NRCS updated its regulations for watershed projects to allow Indian tribes or tribal organizations to sponsor needed watershed projects.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently issued a revision to the Clean Water Act that requires states to consider tribal treaty rights when crafting water quality regulations.

Politicians are celebrating the tentative agreement, while activists and tribal leaders say it doesn’t do enough to protect endangered salmon runs.

The modernized Columbia River Treaty agreement-in-principle provides certainty hydropower certainty, flood risk management and salmon and ecosystem health, U.S. officials said in a July 11 media call. Changes include a new body to allow tribes and indigenous nations to make recommendations on the timing and quantity of flows for salmon in the Columbia River Basin, and more conservative flood-risk management in the U.S. in wetter years — changes which would have been more extreme without the modernized treaty.