This assistance agreement provides full federal funding in the amount of $582,055

This agreement provides funding under the inflation reduction act (IRA). The agreement provides funding to buena vista rancheria of me-WUK indians (BVR). Specifically, the recipient will in partnership with the california indian environmental alliance (ciea) seek to develop the 'BVR tribal beneficial uses development and implementation project' to address environmental issues related to water and tribal cultural uses of water and water dependent resources, including aquatic plants and animals. The project area includes buena vista rancheria of me-WUK indian's ancestral area of interest, including but not limited to the mokelumne river watershed, lower SAN joaquin river watershed, and southern portion of the sacramento-SAN joaquin delta. As such BVR will work with regional partners such as the central valley regional water quality control board (cvrwqcb) on planning and implementation. The project will address issues related to water quality and tribal uses of water, specifically to identify water quality safety standards for tribal beneficial uses. Meetings will be held within buena vista rancheria of me-WUK indian communities to identify significant waterways and aquatic dependent resources, while retaining tribal data sovereignty and confidentiality. The project will develop and maintain relationships between partners, gather information for designating cultural uses to significant waterways, and IT will update or develop sampling protocols based on tribal uses, data gaps, and needs and priorities established in initial surveys and discussions. The project will conduct water quality and environmental sampling of sediment, and priority areas such as vegetation and wildlife species to identify pollutants of concern. BVR will query available water quality data sets, identify pollution concerns, and develop and leverage sampling strategies to determine if these water or aquatic dependent resources are safe for tribal use. Data gathered during this project will be used to develop tribal beneficial use designation requests and inform development of water quality objectives to protect tribal beneficial uses on significant tribal waterways under state jurisdiction. Our project will create a conceptual model work plan template for other tribes as they advance tribal beneficial uses designations. BVR will host regular coordination meetings to update, advise, and encourage information sharing among tribal beneficial uses strategic planning caucus participants, as well as host trainings to increase technical capacity for tribal beneficial use designation work. Activities:the activities include identifying buena vista rancheria of me-WUK indians (BVR) waters of interest and identifying pollutants of concerns and exposure pathways by conducting meetings and information gathering research. BVR will continuously meet with project partners to effectively engage in the tribal beneficial uses designation process, participate in data gathering, and develop pollution monitoring strategies. The project will analyze available data for identified pollutants of concern and assess data gaps that need to be filled based on BVR cultural use of the identified priority waterways and aquatic resources. Based on gathered BVR cultural uses and analysis of available data, BVR will then identify sampling priorities, and develop or update sampling plans accordingly before ongoing implementation begins. In concluding this project, a tribal beneficial uses designation work plan template and process model will be developed and shared for other california tribes to utilize while working on tribal beneficial uses designations. This plan will be informed by the work completed in this project and will be informed by a tribal beneficial uses tribal caucus with respect to their regional water board's process.subrecipient:california indian environmen