Professor Grijalva continues work with National Tribal Water Council

The National Tribal Water Council is a technical and scientific body created to provide input to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and advocate for and assist tribes on water-related issues.

Professor Grijalva has been a Technical Advisor to the Council for several years, and this year he assisted on three major projects. This fall, he helped the Council complete A Guidebook for Developing Tribal Water Quality Standards, which lays out for tribal environmental staff the legal and practical importance of setting water quality goals for Indian reservations, and provides a technical roadmap for that process. This spring, Professor Grijalva is co-authoring Council comments on an EPA proposal for ensuring that state water quality standards outside Indian country protect federally reserved Indian rights. The Council has also asked that he draft a white paper on protection of water quality affecting Alaska Native communities, who under a special federal law are treated as corporations rather than sovereign governments like Indian tribes in the contiguous states, and who own their lands in fee simple rather than have reservation territories.