately whatwe're after.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
Whenever I hear something like that and I always
learn something new almostdaily here at Communities
Unlimited that shocks me.
It seems like that's like ano-brainer right.
I don't know exactly what to doabout that, but I mean that
seems like it should be easilyand hopefully, you know, there's
lots of desire to get thataccomplished as well.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
You know the, while the federal government may be
kind of overlooking some of thewater wastewater things, it's
always great to see that theCherokee Nation isn't.
I get the Cherokee Nation, theCherokee Phoenix newspaper and I
follow them on social media andI've seen some kind of
legislation that's kind ofcaused some advancements
Possible, like in April of 2021,the Wilma P man Killer and
(15:28):
Charlie Soapwater Act that ledto at least two million in
additional funding to aid in theefforts at eliminating barriers
to clean water access in thereservation, and then again in
August of 2022, the IndianHealth Services, which has been
a blessing to me in many ways,but they have signed an
agreement that brought 11.8million in safe water
(15:50):
infrastructure and sewageupdates to 1,400 homes across
the Cherokee Nation.
How have these new acts andfunds affected your work and do
you have any more informationyou'd like to share on how it's
going now?
Speaker 1 (16:02):
Oh, yes, absolutely.
And if you get the CherokeePhoenix I don't know if you got
the most recent addition yet butwe are at the top of the front
page for a water project we justfinished in Chewy, oklahoma.
I know we're audio only, but Iwas sitting here nodding my head
up and down as you were readingall that I absolutely great
segue of what I wanted to getinto.
The man Killer Soapwater Act,passed by the Tribal Council
(16:24):
back in April of 2021, was ahuge effort and acknowledgement
on the part of the tribe torecognize the importance of
water, the issues that we facein this work and to set up a
program that is going to bereally instrumental in us moving
forward.
What the man Killer Soap didyou mentioned the $2 million.
(16:46):
That's probably the biggestpiece.
It was a tribal fundedinvestment in water in
perpetuity, until that manKiller Soap Act is either
amended or the Tribal Councilrepeals it for some reason.
That $2 million per year isgoing to be set aside for water
and wastewater infrastructurewithin the Cherokee Nation.
(17:08):
Now, what the man Killer SoapAct did, like you said, it is
for us to go out and try toidentify where those barriers
are.
There are three primaryelements that we are to do.
One thing is we are to try toidentify with, through a census
process, any Cherokee home thathas no water at all and then to
come up with a solution to getthem water as soon as possible.
(17:29):
The second thing is we aretrying to identify the number of
homes across the reservationthat don't have access to public
water.
So those are the homes that arestill on wells, that may be on
a cistern or using a spring andthey have a water source that
the EPA would consider that hometo be underserved because
they're not connected to apublic water supply.
So the second element of manKiller Soap is for us to
(17:50):
determine those homes and thethird thing is for us to
determine the mostinfrastructure deficient public
water systems across thereservation.
Those three elements arebasically what we do with the
man Killer Soap money on areoccurring basis.
We are to do that and toprovide a report back to the
council administration every twoyears on those data points and
then we are to try to come upwith solutions for those.
(18:13):
So what the man Killer Soap does, in my mind the biggest thing
is it gives us the tools to tryto identify where those barriers
are to break those barriersdown and then to help water
systems be more sustainable,reliable and affordable.
It was, like I said, anacknowledgement of the
importance of water and sincethat time, we've completed our
first report, which was due thislast November of 2022.
(18:36):
So we didn't have a lot of timeto gather data and to write
that report.
So we're going through now ourfirst full two year cycle and
that next report will be due inNovember of 2024.
And we're going to have a lotmore data and be able to have a
lot more exhaustive report witha lot more accuracy in the
recommendations that we're ableto make to council.
The other thing that the actdoes is it also also authorizes
(18:57):
the council to make additionalappropriations where they didn't
appropriate.
So if we come back with areport that identifies some
barriers that that $2 millionwon't solve, they can then
appropriate additional funds andgive to us to get those those
solutions implemented.
So it was really a huge, hugeeffort on their part and it has
really changed our operationsover here.
We were kind of reallydependent on the federal Indian
(19:21):
Health Service funding.
We had some tribal funds, butnothing like this, nothing that
really was geared towardplanning and data gathering
efforts that we needed toidentify where the issues were
and then do that.
So one of the things we're doing, we're we're actually doing a
evaluation of all the publicwater systems across the
Cherokee Nation.
There's 130, some of those, andwe're going to have all of
(19:43):
those done fairly shortly.
I just looked and we're up tothe 91 that we've done an
evaluation on.
