Section 1   -  Introduction

The Umatilla Indian Reservation Hazard Mitigation Plan is a document intended to make the Umatilla Indian Reservation more resistant to natural and man-made hazards and more resilient in recovering from the effects of natural or man-made disasters.

1.  -  Why Prepare A Plan?

It has become a very costly proposition to clean-up after a disaster.  The costs for repair and clean-up of homes, businesses and governmental structures will continue to rise due to inflation.  As most areas continue to grow, the costs of responding to a disaster and the process of recovering from a disaster will continue to rise even faster.

In order to reduce or slow the costs of responding to disasters, the concept of mitigating or taking action to reduce damages from hazards before they occur was added the process of receiving federal grant dollars in response to a disaster.  The Office of Management and Budget has found for every dollar spent on mitigating a disaster, four dollars are saved during the response and recovery phase after a disaster.  In other words, it pays to implement measures that help lessen the effects of hazards that threaten an area.   FEMA now requires that jurisdictions prepare hazard mitigation plans in order to be eligible for certain grant funds for this reason.

2.  -  Robert T. Stafford Act and Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000

Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act, PL 100-707, was signed into law November 23, 1988.  This act amended the Disaster Relief Act of 1974. This Stafford Act constitutes the statutory authority for most Federal disaster response activities especially as they pertain to FEMA and FEMA programs[1].

The Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000 (DMA 2000) amended the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act (the Act) by repealing the previous mitigation planning provisions (Section 409) and replacing them with a new set of mitigation plan requirements (Section 322). This new section emphasizes the need for state, Tribal, and local entities to closely coordinate mitigation planning and implementation efforts[2].   This act also establishes minimum requirements for “mitigation plans” which are necessary if jurisdictions wish to be eligible for certain federal mitigation grant programs.

3.  –  What Does It Mean to Be Disaster Resistant and Resilient?

Being disaster resistant means identifying which hazards present the greatest risks to people and assets and mitigating their effects as much as possible.  Is it possible to be completely resistant to hazardous events? No.  Certain hazards will continue to occur and cause power outages, traffic problems, disruption of daily activities and other complications.  The key to being disaster resistant is keeping hazardous events from becoming disasters.

Resiliency is the ability to return to normal performance levels following a high impact/low probability disruption.   Applying this notion of resiliency involves two things: mobilizing the means to reduce vulnerabilities and increasing the capacity to swiftly bounce back from major man-made or natural disasters[3].

4.  -  The Purpose of this Plan

The purpose of the Umatilla Indian Reservation Hazard Mitigation Plan is to:

·   Analyze the natural and man-made hazards that have the potential to cause death, injury and inflict damage to property within the current boundary of the Umatilla Indian Reservation and determine the type and level of risks associated with each hazard analyzed;

        ·   Provide measures that, if implemented, will prevent or minimize the affects of various hazards and help protect the people and assets within the boundaries of the reservation;

        ·   Satisfy the federal requirements for tribal hazard mitigation plans as stated in the 44 Code of Federal Regulations(CFR), Section 201, thus enabling the Confederated Tribe of the Umatilla Indian Reservation to become eligible for all hazard mitigation grant programs administered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA); and

        ·   Provide a guide for all people living and working on the reservation to help them make the Umatilla Indian Reservation more disaster resistant and resilient and able to withstand the detrimental effects from all of the natural and man-made hazardous events identified in this plan.

       ·   Serve as a functional plan to implement fulfillment of CTUIR Comprehensive Plan goal and objective.

5  -  Scope

  This single jurisdiction hazard mitigation plan applies to the 172,000 acres of land within the “diminished boundary” of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, as depicted on the map below, and to those lands under the ownership of the Confederated Tribes that lie within the “treaty boundary.”

Certain goals and mitigation measures of this plan also apply to Indian Trust lands outside the diminished boundary in the “ceded” area as they pertain to CTUIR interests including but not limited to Tribal rights to hunt, fish, and to gather food and medicines.

The scope of the project is to develop a hazard mitigation plan for the Confederated Tribe of the Umatilla Indian Reservation pursuant to the requirements of 44 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Chapter 1, Subchapter D, Part 201 which establishes the requirements for mitigation planning.  Because this is a hazard mitigation plan for a Native American Tribe, this plan needs to meet the requirements in Section 201.3 which are the requirements for a “Standard State Hazard Mitigation Plan.” This plan was also designed to satisfy the requirements of 44 CFR Chapter 1, Subchapter 78.5 for “flood mitigation plans.”

