Oíyokiphi Okáwitaya (Pleasant or Happy Place to Gather)

Poplar, Montana is a town of about 800, located in northeastern Montana within the Fort Peck Assiniboine and Sioux Indian Reservation. The goal of this project was to facilitate moving the town’s roll-off site away from its current location, where it is eroding into the Missouri River. Specifically, this project hoped to create a conceptual design for a new roll-off site that would be informed by community priorities and located in an ecologically stable spot. This project recruited a community planner and an engineer, one of whom was on the AGU-TEX list of interested scientists, and the other of whom answered an email sent based on his published work and areas of expertise. A new roll-off location was chosen via community conversations, GIS work, and the approval of the Tribal Executive Board. The project team sent out a community survey to receive input on roll-out site use patterns, current issues, and future requests. This survey received about 55 responses, all of which helped to inform design priorities. It was publicized in a variety of forms, ranging from QR code flyers to tabling at local events. The Community Leads also asked their friends, coworkers, and others for informal feedback in order to broaden responses. After compiling survey responses, Phase I assessment data of the chosen new site, and as much information as possible about environmental conditions, the scientists began to draw draft layout options for feedback from the Community Leads and community members who will be directly working at the roll-off station. The team has now developed three slightly different design options to choose from, all sited in the most logical location. This will allow a local engineering firm to refine community-vetted designs and to start site work without much preliminary effort.

Project Outputs

• Survey text and data: the survey was designed with help from University of New Hampshire’s Cooperative Extension, hoping to be as effective as possible with a minimal number of questions. The response data is housed in a spreadsheet that’s available to team members and owned by CL Jacob. Results are also summarized in graphical form in an Excel sheet and a slideshow. These surveys stated that results would be anonymous and did not specifically ask permission to share publicly, so they will not be published on the project page.

• Environmental/site assessment data: this data, from Phase I as well as larger GIS work on the area, mostly came from Levi and his company. It’s also housed in a shared Google folder owned by CL Jacob and accessible to all team members.

• Draft design plans: Volunteer scientist Denise created three versions of a layout and put them into GIS and Powerpoint files. They will be available for CLs Wilfred and Jacob to use in the future. They’re part of a larger Powerpoint put together by Denise as essentially a final presentation/report.

Option 1

Option 2

Option 3

• Final Presentation: Poplar, MT – Final Project Presentation
  

• Survey flyers: the project team created flyers with QR codes linking to the survey so that people could easily access it at public events or via their emails. CL Jacob has copies of these.

Community Impact

This project helped set the groundwork for Poplar to have a well-designed, carefully considered roll-off site that is not eroding into a river and endangering ecosystem and human health. This roll-off site will fit current community goals, and it has room to grow or change as those priorities shift in the future. The project also helped to facilitate exciting future plans, such as redeveloping the old roll-off into a community park, perhaps involving students in designs, and building emergency infrastructure along the river. Before any of those could happen, the roll-off needed to move to a new location.

Acknowledgements

The project team would like to thank AGU and KSU; Newfields and Levi for their willingness to help out, which was integral to creating these plans; UNH Extension, particularly Malin, for helping chat about survey design; and everyone who worked on this project, especially Denise and Hiroshan.

Future Plans

This work will likely continue, although it will not do so with this team. The roll-off concept plans will eventually head to a local engineering firm so that the new roll-off site can be constructed. That will allow the old roll-off to move, which will then open the way for redevelopment of that site into a community park (which has been an overarching goal of this project from the start). The nature park plans have been considered for inclusion in various grants, so funding will likely come through in the fairly near future.

About the Community 

Poplar is a town (population about 800) in rural Northeastern Montana, within the Fort Peck Assiniboine and Sioux Indian Reservation.  The Fort Peck Tribes Office of Environmental Protection is working to characterize and remediate the old roll-off site and is currently applying for funding to build a nature park in that location.  The community is hoping that the spot will eventually become a vibrant local park, garden, and area to get children outdoors, learning from elders while enjoying the river.  The  design of a new roll-off site in partnership with Thriving Earth Exchange would be the first step in this goal and is a project that no other organization currently involved is able to complete.

About the Project

In the future, this project will remove the unstable roll-off site and will create a riverbank park in its place, increasing both community connection and local flood resilience.  Building the park and completing remediation will likely be grant-funded.  However, there is no clear route forward regarding the creation of a new roll-off station in the community, nor is there anyone currently involved with the project who has the engineering expertise required to design one.