So before this next report isdue we'll have every water
system evaluated and then we candetermine which of those are
the most infrastructuredeficient, what it's going to
take to fix that and then beable to report that back to
council and then also take it tothe federal agencies.
Do you say 130 water systems?
Yes, 100 water systems, 132,and that's just the ones that
(20:06):
are serving populations below25,000.
You know we're not countinglike the big systems, like the
city of Tulsa or Bartlesville orMuscogee.
We kind of feel that thosebigger systems they have large
tax bases, large customer bases,they have economies of scale
that the little systems don't.
So we wanted to focus ourefforts on the small system.
So we kind of chose that 25,000metric as the cutoff point,
(20:30):
knowing that probably the vastmajority of our work will be in
the small communities below 3300.
We have the capacity to serveup to 25,000.
We're going to evaluate them tosee what we find.
But I think what we're going tofind is the systems that are in
most need, have the lowestcapacity development scores and
the highest infrastructure needscores are going to be the
smallest systems in therestoration.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
Always amazed that whenever I get to talk to
someone who works in what wecall it CU Environmental
Services the water andwastewater area the variety and
scope of you know, rural watersystem setups it's just shocking
to me how much variety there is.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
Yeah, there's a huge variety both in scope and
capacity and service area.
What I was thinking the otherday, you know, rural Oklahoma is
on the electric side, is servedby a handful of electric co-ops
and they serve the entire state.
But across the state ofOklahoma I think there's like
800 and some public watersystems that serve less than
(21:30):
3300 population.
Imagine if, instead of having800 water systems, we only had
about 20 or 30 large watersystems that serve those rural
areas.
How much easier it would be forus to assess them, to assist
them and to make sure that theywere sustainable.
And I think eventually that'swhere we're going to go and it's
not going to be, you know,because of any grand effort of
one person to make that happen.
(21:52):
I think it's just going to be,as time goes on, those small
systems going to realize they'regoing to have to regionalize
and come together.
There's a lot of benefit toregionalization and I think
eventually those small systemsare going to come to that
realization.
We would like to bring themthere sooner rather than later,
but eventually I think it'sgoing to happen just because of
the natural order of things andthe way things, you know, go in
(22:14):
our world and a small systemthat could operate and be
feasible 50 or 70 years ago isjust simply not going to be that
you know, in the future.
So they're going to have tocome to these regional projects
and we are in the process oftrying to help some of those go
through that process, workingwith the staff at CU, working
with some of our local councilsof government to help them come
(22:38):
and do some feasibility studieson those regional projects to
see areas that we might be ableto help them partner together to
be sustainable and to have aviable future.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
And one of the things that I've also picked up on it
again, and I'm learning so muchabout water and wastewater in
just the year that I've beenhere.
Regionalization not an easytask.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
It's not.
You know, there's a lot ofbarriers to regionalization.
Sometimes we go in and there'slongstanding issues and disputes
between communities and we tryto come in as a third party a
neutral third party to try tohelp them work out those
differences and realize thatthey're better off working
together than they are trying tomaintain that separation and
their own individual littlekingdoms.
(23:17):
And you know, sometimes we canget over that hill and sometimes
we can't, but it doesn't meanwe're not going to try and we
see the long-term benefit toregionalization and we're
definitely going to keep blowingthat trumpet and we've got big
supporters at CU and at RCAP andother areas that are blowing
that horn as well.
And the EPA is trying to getthose folks to regionalize and
(23:40):
there's funding available andset aside to help facilitate
that and to make that happen andwe're definitely a champion of
that cause and will be in thefuture.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
I want to break in and remind everyone that we're
talking to Billy Hicks.
He's the senior director of theOffice of Environmental Health
and Engineering with theCherokee Nation.
He's also on the board at RCAPand that's, if you don't know,
is the Rural CommunityAssistance Partnership and he's
also a board member atCommunities Unlimited.
You're simultaneously, you areworking with the Cherokee Nation
Office of Environmental Healthand being on Communities
(24:11):
Unlimited's board.
Is that advantageous to yourwork in any way?
Speaker 1 (24:14):
Well it is.
It's definitely helped broadenmy perspective.
When I joined the RCAP board,you know, I had a good
understanding of water andwastewater work.
I knew about the federalprograms and getting to work
with RCAP I slowly began torealize that you know the folks
I had worked with at CU'spredecessor, crg, and then CU
(24:35):
itself.
I had a good understanding ofwhat they did, but what I did
not realize was how diverse theregions were within RCAP and
then the level of services thatthey had.
And so when I became a boardmember of CU, then I got to see
all of the other wonderful workthat CU is doing in our
communities.
