NATIONAL
ENVIRONMENTAL
INFORMATION
CONFERENCE
EPA
230
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BUILDING ENVIRONMENTAL
PARTNERSHIPS THROUGH
INFORMATION SHARING
NOVEMBER 13-16,1989
KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI
PROCEEDINGS
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Preface and Acknowledgements
We have witnessed two significant trends in the twenty years since the first Earth Day: increasing
awareness of the importance of protecting, restoring, and preventing damage to our environmental
resources; and an explosion of data about environmental conditions and our efforts to control
pollution. These two trends converged recently at the 1989 National Environmental Information
Conference in Kansas City. Participants from throughout the environmental community came to
share their insights and perspectives on how to use information more effectively in meeting the
environmental management challenges of the 1990s and beyond. These proceedings and the
accompanying videotape provide an overview of the many diverse topics and ideas discussed
during the three days, and highlight the conference's major themes and messages.
We want to express our appreciation to everyone who contributed to the success of this landmark
forum for multi-agency interaction on these very important issues. In particular, we want to
recognize the energetic efforts of the following people:
Conference Director: Gene A. Ramsey, Chief, Program Integration Branch, EPA Region VII
Conference Program Committee: Ernie Arnold, Katie Biggs, Paul Brands, Mark Hague, Diane
Hershberger, Chris Hess, Marian Hess, Dominique Lueckenhoff, Mary Melton, Rowena Michaels,
Alvin Pesachowitz, Delores Platt, William Rice, Cindy Sayers, Carol Smith, and Dan Vallero.
Conference Support Team (EPA Region VII): Margaret Alice, Cecil Bailey, Regina Bates,
Shannon Campbell, Janet Carlet, Mary Carter, Richard DeVoe, Walt Foster, Gary Gobdnow,
Vickie Hale, Ray Hurley, Debbie Kring, Lynn Kring, Kathy Montatte, Dale Parke, Elaine Pries,
Michael Thomas, Les Vahsholtz, Jeff Wandtke, and Aaron Zimmerman.
We also commend the four States of Region VII for their ongoing cooperation in information
management and many other environmental initiatives. We especially note the conference-related
efforts of Darrell McAllister from Iowa; Jim Green and Lome Phillips from Kansas; Mark Day,
Stan Nessing, Jim Williams, and John Young from Missouri; and Dennis Burling from Nebraska.
Susan C. Gordon
Assistant Regional Administrator
for Policy and Management
EPA Region VII
Edward J. Hanley
Deputy Assistant Administrator
for Administration and Resources
Management
EPA Headquarters
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Table of Contents
Quotations From Opening Remarks.
Executive Summary: Major Themes and Messages of the Conference...........................................!
William K. Reilly: "The Role of Data in Reducing Environmental Risk" ....... 4
Dennis Kelso: "Using Information for Global Scale Emergencies".
....5
Presentations: "Success Stories in Environmental Data Management".....—.................... ....6
Edward J. Hanley: "Information Sharing and Environmental Protection"................................. 10
Alvin M. Pesachowitz: "State/EPA Data Management Initiative—Future Directions" tl
State/EPA Panel: "Looking Forward—Environmental Information Management"................... 12
Multi-Federal Agency Panel: "Broadening Our Approach to Environmental Management"...13
F. Henry Habicht II: "Managing Information for Environmental Results"...................... ...14
Region/State Breakout Sessions: "Next Steps for the States and EPA" ..... 16
Fred Krupp: "Harnessing Market Forces to Meet Today's Environmental
Protection Challenges"
,....22
Jack Dahgermond: "Tools That Enhance Environmental Analysis" .23
Breakout Panels: "Improving Information Use in Environmental Programs" 24
Panel: "Great Lakes, Great Legacy?" [[[27
Panel: "Public Access to Environmental Information" .........28
Charles L. Grizzle: "EPA Pledges Continued Action" —29
Appendix: Organizations Represented at the Conference
EPA llmaelguuuuj Lil^r
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Opening Remarks
Countdown ... Ignition ... Lift-Off!
Susan C. Gordon
Assistant Regional Administrator for Policy and
Management, U.S. Environmental .Protection Agency,
Region VII
"For the past several years, EPA and many States have
taken initial steps to solidify a State/EPA information
sharing partnership....This conference reflects the Agency's I
continuing commitment to the State/EPA partnership and recognizes the need
to expand that partnership throughout die environmental community."
Edward J. Hartley
Deputy Assistant Administrator for Administration and
Resources Management, U.S. Environmental Protection,
Agency • •'
"This conference will help to broaden our perspective on
using information to make decisions, to view information
in terms of how we might prevent environmental disasters.
and pollution^—in short, how we assess our progress, communicate it to the
public, and manage for the greatest environmental benefit." . • '
Morris Kay
Regional Administrator
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region VII
"We've become very good at developing the technology
for cleaning up our environment. You, and thousands of
others just like you who are not in attendance, have made
great strides toward improving the environment After
the next few days at this conference, we will be able to form the partnerships
for information management that will enable us to concentrate not just on
cleaning up the environment but also on using information to prevent
pollution."
Charles L. Grizzle
Assistant Administrator for Administration and
Resources Management, U.S. Environmental Protection
:- Agency
"We are poised to take advantage of opportunities to work
together, forging newer and better and stronger partnerships
with States, communities, pur sister Federal agencies, and
the private sector. This conference can be a booster rocket for us, putting the
thrust behind this initiative that we now need to take advantage of the
opportunities before us."
Photo: Courtesy of NASA.
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Executive Summary
Major Themes and
William Reilly, Administrator,
EPA: "Nothing is more
important to our integrity in
environmental protection than a
reputation for dealing in facts,
for respecting sound science
and sound information."
Hank Habicht, Deputy
Administrator, EPA: "If we
really want to make
environmental protection a
national enterprise, an
international enterprise....
we have to build a foundation
of information, and the time is
now."
Dennis Kelso, Commissioner,
Alaska Department of
Environmental Conservation:
"[After the Exxon spill] each
shoreline segment was mapped.
The data were exchanged with
other agencies as well,
including NOAA and the Coast
Guard. Even though different
systems were being used, we
made those data move around."
Dallas Peck, Director, USGS:
"This conference provides a
good opportunity to expand
existing inter-agency
relationships to create the
information acquisition and
data sharing systems that will
be needed to meet the
environmental challenges of the
21st Century and beyond."
The 1989 National Environmental Information Conference was an unprecedented
gathering of over 750 environmental and data management professionals to
exchange ideas and experiences on the general topic: "Building Environmental
Partnerships Through Information Sharing." EPA's primary objective in
sponsoring the conference was to demonstrate and strengthen the Agency's
commitment to the State/EPA partnership in managing the environment and to
recognize formally the need to expand this partnership throughout the
environmental community.
The attendees formed a broad cross-section of that community (see the
Appendix). All EPA Regional Offices and Headquarters program offices were
represented, as were .each of the 50 States, the District of Columbia, Puerto
Rico, Guam, American Samoa, and ten Native American tribes. Representatives
also came from numerous other Federal agencies, eight foreign countries, and
several private interest groups, foundations, and institutes. The conference
participants talked, listened, and learned during three days of speeches, panel
presentations, EPA/State meetings, system demonstrations, and informal
discussions.
As this diverse group arrived in Kansas City for the opening of the conference,
the eyes of the world were trained on an historic event taking place halfway
around the globe—the dismantling of the Berlin Wall. The monumental
developments in East Germany and throughout Eastern Europe in recent months
illustrate the power of two concepts that have come to embody the world's
hopes for a reduction in Cold War tensions: perestroika, or restructuring, and
glasnost, or openness. In a small way, these complementary themes are apt
metaphors for the underlying spirit and message of the conference.
