Legal Defense
Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation
The Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation hold usual-and-accustomed fishing rights on the Columbia River and its tributaries under the 1855 Treaty of Walla Walla. The Natural Resources Department tracks Columbia Basin water quality and participates in proceedings where Morrow County data-center operations, including Amazon's Boardman campus cooling-tower effluent, affect tribal fishing rights and aquifer integrity.
- Location
- Pendleton, OR
- Founded
- 1855
- Website
- https://ctuir.org/
The CTUIR Natural Resources Department provided scientific and legal standing in the 2026 Morrow County class-action proceedings against Amazon Web Services, documenting how spray-irrigation reuse of cooling-tower effluent contributed to aquifer nitrate contamination that harmed wells used by tribal and rural community members downstream of the Boardman campus.
Cited in
- Prineville and Boardmancrook-morrow