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Leaking Underground Storage Tanks in Indian Country
Next Steps
Current Tribal partners in the Pacific Southwest Region include:
- Colorado River Indian Tribes
- Gila River Indian Community
- Hopi Tribe
- Navajo Nation
- San Carlos Apache Tribe
- Tohono O’Odham Nation
- Yurok Tribe
In the three years since the inception of the Initiative, the project team has significantly streamlined the cleanup process. Stronger working relationships between EPA and tribal partners have resulted in more efficient collaboration. These and other improvements help EPA and the Tribes move more quickly toward their common goal of cleaning up sites.
As the Cleanup Initiative enters its fourth year, the Pacific Southwest Region will be starting six new active remediation projects, which will be considerably more complicated and resource-intensive than most of the cleanups so far.
The Region will continue aggressively pursuing new sites to clean up while focusing on the following priorities:
- Redevelopment
Working with tribal business offices and developers to convert cleaned-up sites to productive re-use. - Outreach to smaller tribes
Working with remote tribes whose environmental programs have fewer resources to ensure that the needs of all tribal communities are addressed.
- Devising strategies for faster cleanups
The Region has been conducting in-depth investigations of abandoned UST sites on which it has so far had only sparse information. As a result, the total number of known LUST cases is increasing. The team will continue refining procedures in order to efficiently tackle the expanding workload.