Ready, Set, Archive!

Coming Together

In November 2024, a group of organizations and individuals sprang into action to safeguard environmental data. Some were implementing projects after months of preparation; others were compelled in the moment; and all had the same goal to preserve public access to federal climate and environmental information. It was clear that we would be much more effective if we tackled this enormous challenge together. In late November, we called our first meeting where more than 20 of us gathered on Zoom to talk about our data preservation priorities, existing efforts, and the skills and resources we could bring to the table. The energy in the room was palpable, and we all agreed: YES, let’s do this together, and let’s do this RIGHT NOW. By early December, we had developed and ratified our working agreements, and set up communications channels, working groups, and meeting schedules. The Public Environmental Data Partners (PEDP) were ready to go. 

The first challenge PEDP faced in data and tools preservation was determining exactly what to preserve. Throughout September and October, multiple PEDP member organizations canvassed communities of practice to identify critical environmental data they relied on, and in November and December we expanded our outreach to ensure we were tapping the insights of diverse stakeholders. We met with environmental advocacy groups ranging from Big Green groups to grassroots EJ communities, government oversight NGOs, networks of state and local government leaders, and certain businesses like clean energy startups, each of whom had specified federal data they wanted safeguarded. We also spoke with civil servants at federal agencies with intimate knowledge of the utility and precarity of certain data and tools. We collated their recommendations and insights into a master list, which quickly grew to hundreds of datasets. 

It was clear there was a great need for environmental data and tools preservation, and it was equally clear that there were many people willing to lend a hand to protect this data. To engage people beyond our immediate network, we hosted several “datathons,” where we asked participants to archive target datasets. Some datathon participants joined us for the day, and others have become integral members of PEDP who further our collective work every day.

Setting Priorities

With more than 300 datasets on our list, we needed to determine how to prioritize the actual preservation, especially since each dataset had been identified by a real human who actually relied on this data to do their work in the world. To aid in our prioritization, we created a rubric that ranked the relative impact if that data were lost, our confidence that we could preserve it, and the effort needed to preserve and provide public access. Using this method, we curated a list of around 50 of the highest priority datasets and tools that spanned a variety of topics, with an emphasis on environmental justice and equity. Two tools stood out for being, by far, the most frequently requested and of critical importance for environmental justice advocacy: the Council on Environmental Quality’s (CEQ) Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool (CEJST) and the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) EJScreen. 

Critical Tools Preservation 

We immediately began working on preserving data and code for these two key tools. The Biden administration emphasized the transparency and efficiency gained through open source software development, so the White House CEQ’s CEJST, first published in 2022, was built open source. In early January 2025, PEDP members quickly downloaded all data and code for the tool and set up a local deployment. When the Trump administration removed CEJST on January 22nd, 2025, we launched a public version on January 25.

We also downloaded all of the data behind EPA’s EJScreen prior to inauguration. Unfortunately, it had not been built open source, but throughout December and January, EPA’s EJScreen team worked to release much of the code in public repositories, which we were able to download and begin to patch holes. When the EPA took down EJScreen on February 5, 2025, we worked quickly to rebuild as much of the tool as possible, launching a public version on February 7. Since its launch, PEDP members have also been working on restoring and expanding the full functionality of the original EJScreen, including through advancing EPA’s Environmental Justice Analysis Multisite (EJAM). Since we launched PEDP’s public versions of CEJST and EJScreen, the tools have had 22,800 and 42,100 visits, respectively. 

Building Public Archives

In addition to these high profile environmental justice and equity tools, PEDP has stood up several other tools and archived hundreds of datasets and databases. The first complex database PEDP archived was EPA’s Risk Management Plan database, which contained more than 21,500 files. EPA took the RMP database offline in April 2025, but we had already developed scripts to archive all the data and metadata, and built a public repository. We then developed lightweight tooling to search and filter files, helping users quickly access exactly the data they need as well as perform analyses across the entire database. Over the last several months, we’ve archived an increasing number of highly complex databases and applications, such as EPA’s Science Inventory. 

To make the data we archive publicly available, we upload it to one of several generalist repositories, primarily to the Climate and Health Research Coordinating Center’s collection on the Harvard Dataverse and Zenodo. These archives are and always will be free of charge, for anyone to download and use the data. 

Thus far, our archived copy of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Social Vulnerability Index has been downloaded more than 6,000 times; our EPA Outdoor Air Quality Data has been downloaded more than 4,400 times; and our NOAA Sea Level Rise Data has been downloaded more than 1,800 times. 

Here We Go, 2026!

As the government continues to suppress public access to federal environmental data and shutter data collection and processing programs, our work preserving existing federal environmental data is as critical as ever. We continue to respond to urgent requests from current and former federal employees worried about the erasure of their programs’ data, and as deregulatory efforts ramp up, we anticipate these requests will become even more frequent. 

In addition to continuing to archive at-risk data, one of PEDP’s core foci in early 2026 is to build significantly better access to our archived data and tools. We have developed a rich metadata standard that we are applying to all of our archived data, which will improve its overall discoverability. We also are building a new website specifically designed to make accessing the data more approachable and intuitive. Beyond that, we’re ramping up our tool development work. We are expanding some of our existing tooling, developing durable essential updates to our clones of former federal tools, and kicking off the development of new, robust, justice-based environmental data tools. 

By all accounts, concerted work to protect and advance environmental data and data infrastructure will be critical in the coming year. We are ready, and we hope you’ll join us.  


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