EddaMutter

Edda Mutter is the Science Director with the Yukon River Inter-Tribal Watershed Council (YRITWC) where she oversees the Indigenous Observation Network, a community science program focused on water quality and active layer monitoring spanning the Yukon River Watershed.

Edda’s research in the Yukon River Watershed focuses on the transport, effect, and fate of contaminants within soil, permafrost, and aquatic ecosystems and how these contaminants affect water quality.

Edda hopes that work being done throughout the Yukon River Watershed will establish pathways to enhance Indigenous water governance for Alaska Tribes and First Nations. Ideally these pathways would lead to securing Indigenous water rights embedded in a truly holistic water co-management approach with state, federal, and provincial governments.

“You can feel the water, you can feel the silt coming through your fingers. You feel the force of the water and start to understand the connection and not only see water as a material...It really becomes part of your life.”