California Tribal Nations Technical Water Research

This research focused on identifying the key technical water issues of federally recognized California Native American tribes, the context within which these water issues arise for the tribes, and an appropriate format for potentially opening further dialogue on water research issues between the tribes and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientists. At LLNL, a Water Quality and Resource Management Issues Workshop held in January of 2003 resulted in multiple recommendations, one proposing a LLNL dialogue with California tribes to further inform LLNL's prioritization of water issues based on identified needs across national sectors. The focus of this aforementioned Water Quality and Resource Management Issues Workshop was to identify national and international priority water research issues with which LLNL may align their research efforts and contribute to resolving these needs. LLNL staff researched various sectors to delineate the key water issues associated with each. This preliminary water issue research included diverse entities such as international water agencies, federal and state agencies, industry, non-governmental agencies, and private organizations. The key (identified) water issues across these sectors were presented to workshop attendees and used during workshop debates and sessions. However, the key water issues of federally recognized Native American tribes remained less understood, resulting in a workshop proposal for additional research and LLNL potentially hosting a dialog with representatives of these tribes. Federally recognized Native American tribes have a unique government-to-government relationship with the United States (U.S.) government, in contrast to other sectors researched for the workshop. Within the U.S., the number of federally recognized tribes currently stands at 562 and, in addition to this large number of tribes, much diversity across these tribes exists. For the purposes of this preliminary research and report, it was necessary to confine the analysis to a smaller geographic area, yet still represent the diversity of tribes and context within which tribal water issues arise. The state of California provides this opportunity. California has 106 federally recognized tribes. California is diverse in its geography, environment, demographics, and economic bases; California tribes demonstrate similar diversity. Additionally, no central repository of national or state tribal water issues exists and information must be aggregated, in general, tribe by tribe. This presents research challenges and, for this report, these were overcome by developing a method to essentially ''sub-sample'' the 106 federally recognized tribes in the state, while making every effort to maintain a sub-sample that broadly represents all of the 106 tribes. n an effort to develop an equitable and appropriate method with which to identify this set of representative tribes, multiple entities were contacted for guidance. Consultation with the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Indian Health Services (IHS), U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Bureau of Reclamation (BOR) and Tribal Environmental Directors, provided key information and recommendations to guide the research process. It is hoped that an appropriate representation of the diversity of tribes across the state has been achieved; this includes an adequate representation of similarities and differences between Californian tribes on key water research issues (and the same between regions). This research occurred over a limited time period (i.e., three months) and given a general concern that this may not be sufficient, any information and conclusions in this report should be viewed with this in mind. Finally, it is hoped that this research allows for an (enhanced) informed capacity to better propose further dialog between tribes and LLNL to continue to exchange water research perspectives and define potential research collaborations