Mattaponi Environmental Regulatory Stewardship Initiative - The Mattaponi Indian Tribe proposes the Mattaponi Environmental Regulatory Stewardship Initiative (MERSI), a 36-month Environmental Regulatory Enhancement project to develop the Tribe’s first comprehensive Tribal Environmental Master Plan (TEMP). The project responds to the current condition that the Tribe’s environmental management responsibilities exceed the baseline environmental information, planning frameworks, monitoring systems, and governance decision-support tools currently available to the Mattaponi Environmental Tribal Resource Office (METRO), particularly as the Tribe faces shoreline erosion, water quality concerns, invasive species, historic dumpsites/brownfields, development pressures, stormwater issues, and future land stewardship responsibilities. The project will serve the Tribe’s 381 enrolled citizens, including 32 residents on the approximately 250-acre Mattaponi Reservation in King William County, Virginia, and will engage Tribal citizens through surveys, listening sessions, workshops, field walks, community mapping, and a Tribal Environmental Steering Committee. Through baseline environmental inventories, long-term water, soil, air, weather, wildlife, vegetation, erosion, and fixed-photo monitoring, restoration planning, environmental governance development, data governance procedures, environmental review tools, an environmental atlas, implementation-ready project profiles, and future funding strategies, the Tribe intends to strengthen its capacity to steward, regulate, protect, and restore Mattaponi lands, waters, ecosystems, and culturally significant natural resources for future generations.
