New funding could help Indigenous communities disproportionately impacted by climate change

(OKLAHOMA) Earlier this year, a report from the American Meteorological Society (AMS) found that Native American communities in Oklahoma are at higher risk for heavier rainfall, 2-year-flooding, and flash flooding compared to the state’s general population. New federal funding for tribes could help Native communities find solutions to combat this growing climate threat.

2024 continues to be a record year for natural disasters, setting the record for the most April tornadoes in recorded history. In Chickasaw Nation, the Chickasaw National Recreation Area was forced to close to public access following “unprecedented damage from a tornado that impacted the park and the town of Sulphur on April 27, 2024”. Four people were killed during that outbreak. 

A month later, Barnsdall in Osage Nation was hit with its second tornado of the season. Two people died and Osage Congress approved $350,000 in housing assistance to help with the aftermath. 

Though tornado damage can be significant, the severe weather situations that spawn them are oftentimes accompanied by intense flooding, resulting in compounded damage. In the case of this year’s April outbreak, one of National Weather Services’ five severe weather events listed in Oklahoma for this year, NWS reports excessive rainfall of 4 to 8.75 inches produced severe flash flooding and river flooding across the state. 

The AMS report expects both severe weather risks and demographic changes will impact the way climate change touches Native American communities, projecting Oklahoma’s Native American population will rise from 288,881 to 603,034 by the year 2100. 

Looking geographically at the state, researchers predict Oklahoma’s panhandle region will experience higher impacts from heavy rainfall, flooding, and flash flooding. The report found that region in particular is also expected to have a significant uptick in Native American residents by 2100. 

“Tribal Nations such as the Iowa Nation are projected to have 10 times more population, resulting in great exposures to climate extremes,” the report states. 

Addressing these climate change threats now, rather than later is essential to help mitigate damage and disruption to the life of tribal communities. 

In Washington State, the Nooksack Tribe and the Lummi Nation have been working with other community partners to protect salmon in the Nooksack River and address flooding concerns. 

InvestigateWest published a story in 2022 about the collaborative efforts to find solutions. 

The Tribes and other community partners in Whatcom County, Washington formed the The Floodplain Integrated Planning Team in 2017 to prepare for disasters involving the Nooksack River.

In the summer of 2021, more than 1,000 Chinook Salmon were found floating dead in the South Fork of the river. 

Then in November 2021, a flood occurred resulting in damage to 2,000 properties and the displacement of hundreds of people. 

Through the Integrated Planning Team, farmers have been consulting with the tribes as they build new floodgates that not only protect their land, but the salmon, which are important to the tribes. 

When Rich Appel, a dairy farmer in Whatcom County had to update his floodgate, he decided to include a way to protect the salmon.

“From different meetings with the tribes, we learned how fish could benefit from the farmland. While we don’t have hatchery habitat — they’re not laying eggs down here in the lower valley — we do have rearing capacity. And that’s important too,” Appel said. 

The new floodgate on Appel’s farm allows for the fish to have protection during floods as well as safe passageways. 

In the article published in InvestigateWest, tribal leaders discussed the importance of the collaborative efforts to find solutions. 

“From the tribes’ perspective, they gave up a lot,” said Ned Currence, the fisheries resource protection program manager for the Nooksack Tribe. “They gave up the lands that everybody else has profited on, and all they got were their treaty rights in exchange. But the river is degraded now. “So the Floodplain Integrated Planning mission is broader than just flood risk reduction. It’s an opportunity to continue exercising their treaty rights. The river provides for the lifeblood of the tribal membership,” Currence said. 

Despite, some of the success of the program in achieving solutions that work for multiple groups of people, a program like this does have some challenges. 

The challenges include time, because the groups involved are working against a clock that is ticking faster and faster. 

Limited funding for programs like this one and establishing trust amongst groups with different interests can also be a challenge. 

However, this solution shows the importance of utilizing collaboration from different partners when addressing climate change as well as the importance of giving tribal leadership a seat at the table to ensure their sovereign, cultural, and economic interests are front and center.

The work to address climate change impacting Native Americans in Oklahoma has already begun.

Earlier, this year it was announced that the Muscogee Creek Nation, Chickasaw Nation, Choctaw Nation, and United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians received more than $4 million from the federal government to address climate change impacting their land and members. 

The Federal Government has also recognized the risk that climate change poses to Native American Communities. 

Recently the Biden-Harris Administration announced $120 million in funding to assist Tribal Nations and communities in preparing for climate threats to their homelands. 

“As I’ve visited Indigenous communities across the country, I have seen firsthand how pressing the climate crisis is for Indigenous peoples and the urgency with which we must move to honor our obligations to Tribal Nations,” Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland said. “This investment through President Biden’s Investing in America agenda is a critical step toward further enabling Tribes to make thoughtful and proactive decisions about how to protect their people, their homelands and sacred sites, and critical community infrastructure.”   

The BIA’s Tribal Climate Resilience Annual Awards Program offers Federally Recognized Tribes and authorized Tribal Organizations the opportunity to finance ways to address current and future climate change impacts. 

Funds can also be used to help Tribes with climate adaptation planning, community driven relocation, and drought assistance. 

Applications for this program are open now through October 18th. 

The American Meteorological Society (AMS), also stated in their report that they hope to continue assisting Native American communities with addressing climate change. 

“In a future study, we hope to conduct a comprehensive flood risk analysis for Native Americans in their jurisdiction, which engages Indigenous community partnerships to seek solutions to the interconnected impacts of vulnerability to flooding and climate injustice on Indigenous people in Oklahoma,” the report states. “It is also critical to understand Indigenous communities in urban and suburban settings outside of tribal nation territories.”

This story has been updated to include additional solutions journalism components as part an ongoing Advancing Democracy Project.