Tribal Data Development Work Group (TDDWG) Meeting Minutes
May 31 and June 1, 2001
Seattle, Washington
Thursday, May 31, 2001
TDDWG members present:
-----
The members gave a brief update on their air quality activities:
Ondrea – ITCA took lead in writing a paper outlining the region 9 funding issue. The regional tribal operations committee (RTOC) reviewed the paper and will write a letter of support to EPA.
Rosanne – Attended the Emissions Inventory Conference in Denver, CO. Region 6 is planning have their annual tribal summit in July 2001. Is becoming involved in various committees.
Julie Ramone – Setting up a PM2.5 monitoring network at Ft. McDowell; it should be up and going by July 2001. It consists of one monitoring site for PM10, Ozone and a meteorological station. Ft. McDowell will also be involved in two studies: the first is a collaboration with the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) and the Department of Energy (DOE). They want to set up an Ozone and meteorological station near the Verde River on Ft. McDowell. The second study is a joint Air Toxics assessment study, which is a collaboration between Salt River, Gila River, ITEP, and ADEQ. Two students have been hired to work out of the ITEP offices to conduct research on existing data.
Sarah Kelly– working on finalizing the TDDWG report and starting the procedures for a Request for Proposal (RFP) for the Emissions Inventory (EI) software.
The group spoke briefly about the market trading forum and their activities. In summary, it is understood that sources will get credits regardless of being on tribal or state lands. 20,000 sulfur dioxide (SO2) credits will be distributed amongst the tribes located in the WRAP region.
Action Item: Add MTF updates to the next meeting agenda.
John asked if anyone had reviewed the minutes from the last meeting in January, 2001 in Las Vegas, NV. He assumed the minutes had been posted on the www.wrapair.org web site under TDDWG but apparently they aren’t there. He mentioned he would look into this and also be responsible for keeping the web site updated in general.
Regarding communications between TDDWG members and other interested parties, John suggested using the WRAP web site. It was also suggested that the TDDWG meet more consistently face-to-face and consider more conference calls.
Action Item: Have quarterly meetings and consider locations in different regions of the WRAP for recruiting new members. For example, have one in California, another in Montana/Wyoming, another in the northwest region, and one in the southwest, etc. Also notifications for the meetings should occur at least one month in advance.
Regarding outreach and education on the TDDWG, it was mentioned that there is a need to recruit more tribal environmental professionals within the WRAP region. Some states with tribes to consider are California, Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, Colorado and Utah. One way to pursue this may be to develop a PowerPoint presentation that the members can use when they attend meetings, conferences, etc. John mentioned that Bobby Ramirez developed a presentation that describes WRAP and the TDDWG’s goals that he used back in February 2001. Another suggestion was to create a GIS map, which indicates where the WRAP tribes are located.
Action Items: Sarah will get the PowerPoint presentation from Bobby and will work with him and John on updating it as necessary. Ondrea has a map that she’ll pass on to Sarah to incorporate into the PowerPoint presentation. Once that’s accomplished, it’ll be handed out to the members for their input and use.
Action Item: Create a fact sheet of the TDDWG’s mission and goals that members can distribute at meetings, etc. Also consider writing a bi-annual report which briefly describes the accomplishments of the TDDWG and future goals/objectives.
John also said he would look into the reimbursement policy for attending meetings. This needs to be determined for the tribal environmental professionals who participate in TDDWG meetings. Also, a question was brought up regarding the processes for a tribe and an individual to become a WRAP member. Is there a formal way to do this or do tribal representatives just start attending meetings?
Now that the TDDWG’s report on Tribal Emisions Inventory Assessment Study for the WRAP Region is near completion, what are TDDWG’s future goals and purpose? Initially the mission of the TDDWG was to assist WRAP in gathering EI information from federally recognized tribes in the WRAP region and to help WRAP with other technical related tribal issues. This mission has since changed to actually gathering EI data from tribes to assist WRAP. Phase I of the work plan is to perform an assessment of the status of air emissions inventories among the 247 federally recognized Tribes in the WRAP area. Phase II will develop the tools to collect the inventory while Phase III will do the actual gathering and archiving of air emissions data. An imbedded objective is to build tribal capacity and this can be accomplished by developing the EI software and supplementing that by providing training on its use. The big picture is to accurately portray the quality of air on tribal lands within the WRAP region.
