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45 Stan. Env't L. J. 1 (2026)

handle is hein.journals/staev45 and id is 1 raw text is: Indigenous Water Governance and the Clean Water Act Stephanie L. Safdi* Cultural lifewaysfor many Indigenous communities in the United States are intimately tied to water. Nationally, the Clean Water Act of 1972 is the principal framework for regulation of water quality. The core purpose of the Act is to ensure water quality-and, by extension, water quantity-sufficient to protect designated uses, including but extending beyond familiar fishable, swimmable, and drinkable uses. Though uses protected under the Act can be seen as expressions of social and ecological values, the cultural dimensions of these water uses have generally been underappreciated. This paper excavates requirements and possibilities forlndigenous water governance under the Clean Water Act, centering on the work of the Act's wa- ter quality standards provisions. Previous scholarship in this area hasfocused on Indigenous water governance within Tribal territorial jurisdiction-partic- ularly through Tribal promulgation of on-reservation water quality standards under Treatment-as-a-State authority or federal gap-filling standards for In- dian country. This paper extends this scholarship by looking to Indigenous water governance beyond Indian country. Doing so is imperative, as Tribal cultural, ceremonial, and subsistencepractices involving water remain rooted in ancestral territories over which Tribes often do not exercise formal regula- tory governance and which are increasingly imperiled by conflicts over water allocation under conditions of mounting scarcity. The failure to formally rec- ognize Tribal cultural uses of ancestral waterways, both practically and in the *Clinical Associate Professor of Law, Yale Law School. For helpful comments and discus- sions, I am grateful to Douglas Kysar, Gerald Torres, Marisol Orihuela,Joshua Macey, Dan- iel Esty, Anthony Moffa, Sibyl Diver, Felicia Marcus, Anika Singh Lemar, Muneer Ahmad, and Michael J. Wishnie. I also thank participants in the 2024 Clinical Law Review Writers Workshop and a faculty workshop at Yale Law School and am especially grateful to Shelbi Fitzpatrick and the other editors at the Stanford EnvironmentalLawfournalfor their thought- ful engagement and careful work on this piece. For excellent research assistance, I am in- debted to Ashlee Fox and Justin Saint-Loubert-Bie. I am especially grateful to Vice Chair Malissa Tayaba, Gary Mulcahy, Krystal Moreno, James Sarmento, and my other colleagues and friends at Buena Vista Rancheria of Me-Wuk Indians, Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians, Winnemem Wintu Tribe, Little Manila Rising, and Restore the Delta for guiding, inspiring, and trusting me with this work. 1