The perestroika theme was reflected in the sense of excitement and urgency
felt throughout the conference, fueled by the addresses of EPA's Administrator
and Deputy Administrator, that we are entering a new era in environmental
management—an era characterized by greater concern with global problems
and increasing emphasis on prevention and protection in addition to regulatory
restrictions and enforcement. This broader strategic vision will require some
restructuring in the manner in which EPA and State agencies go about their
business.-The restructuring will extend to the ways that government agencies
collect, manage, and use information to support the risk-based, results-oriented
decisions of the future. In the words of EPA Deputy Administrator Hank
Habicht, "Data is in essence the glue that will hold us together and allow us to
move into a forward-looking and strategic phase of environmental protection."
The second theme—glasnost-^could be heard in some fashion in virtually every
speech, presentation, and breakout session. Using information and electronic
technology effectively to support environmental decisionmaking requires
openness within and between the disparate organizations involved. Barriers to
the free exchange of data and experience among program offices and among
agencies must be removed or circumvented. Insularity, suspicion, and rigid
bureaucracy will defeat rather than protect the best interests of environmental
managers and the public they serve. With its emphasis on partnership, the State/
EPA Data Management Program is one of many efforts that will be needed to
promote the openness and cooperation necessary for effective trans-agency
responses to environmental challenges.
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lit*--
Messages of the Conference
Within the two overarching themes of restructuring and openness, several other
points emerged as basic messages of the conference. These subthemes define
broad areas where specific initiatives and individual actions are now needed to
capitalize on the spirit and energy of the 1989 National Environmental
Information Conference.
• The data available to decisionmakers must be as timely, accurate, and
complete as possible. Al Pesachowitz, new Director of EPA's Office of
Information Resources Management (OIRM), told conference attendees that
while considerable gains have been made in the last two years, the State/EPA
program will continue to press for improvement in this fundamental area.
• There is a great need for information about the data and the systems
available to decisionmakers. Variants of this point were heard repeatedly
throughout the conference. Managers at all levels of government cannot use
external information in their decisions unless they know where they can find
the kind of data they need and how their technical staff can obtain it for them.
* To promote use of its data by States and others, EPA should make its
systems easier to access and to use. In the Region/State breakout meetings,
for example^ several States called for EPA to reduce the number of different
data transfer protocols used with its systems. State staff also require additional
training to make them more effective users of EPA systems.
• EPA and the States must work together to develop practical information
tools that bridge the separate environmental programs, supporting cross-
media analysis and decisionmaking. Accurate and standardized facility location
data is a vital requirement for this interh'nkage. Geographic Information Systems
(GIS) are proving very effective at facilitating cross-media analysis and
communicating the facts and conclusions to top decisionmakers and the public.
EPA, other Federal agencies, and many States all are making notable progress
in using GIS technology for decision support, although questions of expense,
data quality, and organizational barriers still abound.
• Government agencies should consider themselves stewards of publicly
owned data and, whenever practical, should provide direct public access
to the data. Former EPA OIRM Director, Ed Hanley, set the tone for this
stewardship theme in his address, and it was elaborated by a panel session
devoted to the idea of "recycling" environmental information by making it-
available to other potential users, including the public.
This unique assemblage of environmental and information professionals left
Kansas City with a disposition toward action. All ten of EPA's Regional Offices
soon will have permanent State/EPA IRM workgroups-rr-providing regular
forums for continued communication and cooperation on data management
issues. Each Region/State breakout session at the conference enumerated specific
action items (summarized beginning on page 16). In his closing remarks, Charles
Grizzle, EPA's Assistant Administrator responsible for IRM activities, pledged
the Agency's continued commitment to the State/EPA partnership and to other
cooperative efforts needed to strengthen the vital role of information in restoring
and protecting the environment.
Al Pesachowitz, Director, OIRM,
EPA: "The [Phase I] foundation
of data timeliness, quality, and
completeness must be strong as
we move ahead with data
integration."
Mark Coleman, Deputy
Commissioner, Oklahoma Health
Department: "I want to be able
to push a very small number of
buttons to get the information
that I need in order to manage."
Jack Dangermond, President,
ESRI: "You, as professionals,
will lay the footprints for how the
[GIS] methodologies will be
established and effectively
employed in the next decade, the
next century. In other words,
we're about to go into an
adventure, you and I, to discover
how we can use information
effectively in policy-making."
Ed Hanley, Deputy Assistant
Administrator, OARM, EPA:
"We are just the stewards of the
data. It's really, public data,
owned by the people, paid for
with tax dollars."
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Administrator's Address
The Role of Data in
Reducing Environmental Risk
"Nothing is more important to
our integrity in environmental
protection than a reputation for
dealing in facts, for respecting
sound science and sound
information,"
"We need to rationalize the
collection, storage, and retrieval
of data and make the data more
useful to decisionniakers."
"To build the worldwide
consensus that's needed to take
effective action, we will need
sound information, data
carefully derived, and
cooperation with others whose
function it is to collect
information."
The Honorable William K. Reilly
Administrator
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
At a plenary luncheon, the EPA Administrator told the audience that he has
"enormous respect for the discussions taking place" at the conference and
that he "fully intends to use the products" of their work. "All we really have
is information," he said in emphasizing the importance to EPA of basing its
policy decisions on good data. "Above all, we must know what we're doing.
Nothing is more important to our integrity in environmental protection than a
reputation for dealing in facts, for respecting sound science and sound
information."
Reilly recently returned from The Netherlands, where he headed the U. S.
delegation to the Ministerial Conference on Global Climate. He used this
experience to illustrate the challenges the international community faces in
obtaining the information needed to support difficult policy decisions. He
contrasted the global climate conference with an earlier international meeting
on stratospheric ozone held in London. At the ozone conference, scientists
from all over the world presented their conclusions on the role of
chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) in depleting the planet's ozone layer—conclusions
based on careful analysis of CFCs, their behavior, and their effects. Reilly
noted that this scientific consensus, backed by reliable data, made it easier
for wary countries to be receptive to the need for action to phase out use of
CFCs and products containing them.
The recent conference on global climate change was a very different matter,
the Administrator said. For example, the relative lack of scientific information
on carbon dioxide buildup and its climatic consequences (e.g., regional
variations) makes it very difficult for policymakers all over the world to
understand how to act. Though many countries at The Netherlands meeting
were prepared to accept a proposed goal of stabilizing carbon dioxide emissions
by the year 2000, some of them had very little idea of the consequences of
their decision for their national economies or the specific steps they will take
to achieve the goal. All parties recognize the need to develop much more
information on this and other factors in global climate change, Reilly said.
To .highlight the growing international recognition of environmental problems,
the Administrator reported a statement made to him recently by West German
Chancellor Helmut Kohl. "One does not have to be a 'Green' to understand
and know it is time to act," Kohl said. "Environmental protection is
increasingly a matter of morality." In order to build the worldwide consensus
needed to take effective action, Administrator Reilly said, "we will need sound
information, data carefully derived, and cooperation with others whose function
it is to collect information."
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Featured Speaker
Using Information for
Global Scale Emergencies
Dennis Kelso
Commissioner
Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation
Alaska's top environmental protection official emphasized the vital role that
computers have played in the cleanup of the Exxon Valdez spill. He described
four microcomputer data base systems that Alaska developed to aid in its
response efforts: 1) an inventory of oil spill surveys which characterized oil
geographic coverage, thickness and composition, and impact on wildlife; 2)
a system to monitor, map, and communicate to field teams and logistic
managers the progress of shoreline cleanups; 3) a scientific data base to
manage information on oil samples and facilitate the use of this data in
modeling fate and transport; and 4) a system containing litigation data, such
as chain-of-custpdy information, on data collected as potential evidence in
future enforcement actions.