Friday, June 1, 2001
TDDWG members present:
-----
There was a brief discussion regarding Bobby Ramirez’s request to be replaced as co-chair of the TDDWG. Bobby would like to concentrate more fully on his co-chair responsibilities for the TOC and also to get involved with the EI forum and serve perhaps as a liaison between that forum and the TDDWG. Virgil Masayesva suggested that a representative from one of the consortias (ITCA, AIPC) serve as co-chair. No decision was made on this issue, but it was acknowledged that anyone currently involved as a TDDWG member that is interested, or knows someone who is, should make it known to the current co-chairpersons. Additionally, John Cox was wondering if term limits might be in order for the co-chairs. No decision was made on this issue.
Recruiting new TDDWG members was discussed as well as determining the interest and commitment of currently listed members who have not actively participated in the TDDWG for some time.
Action Item: Current members who know of potential members from the states of California, Utah, Wyoming, Montana, South Dakota and Colorado, should contact them and determine their interest. John Cox will contact those inactive members to determine their current commitment to this activity.
Virgil said he has been in contact with Pat Cummins regarding submittal of a grant that is currently being processed. This new grant should be effective June 1, 2001 and is for the amount of $160,000 which will go primarily to a contractor to develop the EI software along with GIS interface capability. The existing grant with ITEP will run through September 2001. Virgil also recommended that the TDDWG start creating a work plan and budget for FY01 (WRAP funds are one fiscal year behind).
Sarah Kelly gave an update on the EI report. She mentioned that getting information from the tribes was challenging and this should be mentioned in the executive summary. Virgil recommended that funding issues versus growth in tribal air quality programs be mentioned in the executive summary also. John Cox suggested that once the executive summary is complete, that it be disbursed to the TDDWG members for their final review. This executive summary will be the element read by most people so it’s important to capture the highlights of the report. Raman Iyer suggested that a section be added mentioning the significance of reaching a high number of tribes which was one of the main objectives. In the exec summary, it should be mentioned that there is interest in assessing air quality on tribal lands and the TDDWG’s next task is to identify the tools and training to accomplish this.
Sarah asked how many copies should be made for distribution and it was agreed that perhaps 50 would suffice. The report will also be made available at the TDDWG web site for people to review and where possible, refer people to the web site. It was also suggested to make the report available on CD ROM. There was general agreement to keep the comments portion out of the report because it’s redundant.
It was recommended that an acknowledgement page be added to the report from co-chairs which recognizes the work that tribes have done over the past years.
Action Item: Virgil said he would work with John and Bobby on this.
A professional editor will be used to finalize the report. During this phase, he/she will probably figure out the best way to portray the tables and figures and also create a table of contents indicating where the tables and figures are located within the report.
Sarah mentioned that the Cherokee Nation helped with developing a Request for Proposal (RFP) for the EI software and GIS interface. The RFP will reflect that the software be user-friendly with a supplemental user’s manual that can be used for training purposes. The Cherokee Nation was good about implementing the correct language for the RFP and it should be distributed by September 2001, if not earlier.
Action Item: The TDDWG members should review the RFP and provide recommendations.
Sarah also asked that if TDDWG members know of any contractors out there that could develop this software, to provide her with names and phone numbers Also, she asked that ITEP be given discretion in putting the RFP out due to university procedures that ITEP has to follow. Lastly, she mentioned that ITEP would need help in reviewing the proposals once they start coming in and an interview committee be established for selection of a contractor. It was recommended that the interview committee be comprised of two ITEP staff, one TDDWG member and Bobby Ramirez (to serve as technical advisor).
The TDDWG members present established some tentative dates for the next meeting:
John said he would look into the possibility of getting a conference phone for the TDDWG meetings so people could listen in if they can’t make the meetings in person. He said he would look into costs, who gets charged, and logistics of making this possible.
Potential topics for the next meeting: