Nearly a half century ago, Ron Sundberg’s father paddled across the Klamath River in a rowboat with his brothers to get to school on the Yurok Indian Reservation. “My grandmother had a restaurant out there, and there were boat tours. They would walk up to our cabin,” recalls Sundberg, whose family are Tribal members. “The restaurant was called the Paddle Inn. Our cabin burned down last year but otherwise, things haven’t changed too much.” Sundberg’s father attended Jack Norton Elementary School which today—not unlike six decades ago—enrolls between 30 and 35 students every year. Built in 1959, it consists of two classrooms, a library, cafeteria/gym, a small office and a playing field. Yet, it still has no electricity or telephone service. It operates instead on a die- sel-fired generator and uses a radiophone. Internet reception via satellite is spotty. This is a place still full of tradition, where Yurok Indian fishermen with hand-carved eeling hooks brave the frigid and turbulent river to catch the snakelike fish, a diet staple for centuries. It is where Tribal members remain dedicated to preserving Yurok, a Native American language that almost became extinct in the early 1900s. Linguists say no other Native American language in California is taught in as many public schools as is Yurok. The surface water the school had been using for drinking and cook- ing failed the federal Surface Water Treatment Rule’s for filtration of surface waters. When the school’s water system was constructed, there was no such rule. According to Sundberg, who is an environmental rural development specialist with RCAC, the system was designed to act as a slow sand filter but it had flaws. Tribe & school collaborate to provide safe water to students Klamath, California