Drawing on Alaska's recent experience, Kelso suggested other ways to make
future spill responses more effective:
* Prevention is essential. A major spill has a catastrophic impact, regardless
of plans and preparation. We must do everything in our power to ensure that
equipment and procedures are in place to minimize the chances of a major
spill occurring in the first place.
* Spillers should not be in charge of spill response. Kelso argued strongly
for Federal and State control of cleanup efforts. The government organizations,
and not private industry, should decide what will be done, where, and for
how long. While Federal assistance is-important, a strong role for State and
.local agencies also is vital, given their knowledge of the affected area and
their inherent interest in ensuring a thorough cleanup.
• Avoid limits on industry liability for oil spills. Without limitations on
liability, industry is continually motivated to reduce the probability of a spill
and to ensure that plans are in place to minimize the environmental impact
should a spill occur.
• Create a shared data base of cleanup resources. An international data
base of information about the types, numbers, condition, location, and
availability of cleanup technology is needed that industry, States, and local
governments can access for immediate retrieval. Kelso related Alaska's
frustrations at witnessing Exxon's inability to locate cleanup equipment in a
timely manner and the resulting deleterious effect on cleanup efforts.
: •*
* Establish an R&D cleanup program. An on-the-job research program is
not adequate. Improved techniques offer major returns, but a continuing,
focused research program is required.
"[Using a geographic information
system] we mapped the spill
during the early going almost
every hour, and that meant that
not only could we predict the next
phase and tailor our actions
accordingly, but we could make
this information available on a
real-time basis so that our field
staff could actually use it."
"Each shoreline segment was
mapped. The data were exchanged
with other agencies as well,
including NOAA and the Coast
Guard. Even though different
systems were being used [by these
agencies], we made those data
move around."
"Industry didn't know where the
response equipment was. We need
to change that. We need to have a
shared core of information that is
available to the Federal
Government, to the State
Government, and of course to
industry as well."
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Presentations: Success Stories
Innovative Uses of Information
Donnelly: "[Scientific
visualization systems] convey
complex concepts in a form that
can be understood by those with
little training in the earth
sciences....They've proven to be
effective tools for presenting
information to decisionmakers."
"Geographic Information Systems and Scientific Visualization
Systems: Instruments for Decisionmaking"
Jay Donnelly, Chief, Technology Transfer Section, Office of Geographic and
Cartographic Research, U, S. Geological Survey, Reston, Virginia
USGS has successfully applied geographic information systems to support
environmental decisionmaking. Two examples: an assessment with the U. S.
Forest Service of the environmental impact of a proposed open pit mine in
Arizona; and an earthquake risk assessment in the Wasatch Region of Utah to
support local land use decisions and formulation of structural design policies.
The complementary technology of "scientific visualization systems" is
potentially applicable in many less dramatic ways than its one notable use by
USGS to date: analysis of data on Soviet underground nuclear testing.
"The 'People Role' in Building Land Information Systems"
Brian Bernard, Deputy Service Center Director for Resources Management,
Bureau of Land Management Service Center, Denver, Colorado
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is developing a complex Land
Information System (LIS) using GIS technology. BLM has already used the
system to integrate data for decisionmaking and planning, for example in
helping the U. S. Forest Service perform "what-if" analyses for forest
management. BLM intends LIS to provide a standard base of digitized spatial
data for use throughout the Federal Government and by State and local
agencies, industry, and the general public. They have found that at least 80%
of the effort required to succeed has .to do with identifying and meeting the
needs of the people who will use the system and not with the technical
capabilities of the GIS hardware and software itself.
Bernard: "The most important
thing [in GIS development] is
having the people understand the
relationship of their data to their
business. That's the step that's
most often skipped."
Mace: "By 1991, this technology
will be available 24 hours a day,
and I think it will be a
tremendous benefit to those of us
who have to make our way
around in the natural
environment and know exactly
where we are."
"Global Positioning System"
Dr. Thomas H. Mace, Chief, Remote and Air Monitoring Branch, EPA
Environmental Monitoring Systems Laboratory, Las Vegas, Nevada
The global positioning system (GPS) is a rapidly-emerging technology that
can be used to obtain highly accurate, three-dimensional location coordinates
for environmental management purposes, such as generating exact positions
for facilities or resource boundaries. Using a constellation of satellites, the GPS
can calculate the precise location of a vehicle-based or hand-held signal receiver.
Costs for a hand-held signal receiver average $20,000. EPA's EMSL-Las Vegas
laboratory has used GPS in a joint project with USGS to produce control data
for investigations using digitized photographs from the Old Southington (CT)
Landfill Superfund site.
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in Environmental Management
"Chesapeake Bay CIS Project"
.Alyin R. Morris, Director, Water Management'Division, EPA Region 111
Chesapeake Bay Program is a coordinated State/Federal program to restore
and protect the living resources of Chesapeake Bay, the country's largest
estuarine^ system. Under a sampling program started in 1985, water quality is
monitored regularly at 50 stations on the "mainstream" of the bay and at
about 100 tributary locations. This monitoring data has been interpolated to
provide estimates of conditions at more than 60,000. points in the system."
The Chesapeake Bay Program has developed a geographic information system
to produce visual representations of this data, making it easier to determine
which pollution problems are most severe in which areas and during which
months. Land use data is being added to the system to support decisions on
priorities for action and on future economic development in the region.
"My experience indicates that the information 'gained from our monitoring
programs is too costly not to use well," Al Morris said. "There is more
.analytical power available today than at any time in history. It is relatively
cheap, fast to use, and it can be very informative: The use of G1S technology
has ffae capability of aggregating vast amounts of information and transforming
it into pictorial information which you can wrap your mind around. You can
see what's going on in ways you can't see in any other fashion, and I think;
it's more easily understood visually than iii large tables of data." , . >. ;
As a final thought, Morris urged everyone involved in ambient monitoring to
attach locational information to every piece of field data collected. "Even if
you're not using GIS now," he "pointed out; "you're laying the base for future
users." •'•-•..
Morris: "In times of scarce
resources, GIS is fast becoming
the best tool we have for isolating
environmental problems, for
wisely choosing program
priorities, and for seeing the
results of management efforts
which we've undertaken—seeing
if in fact we're getting what we
think we're paying for,"
Mullane: "This project can
serve as an example of how to
gather information, help you
format that information, and
provide some direction in
making the decisions we have
to make in terms of
environmental quality."
"Oregon Water Priority-Setting Project" -
Nell Mullane, Manager, Planning and Monitoring Section, Water Quality
Division, Oregon Department of Environmental Quality
The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality has created a Geographic
'Information System to aid in prioritizing water bodies in the preparation of a
State Clean Water Strategy. Water bodies were first ranked according to a
complex set of criteria by means of a model that used existing data to assign
', a. score-to each one. The GIS was then used to display visually the results ;of
this prioritizatioh. The State was able to identify water bodies with agricultural
land use and has gone on to establish cooperative agreements^ with .Federal
and State agricultural agencies for action on the highest-priority streams arid
lakes. DEQ expects to expand .theXHS to include much additional hrformation,
including data on wetlands, grouhdwater, and natural resources.
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Presentations: Success Stones
Innovative Uses of Information
"Beyond Compliance Data: Information for
Environmental Enforcement Decisionmaking"
Gary Young, Director, Laboratory Services Division, EPA National
Enforcement Investigations Center, Denver, Colorado
NEIC has developed automated tools for integrated compliance analysis. One
system extracts data from CDS, PCS, HWDMS, FINDS, and a Dun &
Bradstreet data base to prepare a multi-media noncompliance profile of a
specified facility. Another tool produces a multi-regional listing of facilities
out of compliance in any environmental medium. The SARA, Title HI
Targeting System (SATTS) identifies potential nonreporters. Corporate
"compliance profiles are aided by automated extractions from several EPA
systems, though the information must be integrated manually at this time.
