Where: The Kalispel Indian Community of the Kalispel Reservation, Pend Oreille County, Washington

Problem: Small rural and Indigenous communities lack accurate, digitized water and wastewater infrastructure maps.

Solution: Rural Community Assistance Corporation (RCAC) helps Indigenous communities prepare, maintain and update detailed infrastructure maps.

The reservation for the Lower Kalispel people is in Pend Oreille County, Washington, and is home to the federally recognized Kalispel Indian Community of the Kalispel Reservation. The reservation has roughly 400 enrolled members and encompasses 4,557 acres, which is partially used for buffalo herding.

After experiencing major problems with its wastewater lagoons overtopping and the costs of hauling wastewater to off-reservation facilities, the reservation built a new wastewater facility – the Kalispel Tribe Wastewater Treatment and Buffalo Preserve. However, local authorities did not have accurate digital maps of their wastewater system that would enable them to incorporate asset management into their planning and operational processes.

In 2019, RCAC began providing technical, managerial and financial assistance to the Kalispel Reservation’s community water and wastewater systems through its Environmental Finance Center (EFC) Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Region 10 program. In summer 2021, RCAC arrived at the reservation to gather data for an updated map of the wastewater infrastructure. RCAC staff utilized existing data and maps of the Kalispel wastewater system along with a handheld GPS unit to determine the location of visible and buried assets. While collecting data points, RCAC trained local staff on how to use the GPS unit in conjunction with mobile field mapping software.

The Kalispel Reservation now has long-term access to a detailed map that will inform future asset and financial management planning, facilitate rapid response times and mitigate the risk of service loss or degradation.