The Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation recently launched a dashboard that looks at drought indicators on the reservation and how they impact first foods. Community members can also submit their own observations and photos to illustrate the data collected by the tribes.
Lyndsi Lewis is the water quality coordinator for the CTUIR Water Resources Program. She joins us to talk more about the ecological — and cultural — impacts of drought.
Note: The following transcript was transcribed using AI and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.
Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller, coming to you this week from Hermiston in the Umatilla Basin. We’re going to start today with a new way to see an old problem. The Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation recently launched a dashboard that looks at drought indicators on the reservation and how they impact first foods. Lyndsi Lewis is the water quality coordinator for the Confederated Tribes. She joins us now. It’s great to have you with us.
Lyndsi Lewis: Hi, Dave. Thanks for having me.
Miller: Why did the tribe create this dashboard?
Lewis: We really wanted something that allowed us to monitor drought, monitor our conditions, and respond to them in a way that was unique to us. We can look at regional data and it’s going to give us a big picture, but really specifically, what we have here on our reservation is unique to us.
Miller: The dashboard uses “tribally-developed drought indices” – that’s one of the phrases we grabbed from the site. Are those different from data that’s already available at the state or federal levels?
Lewis: Yeah. Tribally-led drought indices, again, are specific for us: how our ecosystem, the ecosystem here on our reservation and within our area interacts with itself, with the people. It’s unique to how our tribal members are interacting with the landscape and the waterways, how we fish, how we gather the roots that we gather, the berries that we gather. So having those indices derived around the first foods really gives us a voice for what is unique for us.
Miller: What are the first foods that you focus on? Because these drought indicators, as you mentioned, they’re really tied to first foods. So what are they?
Lewis: first foods framework … Since time immemorial, CTUIR people have lived in reciprocity with the first foods. They have cared for our people, and we now have the responsibility to care for them. That relationship shaped how we built this dashboard. It wasn’t something culturally relevant added later. It has guided us from the beginning.
So, our first foods, they start with water (čúuš), salmon (núsux), big game (yáamaš), roots (x̣áwš) and berries (wíwnu).
Miller: I was struck by water being first. On some level, maybe I shouldn’t have been. I know water is obviously essential for life. But when I saw the phrase “first foods” I was thinking I would see various roots, berries or salmon – which you mentioned all of those, but water is first.
Lewis: And I love that you brought that up because water is not only first, but it’s also last. So we begin everything with water, nothing exists without water, nothing lives or survives without water. And then we close with water again. So in our ceremonies and our practices throughout our culture, the first foods begin and end with water.
Miller: Despite the importance of water as a first food, setting water aside, how are the other first foods currently being impacted by drought?
Lewis: You’re gonna see a variation in the availability of our roots. You’re gonna see a variation in the location and the migration patterns of our big game. The abundance of berries is going to vary, as well as location. And our fish – when drought is impacting us, our fish are going to be the first to see it. If they don’t have water in the streams to come home, then we don’t exist anymore.
Miller: Sometimes when we talk about population-wide ecology and climate change, we’ll hear people saying that certain species, if they’re plants, over a long period of time, may go up in elevation if seeds can be carried by birds and if they can get some foothold somewhere. And obviously, elk, it’s easier for them to literally move around on their own. But if we’re talking about tribal land or ceded land – which is a huge area but still limited geographically – how much concern do you have that some of these foods going forward, because of drought, because of climate change, won’t be able to survive on these lands?
Lewis: I think that’s a really good point. That’s why we do the work that we’re doing and why we have implemented this dashboard, so that we can use our monitoring to detect these changes, to detect these challenges and respond to them while we still have a choice, while we still have time. So again, the indices being derived from our first foods, the monitoring that’s occurring within the Department of Natural Resources at CTUIR, and then the relationships that we have with our local, state and federal agencies too, we’re all trying to protect and preserve these first foods and the land that it’s on.
Miller: What are your hopes for how community members will use the information on this dashboard and actually create information for the dashboard?
Lewis: Yeah, so one of the extremely unique aspects of this dashboard is our community involvement. There is a section of the dashboard called “Share Information,” and we ask our community, we ask our tribal members to fill out a survey. They can give us almost in-the-moment observations of what they’re seeing on the land while they’re interacting with their cultural practices or they’re recreating. And it’s not singular to only tribal members. We’re asking the surrounding community to provide these observations.
Miller: What’s an example of an observation that you would like to see, or that’s already come in?
Lewis: We have different fishing seasons. We have different tributaries that different people are fishing on. And what it would look like is you’re out there fishing, you’re going to take a look around, see where the water’s at. If you have a thermometer, not everybody carries thermometers, but get a water temperature. You’ll go into the dashboard, go into the “Share Information” page. You’ll pick the watershed that you’re in. There’s a map, so you’ll tap the area that you’re in. And then it’ll ask you a series of questions: Are things dryer, are they moderately dry? Are they really dry? Is there an excess of water? Is there flooding?
There’s going to be observations like that, but then there’s also going to be an area where you can share stories. This is what I experienced today, or I was here fishing and I fished from this time to this time, and I caught this many fish, and it was this kind of fish. You can also share pictures. So that storyline can really look like a historical family memory that you have, or your memory from that day. And then there’s about 15 questions that are looking at observations of what you’re seeing, and they really help guide you through what to look at or look for.
Miller: In the past when we’ve talked to Indigenous culture keepers, they’ve often said that they have to be careful now with certain, especially geographical information, about the sources of first foods, because they don’t want non-Native people to harvest them, to steal them. How are you going to be safeguarding this data?
Lewis: So every survey that is contributed or entered is private. Your name, your location, any identifying features will not be given out. It’s all private, it’s all safeguarded. And what we’ll do is at the end of the year, we’ll combine all of the information that we’ve gathered and we will put it in a report for our community. That really keeps the rest of that information safe. So you’re not giving away your honey hole, your special spots are still special. And then there’s also a place, if you’re OK with this story being public, if this is something that we can share with our community, “consent here.”
Miller: So that’s the community piece of this. What are you hoping that policymakers will do with this dashboard?
Lewis: What we’re hoping is that this will shorten the distance between observing a change in our landscape and being able to respond to it. Our monitoring, what we’re doing, it’s gonna help us see those conditions. The indices, which will be complete by the end of this year, will help us interpret the conditions. The dashboard as a whole will help us communicate to our community, to those decision makers. And then with the water conservation plan, that will help our decision makers decide what actions may be appropriate and how we can respond to those in the best way.
Miller: We only have a minute left. This is a huge question, but how do you think about data centers in the context of water quality and water amounts?
Lewis: I’m not sure that it’s something that I know enough about to comment on at this time. I appreciate that, but it’s not in my realm today.
Miller: Alright. Well, we will be talking more about data centers tomorrow and Friday, so stay tuned for those conversations. Lyndsi Lewis, thanks very much.
Lewis: Yeah, you’re very welcome. Thank you.
Miller: Lyndsi Lewis is the water quality coordinator for the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation.
“Think Out Loud®” broadcasts live at noon every day and rebroadcasts at 8 p.m.
If you’d like to comment on any of the topics in this show or suggest a topic of your own, please get in touch with us on Facebook, send an email to thinkoutloud@opb.org, or you can leave a voicemail for us at 503-293-1983.