Young: "In the last couple of
years, ever since some of these
State/EPA efforts began..., we've
noticed a considerable improve-
ment in the quality of the data
we've had to access in the
national systems."
Setser: "It takes a long time. To
create a better data manage-
ment system does not happen in
six months, or a year, or two
years. It's a long-term project
that requires relentless
commitment and a lot of
character and fortitude. And
you'll go through disappoint-
ments and you'II go through
successes. But you've got to
hang in there."
"A Cross-Media Facility, Permit, and
Compliance Tracking System*'
Jim Setser, Chief, Program Coordination Branch, Environmental Protection
Division, Georgia Department of Natural Resources
Georgia's Integrated Information Management System (I1MS) is an early and
successful example of how data gathered by separate programs for widely
disparate uses can be integrated electronically to support cross-media analysis
and decisionmaking. Georgia's approach, begun in 1985 as the national pilot
project for the State/EPA Data Management Program, has been to avoid creating
a single large integrated data base and instead develop tools for extracting and
manipulating small amounts of data from existing systems. To date, the State
has developed three such software tools linked to EPA's national data systems:
• A central facility file, which cross-references the identification numbers of
all facilities under regulatory obligation in the State, and which makes the other
two tools possible;
• A multi-media permit tracking and reporting system; and
• An integrated compliance/enforcement management reporting system.
Georgia uses its data integration tools to extract data from and send updates to
PCS, AIRS, HWDMS, and FINDS. Reports from IIMS are used routinely by
program managers and by the State agency's top management.
Noting that "resistance is a reality," Jim Setser focused much of his presentation
on the procedural and organizational issues associated with a project of this
kind. He cited commitment of the agency's top manager as the most important
thing for a State data staff to have before trying to "sell" a systems integration
project within its organization.
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in Environmental Management (Continued)
"Computer-Aided Management of
Emergency Operations—CAMEO II"
Robert C. Horn, Battalion Chief, Kansas City, Kansas Fire Department
CAMEO II is a Macintosh-based decision support system for firefighters and
other first responders to a chemical accident. The system, developed by NOAA
and the Seattle Fire Department, contains information on more than 3,500
chemicals and has many other features useful in an emergency response setting,
including MSDS data and floorplans for handlers of hazardous materials in
the responder's jurisdiction. CAMEO is designed to be carried to the site in a
response vehicle for immediate access as the incident unfolds. The Kansas
City, Kansas Fire Department selected CAMEO after an intensive search for a
portable, easy-to-use information system.
Horn: "We went to the industrial
community and said, 'Help us
help you.' Within three months,
we had all the money and
equipment we needed to put this
system into being."
Hardy: "It has really increased
the communication between our
[training planners] and
environmental personnel."
"EVA—Environmental Assessment:
Assessing Impacts on Training Grounds"
Danita Hardy, Environmental Protection Specialist, U. S. Army Garrison, Fort
Huachuca, Arizona
The U. S. Army is developing a PC-based expert system called Environmental
Assessment (EVA) to aid in gauging the environmental impacts and trade-offs
of planned training activities at Fort Huachuca, Arizona. Officers organizing
large-scale training exercises can use the system to identify the potential
environmental issues associated with a proposed area on the military reservation.
Natural resource information for EVA was provided by Federal and State
biologists, foresters, soil scientists, and archaeologists. The system now contains
120 decision rules, and additional rules dealing with hazardous materials are
being added.
"Artificial Intelligence/Expert Systems Advances
in Hazardous Waste Management"
Daniel Greathouse, Operations Research Analyst, EPA Risk Reduction
Engineering Laboratory, Cincinnati, Ohio
EPA's Risk Reduction Engineering Laboratory has developed operational
versions of five RCRA-oriented expert systems initially created to evaluate
the potential of this technology for decision support. The PC-based systems
now nearing completion are the Flexible Membrane Liner Review System,
the Waste Analysis Plan Review System, and three closure evaluation systems.
RREL will now begin a five-year initiative to develop expert system tools
for the Superfund program, including a contract modification request
evaluation system and a remedial technology screening system.
Greathouse: "To be successful,
we have to have input from the
people for whom these systems
are targeted."
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Featured Speaker
Information Sharing
and Environmental Protection
"Information is going to be the
key to leveraging the scarce
resources we have."
"We are just the stewards of the
data. It's really public data,
owned by the people, paid for
with tax dollars."
"Personally, I find the notion of
stewardship a lot more exciting
and energizing than
ownership."
Edward J. Hanley
Deputy Assistant Administrator for
Administration and Resources Management
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
The former EPA IRM Director and initiator of the State/EPA Data
Management Program began by remarking on how far EPA has come in the
last few years in this arena. He recalled the first conference of this kind just
three years ago, at which no State agencies were present because none were
invited. "We didn't know where our data came from," he said wryly. He
then announced that all 50 States were represented at this year's gathering.
Hanley then turned to the concept of data stewardship and it relationship to
data ownership. When EPA first began looking at data sharing issues, he
remembered, "we talked a lot about ownership. If people could be made to
accept ownership of a system and its data, then they would also accept
responsibility for making the data good and making the system work right."
Today, though, changes in EPA's fundamental approach to environmental
protection require a new attitude toward data. "We have to mobilize the
public, the Government, and industry to find new ways of doing business,"
Hanley said. "We need to find ways to get things done that we no longer
can do through direct intervention, through regulation. Information is going
to be the key to leveraging the scarce resources we have."
He suggested that this challenge for EPA and the States requires a shift in
information management philosophy from data ownership to data stewardship.
To leverage resources most effectively, he said, environmental agencies have
to provide accurate data to the public and to industry on the nature of
environmental problems and threats and the effects of efforts to meet them.
Federal, State, and local government agencies must recognize that the data
they gather does not belong only to them, he noted.
"We are just the stewards of the data. It's really public data, owned by the
people, paid for with tax dollars," Hanley stressed. "The information we
collect describes matters of vital concern to our whole society. The public
has a right to expect us to use that data wisely—to share it, reuse it when
possible, and to provide public access to it. It may turn out that our experience
with sharing data within the environmental community in the last few years
may be just practice for the job of sharing data with the public."
Hanley urged the audience to keep the idea of data stewardship in mind as
they move ahead with the State/EPA Data Management Program and other
information management initiatives. "Personally," he said, "I find the notion
of stewardship a lot more exciting and energizing than ownership."
10
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Featured Speaker
State/EPA Data Management Initiative—
Future Directions
Alvin M. Pesachowitz
Director, Office of Information
Resources Management
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
The new Director of the Office of Information Resources Managemenfnoted
how far the State/EPA Data Management Program has progressed from its
early days as a pilot project involving just one State and one Regional Office.
By the end of fiscal 1990, he said, all but one State will be connected to
EPA's telecommunications network and will have high-speed access to the
Agency's mainframe computers.
Pesachowitz outlined several other Phase I achievements of the Program at
both the State and Regional levels, but he announced that a priority for his
office will be to revisit Phase I "to see how well we have achieved its
overall goal of timeliness", completeness, and accuracy of the shared data."
He stated that "we need to find out what barriers still exist and what
incentives we can provide to truly achieve this goal. The foundation must
be strong as we move ahead with data integration."
