National Tribal Environmental Council

The work week started on a Sunday as it was a travel day to get to Gallup, New Mexico for meetings early Monday morning with Navajo Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Navajo Nation Chapters. Uneventful travel except when monsoon like rains began to fall from huge thunder clouds in the warm afternoon. All traffic slows to a crawl on a stretch of Interstate 40, covered by an unusual downpour of rain; a rain fall of up to I inch of in a short time-span.  During this time driving became hazardous on the road that crosses over and through dry creek beds on this desert path, by cars hurling sheets of water over cars travelling in the same direction behind and to other lanes of traffic. Traffic on this desert highway slows to travel a safe distance and speed, and I end up in Gallup for the night at 8pm.

Monday morning brings a series of meetings and phone calls with those in charge of Native Public Water Systems as I drink my coffee. Navajo Nation EPA is the only Native American nation with Primacy over drinking water systems within its sovereign nation. Primacy means the act of governing. Navajo has Primacy or responsibility for the well being and safety those within the boundaries of the Nation. As the only Native Nation to receive Primacy for the enforcement management of the Navajo Nation Drinking Water Act and US Safe Drinking Water Act. Navajo does not show a bias for one system over another and is serious about the rules and laws promulgated for the safety and welfare of its people.  Ownership and maintaining the right to regulate systems within the Nation rests on Navajo’s ability to govern and manage in a fair and impartial way, that honors the culture of the nation, respects its sovereignty, laws , land and water resource and hard the won primacy it worked hard to gain from the United States.

After a day of meetings and driving I stop for the night and pull into a hotel to eat, write reports, check e-mails watch some television and sleep. The next day, begins with telephone calls while on the road by cell phone and continue my travel to Northern New Mexico to meet with several Pueblos on their assistance needs on Tuesday through Thursday.

My first stop is at a non gaming Pueblo. This Pueblo is a small community that borders encompass a small mountain range with a water reservoir on its eastern side, while the western edge of the reservation butts up against an expansive valley.

The history of the water system being, an arsenic treatment system built under an EPA pilot project that is very expensive to operate. When the arsenic MCL was revised and standard lowered this Pueblo was one of many communities faced with treatment issues not seen previously. To assist the community, USEPA developed an Arsenic Treatment facility that was a pilot project for other treatment facilities; that requires an operator who has a special certification to operate. Although the facility treats the pueblo’s water, Operations and Maintenance cost to run and maintain is several thousand dollars a year. The governor of the Pueblo tells me to me, “this cost as unacceptable and affects adversely the small budget of the pueblo to provide service and they are looking at solutions.” One source they are exploring is using another source of water from a different aquifer within the boundaries of the Pueblo, that does not have ant arsenic treatment issues.

After discussions with the manager of the Environmental department, NTEC work with the Pueblo will be to help the community to plan, organize, facilitate and lend assistance on obtaining a set aside grant for modifications to the existing system, help also to help them get system improvements that include fire protection for areas of the system with none, assist in developing a fair and equitable drinking water usage rate structure and finally help the tribe to set up an asset management program an overall plan for upcoming projects that are on planned by Indian Health Service. Leaving the Pueblo with some follow-up items and as it was after 5pm; I spent the night in Espanola and continued to work on documents needed for other projects I am also working on. Waking up in the morning and heading to other Pueblos in the area.

In the morning as I was driving I received and made a few calls to various chapters at Navajo we continue to work with and continued to coordinate assistance that NTEC provides in New Mexico. Arriving at Taos I made my way to a Pueblo Utility Service and met the new Utility Director.

The new Director is a level 4 water operator who is very involved with his and other pueblos on the training of operators to retain and to upgrade their licenses or state certifications. He and I discussed the need for training and we both have a desire to see more training offered to those who want it to enhance the systems they work with and retain their jobs in some cases. It is getting expensive for operators and systems to travel with tight and shrinking budgets for tribal utilities. I the new Director if he would be interested in helping NTEC conduct training sessions that can also be a network group for operators, that would meet on a regular basis for training, etc. He liked the idea and said he would help get people there but needed a meeting place and equipment to conduct training that I offered to provide. I decided to call the project for NTEC purposes until they officially meet and decide what to call themselves: Native Operator Training (NOT)

Later that week that I made contact with a Community Developer, who works with Pueblo on several community projects.   After talking with him and telling him of the NOT project, he told me of a facility I might be able to obtain for meetings. We both drove to the facility that is central to all the northern pueblos and is located in Espanola. The facility is a new building with a new conference/conference training room with an audio visual set-up and kitchen facility that is first class. It will take some coordination with the facility and of course participants to the training but will meet the need an purpose that I want to use it for. Excited about the potential and reality of the NOT project, I called the Director I was working with and we both began to plan to schedule time for the first meeting that will take place in January. My follow-up is to begin to put together an agenda for training and first meeting along with flyer to be sent to the tribes.

My site visits completed in New Mexico for this week I made my way back to my office and continued to work on the follow-up from visits in the field and other on-going projects that are on-going in New Mexico.

At the same time the circuit rider was in New Mexico another NTEC circuit rider in Wisconsin on that Monday drove 7 hours to Ashland, Wisconsin to meet with Operator for a Tuesday meeting with the operator of a small tribe in the area. The operator receives mentoring on the certification test given by the state.   After the mentoring /training session the circuit rider discusses with the operator other specific training and assistance and then traveled to another close tribe in the area where he met a new operator only on the job as manager for 3 ½ weeks. The new operator and circuit rider talked for several hours and toured the drinking and waste water system. Training need identified was on: activated sludge plants, phosphorus removal, disinfection. Many members of his staff as well as the operator talked to need continuing education credits for certifications. The system is also in need of SCADA system improvements, as well as distribution systems modifications that will be studied to calculate ways to make the necessary corrections. The rest of the week in Wisconsin was similar to this one with the circuit rider travelling to LAC Du Flambeau, Rhinelander and Mole Lake before returning home. The need in Wisconsin is similar to the need in all of NTEC’s service area that consists of 9 states, that of one-on-one training and group training. NTEC continues to react to the need of tribes in this service area by working with tribal utilities on the best ways and topics they want and or need training and assistance on.

To work effectively and efficiently, NTEC has divided its water program service area into four major regions as follows:

1. Alaska
2. Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota
3. California, Nevada and Utah
4. Wisconsin and New Mexico

For more on NTEC circuit riders and the overall water program contact: Lewis McLeod, 505.379.1909, Manager of the NTEC Water Program or contact the main office at 505.242.2175 to find out the telephone number of the circuit rider in your state who you can call for assistance.

Submitted by

Ron Thomson