You know, small business,lending and entrepreneurship and
(24:56):
economic development andbroadband and housing and all
those things that ruralcommunities need, not just water
and wastewater.
Being able to immersed myselfin that has helped me have that
broader perspective when I comeinto a rural community that
water and wastewater may be oneof their needs but it may not be
their only need and I need tolook outside of the water and
wastewater sphere to see ifthere are other needs that may
(25:17):
be contributing to the water andwastewater issues they're
having and then being able towork with the CU staff that can
bring in those resources.
And we've got a lot of programshere at the Cherokee Nation,
you know, housing programs andeconomic development programs
and commerce programs and careerservices and a lot of different
things that we can help thenbring into those communities
when we see the need.
So it's helped broaden myperspective for that and, I
(25:41):
think, be a better advocate forthose rural communities when I
go in there and work with them,you know, on their water and
wastewater issues.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
The advocacy part of it is such a big part of it for
rural communities it doesn'treally matter what area you're
talking about, but they needthose advocates and it doesn't
happen without them.
I have heard more than onceyour name mentioned as an
advocate, so kudos for that.
Speaker 3 (26:02):
Thank, you See, I heard you on the tap talk and I
also heard you mentioned CRG,our predecessor Now the tap talk
with the drinking water andrural America podcast, and they
asked you who your hero was andyou said that it was George
Tipton, who was a Cherokeeveteran, but you met him through
(26:22):
our predecessor, crg.
Would you like to talk aboutwhy you chose him?
Speaker 1 (26:28):
Oh, I would love to.
I never get tired of talkingabout George.
When I first kind of started inthis field and my boss at the
time said I need you to startgoing to these water meetings
and you know, seeing what'sgoing on in these communities
and coming back and seeing if wecan help them put projects
together, I kept going to thesemeetings and I would see George
and George was there.
You know these are meetingsthat happen at night and these
(26:50):
the rural communities, and it'dbe the water board and their
operator and maybe one or twoother customers.
And then be me and I'd go tothis board meeting and there
would be George and he'd behelping them talk about you know
, their needs and financing, andgo into rural development for
money and go into the SRF formoney, and I would come in and
I'd say, well, you know,cherokee Nation might be able to
help you as well.
We'd love to try to do that andI started working with George
(27:11):
and I'd go to one meeting andGeorge would be there, and I'd
go to another meeting and Georgewould be there.
It's George.
I think we're going to have toget to know each other really
well because I think we're goingto be working together.
And so over the years, you know,that relationship really
developed and I gained a lot ofrespect for George.
He had so much experience inthis field and he was willing to
kind of take me under his wingand share a lot of that
(27:33):
experience with me.
And you know, I wasn't awarereally that he was a Cherokee
veteran.
You know he didn't really talkabout that until one day I was
on the Cherokee Nation YouTubewebpage and looking at some of
the things they do, and one ofthe things they do is they have
like a veteran spotlight wherethey honor the Cherokee veteran
and there was my friend, georgeTipton, and I was like holy cow,
(27:54):
it's George.
And I couldn't believe, you know, that they had done that and
that he had been nominated andthey had chosen to be in one of
those veteran spotlights and itwas wonderful to see him and it
added to, you know, thatwonderful character that I
already knew about.
George had just added to hismystique.
I was really proud to see that.
But George was a great guy andI really enjoyed working with
(28:14):
him and you know all the folksthat see you have been wonderful
to work with George and PhilRoss at the time worked with a
lot of projects and then KarenConrad came and later worked
with.
You know Julie and Gailene getwork with Gailene.
You know when she was withRural Development that she
retired and came to see you, soknowing a lot of those folks for
(28:35):
a while.
But George was the one that gotit all started.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
Yeah, we've definitely had some kind of
water heroes here, people who'vebeen recognized throughout, and
it's really cool.
That is one thing I've reallyloved about working with
communities of limited and thenseeing, oh, we're working with
the Cherokee Nation.
It's amazing.
I love that we're helpingbridge those gaps.
But can you explain a littlebit how CU has been bridging
(28:58):
those gaps and bringing accessto clean water and wastewater?
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Absolutely so.
When we go into a communityfrom my perspective at Cherokee
Nation you know we go in and wehelp them try to first identify
what the problem is.
So a lot of times you know thesmall communities in order to
get any federal funding forwater and wastewater you have to
have an engineering report, youhave to have a cost estimate.
A lot of times you'll have tohave the environmental review
(29:22):
document done and they don'thave the resources to do that.
So one of the good things thatwe are able to do at Cherokee
Nation is we can go in and wecan help them.