Pesachowitz then reviewed progress in Phase II—Data Integration. He
highlighted the fact that by the end of fiscal 1990 all EPA Regional Offices
will have a geographic information system capability. Several Regions have
already completed important analyses using this technology. In addition, two
Centers of Excellence have been established-—one in Las Vegas and one in
Atlanta—-to provide technical assistance with CIS and to promote technology
transfer. He emphasized, though, that the data integration efforts of the
Program will focus not only on GIS but also on a variety of non-graphical
data integration approaches such as systems for cross-media reporting on
permitting, compliance, and enforcement at a single facility. ,s
Two additional steps will help push the State/EPA Data Management Program
forward in 1990, Pesachowitz said. The first will be the dissemination of
three policies and standards that are crucial in facilitating vdata integration: a
Location Data Policy, a Data Sharing Policy, and a Facilities Identification
Data Standard. He stressed that these policies, al! to be published in final
form in 1990, will help establish and maintain the infrastructure necessary
. to move the Program ahead. A second major goal for the near future will be
to enhance the Regional Office infrastructure that is now in place to support
the national Program.
The new IRM Director closed with a nod to his predecessor, acknowledging
that Ed Hartley "provided the vision and leadership that introduced and
developed this successful program. I look forward to providing continued
leadership," he said, "with the help and support of the conference attendees."
"The Agency and I are committed
to a long-term partnership with
the States, the local communities,
with the other Federal agencies,
and with the world community to
keep this important data sharing
program going,"
"The [Phase I] foundation of data
timeliness, quality, and complete-
ness must be strong as we move
ahead with data integration."
"We at EPA and in my office
hope to help expand and facilitate
the GIS effort by developing
standards and guidelines and
policies that lend support to this
area.
11
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State/EPA Panel
Looking Forward—
Environmental Information Management
Hansen: "What we are talking
about here, I think, is a process
of enrollment—enrollment of
all the people here and our
counterparts in other parts of
the nation, to say "these are
important concepts, these are
important strategic directions''
Coleman: "We must find ways
to share not just concepts but
software and hardware and to
do things more economically."
Scherer: "The negativism that
the general public has today, I
think, is well-founded in the
fact that we [regulators] can't
agree on anything. We must get
some agreement among
ourselves, and we're not going
to get that agreement unless
we're sharing our data
together."
Lajuana S. Wilcher, Assistant Administrator for Water, U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency
Fred Hansen, Director, Oregon Department of Environmental Quality
Mark Coleman, Deputy Commissioner for Environmental Health Services,
Oklahoma Department of Health
Jim J. Scherer, Regional Administrator, US. Environmental Protection Agency
Region VIII
Moderator LaJuana Wilcher noted that since her recent appointment as Assistant
Administrator for Water she has already seen evidence of many advances in
managing water-related information, including GIS pilot projects in four Regional
Offices and several cross-program cooperative efforts within the Office of Water.
These are hopeful signs, she said, and form a portion of the backdrop for this
panel's discussion of future directions in environmental information from the
senior manager's perspective.
Fred Hansen called for a "new strategic vision" in the environmental field—&
recognition by all environmental regulators that their job is not just to manage
pollution but also to protect environmental quality. "We must see ourselves as
environmentalists," he said. And in this role, environmental agencies at all levels
of government have the responsibility to define a clear vision of where they are
going and what information they need to get there. In Hansen's view, everyone's
version of this vision should recognize the need for several things: more
information on the ambient quality of the environment; more resources devoted
to prevention rather than compliance; greater public participation in environmental
decisions; a cross-media and multi-state approach to enforcement; better
integration of data on air, water, and waste conditions and trends; and relative
risk assessments for use in decisionmaking and public education.
To fulfill a strategic vision like this, Hansen said, we must do three things: 1)
develop a consistent management methodology for all environmental programs,
so everyone—Federal and State—is reading from the same script; 2) develop
information tools which direct efforts toward environmental care and protection
in addition to regulation, enforcement, and cleanup; and 3) establish and maintain
cooperative programs among all levels of government.
Mark Coleman pointed out that, despite recent progress, most organizations are
still better at gathering data than they are at using it. He offered some ingredients
for better use of data to support environmental management activities at both
the Federal and the State level: 1) complete the basics—the single-medium data
sets have to be complete and accurate before you can integrate across media; 2)
keep it simple—managers often need only high-level summary information on a
facility's status and history; 3) create "a mechanism for information sharing about
information sharing"—a central source of information on environmental data
systems and applications around the country; and 4) share software and hardware
in addition to data and concepts when resource constraints make this desirable.
Jim Scherer pointed out three important requirements for strengthening the State/
EPA partnership and improving the use of environmental information in decision-
making: 1) EPA should make concerted efforts to inform managers in State
agencies about the importance of sharing timely and complete data with EPA;
2) EPA must be willing to share information with States, as Region VIII has
done to great mutual advantage with Colorado regarding the Rocky Flats site;
and 3) decisionmakers at all levels of government must be trained in what
information resources are available to them and how to ask their staffs for the
specific information they need.
12
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Multi-Federal Agency Panel
Broadening Our Approach to Environmental
Management Beyond Agency/Department Boundaries
Charles L. Grizzle, Assistant Administrator for Administration and Resources
Management, U. S. Environmental Protection Agency
Dallas Peck, Director, U, S. Geological Survey
James Brennan, Deputy General Counsel, National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration
Nancy B. Firestone, Deputy Director, Environmental Enforcement Division,
U. S. Department of Justice (on detail as Special Counsel to the Deputy
Administrator, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency)
Ralph Morgenweck, Assistant Director, Fish & Wildlife Enhancement, U. S.
Fish & Wildlife Service
Dallas Peck, Director, USGS, cited the need for cooperation among many
agencies in dealing with national and global problems such as climate change
and pesticide contamination of surface and ground waters. Fiscal pressures make
it imperative, he said, to share existing data and to create national and global
geographic information systems. He pointed to two existing bodies as possible
models for the kind of multi-agency teams that must be formed: the Inter-
agency Working Group on Data Management for Global Change, and the Federal
Interagency Coordinating Committee for Digital Cartography.
James Brennan, Deputy General Counsel, NOAA, discussed the importance of
information sharing in investigating such issues as the impact of 200-mile limits
on fishery resources on the high seas. He stressed the general need to document
rigorously how data is collected so that people in the future will be able to use
it for other purposes. A massive, centralized data system is not the answer, he
said. Instead, we need to be more systematic with interagency meetings, telephone
directories, and personal networking.
Environmental enforcement specialist Nancy Firestone discussed two issues of
importance to enforcement attorneys—major users of environmental data
generated by others. First, we need to find ways to use information more
effectively to target enforcement activities where they have the greatest chance
of improving the environment. Second, she said, we have to do a better job of
using data to explain to judges and juries in enforcement cases the nature and
extent of a source's pollution, how it compares to that from other sources, and
how Government-imposed remedies will bring about the desired changes.
Ralph Morgenweck described experiences of the U. S. Fish & Wildlife Service
which suggest that successful interagency data sharing projects must be planned
and executed carefully. Participating agencies should each have a strong, capable
project manager on the team; the project should be defined extensively at the
outset, including objectives, products, data needed, and schedule; and the project
should be monitored closely by the project officers and higher management.
Following several questions from the audience, Moderator Charles Grizzle of
EPA closed the session with the suggestion that "maybe it's time to look into
the possibility of establishing an umbrella organization, something we might
call the Federal Environmental Data Council, bringing together all the Federal
agencies who* collect and use environmental data to establish some protocols
and build some bridges so we can ensure that the work that needs to go on will
be executed in a much more efficient manner."
Peck: "This conference provides a
good opportunity to expand
existing inter-agency relationships
to create the information
acquisition and data sharing
systems that will be needed to
meet the environmental
challenges of the 21st Century
and beyond."
Brennan: "The answer is not to
try to anticipate the needs of
future scientists and policymakers
but to document rigorously how
we collected the data so that
future technologies can use it."
Firestone: "We have a major task
ahead of us—for those of you
who [collect and manage
information] day to day to
educate those of us who have to
use it day to day so we can
become your partners in actually
getting those environmental
results out in the field."
