For the past three years, starting in 1999, the Environmental Department has been conducting ground water studies within the reservation to determine the extent of contamination within that resource. The major contaminate of groundwater on the reservation is nitrate. We suspect that most of this contamination is a result of decades of dairy farming that contribute to nitrate pollution by improper manure management as well as the nitrate fertilizer applied to the fields, especially for corn crop. In addition, the particular local geology of the area is particularly prone to ground water pollution. The high bedrock is covered with a thin layer of sand, gravel, boulders, and a thin layer of sandy loam at the surface. This type of soil and geology is very susceptible to ground water pollution.

The nitrate study is designed to locate the areas of the reservation where there is an ample source of clean potable water for domestic consumption. Clean water for our tribal members is a necessity. Each of us must have it, and many areas of our lands cannot supply that basic human need. This is as much a public health issue as well as an environmental issue.

The environmental considerations go beyond the ground water pollution due to the land use pressure on the reservation holdings. Tribal members need housing, and if they cannot build in the former farm areas due to ground water pollution, then the only remaining place is within the rest of the reservation. Most of that land is covered by forest and is managed in a sustained yield manner and certified as a "green forest" by the Rain Forest Alliance.

Building in this forest will fragmentation the forest, and will compromise the value of that resource. We are already battling invasive species that have the potential of forest destruction, and giving up land along the roadways. The character and ecological health of the forest depends on large uninterrupted tracts of land, not fragmented segments with no ecological stability. Therefore it will best serve the long-term interest of the tribe to build in areas that do not destroy parts of the forest. And those areas would be in the former farmlands.

Planners and natural resource staff need to know the existing conditions of the aquifer in order to make the proper decisions of how it should be used and protected. This aquifer would qualify as a sole source aquifer due to the fact that there are no layers of rock or clays underground that separate different sections of the ground water. What this effectively means is that if the ground water in a given area were contaminated, then that vicinity and the lands down gradient would have no clean, safe drinking water.

In 2000 and 2001, in cooperation with the U.S. Geological Survey, we installed numerous monitoring wells to determine the depth to the water table and to sample and test the water for nitrates. At this same time we were sampling numerous drilled water wells used for domestic consumption. Again in 2002, we drilled a number of additional monitoring wells to give us more information on the depth to water, and the quality of that water.

In a 2002 joint funding agreement with the USGS will produce a shallow ground water flow model that will accurately predict where water from a particular well has come form and if we have a possible pollution source, (i.e. an old manure pit) we can accurately predict where the ground water beneath it will flow. Combining the age of the water and the ground water flow model, and the current data on nitrate concentrations in the aquifer, we will be able to predict, with reasonable accuracy, two things: areas which have groundwater at or below the SDWA standards; and the length of time it will take for areas of drinking water standards violations to be naturally flushed with clean water.

The tribe has adopted a wellhead protection act, carefully monitored and regulated all use of fertilizers and other agricultural chemicals in the study area, and now owns the critical areas where the recharge of the aquifer takes place. Responsible land management can be expected to result in a cleaner environment fit for human habitation without expensive filtration and/or the construction of central drinking water supplies and expensive distribution systems, coupled with expensive filtration plants.