Case Study

CDC Lake Co

Lake County’s Tribal Nations are: Elem Indian Colony, near Clearlake Oaks; Habematolel Pomo of Upper Lake; Big Valley Band of Pomo Indians, near Lakeport; Scotts Valley Band of Pomo Indians, near Lakeport; Robinson Rancheria, near Nice; Koi Nation of Northern California; and Middletown Rancheria of Pomo Indians of California, near Middletown.

The Tribes of Lake County are dealing with two major environmental problems: an open pit mercury mine that contaminates their water and massive wildfires which have destroyed thousands of acres and produced smoke which has led to serious respiratory health problems.

The project folder for this case study can be viewed here

Historic fire perimeters downloaded from National Fire Interagency Center

Current fires can be viewed here active fire map

Approximate boundaries of Tribal Lands downloaded from US Census Bureau

Fire perimeters were downloaded from the National Interagency Fire Center as KML map files and then imported into Google My Maps and Google Earth Pro

Water

According to the EPA: The 160-acre Sulphur Bank Mercury Mine site is an abandoned open pit mercury mine on the shoreline of Clear Lake in Lake County, Calif. Site history and information about clean up click here

The image below is from the EPA EJScreen zoomed in to show Lake County.

Tribal Lands and EPA Regulated Facilities from EPA EJScreen

This is an example of how you can add data to the different mapping platforms; starting with the National Flood Hazard Layer from the FEMA map viewer, the data file was downloaded and then imported into EJScreen and EnviroAtlas. The map is zoomed in to show the area around the Superfund Site.

FEMA Flood Elem

FEMA National Flood Hazard Layer

FEMA National Hazard Layer imported into EnviroAtlas

FEMA National Flood Hazard Layer imported into EJScreen

This is an image from the Global Surface Water Explorer showing the annual water recurrence for the area around the Sulfur Bank Mercury Mine Superfund Site