6  -  Authority

The Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, composed of the Cayuse, Walla Walla , and Umatilla Tribes, have retained the authority to self-government, as established in the Treaty of 1855.  Through this authority, the Tribes have exercised the right to determine and plan for their future.   The Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation (CTUIR) was formally established with the adoption of a Constitution and By-laws in 1949.  The CTUIR governmental structure consists of a nine member Board of Trustees elected by the Confederated Tribes enrolled membership.

In 1990, the Board of Trustees entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with Umatilla County that formally recognizes “that all land use planning and regulation of lands situated inside the boundaries of the Umatilla Indian Reservation located within Umatilla County shall be administered by the CTUIR…”  The Tribal Planning Office administers land use through the adopted CTUIR Comprehensive Plan, Mission Community Plan and Land Development Code. 

The CTUIR also retains certain Tribal Rights regarding hunting, fishing and gathering within a large area of ceded lands surrounding the Umatilla Indian Reservation in southeast Washington and western Idaho .  The CTUIR does not have land use jurisdiction for these ceded lands but does coordinate with surrounding jurisdictions regarding impacts to these Tribal Rights.  This coordination also includes natural hazards.

Based on their rights to enter into a contractual agreement with agencies of the United States of America , the CTUIR Board of Trustees has approved the contract between the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the CTUIR to receive funds to prepare a Umatilla Indian Reservation Hazard Mitigation Plan. (See Appendix D)

7.    Funding

This plan was prepared with assistance from a Pre-Disaster Mitigation Grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).  (See PDM grant #EMS-2004-PC0003 in Appendix D).

8    The Planning Process

The initial step in the process began with the selection of consultants to assist the Tribe in the development of this plan.  Michael Rupp of the Oregon Planner’s Consortium and Dennis Olson were hired to prepare the planning document and lead discussions with tribal members and tribal staff to obtain the necessary information and input to develop the Reservation’s hazard mitigation plan. 

The Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation have a number of commissions and committees that assist the Tribal Council and the Board of Trustees in conducting the Reservation’s affairs.  The Tribal Emergency Response Commission (TERC) served as the oversight committee for this planning project.  Patty Perry from the Planning Department also participated.  The UIR Hazard Mitigation Plan’s oversight committee was composed of the following members:

Armand Minthorn, Board of Trustees

Tom Groat, Emergency Management Coordinator

Ron Harnden, Chief of Police

Rob Burnside, Fire Chief

Debra Coswell, Deputy Executive Director

Melinda Alexander, Public Safety Administrative Assistant

Troy LeGore, Yellowhawk Tribal Health Center Clinic Operations Officer

Tammy Knight, Yellowhawk Tribal Health Center – Environmental Health

Sandra Alexander, Public Works – Sewer and Water Utility Manager

Patty Perry, Tribal Planning Office

Others who assisted in the development of the plan:

Aaron Skirvan, CTUIR Department of Water Resources

Stacy Schumacher, GIS Department

Richard Gay, Grants Administration

Andy Dumont, CTUIR

Jack Davis, Senior Planner, Tribal Planning Office

This committee has the responsibility of presiding over each stage of the plan’s development.  Once completed, the plan was submitted to the CTUIR Board of Trustees for their review and adoption.

Beginning in September of 2006, the consultants under the guidance of Tom Groat, the Tribe’s Emergency Management Coordinator, began the plan development process by presenting an outline of the steps to be followed in preparing the UIR Hazard Mitigation Plan.  The plan was to be developed in several stages and presented and reviewed by the TERC’s at their regular monthly meetings.

After the TERC’s review and approval of the steps in the hazard mitigation planning process, the consultants prepared two elements of the plan: (1) the risk assessment (Section 3); and (2) a strategy for providing citizens with the opportunity to be involved in the Tribe’s hazard mitigation planning process (Appendix B).