We can use some tribal fundsthat the council has
appropriated, either through theman Killer Soap Act or through
another appropriation, and wecan help them get some of that
preliminary pre-constructionwork done.
Then the folks at CU you knowwe're there with them from day
(29:43):
one they can then take all ofthat information that
engineering report,environmental information
document and they can help thatcommunity then get through the
federal application process,either through the state
revolving fund or through ruraldevelopment.
And so we are able to accessmoney through the Indian Health
Service Sanitation FacilitiesConstruction Program to get a
pro-ratta share for a projectbased on the number of Indian
(30:06):
homes that are in that community.
And then CU helps thatcommunity get the funding
necessary to do the part of theproject that's not eligible for
the Indian Health Servicefunding.
The great thing is, you know,all of the IHS funding is a
grant.
Sometimes we can stack sometribal funds on top of that to
increase the grant.
That minimizes that amount ofloan that the community may have
to take out to get the projectdone and that helps keep them
(30:28):
keep those rates down, like wetalked about earlier, and help
that system be sustainable andcharge a rate but not have to
set aside so much of that ratefor the debt service that's
required for the loan.
It's really been a win-win forus because it's that trusted
partner that we can go into thatcommunity with and they can
help that community at no charge.
They do all of that workabsolutely free, just like we do
(30:49):
.
We can go out and then try tofind those tribally specific set
aside funds for the water andwastewater and then communities
on limited can go out and helpthem find the non-tribal element
of that project.
So it's been great and wecouldn't do what we do without
CU.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
You talked to Ben diagram that you were talking
about earlier.
The overlap is where the magichappens, you know.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
Absolutely Right there, down there in the core,
in the middle.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
Mr Hicks, we're getting towards the end of our
podcast time here, but I do wantto give you a little bit of
time to talk about what thefuture looks like in your field.
What are we working on?
Speaker 1 (31:26):
Well, you know, the last few years we have had the
bipartisan infrastructure law,we've had the American Rescue
Plan Act, we've had our regularfunding.
We've been inundated withproject funding and it's a good
problem to have.
We've had more money in thelast few years to dedicate to
water and wastewaterinfrastructure than we probably
(31:46):
have had in the previous 20.
Our challenge in the next fewyears is trying to get that
money out the door.
The ARPA money of course hasdeadlines.
We have to get those projectsunder development and committed
by the end of next year andexpended by the end of 2026.
So we've got those timehorizons that are rapidly
approaching.
In a water and wastewaterproject, if you haven't gotten
(32:07):
it scoped and gotten theengineering report and stuff
done, we're getting to the pointwhere it's not going to be able
to be committed to that projectby the end of 2024.
So we're trying to defineshovel-ready projects that we
can have on the list that ifsome more of these funds come
loose because we're approachingthe deadline, we can get those
funded and get the money out thedoor.
As far as mankiller soap, we'reapproaching that second report
(32:30):
cycle and we're going to havegood data for all the systems
where we've done the initialevaluation and then we're going
to try to go in and do some workbased on the data that we find.
So what we want to do is takethose systems that have the
lower technical, managerial andfinancial capacity scores and
work with them to try to getthose deficits corrected, try to
(32:51):
find where the gaps are thatthey have in their capacity
whether it be in training or inpolicies or whatever and try to
bolster them and get theirscores up and be sustainable in
the long run.
So we're going to see that kindof start to play out.
The other thing is we've got acouple of really high level
things that are happening at thefederal level.
One is the lead service lineinventories.
(33:11):
Lead service line, you know, isa big thing.
That happened because of theFlint Michigan crisis and now
every water system in the UnitedStates has to conduct an
inventory of the service linesin their system.
And that's not only the serviceline on the water district side
of the meter, that's theservice line on the customer
side of the meter as well, whichin the past has never been the
responsibility of the watersystem.
That's always been just thecustomer's responsibility.
(33:33):
But under this lead serviceline inventory.
The water district is going tobe responsible for surveying
that entire line, from the watermain to the meter and from the
meter to the house.
So we are working with EPA and,glad to say, we just received
some grant funding.
We are going to help all of thesmall public water systems in
the Cherokee Reservation getthat lead service line inventory
(33:54):
done before the deadline, whichis October 16th of 2024.
So it's coming quick.
And the other issue is emergingcontaminants, and the big thing
is PFAS.
The bad thing is we don't knowwhat we don't know and right now
we really don't know the levelof PFAS contamination because
there simply hasn't been a lotof testing done.
