Yukon River Inter-Tribal Watershed Council solicits "affiliation organizations"
10-11-07
Tim Bodony (KIYU)

The Yukon River Inter-Tribal Watershed Council is reaching out to non-tribal entities, in an effort to expand its base of support. 

The Watershed Council advocates for the environmental protection and cleanup of the Yukon River and its tributaries, in both Alaska and Canada.

The Watershed Council is offering “affiliated organization” status to non-native entities within the Yukon River watershed - such as city governments - and to groups outside the Yukon River drainage that wish to lend their support. 

Only groups that represent indigenous peoples within the watershed can be full-fledged members of the group, as signatories to the Yukon River Watershed Inter-Tribal Accord. 

But as Alaska Region Director Rob Rosenfeld explains, reaching out to non-tribal groups was an outgrowth of the Watershed Council’s overall mission.  

Rosenfeld: As a result of the guiding principle of being inclusive, it eventually came about how best to work with municipalities, other governments, and other organizations that might be interested in the goal of keeping the Yukon River clean for the future.

The creation of affiliated organization status was also sparked by an inquiry from the city government of Nenana, who in 2004 approached the Watershed Council about becoming a member.     

Nenana Mayor Jason Mayrand recalls his initial meeting with the Nenana tribal administrator and Rosenfeld, when he suggested that the Watershed Council could be more effective at cleaning up and protecting the environment if it brought city governments into the fold. 

Mayrand: It’s all well and good that what you are trying to do will enhance the water quality, but the major polluters that you are trying to clean the water up from are all municipal entities.  Especially on the Tanana River, Fairbanks, Delta Junction, and Nenana for example, we are all on the river system here.  And the municipal entities or governmental agencies are the ones that control, or don’t control, the pollution that is getting into the waters.

The terms of the Affiliated Organization Agreement read like a pledge of allegiance of sorts, dictating that the affiliated groups support the various efforts of the Watershed Council, and not take positions contrary to those held by the Council. 

Affiliated organizations can’t vote at meetings, nor are they eligible to receive direct funding through the Council.    

But those limits are not deal-breakers for Mayrand and the City of Nenana.  Mayrand says that cooperation between city and tribal entities is crucial to getting anything done in Alaskas villages and small towns, and that municipal input to Watershed Council decisions would be beneficial to everyone involved. 

Mayrand: I think it enhances the effectiveness of the organization because if we have the ability to sit in on those meetings, and the ability to communicate with those folks, they can talk to us and tell us what the problems are, and we can talk to them and explain to them how we can help make those problems go away or make them better.  The whole point is to try to get everybody to work together towards common goals.

Mayrand also notes that if an affiliated organization disagrees with the Watershed Council on a particular issue, contrary to the terms of their signed agreement, the organization can withdraw from that agreement at any time.   

The Watershed Council already allows municipal governments to participate in its backhaul program, a grant-funded effort that has moved 5 million pounds of recyclable and hazardous materials out of the villages by barge over the past 3 years.  The Watershed Council is also working with city governments to map contaminated sites in and around communities.    

Rosenfeld explains that, besides including them in the Watershed Council’s meetings, city governments and the Watershed Council could cooperate in any number of other ways. 

Rosenfeld:  And there will end up being meetings with each entity to decide what are the ways to best partner, each community is unique so there won’t be a prototype for how best to work with each community. We will meet each community where they are at, and find out what services we can best provide.

Just this week, the City of Pilot Station became the first non-tribal group to sign the Affiliated Organization agreement.  Rosenfeld anticipates that there might be a few more by next spring.  Mayrand anticipates that the Nenana city government will be one of them.

Native groups from as far away as South America have expressed interest in signing the agreement. 

66 native organizations in Alaska and Canada currently belong to the Watershed Council – the largest number of indigenous governments that have signed on to a single accord in the world.