This TEX project will allow the first chronological priority – engineering a new, viable roll-off site location – to move forward.  Problematically, there has previously been minimal attention to community priorities or environmental concerns when selecting and designing roll-off sites. This project will give Poplar a roll-off site with a design that is expertly engineered, created in response to community input, and carefully located to avoid becoming a health hazard.  Additionally, community members can help decide how to monitor future water quality or other safety concerns.  Completing a new roll-off site design will also help Poplar proceed with the planned community nature park and resilience center projects as soon as funding is secured.

If there is time and if all group members are interested in doing so, the TEX project may expand into the second stage of Poplar’s vision for this area.  This would likely begin by asking community members about their preferences for elements to include in a nature park at the current roll-off site location.  It could also extend to directly co-designing a park with community members and/or local students.  These options will depend on timing, group motivation, and funding source considerations.  Regardless, engineering a new roll-off site will set a strong foundation for future park development.

Timeline and Milestones

Once a scientist is officially onboarded, this project is expected to last about one year, although the timeline may shift as needed.

• October 2024: sampling of current site

• End of October 2024: new site selection (with Tribal Executive Board approval) should be completed

• December 2024: new site preparation and characterization
• January 2025: preliminary design ready for presentation to Tribal Executive Board and the public (taking into account community input, site soil types, lease and other land use information) 

• March 2025: revised plan, incorporating public feedback, completed 

• May 2025: roll-off station begins moving to new site
• After May 2025, time allowing: planning for redevelopment of current site

Community Leaders

Wilfred Lambert has been a dedicated member of the Fort Peck Tribes Office of Environmental Protection since 1998 and currently serves as the Fort Peck Tribes Office of Environmental Protection Director. In this role, he oversees the development, coordination, and management of the office’s programs and operations. With a career spanning 25 years, Mr. Lambert has led numerous environmental assessments and cleanup projects, improving safety, enhancing access to natural resources, and contributing to the revitalization of communities across the Fort Peck Indian Reservation.

Mr. Lambert’s expertise in environmental compliance and community outreach has also extended into his roles on the Fort Peck Tribes Planning Committee and the Brockton Public Schools Board of Trustees. He is recognized for his ability to build consensus and foster collaboration across various stakeholders.

Jacob Berger

Community Scientist

Hiroshan Hettiarachchi is a globally recognized leader in environmental sustainability, waste management, and geotechnical engineering. He has over 25 years of diverse experience in academia, scientific research, engineering consulting, and United Nations (UN) capacity development programs. He is driven to inspire the global community to achieve sustainability goals through his academic, research, and consulting work. He is currently serving as the Dean of Engineering at the University of Guam (UOG). Immediately prior to joining UOG he was working in Michigan as an independent sustainability consultant. Between 2013 and 2019, he was in Europe working for the UN as a Professor and a Head of a Division dedicated to sustainability research at the United Nations University (UNU-FLORES, Germany). The research and capacity development work he conducted at the UN were primarily focused on looking at waste as a resource in the context of water-food energy nexus. Before joining the UN, he was at Lawrence
Technological University, in Michigan, USA, as a Civil Engineering Professor and the Director of Civil Engineering Graduate Programs.

Denise Evans, Community Planner for Seymour Johnson AFB since 2012, manages mission sustainment, climate resilience, and future land use and development for the 4^th Fighter Wing.  In this role, Denise administers the Dare County Range Readiness and Environmental Protection Integration program and the SJAFB Air Installations Compatible Use Zones program.  She has served as a Community Planner for Columbus AFB and Barksdale AFB.  Prior to her USAF career that started in 2004, Denise was an urban planner for the City of Slidell, Louisiana and served in the US Army and Alabama National Guard.  Denise has a Master of Urban and Regional Planning degree from the University of New Orleans and a Bachelor of Science in Biology from the University of North Alabama.

Community Science Fellow

Nell Davis is a teaching assistant and PhD student at University of New Hampshire in the Department of Natural Resources and the Environment. She grew up in small-town Vermont and has always spent most of her free time either reading or outdoors, usually hiking, biking, cross country skiing, or sailing. Her academic background is in geology, art history, and natural resources. She has worked as an outdoor educator or education program coordinator in several states, and she has also been both a park interpretive ranger and a search and rescue team member. Her teaching experience, foundation in geology, and strong connections to the rural areas in which she has lived all contributed to her interest in community and participatory science. She’s looking forward to helping  build connections with community members, professional scientists, and innovative place-based science methods.

Fort Peck Tribes Office of Environmental Protection

The Fort Peck Tribes Office of Environmental Protection safeguards the natural resources of the Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes.

Center for Hazardous Substance Research at Kansas State University