(34:14):
What my desire is in the nextcoming months and years is to
try to get a lot of samplingdone, to try to find out where
there are issues and get aheadof the curve so we can have
solutions ready to go when moneycomes down to implement those
solutions, because a lot of oursmall systems, if a small system
has to add some type ofadditional treatment to their
(34:36):
water treatment plant I don'teven know if it's going to be in
the hundreds of thousands ofdollars or millions of dollars,
it will probably depend on thetype of treatment and the scale,
but those systems aren't goingto just be able to go to the
bank and write a check for that,but until they do, they're
going to be out of complianceand we're going to have out of
compliance water systems allover the reservation.
That's my fear and we're goingto have to be able to stand in
(34:57):
that gap and help them get overthat hump and get those
solutions implemented.
So those are the things thatkeep me up at night you know
PFAS and those emergencycontaminants and hopefully we'll
be able to get some goodsampling done here in the next
12, 18 months and try to findout where the problems are and
then start working on what thesolutions are going to be to get
(35:18):
it fixed.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
Your to-do list is not very short, is it?
Speaker 1 (35:21):
No, it is not.
It is very long, and that'sjust the three things I can
think of.
If we had a couple of morehours on this podcast, I'm sure
I could give you a lot morethings on my list, but those are
the big things right now thelead service line inventories
and the PFAS, the emergingcontaminant issue.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
You know, one of the things that I hear from our
environmental services teamquite a bit is that one of the
challenges they face is gettingyounger, fresher blood into the
water and wastewater field.
Do you have any thoughts onthat as it relates to the
Cherokee Nation?
Is that the same challenge?
Speaker 1 (35:54):
It is.
I think that's a universalchallenge.
One thing that I think that theCherokee Nation probably has
that we can use to our benefitis we have a lot of Cherokees
that were probably like me, thatwould like to have a good job
but don't want to move to theEast or West Coast, that want to
stay home.
That type of a job gives youthe ability to stay in your home
community and make a differenceand to be a public health
(36:15):
professional, which is whatwater and wastewater operators
are they're public healthprofessionals and to make a
difference in their homecommunities.
And so, you know, there's beena lot of movement at the federal
level to try to encourage folksto get into the water and
wastewater field throughapprenticeship programs and even
pre-apprenticeship programsthat they're working on now at
the high school level.
What I would like for us to dois to, you know, play a role in
(36:37):
that.
We have a career servicesprogram that helps people train
for careers in different fields,and I don't see why water and
wastewater couldn't be one ofthose, and we could partner with
a lot of folks that arecurrently doing water and
wastewater apprenticeship workand training and, you know,
recruitment and trying to getfolks to enter those fields and
we certainly have the contactsyou know with all the water
systems across the reservationwhere we could help place those
(37:01):
folks when they graduated fromthat program.
You know, I use this exampleall the time.
When you go to a convention ofwater operators, what you
commonly see are a bunch of oldguys like me in overalls, and
now a lot of them are usingcanes and these are the guys
that are having.
You know, if there's a leak,they got to get down the ditch
and fix the leak.
They're simply nearing the endof the ability to do that and
(37:24):
we've got to try to recruityounger, more tech savvy folks,
because a lot of the watertechnology is coming up and it's
all cloud based and it's allused from your phone and from
your computer.
And those old guys they're oldschool, they want things that
you can control with a wrenchand a dial up telephone and the
new stuff isn't that way.
So getting that younger bloodinto the system, getting those
(37:47):
guys trained by thoseprofessionals because that's
what they are, the professionalsand those guys that have got 40
years of experience you don'treplace that overnight.
They've got to have some timeto mentor those younger folks
that are coming along with whatthey've learned over their
career, so that you know whenthey eventually do retire.
Those folks that are going totake their place have got that
skill set built in and they'reable to pick up where they left
(38:08):
off and carry on with business.
So we're all in favor of that.
Speaker 2 (38:12):
Billy Hicks, who serves on the board at RCAP, the
board at Communities Unlimited,also the senior director of the
Office of Environmental Healthand Engineering with the
Cherokee Nation.
One thing we can work on let'sget you a shorter title.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
Yeah, but we could just say just that.
You could say senior directorOEH&E.
That's what we do out here.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
Well, yeah, we love our acronyms too.
I can't remember them all.
Tla's three letter acronymsWell, I appreciate your time,
Hailey.
Thank you for your time as welland your input into the
discussion, because it was vitalin to get that first person
perspective.
Speaker 3 (38:41):
Yeah, and a would-oh, or thank you for having me and
again, thank you, billy, fortalking.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
Absolutely, and it was great to meet you, Hailey
and Chris.
Thank you for this and thankyou for everything.
Speaker 2 (38:52):
You're listening to Small Talk with Communities
Unlimited.
We will have a new, freshepisode for you in a couple of
weeks.
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