Before developing the risk assessment, several information sources were reviewed to help in the identification of hazards that could impact the Umatilla Indian Reservation.   The Oregon State Hazard Mitigation Plan, the draft Umatilla County Hazard Mitigation Plan, and a study to help site the Tribe’s new Emergency Management Building , prepared by Innovative Emergency Management, were reviewed.  Two websites that contain information about past hazards occurring in Umatilla County were also evaluated.  These sites were the University of South Carolina ’s SHELDUS website and the website of the National Weather Service.  Based on four of these sources, the slide to the right was reviewed by the TERC.  From this information, the TERC decided that seventeen potential hazards should be assessed.  Two other sources, that contained information about disasters affecting the Umatilla Indian Reservation, were also used:  The Tribe’s newspaper, The Confederated Umatilla Journal, and the East Oregonian newspaper.  The archives of both of these newspapers were researched.

Citizen Involvement Strategy

In order to obtain input from tribal members and others living on the reservation, a number of methods of communication were devised and placed within the TERC’s Citizen Involvement Strategy.  The seven elements of the strategy are as follows:

1. Newspaper articles - Confederated Umatilla Journal publishes a monthly newspaper that is sent to 1200 CTUIR Tribal households, mailed to 400 subscribers, and distributed (6,000 copies) around the reservation and northeastern Oregon .[4] 

2. Survey – A survey was created to obtain additional input about critical assets on the reservation and perceptions from citizens about which hazardous events present the greatest threat to the Reservation

3. Provide updates about the status of the Tribe’s hazard mitigation planning effort on the Tribe’s internet website:  : http://terc.umatilla.nsn.us/

4. Meet with other CTUIR commissions and committees to obtain their input according to their areas of expertise and to allow them the opportunity to review the UIR Hazard Mitigation Plan.

5. Discussions with Tribal elders about the effects of past hazardous events.  An abundance of information is available about past disasters affecting the Mid-Columbia Region or Umatilla County .  However, little information exists about the effects of disasters on the Umatilla Indian Reservation.  In order to determine how various hazards have affected the Reservation, interviews with Tribal elders can provide a greater understanding about how certain hazardous events affected the Reservation.

6. CTUIR Hazard Mitigation Plan Outreach – Coordination with other agencies already involved in monitoring, preparing for and the recovery from hazardous events will be initiated.  Some of the agencies to be contacted are the USGS, DOGAMI, ODOT, ODOF, Umatilla County , nearby cities as well as other state and federal agencies.

7. Open House – As the planning process progresses, one or more “open house” meetings open to the public will be scheduled to inform citizens about hazard mitigation and to receive their input for the hazard mitigation plan.

Preparation of a Profile of the Umatilla Indian Reservation

A profile of the Umatilla Indian Reservation was prepared addressing topics such as the tribal government, the reservation’s population and economy, the reservation’s natural resources, and their “special needs” population.  The information contained in the profile presents facts useful in determining the level of risk presented by various hazardous events (Section 2).  The Oregon State Hazard Mitigation Plan, the CTUIR Renewable Energy Feasibility Study and the US Census were used along with other information sources in the preparation of the Umatilla Indian Reservation profile.

Identification of Tribal Assets on the Umatilla Indian Reservation

The next step in the development of this plan involved the TERC’s identification of assets on the Umatilla Indian Reservation.  Through a mapping exercise the TERC prepared a list of assets important to the Tribe (Section 4).  Interested citizens also got the chance to identify important assets by completing the Umatilla Indian Reservation Hazard Mitigation Planning Survey located on the CTUIR website.

Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment

As mentioned previously, a review of plans, studies, reports, internet sites and newspapers was conducted to obtain information about various hazards that impact the Umatilla Indian Reservation (UIR).  This information was used to determine which natural and man-made hazards have caused damage or have the potential to harm assets or disrupt activities on the reservation in the future.  Most information about hazards focused on Umatilla County and was not specific to the Umatilla Indian Reservation.  For those hazards that generally affect all of Umatilla County (e.g., severe winter storms, drought, etc.), it was presumed that such hazards also affect the Umatilla Indian Reservation in a similar manner.  Hazards such as flooding, landslides and wildfire affect the reservation directly and their specific affects were evaluated and considered by the TERC.

The analysis of hazards was reviewed by the TERC to identify which hazards present the greatest threats and which hazards present little or no actual threat to the reservation.  The analysis, contained in Section 3, categorizes all of the natural and man-made hazards reviewed as high, medium, and low threats to the reservation. 

