# COLUMBIA RIVER INTER

- TRIBAL FISH COMMISSION

700 NE Multnomah Street, Suite 1200 Portland, Oregon 97232 F (503) 235

- 4228 (503) 238

- 0667

F (503) 235

- 4228 www.critfc.org

Putting fish back in the rivers and protecting the watersheds where fish live December 23 , 2014

Gina McCarthy, EPA Administrator USEPA Headquarters

William Jefferson Clinton Building 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.

Mail Code: 1101A Washington, DC 20460

Re: EPA Promulgation of Washington Water Quality Standards

Dear Administrator McCarthy:

On behalf of the Columbia River Inter

- Tribal Fish Commission ’ s (CRITFC) member tribe s

— t he Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation of Oregon, the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation, and the

Nez Perce Trib e

— I want to thank you for your decis i on to begin the federal process to prom u lg a te water quality stand a rds for the S tate of Was h ington. It is an appropriate and timely use of EPA’s statutory authority

.

To date, Washington has not revised its water quality stand a rds on a timely and effective bas i s

. Our tribal members depend on clean water that nourishes and supports the fish on which they depend.

Thus

, it is essential that water quality standards adequately protect them and others who regularly

consume fish. I am confident that EPA’s eng ag ement will establish fair environmental policies that

will lead Washington to respect its Native citi z ens and others relying on the bounties of the Northwest’s aquatic ecosystems

.

Our member tribes have been alarmed by the growing trend to weaken acceptable risk levels for political reasons . This is what W as h ington did and Idaho is exp l or ing

. Diminishing the long

standing, widely

- accepted cancer risk levels (1 in 1 million) is not acceptable. Doing so to meet the needs of the polluting comm unity and not those of the people and resources , is not tolerable

. EPA has widespread t ribal support for your decision to promulgate Washington’s water quality standards. This support is demonstrated in the attached National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) resolution, Resolution ATL

- 14

- 31

, “Supporting EPA Promulgation of Surface Water Quality Standards for States that Fail to Adopt Standards that Adequately Protect Tribal People Who Practice Subsistence Lifeways

. ”

NCAI R esolution ATL

- 14

- 31 also requests that EPA uphold its commitment to Environmental Justice and amend its guidance for setting water quality standards to eliminate the provision that has

been mis construed to suggest that states may use a cancer risk level as high as 1 in 10,000 for so

called “sensitive sub

- populations

. ” Tribes were not consulted in the development of the guidanceGina McCarthy, EPA Administrator

December 23 , 2014 Page 2 of 2

docum ent and it is inapp ropriate to imply that the 1 in 10,000 standard is sufficiently protective for

tribal fish consumption . I respectfully request the EPA amend the guidance document as soon as practical.

CRITFC joins the member

- tribes of NCAI in support of the actions reque sted of EPA and other federal agencies in this resolution. Your December 2014 memorandum

, “Commemorating the 30th Anniversary of the EPA’s Indian Policy

, ” clearly recognizes that the treaties of CRITFC’s member

tribes hold the same legal force as federal statutes and that EPA has an obligation to ensure that actions taken by EPA “honor and respect tribal rights and resources protected by treaties.” CRITFC is working hard to address degraded water quality that impacts t he ability of our member tribes to fully exercise their rights to the consumption and use of resources guaranteed by treaty.

Again, I thank you for your deci si on to init i ate a process to revise water quality stand a rds for the

S tate of W ashington

. As we di d during the water quality standards ’ revision process in Oregon,

CRITFC ’s member

- tribes are prepared to meet and work with leaders and stakeholders from the regulated community to find solutions to reduce toxic contaminants in our watersheds. The tribes

a re ready and willing to assist in whatever way we can to better protect the health of our nations’

waters and the p eople who rely on them. I f you would like to further discuss how our organization can work with EPA on this issue, p lease contact me or Paul Lumley at 503

- 238

- 0667.

Sincerely,

Carlos Smith

CRITFC Chairman

Attachment

Cc: Dennis McLerran, Administrator

, EPA Region 10 Stan Meiburg , Acting Deputy Administrator Ken Kopocis, Deputy Assistant Administrator for Office of WaterE XECUTIVE C OMMITTEE

P RESIDENT Brian Cladoosby Swinomish Indian Tribal Community

F IRST VICE

- PRESIDENT Randy Noka Narragansett Tribe

R ECORDING S ECRETARY Robert Shepherd Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate

T REASURER

Dennis Welsh

Colorado River Indian Tribes

R EGIONAL V ICE

P RESIDENTS

A LASKA Jerry Isaac Tanana Chiefs Conference

E ASTERN O KLAHOMA S. Joe Crittenden

Cherokee Nation

G REAT P LAINS

Leander McDonald Spirit Lake Tribe

M IDWEST Aaron Payment Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians

N ORTHEAST

Lance Gumbs

Shinnecock Indian Nation

N ORTHWEST Fawn Sharp Quinault Indian Nation

P ACIFIC Rosemary Morillo Soboba Band of Mission Indians

R OCKY M OUNTAIN Ivan Posey

Eastern Shoshone Tribe

S OUTHEAST

Ron Richardson Haliwa-Saponi Indian Tribe

S OUTHERN P LAINS Stephen Smith Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma

S OUTHWEST

Manuel Heart

Ute Mountain Ute Tribe

W ESTERN

Arlan Melendez Reno Sparks Indian Colony

E XECUTIVE D IRECTOR Jacqueline Johnson Pata Tlingit

NCAI HEADQUARTERS
1516 P Street, N.W. Washington, DC 20005

202.466.7767

202.466.7797 fax
www.ncai.org N A T I O N A L C O N G R E S S O F A M E R I C A N I N D I A N S



### The National Congress of American Indians

Resolution #ATL-14-31

TITLE: Supporting EPA Promulgation of Sur face Water Quality Standards for States that Fail to Adopt Standard s that Adequately Protect Tribal People Who Practice Subsistence Lifeways

WHEREAS, we, the members of the National Congress of American Indians of the United States, invoking the divine bl essing of the Creator upon our efforts and purposes, in order to preserve for ourselves and our descendants the inherent sovereign rights of our Indian nations, rights secured under Indian treaties a nd agreements with the United States, and all other rights and be nefits to which we are entitled under the laws and Constitution of the United States, to enlighten the public toward a better understanding of the In dian people, to preserve Indian cultural values, and otherwise promote the health, safety and welfare of the Indian people, do hereby establish and submit the following resolution; and

WHEREAS, the National Congress of Am erican Indians (NCAI) was

established in 1944 and is the oldest and largest national organization of American

Indian and Alaska Native tribal governments; and

WHEREAS, since time immemorial we, the first people of North America, have sought to preserve, protect and sust ain our way of life, our religion and our culture, beginning with the basi s of all life—the pure water that we hold sacred—and we are obligated to take appropriate and n ecessary actions to care for the water, today and for the next seven generations; and

WHEREAS, under the federal Clean Water Ac t, states must periodically revise their surface water quality standards to incorporate more current and accurate data and information, and ultimately to better protect waterways from toxic and other pollutants; and

WHEREAS, these processes to revise sta ndards include opportunities to make certain policy choices and decisions, such as acceptable risk of additional cancers from exposure to toxic discharges; and

WHEREAS, Oregon has adopted the nation’ s most stringent state water quality standards utilizing hu man health criteria based on local tribal subsistencebased fish consumption rates (a compromise of 175 grams per day) while maintaining the widely-accepted, commonly-used can cer risk level of 1 in 1,000,000; and

WHEREAS, States such as Washington and Florida have proposed to revise their water quality standards based on weakened cancer risk levels to counter and effectively negate the use of local subsis tence-based fish consumption rates; andNCAI 2014 Annual Session Resolution ATL-14-31

Page 2 of 3 WHEREAS, EPA guidance (2000 Methodology fo r Deriving Ambient Water Quality Criteria) suggesting that states may use a cancer risk level of as low as 1 in 10,000 for highly exposed subgroups including subsistence fisher s, while recommending that the general population be protected at a cancer risk level of 1 in 1,000,000 is inappropriate and unacceptable; and

WHEREAS, states that rely on flawed EPA gui dance to justify inadequate revised standards will perpetuate an ongoing environmental in justice by subjecting tribal people to disproportionately higher ri sks simply from exercising our right s to our First Foods and practicing our religion and culture.

NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that NCAI requests that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency uphold its commitments to tribes , and promulgate surface water quality standards that will protect human health, safeguard tribal and treaty rights to harvest clean, consumable fish and other aquatic resources, and promote Environmental Justice for tribal communities in states that fail or refuse to adopt such standards (as may occur in the states of Washington, Florida, an d possibly other); and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that NCAI opposes and reject s any state’s policy choice for revising surface water quality st andards that would use a risk le vel that is 10 or 100 times less protective against cancer than curre nt criteria, and urges EPA to oppose and reject it as well; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that NCAI requests that EPA reconsider, amend, or withdraw its insupportable guidance that may be referre d to as an excuse by states to establish water quality standards that subject tribal people to unfair and disp roportionate risks merely from practicing subsiste nce lifeways; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that NCAI encourages EPA, in responding to states’ proposed water quality standards re visions, to give paramount weight to its obligations to honor Treaty Rights, Reserved Rights, and Trust Res ponsibility to non-toxic fish and implement its Environmental Justice Policy; and

BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED, that this resolution shall be the policy of NCAI until it is withdrawn or modified by subsequent resolution.NCAI 2014 Annual Session Resolution ATL-14-31

Page 3 of 3 CERTIFICATION

The foregoing resolution was adopted by the Gene ral Assembly at the 2014 Annual Session of the National Congress of American Indians, held at the Hyatt Regency Atlant a, October 26-31, 2014 in Atlanta, Georgia, with a quorum present.

President

ATTEST:

Recording Secretary