EPA GEOPLATFORM & TRIBAL
BOUNDARIES
HOW DID WE GET HERE?
July 2010. National Tribal Caucus requested a
clearinghouse of EPA’s tribal environmental data
 OEI’s Senior management asked staff to research
adding a tribal query to Envirofacts (EPA’s one
stop source for environmental information)
 AIEO management suggested OEI lead effort,
but requested it become a component of EPA’s
geoplatform (EPA effort under development at
the time) vs a separate and distinct effort

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ENVIROFACTS TRIBAL SEARCH CAPABILITY

Provide capability to search:
Globally by tribe and/or within a 1, 3, or 10 miles buffer
 By specific tribes in the continental US or Alaska
Native Villages and/or within a selected buffer


Our team (OEI, AIEO, and initially ORD) worked
with OGC to develop disclaimer language for
appropriate use of the query and the boundary data
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TRIBAL SEARCH OPTIONS IN ENVIROFACTS
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TRIBAL BOUNDARY LAYER GOALS

Provide tribal layer as a web service for use
across EPA
Use best-available federal datasets (for federallyrecognized tribes)
 Web service can be “consumed” by EPA Program &
Regional Offices for use in mapping tools where
visualizing or querying data by tribal lands would be
useful.
 Provide enhanced analysis and decision-making
capability to EPA, tribes, and the interested public
 Enhanced tribal layer does not preclude regions from
using other tribal data from their region.

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ENHANCED TRIBAL BOUNDARY LAYER


Request from AIEO to use federally
authorized sources for tribal boundaries for
federally-recognized tribes.
Started with:
Census 2010 tribal boundaries (TIGER)
 IND_3 version 18 – a version enhanced by an OITA
staff member and NTEC to include OK allotments
 Bureau of Land Management data for AK and some
states like Wisconsin

Comparison
 http://bit.ly/ZmRXcJ
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DISCLAIMER

Limitations of use: EPA makes no claims regarding the accuracy or precision of data
concerning Indian country locations or boundaries on the EnviroFacts website. EPA
has simply attempted to collect certain readily available information relating to
Indian country locations. Questions concerning data should be referred to the
originating program or Agency which can be identified in the Envirofacts tribal
query metadata files Lower48 Tribal Areas, Alaska Reservation, Alaska Native
Villages, or Alaska Native Allotments . The Indian country locations shown here are
suitable only for general spatial reference and do not necessarily reflect EPA's
position on any Indian country locations or boundaries or the land status of any
specific location. The inclusion of Indian country information on the EnviroFacts
website does not represent any final EPA action addressing Indian country locations
or boundaries. This information cannot be relied upon to create any rights,
substantive or procedural, enforceable by any party in litigation with the United
States or third parties. EPA reserves the right to change information on EnviroFacts
at any time without public notice.
EPA uses the US Census Bureau 2010 tribal boundary layer data when developing
environmental data query responses for tribes in the lower 48 United States and
Bureau of Land Management Alaska State Office when developing environmental
data query responses for tribes in Alaska. The tribal boundary locations identified
are suitable only for general spatial reference and do not necessarily reflect EPA's
position on any Indian country locations or boundaries, or the land status of any
specific location. EPA seeks to use the best available national federal data and may
refine the tribal boundary layer in the future as more accurate national federal data
becomes available.

Additional Information: For the purposes of the tribal search (http:
//www.epa.gov/enviro/facts/multisystem.html), Envirofacts depicts Alaska Native Villages as geographic
information system (GIS) data points, not polygons.
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WHERE TO FIND:
As a service in GeoPlatform – called “EPA
Service: Tribal Areas”
http://epamap5.epa.gov/ArcGIS/rest/services/EM
EF/Tribal/MapServer
 In the EDG – “EPA Tribal Areas” – available as a
file gdb and service

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TO SUBMIT DISCREPENCIES



People can submit their discrepencies and/or
questions to epageoplatform@epa.gov
OEI will forward those on to the appropriate
metadata owners at the agencies who are the
stewards of the datasets (Census, BIA, etc) at
regular intervals. We cannot provide any
assurances that any of the concerns will be
addressed by the respective agencies.
EPA does not have the authority to change any of
the source data that makes up the EPA tribal
query data layer.
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U.S. Census and EPA’s OK Allotments Layer (developed from BIA’s LRIS
database). You can see that Census 2010 just delineates whole counties as
tribal lands (with the exception of counties in pandhandle and upper northwestern part of the state)
Pink areas are OK allotments –
current dataset in EPA’s tribal
layer
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QUESTIONS/COMMENTS

For additional information, please contact:
Beth Jackson, OEI Tribal Program Coordinator,
jackson.elizabeth@epa.gov or 202.566.0626
 Lee Pera, Geoplatform Team, pera.lee@epa.gov or
202.566.2332

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