At the Navajo Uranium Mine Site, Toeroek traveled to the Navajo Nation to review thousands of documents. Due to the location of the documents, Toeroek prepared a Health and Safety Plan to ensure staff safety during the collection. After reviewing a multitude of banker’s boxes of archived records, Toeroek obtained approximately 1,600 documents. In order to manage the documents collected, Toeroek imported the documents into a database, in which the documents can be searched for relevant information. Imported documents were also assigned a unique identifying number, and fields specific to the project were set up within the database to house vital document information (e.g., source, confidentiality, date, etc.).
Currently, Toeroek houses approximately 39,740 records in this database. Toeroek also uses a complex Access database to house research findings. This database cites all findings contained within it using the documents’ unique identifying number. With this complementary database system, Toeroek has been able to provide EPA with a fast and efficient way to search documents and prior findings necessary to further case investigation.
