A promise unfulfilled: water pipeline stops short for Sioux reservation

After 25 years and a half-billion dollars, only half of the project’s water delivered to Pine Ridge Reservation comes from the Missouri River – unlike supplies for white ranchers

Up until late last year, Ella Coleman, a diminutive, soft-spoken Oglala Sioux grandmother who lives in one of the hundreds of mobile homes on the semi-arid plains of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, lacked running water.

Sometimes, she received water deliveries by truck. Other times, she drove to a community spigot, where she filled buckets and hauled them in her minivan. At home, she ladled water from the buckets for cooking and bathing.