Mission Statement
The Water Resourcee Program is committed to protecting the health and welfare of the Tribal Culture, the Community, and the natural environment by preserving, conserving, restoring, and enhancing the Reservation environment through the collection and analysis of high quality natural resource data and facilitating environmentally sound resource management, planning, policy development, and community outreach.
Why is water important?
The Swinomish Indian Reservation is the permanent homeland of the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community. Reservation water resources are of critical importance to sustaining the continued use and occupancy of the Swinomish Indian Reservation including the Tribe's treaty-guaranteed gathering, hunting, and fishing rights. The quality of those water resources seriously and substantially impacts the political integrity, economic security, health and welfare of the Tribe and its members.
Regulated Waters of the Swinomish Indian Reservation support the production, preservation, and enhancement of fish, shellfish, and other aquatic resources. Natural fish and shellfish populations and the aquatic resources upon which they depend for survival are highly vulnerable to damage from degraded water quality and decreased water quantity.The Swinomish people are a fishing people and depend on fish and shellfish resources and other species dependent on water quality for subsistence, income, ceremonial, and cultural purposes and therefore for their ultimate survival. Surface waters are also in hydraulic continuity with groundwater aquifers within the boundaries of the Swinomish Indian Reservation.
The Swinomish Water Resources Program is committed to environmental protection, restoration, and enhancement in order to protect human health and welfare and the environment.Water quality monitoring is part of the integrated, Reservation-wide environmental protection effort.Ongoing water quality monitoring also facilitates environmentally sound resource management and planning.