Morgenweck: "We have to have
decisionmakers and managers
who know how to use data, and
we have to have technical people
who know how to put that data
into a format that lends itself to
the decisionmaking process."
13
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Deputy Administrator's Address
Managing Information
"Data is in essence the glue
that will hold us together and
allow us to move into a
forward-looking and strategic
phase of environmental
protection."
"If we really want to make
environmental protection a
national enterprise, an
international enterprise, ...we
have to build a foundation of
information, and the time is
now."
"Without information, strategic
planning is a game, it's a
college seminar."
The Honorable F. Henry Habicht H
Deputy Administrator
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
"Managing information is the foundation, the centerpiece for moving EPA into a
new generation of environmental protection." With this emphatic endorsement as
his central theme, Hank Habicht, EPA's Deputy Administrator, addressed the entire
conference as attendees began their first full day of the program. He expressed the
personal commitment of EPA's top management to information-related initiatives,
including the State/EPA Data Management Program, and he forcefully stated his
personal conviction that sound and innovative information management is "critical
to the future of environmental protection."
Most of Habicht's address focused on the challenge of acquiring and using high-
quality information on environmental conditions, trends, and progress. He proposed
that EPA view its information management mission in terms of a four-point
framework for "moving forward through this massive area."
• Basic Information. EPA and the States need to obtain the highest quality
information in each environmental program area to use as a basis for day-to-day
decisionmaking. "It is fundamental for continued credibility with the public," he
emphasized. He pointed to the State/EPA Data Management Program as an
important contributor to this objective.
Habicht also stressed the need for common protocols for data collection, storage,
and access so that environmental data is comparable across program areas. This is
essential groundwork, he said, to build an ability to pull information together to
demonstrate progress in environmental cleanup and protection. He mentioned two
examples of important information management approaches to aid in this task:
graphical integration of data via Geographic Information Systems, and EPA's
Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS), a cross-media data bank on
environmental risk.
• Information Management Infrastructure. Habicht identified four important
elements in the effort to provide the "infrastructure" necessary to support day-to-
day program implementation and new environmental initiatives. EPA must provide
the technical infrastructure—the hardware, software, communications networks, and
expertise—necessary to make it possible for the Agency to acquire and use basic
information and to support new strategic thrusts. A methodological infrastructure
also is needed, encompassing consistent methods and protocols for gathering,
storing, and retrieving data across programs and across agencies. Training and
14
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for Environmental Results
human resources development programs are required, he said, to build and sustain
the appropriate human infrastructure for these activities. And finally, the top levels
of the Agency must establish the necessary management infrastructure, providing
strong and consistent direction regarding the vital role of information management.
• Support for New Strategic Initiatives. Habicht outlined three areas in which
information management can play a major role in strategic planning activities
designed to move EPA into a new generation of environmental protection.
—Maximizing the impact of available resources, by supporting efforts to
develop risk reduction strategies, reliable environmental indicators, and pollution
prevention programs that are oriented toward categories of sources and receptors
rather than solely along institutional media lines.
—Institutionalizing the effective use of environmental data in a stable
organization. One such idea now being considered by EPA is a "Center for
Environmental Statistics," envisioned as a central repository for information and
a source of objective analysis and reporting to the public on environmental matters.
—Targeting enforcement activities on environmental results, as the Agency
moves out of a period of preoccupation with "enforcement numbers" and toward
more effective integration of enforcement efforts into day-to-day work."
• Long-Term Research. The Deputy Administrator stated firmly that EPA cannot
accomplish the other three steps in the framework without the fourth—the solid
scientific research that's needed to help set the agenda for the years ahead. "True
pollution prevention depends on moving forward in this area," he said, not only
at EPA but through other public and private research bodies and the academic
community. He noted that EPA's Office of Research and Development is "doing
an outstanding job of pulling together research results" and bringing this
information to bear on tine Agency's challenges. ORD's Environmental Monitoring
and Assessment Program (EMAP) provides a potentially great foundation, he
pointed out, for efforts to work with other organizations to determine the complex
relationships among pollution and other factors.
Habicht closed with a strong statement of encouragement to environmental
managers. "AH managers in and out of EPA need to begin to think in terms of
the longer .term," he said. "When laying the groundwork for the next century,
we're not as likely to get immediate gratification" as from the shorter-term, more
reactive approach to environmental protection. "We have to be in this for the
long pull," he stressed, "and this may require taking some resources away from
other important activities." He acknowledged that these longer-term initiatives
are vital, and he urged each environmental manager to "know in your .heart that
you will be making history, even if you're not making headlines."
"Fundamentally, all the
managers in the Agency and
outside the Agency need to think
in terms of building these long-
term infrastructures and not
looking necessarily for immediate
returns."
"We need to be sure we have
information that allows us to
make strategic, informed
decisions about our enforcement
direction."
"Information management is
critical to our credibility and
effectiveness in the years ahead,
and I think the people of the
world really depend on us."
15
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Region/State Breakout Sessions
Next Steps for the States and EPA
CROSS-CUTTING THEMES
State/Region IRM work groups
EPA-led data integration projects
ID and locational data standards
Education of potential data users
Systems easier to access and use
Additional training
Alerting States to procurement
plans
More flexible use of grants
The conference provided a structured opportunity for each EPA Regional Office
to strengthen its IRM partnership with its States through focused discussion of
data management issues and needs. The ten concurrent Region/State breakout
meetings held on the second day of the conference sought to identify EPA and
State action items, assign responsibilities, and agree on forums for future
interaction and planning. Most of the sessions were led by the Region's
Assistant Regional Administrator for Policy and Management, who oversees
the IRM function.
The discussion in these breakout meetings was wide-ranging and lively, as
State agency heads, program managers, and data specialists took full advantage
of this chance to communicate directly with their counterparts at EPA. The
next few pages provide highlights of each session, itemizing the main issues,
concerns, and action items that arose. Despite the inevitable breadth of topics
covered, a cross-cutting look at the summaries reveals that several State needs
and suggestions were expressed repeatedly in the respective meetings:
• Regular interaction between State and EPA regional IRM staffs should be
institutionalized in work groups or other permanent bodies to ensure continual
coordination and exchange of pertinent information.
• Regions should exert a leadership role in organizing and supporting
cooperative data integration projects with their States, using GIS and non-GIS
approaches.
• To make cross-organizational data integration possible, EPA and States
should work together to establish common facility identifiers and locational
data standards and add this information to all relevant data bases.
• Most State decisionmakers have little or no knowledge of the information
resources available at EPA, how they might be useful for State operations, and
how to obtain access to them. Educating potential data users should be a high
priority for EPA.
• EPA should make its systems easier to use. Specific suggestions included
reducing the number of different file transfer protocols used and developing a
single, user-friendly interface or "gateway" for accessing all major EPA systems.
• Additional training of State staff is a continual and pressing need. States
require regular in-depth training for the national EPA systems and also for
more specialized tools such as GIS.
• EPA should give States "early warning" of its software and hardware policy
decisions and procurement plans so that the States have sufficient lead-time to
plan their own ADP acquisitions in this light
• Regional management divisions should help States obtain more grant funding
for IRM-related needs, especially when the need is for computer equipment
that can benefit more than one program.
16
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Region/State Breakout Sessions
Region I
• State decisionmakers must be made
more aware of the EPA (and other Fed-
eral) data bases available to them, how
the information in each system might be
useful to them, and how to gain access
to each system. EPA should produce a
directory of EPA and other relevant data
bases, with a digestible synopsis of what
each system can do and how to access
it. This directory should provide consid-
erably more information about each sys-
tem than is contained in the recently-
published EPA Information Resources
Directory.
