LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) – A tiny Nebraska town that sells millions of cans of beer on the border of South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Indian Reservation saw its alcohol sales drop for the second year in a row in 2012, according to a report by Nebraska’s liquor control commission that American Indian advocates said was encouraging.

Four beer stores in Whiteclay, which has roughly a dozen residents, sold what amounts to nearly 3.9 million, 12-ounce cans of beer last year. That’s a 10 percent drop from 2011, when the stores collectively sold the equivalent of nearly 4.3 million cans of beer, according to the commission’s year-end report.

Alcohol sales had previously been climbing in Whiteclay, which American Indian advocates and others blame for alcoholism and other social problems plaguing the heavily impoverished reservation, where alcohol is banned. In 2010, sales had climbed to 4.9 million cans of beer compared to 4.3 million cans in 2007.

It’s unclear why sales have dropped. Business owners in Whiteclay have pointed to financial struggles of the tribal government, which supplies many of the reservation’s jobs. But activists who want to shutter Whiteclay scoff at that claim, saying the reservation has been impoverished for generations, and attribute the decline to increased awareness of the town and the work of Pine Ridge residents to discourage drinking.

The Sheridan County Sheriff’s office also installed a security camera in Whiteclay, which allows deputies to keep watch on the town from their home base in Rushville, about 20 miles away.

Nebraska lawmakers have tried for years to address the problem with little success. On Friday, a legislative committee killed a bill that would have increased the state’s beer excise tax by 5 cents per gallon. The plan would have generated about $2.3 million annually to help law enforcement.

The state liquor commission reported that Whiteclay alcohol sales generated $113,000 for the state last year, down from nearly $125,000 in 2011.

Activists who oppose Whiteclay’s beer sales said they were encouraged by the commission’s report.

“Wow, that’s awesome,” Olowan Martinez, who lives in the reservation town of Porcupine, S.D. “But as good as it is to hear, it’s not good enough. The fact is, they’re still making millions off the misery of our people.”

Mark Vasina, a Lincoln filmmaker who produced a documentary on Whiteclay, attributed the decline to renewed awareness of the town.

Whiteclay and the reservation have seen a surge of media attention in recent years, from a 20/20 special in 2011 to widespread publicity last year when the Oglala Sioux Tribe filed a federal lawsuit that sought $500 million in damages from the beer stores, their distributors and big-name beer manufacturers.

The tribe alleged in its lawsuit that one in four children born on the reservation suffer from fetal alcohol syndrome or fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, and the average life expectancy is estimated between 45 and 52 years – the shortest in the North Hemisphere except for Haiti, according to the lawsuit. The average American life expectancy is 77.5 years.

A judge ultimately dismissed the lawsuit, saying the tribe didn’t have a legal case but added that Whiteclay “contributes significantly to tragic conditions on the reservation. And it may well be that the defendants could, or should, do more to try to improve those conditions for members of the tribe.”

Vasina said tribe members and the tribal police have also used alcohol checkpoints at key times, such as New Year’s Eve and high school prom nights.

“All of these were generated out of the reservation, not from folks in Nebraska,” Vasina said. “I know there’s a lot more talk and concern and awareness – not just awareness of how bad Whiteclay is. That’s always been true. But there’s an awareness that things can change.”

Vasina disputed arguments that the decrease was due to tribal budget cuts.

“Pine Ridge fell off the fiscal cliff in the 19th century,” he said.