106 Water Quality Development

Craig Brown Jr. - Water Qualtiy Coordinator

PO Box 99
Fort Totten, ND 58335
Office: (701) 230-0573 Fax: (701)766-1218
Office Hours: 8:00 AM - 4:30 PM; Monday-Friday

Funded by: United States Environmental Protection Agency
under the Clean Water Act-106

• To conduct Scientific Investigative Water Analysis
• To Plan, Design and Enact Water Quality Monitoring Procedures
• To Protect the Spirit Lake Tribe Nations waters from becoming contaminated for human consumption
• To plan design and establish procedures and manuals required by the United States Environmental Protection Agency

The CWA 160/Water Quality Program is designed to characterize the water quality of the Spirit Lake Nation. Ongoing monitoring conducted over the years will allow the Tribe to begin to track changes in the water quality over time and assess potential future environmental impacts to the Reservation’s waters. The long-term use of the water monitoring program is to provide information to help the Tribe establish water quality standards and other tribal regulations and ordinances for the Spirit Lake Reservation to reduce further degradation.

The Water Quality Coordinator and Water Quality Technician acquire samples from four surface water locations. Wood Lake, Battle Lake, Free Peoples Lake, and Twin Lake. Two sites on the Sheyenne River. Four groundwater wells adjacent to Wood Lake and Battle Lake. Samples from each location are field tested for temperature, pH, dissolved oxygen, and conductivity. Ecoli Fecal is tested at the Spirit Lake Tribal EPA office otherwise all other field samples taken from each site are sent to the National Water Quality Laboratory in Denver, CO to test for hardness, metals, anions, total dissolved solids, and alkalinity.