New rule gives Minnesota tribes more input on state water quality standards

MOORHEAD — Minnesota has long collaborated with tribal governments on water quality issues. But a new federal rule could give tribes a stronger voice in that process. The new Environmental Protection Agency rule is designed to protect the reserved rights of tribal members.

Reserved rights are the rights to hunt, fish and gather resources. Tribes commonly reserved, or did not give up, those rights when they signed treaties ceding land to the federal government. “This rule is laying out a standard and a way for the EPA to require states to protect those resources that the federal government has a trust responsibility to protect and standardizes that in a way that will make it clear and more effective for that protection to be guaranteed,” said Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe Environmental Deputy Director Craig Tangren.



The regulation affects water quality standards outside of reservations in ceded territory. Most of Minnesota is territory ceded in treaties signed in the mid 1800’s. Some treaties involve multiple tribes and some tribes in other states also hold reserved rights on lands in Minnesota.

In 1990, the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe filed suit asking a federal court to find that they retained rights to hunt, fish and gather in territory ceded under an 1837 treaty. ADVERTISEMENT The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Mille Lacs Band. The court also said tribes retain hunting and gathering rights unless those rights were specifically given up in the treaty.

Many tribal gov.