• To increase the usefulness of some
systems in supporting management de-
cisions, EPA should integrate its exist-
ing data systems with analysis and pres-
entation tools such as SAS.
» Standards are needed for a variety of
data types (e.g., groundwater) and for
QA procedures to ensure that all data
sets are of comparable accuracy and
completeness.
• While national data standards are
desirable, Regional differences in pro-
gram implementation and data needs
make Regional initiatives necessary. Re-
gion 1 and its States should work together
to develop a process for arriving at
needed standards.
• EPA should reduce the number of file
transfer protocols used with its systems,
so that States have to know only two or
three sets of procedures for data trans-
mission. EPA should give State technical
staffs complete information about the ex-
isting file transfer tools and how to use
them.
• EPA and the States should look for
interstate GIS project opportunities. It's
time to break out of the pilot project
phase and put in place the infrastructure
to use this technology in cooperative
problem solving.
• All ten Regions should be represented
on EPA's IRM Steering Committee. The
Regional representative could be a senior
State manager.
Improve States' awareness of
EPA data bases and their value to
decisionmakers
Develop a Region/State process
for arriving at needed regional
data standards
Reduce the number of file
transfer protocols States must
know to interact with EPA
systems
Break out of the pilot phase of
GIS and begin interstate problem-
solving using this technology
Take a more needs-driven
approach to systems planning
and development
Market IRM services to the
program offices more effectively
Develop State/EPA strategic
systems plans, tied to the budget
process
Undertake State/EPA GIS pilot
projects, focusing on cross-
media problems
Region II
• There was a consensus that the
Region's IRM function has been too
"technology-driven" and not "needs-
driven" enough. A much stronger link-
age is needed between programmatic re-
quirements and investments in informa-
tion systems. EPA program Division Di-
rectors should be more directly involved
in discussions about data management.
There is too much "preaching to the
choir" and not enough outreach to senior
program management to determine needs
and future directions for information sys-
tems development.
• The Region II information systems
staff will continue to seek ways to "mar-
ket" their services to the programs more
effectively. They are particularly con-
cerned about serving the needs of increas-
ingly distributed activities and technolo-
gies.
• The Region and its States and territo-
ries should develop strategic systems
plans that establish management goals as
a basis for setting information system
development priorities. There should be
an explicit linkage between the strategic
planning process and the budget process.
• Cross-media environmental manage-
ment problems should be a focus for the
State/EPA data management partnership.
Pilot projects are needed to demonstrate
how information technology such as GIS
can assist the Region in addressing com-
plex issues. Areas suggested as fruitful for
pilots included compliance monitoring,
enforcement, and pollution prevention.
Region II agreed to hold a meeting of its
States and territories during 1990 to dis-
cuss GIS technology and pilot projects.
17
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Region/State Breakout Sessions
Region III
• The Region will involve State IRM
and administration units in decisions re-
garding how States will report EPA-re-
quired data to national data bases.
• EPA should keep States informed of
future Agency software developments
and procurements so the States can con-
sider compatibility with EPA in their
system decisions.
* The Region will keep States up to
date on GIS technology and geographic
data collection standards developed by
EPA.
• The Region should help the States to
access specialized EPA software (e;g., e-
mail, file transfer, graphics), providing
training where needed.
• The Region will inquire into options
for back-up capabilities for the present
telecommunications links to NCC.
• Data the States submit for EPA na-
tional reports may be interpreted differ-
ently by EPA. The Region should work
with the States to develop procedures for
coordinating the release of their data to
the public and to Congress.
• The States would like to exchange
information on in-house data manage-
ment capabilities with each other. A
^Region/State clearinghouse could be de-
veloped to facilitate these exchanges.
• A Region/State data management
conference will be held in the spring,
probably in Philadelphia.
Keep States informed of EPA
software developments and
procurements
Help States access specialized EPA
software, providing training where
necessary
Coordinate with the State when
releasing State-reported data to
Congress and the Public
Facilitate interstate exchange of
information on in-house data
management
Establish a State/EPA IRM
workgroup
Facilitate grant funding for
IRM needs that cut across
program lines
Arrange and provide funding
support for common training
sessions
Inform States of expected
changes in reporting
requirements
Region IV
• A collegia! State/EPA group should
meet periodically to exchange informa-
tion on IRM activities and needs and to
share ideas on how to work together to
meet data management challenges. The
Region planned to host a workgroup
meeting in Atlanta in January at which
the mechanics of this on-going interac-
tion was to be discussed further. A po-
tential future product of this group is a
five-year plan describing how the States
and the Region will share capabilities
and work together to improve IRM sup-
port for environmental decisionmaking.
• EPA should make it easier for States
to use Federal funds to acquire data
management equipment, software, and
services intended for cross-cutting uses
rather than "ownership" by a single pro-
gram. States are very interested in find-
ing ways to pool funds from more than
one program grant to meet these com-
mon needs. The Region will survey each
State's cross-cutting needs and will then
look for the best way to arrange finan-
cial support for them.
* The Region should arrange and pro-
vide funding support for common train-
ing sessions to ensure that States know
how to take advantage of EPA's tools and
technologies. The Region will explore
further the possibility that joint ARC/
INFO training may be desirable.
• The Region should try to anticipate
changes in State reporting requirements
and inform the States as soon as possible
so they have more time to make the nec-
essary changes in their own date systems.
• Some States need more information on
how to make use of GIS technology and
how to extract data from multiple EPA
data bases for a single integrated analy-
sis.
18
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Region/State Breakout Sessions
Region V
* The Region declared that all Phase I
objectives of the State/EPA Data Man-
agement Program have been achieved in
Region V, and all resources will be dedi-
cated to Phase II in FY 1990. Region V
staff will work with each system's staff
to verify the continuing timeliness, ac-
curacy, and completeness of all States'
data.
• The Region and the States will con-
tinue the work begun in FY 1989 to es-
tablish a common facility identifier and
to enter State facility data into the FINDS
system. The Region V/State IRM Steer-
ing Committee will meet in January to
determine how the FY 1990 funds will
be allocated.
• The States requested that EPA's Of-
fice of Information Resources Manager
merit be available to participate in the
quarterly meetings of the Region V/State
IRM Steering Committee. Region V will
contact OERM when specific agenda items
require their participation.
• The Region's Management Division
will work with the Water Management Di-
vision to arrange increased EPA support
-for data management in the Great Lakes
Program. Effective use .of data systems
will be vital in helping the States and the
Region develop multi-media Remedial
Action Plans for the 42 "areas .of concern"
in the Great Lakes. <- ;
• In response to State concerns, the Re-
gion will seek participation by the States
in designing a strategic planning process
for the Region, in accordance with the
Deputy Administrator's initiative. " •
• The States urged the Region to com-
mit to longer-term investments in meet-
ing State needs, shifting the emphasis from
meeting EPA's "bean-counting" require-
ments to solving the problems of greatest
significance to each State.
Continue work to establish a
common facility identifier and .
enter State data into FINDS
Increase EPA support for data
management in the Great Lakes
Program
Seek State participation in EPA's
strategic planning process
Shift EPA focus from bean-
counting to longer-term
investments to meet critical State
needs
Establish a State/EPA Data
Management Council
Ensure that States are more
aware of useful EPA systems
and tools and receive the
training needed to use them
EPA coordinate States to create
integrated access to EPA data
bases
Inform the States of long-term
ADP plans so States can make
informed procurement decisions
Region VI
The participants in the Region VI break-:
out session were all top-level managers.
The discussion focused on areas for im-
provement in State/EPA" data manage-
ment and on-a mechanism for continu-
ing the involvement of top State manag^
ers in Region-wide data management
planning and review.. .
