The American Indian Program and the Water Resources Institute are building a Transboundary Indigenous Water Program (TIWP) to recognize unmet water needs for North America Native Americans, particularly in the northeast.

Cornell University is renowned for water research, teaching, and outreach. It many graduate courses with major water content and boasts of hundreds of masters or doctoral degrees in related work. The Cornell Law School offers courses and clinics on water law. Members of CCE and Center for the Environment enrich local government and nongovernmental organizational efforts to improve water quality. New York states's Water Resources Institute resides at Cornell since 1974 and ties the campus to state and federal institutions and programs whose business is water. Cornell has strong ties with Sea Grant and experience working with watersheds from French Creek to the Great Lakes.
But what about the water issues in and around Native American homelands? Cornell's water welcome mat seems to stop here. Mindful of this, the American Indian Program and the Water Resources Institute are building a Transboundary Indigenous Water Program (TIWP) to recognize an unmet water needs in North America Native Americans, particularly in the northeast. In New York state, the need is acute. The state is home to over 100 Super Fund sites, many upstream of Six Nations communities; water-born diseases and invasive species are changing food chains and biodiversity on reservation lands; lagging water treatment and pollution put Native food security and culture at risk; and Native American representation on inter-government bodies at virtually all levels is the exception. And no institutions of higher learning are stepping forward to make Native water wellness a priority and career opportunity. This is our goal over the coming decade.
The TIWA focus originated in the Masters theses of three Cornell graduate students and the request by two Native American Cornell Law School students for concerted attention to eastern water law and policy. Most university attention to Native Water Law is western and the illusion exists that water is abundant in the east; quality is mistaken for quantity. Both native and non-native populations throughout the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Seaway basins (the TIWP focus) are faced with water shortages, severe pollution, and privatization of this public good. The Haudenosaunee (Six Nation Iroquois Confederacy) consider water to be their first food, their point of origin and survival, and the unifying resource in the web of life. Its destruction is an assault on their sovereignty, their children, and their culture. It is a festering source of conflict between themselves and their non-Native neighbors, despite its unifying potential as a common cause.

In November of 2006 the American Indian Program, the Cornell Law School, and the Water Resources Institute jointly offered a Native Water Law Conference that attracted over 200 lawyers and water practitioners. Presenters include leading experts on Native Water Law in the East and West and members of the Haudenosaunee Environmental Task Force. We have also secured Federal Formula Funds for the next three years to begin community education and conservation efforts of waters considered sacred to the Cayuga Nation of Indians. An extensive network of water scholars and practitioners has met for over a year to assemble a vision statement and organizational structure for the Transboundary Indigenous Water Program.

To date, the impacts of our efforts have been educational both on and off campus. There is considerable learning that we (the TIWP) must undertake to learn Native perspectives on major water issues -- learning that itself is an impact and will lead to others. We are forging a network of interested stakeholders including the Haudenosaunee Task Force, non-governmental organizations working in the Cayuga Lake Watershed, the Law School, state and federal agencies, Cornell Cooperative Extension, and the Sea Grant Program of New York.

Native water law

• Private donations
• Program office

• Jane Mt. Pleasant (Crops and Atmospheric Sciences)
• Rebecca Schneider (Natural Resources)
• Troy Richardson (Education)
• Keith Porter (Water Resources Institute)
• Deborah Grantham (CCE)
• Jeff Rachlinski (Law School (C.U.))
• Robert Porter (Law School (Syr. Univ.))
• Chris Andronicos (Engineering)
• Neil Schwartzbach (CaRDI)
• Angela Gonzales (Development Sociology)