Tribe Reaches Out For Environmental Help Epa Applauds The Coeur D’Alenes For Seeking Non-Indians In Planning

The Coeur d’Alene Tribe was applauded Tuesday for involving non-Indians in environmental planning on its North Idaho reservation.

“I don’t know of any other tribal community that has been as inclusive with the local community as the Coeur d’Alenes have,” said Kathy Hill of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. “You really are breaking new ground.”

Hill spoke at the official kickoff of the tribe’s Environmental Action Plan.

The plan will address health, ecology and quality-of-life issues on the 345,000-acre reservation. The tribe and its members govern only 70,000 of those acres.

However, the plan also could end up setting tribal policy on issues anywhere within the Coeur d’Alenes’ 4 million-acre aboriginal territory.

“We will start looking at the reservation first, but we didn’t want to limit ourselves from looking at other things, … even things like migratory salmon,” said project coordinator Tiffany Allgood.

Allgood was hired last January. Before that, she held a similar job with the Hoopa Valley Tribe in Northern California.

Among her tasks has been putting together a 25-member steering committee. Besides tribal representatives, its members include Kootenai County Commissioner Ron Rankin and George Asan, superintendent of the Plummer/Worley School District.

Within the next two months, Allgood said, local meetings will be held to identify residents’ environmental concerns. So far, the “problem list” includes issues such as flooding and loss of wildlife and native plants.

Problems will be analyzed, summarized and ranked based on their severity. Then strategies will be devised to solve them.

Federal dollars are paying for the project. Grants include $80,000 annually from the EPA’s tribal assistance program.

Hill directs that program in the Northwest.

“The EPA has had an Indian policy since 1984 but hasn’t done a great job of implementing it until recently,” she said.

Tribes around the country are starting to write environmental plans, Hill added, but none has involved non-Indians as much as the Coeur d’Alenes are doing.

Tribal chairman Ernie Stensgar emphasized the need to involve everyone.

“If we’re looking at logging practices, how is it going to affect that industry?” he asked. “If we’re looking at clean air, at wildlife, how will that affect you?” , DataTimes MEMO: Cut in Spokane edition