A number of existing studies, plans and reports were used in the development of the hazard identification and risk assessment for this plan.  Some of the studies, reports, plans and information sources used to produce this section included the “Report of Flood Fight Potential Sites” by Jerry Gardenhire, the Umatilla County Community Wildfire Protection Plan, the draft Umatilla County hazard Mitigation Plan, the Oregon State Hazard Mitigation Plan.

Assessing the Threat from Various Hazards on Assets Located on the Umatilla Indian Reservation

The TERC then assessed the likely impacts from various hazards on each of the previously identified assets.  The TERC concluded that not every asset would be impacted by each hazard the same way.  Some hazards may not damage structures at all, but could interfere with the tribal economy, damage natural resources, affect infrastructure and delay or prevent the delivery of services to tribal members, non-tribal members, and the visiting public.

Development of Goals and Mitigation Measures

The TERC was presented with draft goals and number of possible mitigation measures designed to reduce the impacts from natural and man-made hazards that present risks to the reservation.  Over two meetings, the TERC created a mission statement, amended two of the four goals, created additional mitigation measures, and deleted certain proposed mitigation measures that it felt the Tribe would not want to pursue.    

The TERC also took time to review and compare mitigation measures contained in the Oregon State Hazard Mitigation Plan and the draft Umatilla County Hazard Mitigation Plan (See Section 8).  In some cases, the TERC either amended their mitigation measures to conform to state or county mitigation measures or added new mitigation measures based on state or county mitigation actions to the Tribe’s plan.

Mitigation Measure Implementation

For each mitigation measure, statements responding to the following were generated in order to identify implementation responsibilities and opportunities for coordination  and leveraging of funds.

·   Mitigation measure’s number

·   Goal or goals addressed by this measure 

·   What this measure should accomplish

·   Strategies for implementation 

·   The commission, department or position responsible for the measure’s implementation 

·   Other departments or commissions that would benefit and help implement the measure

·   Other entities outside the reservation that might benefit and help implement the measure

·   Anticipated time for implementation:  

          Short Term (0-2 years)  or  Long Term (more than 2 years)

·   Who submitted the mitigation measure

·   Mitigation measure’s priority

Coordination with Federal and State Agencies, Umatilla County , and Neighboring Cities

 The Umatilla Indian Reservation invited several federal and state agencies, Umatilla County and neighboring cities (through their representative, Dennis Olson who is assisting nearby cities and the Tribe in the development of their hazard mitigation plans) to review and comment on the Tribe’s draft hazard mitigation plan.  Also, the comparison in Section 8 of mitigation actions contained in the state and county hazard mitigation plans was conducted to improve coordination between state, county and tribal mitigation efforts. 

Monitoring, Review and Plan Evaluation Process

 Section 11 of the plan was prepared to describe the process used to monitor, review and evaluate the plan. It establishes the roles and responsibilities of the Emergency Management Coordinator and the Tribe Emergency Recovery Commission in the monitoring, review and evaluation process.  A schedule for conducting the review and evaluation of the plan are established.

Mitigation Measure Prioritization Process

A mitigation measure prioritization process was employed to satisfy the FEMA requirement to establish a process for prioritizing the plan’s mitigation measures.  This process had TERC members evaluate each mitigation measures using criteria that emphasizes the benefit and costs of projects while satisfying mitigation and disaster resilient objectives.  After individual TERC members finished prioritizing each mitigation measure, the total scores were combined and then averaged to establish a single score to be used to prioritize measures for the Umatilla Indian Reservation.

Other Sections of the Plan

Other sections of the plan and numerous appendices are provided to support the hazard analysis and risk assessment and to establish the governmental capacity of the CTUIR to support the hazard mitigation measures and programs discussed in this plan.   Numerous resource documents are also provided to be used by the TERC, the Emergency Management Coordinator and others that will monitor, review, evaluate and update this plan in the future.

9  Compliance with Federal Laws

Pursuant to 44 CFR 13.11(c), the Confederate Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation will continue to comply with all applicable Federal statutes and regulations during the periods for grant funds are received.

Pursuant to 44 CFR 13.11(d), The Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation agrees to amend the Umatilla Indian Reservation Hazard Mitigation Plan when necessary to reflect changes in Tribal or Federal laws or statutes.

10 Person to Contact

Tom Groat, CTUIR Emergency Management Coordinator

Telephone:  (541) 966-2520