TEAs are not a requirement, however, EPA's goal is to develop a TEA with every tribe that wants one. Thus the EPA and the TOC identified some key principles for the TEAs. Second, the method had to account for the varying levels of environmental capacity among the tribes, so that every tribe could participate whether or not the tribe already had an environmental program in place. Third, the method needed to generate not only information about existing environmental conditions and needs, but also the expectations, goals, objectives, and priorities of individual tribes. Fourth, this information needed to be generated so that it could then later be aggregated into regional and national program workplans to support Agency resource decisions.
Good TEAs depend on good information.
Through the WAM approach, tribes can categorically survey and assess their resources using defensible and reproducible scientific procedures. These results then become integrated into TEAs as part of the decision-making process and as an environmental strategy for implementation. Therefore, TEAs in concert with the WAM recommendations and data, provide tribes with a long-term, comprehensive and defensible management plan. For example, overgrazing by livestock and the subsequent erosion may result in impacts to native grasses which are a critical cultural resource to basket-weaving tribes. Also, the application of certain pesticides may result in contamination of the grasses such that they become a health hazard to basket weavers using the traditional methods for basket weaving.