• A State/EPA Data Management
Council was established, composed of
the State agency heads and the Assistant
Regional Administrator for Policy arid
Management. The first meeting was ten-
tatively scheduled for early December in
Dallas, at which each State agency was
to describe its present data management
, capabilities arid needs. Work groups in-
cluding other State and EPA staff will,
be formed as nepessary to work on pro- •"
jects designated by the Council.
• States need EPA's assistance in mak-
ing better use of existing sources of data.
The Region should ensure that States are
aware of useful systems and tools and
receive the training required to make
effective use of EPA's systems for th'eir
own purposes.
• . Some States would like EPA to take
a' leadership role in integrating facility-
related data across programs and in pro-
viding a single point of user-friendly
access to all major EPA data bases.
• The Region should inform the States
aboufits long-term ADE plans, so that
States can make informed decisions on
software and hardware procurement.
. • The Region plans to increase the dia-
log between the IRM staff in-Dallas and.
their counterparts.in the State agencies.
19
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Region/State Breakout Sessions
Region VII
• The States acknowledged that data
quality is a continuing problem for some
EPA data systems, due to the lack of re-
sources in the States to perform adequate
quality assurance. The Region should
recognize this on-going need and earmark
more program grant funds for data qual-
ity activities.
* EPA should continue its efforts to
make it easier for State nontechnical staff
to retrieve data from and transmit data
to EPA's systems. Access to and inter-
pretation of data is not transparent
enough for nontechnical users. A repre-
sentative from Nebraska described the
"Gateway" prototype that has been de-
veloped there, with EPA's support, to
provide a single point of access to sev-
eral EPA systems.
• All States agreed that EPA should
continue its present support of CIS ac-
tivities. The need for non-GIS data inte-
gration sparked the most discussion,
however, with some States feeling that
Region VII should underwrite develop-
ment of a model multi-media integration
system that could eventually benefit all
four States.
• Common facility identifiers and loca-
tional data standards were identified as
two areas where immediate Region/State
action is needed to permit EPA-State and
State-State data integration. The Region
should coordinate work on these fronts.
• The Region will convene a meeting of
State and Regional IRM and program
staff early in 1990 to continue the dis-
cussion on how best to promote data in-
tegration in the Region.
• With respect to GIS and other IRM
initiatives, EPA should decide early who
will buy what equipment—EPA or the
States—and inform the States so they can
plan for critical hardware and software
expenditures in advance.
Provide increased support to
States for data quality assurance
Continue efforts to make it easier
to interact with EPA systems
Coordinate multistate efforts to
establish common IDs and
locational data standards
Inform States of EPA plans for
procuring hardware and software
Provide more training for State
IRM and program staffs
States should identify potential
data integration projects for
Phase II
States should create IRM
Steering Committees
Inform States better about EPA
IRM standards, fiscal trends,
and impending regulations
20
Region VIII
• On-going training for data managers,
program managers, and ADP staff is a
continuing need in the States.
• Some States feel that EPA collects
more data from the States than is neces-
sary. The Region, with cooperation of the
States, should review existing data bases
and data elements to determine how and
why data is used. The Region will ob-
serve a similar effort underway in Region
X before embarking on its own program
to remove unused data.
• All States have received or are plan-
ning to receive technical assistance from
the Region through the State/EPA Data
Management Program, and they wish to
continue this assistance through Phase II
of the Program. Each State should begin
to identify data integration projects, such
as GIS applications, expert systems, or
integrated facility management systems,
so that the Region can determine how
to allocate its resources under Phase II.
• To improve coordination with EPA
and to help develop and implement an
ADP plan, each State should create an
IRM Steering Committee. Such commit-
tees have been very successful within
EPA.
• The Regional Office and EPA Head-
quarters must improve communications
and coordination with the States to in-
form them of developing data, software,
and hardware standards; fiscal trends;
and impending program regulations.
Without this information, the States can-
not set and adhere to long-term ADP
strategies.
• The Region will arrange a Region/
State data management conference for
the Spring of 1990.
-------
Region/State Breakout Sessions
Region IX
• Topics discussed in the session in-
clude: status of State telecommunications
links to NCC; EPA and State GIS im-
plementation plans; and improving data
integration between EPA and State agen-
cies.
• The Region will prepare a draft
Memorandum of Understanding on State/
EPA data management improvement ac-
tivities for each State by Spring of 1990.
The Region hopes to have all MOUs in
place by the end of 1990.
• The Region will develop an action
plan for in-depth training of State staff
in use of EPA's major data systems.
• Efforts are needed to improve com-
munications between EPA and State sen-
ior management regarding the State/EPA
Data Management Program and its ob-
jectives.
• The Region will assist each State in
developing a State locational data policy
similar to EPA's.
• The Region will assist States, to the
extent possible, in procuring heeded data
management equipment. The Region's
IRM Branch will become more involved
in the grant negotiation process when data
collection and ADP equipment are ad-
dressed.
• The Region will develop a GIS cen-
ter, expected to be operational by the end
of FY 1990.
• The Region will explore the possi-
bility of an annual Region/State con-
ference on data management.
Have State/EPA MOUs in place
by the end of 1990
Develop an action plan for in-
depth training of State staff on
major EPA systems
Assist in developing State
locational data policies
Help States obtain more grant
support for ADP needs
Draw on Washington and
Oregon experiences to find
ways to make better use of
environmental data to support
decisionmaking
Establish a Region/State
workgroup on data
management issues
Identify an initial cooperative
project that will benefit all four
States and EPA
Region X
• The discussion centered on the gen-
eral need in Region X and nationally to
find ways to make better use of environ-
mental data to support decisionmaking.
Representatives from Washington and
Oregon described their activities in this
realm and the needs that these experi-
ences have highlighted.
• In its "Washington Environment
2010" project, Washington found that its
data needs for risk^based priority^setting
were not well served by the State's cur-
rent data systems and sources. The State
now is seeking to upgrade and integrate
some of these systems. Oregon found, in
attempting to make environmental risk
assessments, that State epidemiologists in
the Department of Health did not concur
with the environmental scientists' esti-
mates of certain cancer risks. Coordina-
tion is needed to determine the data re-
quirements for valid risk assessments.
* The States agreed that one important
way to move ahead in using environ-
mental data is to share experiences with
each other and to develop joint projects
where appropriate to pool their knowl-
edge and resources. To facilitate this, the
States and the Region will form a work
group on data management issues, to be
composed of senior IRM officials from
each agency, with program participation
as appropriate.
• Region X will host the first meeting
of the work group, which they hoped to
convene before the end of the year. A
long-range objective of the group will be
to cultivate a better understanding be-
tween program managers and data man-
agers about how to improve information
support for risk-based, results-oriented
decisionmaking. A shorter-range objective
will be to identify a first project that will
benefit all four States and EPA.
21
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Dinner Address
Harnessing Market Forces to Meet
Today's Environmental Protection Challenges
"The environmental problems
we face demand new attitudes
and new tools."
"I do believe that a healthy
environment and a healthy
economy go hand in hand, and
that our regulations should set
up incentives for companies to
develop solutions, to do the
right thing in the first place
instead of require costly clean-
ups as an afterthought."
(
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Keynote Address
Tools That Enhance Environmental Analysis
Jack Dangermond
President
Environmental Systems Research Institute
Noting with pleasure that the conference was being held
during the national Geography Awareness Week, Jack
Dangermond presented his thought-provoking views on the role of geographic
information systems in environmental management. Dangermond, one of the
"fathers" of CIS and perhaps the technology's leading visionary, encouraged^
the audience to consider GIS the road to using data more effectively in supporting
environmental decisionmaking.
He set the stage for his forward-looking comments with a nontechnical
description of the GIS technology today—sets of data describing "objects" (e.g.,
points or areas on a map), plus about 1,000 different software tools for
manipulating this data. Environmental decisionmakers can use this highly visual
approach, he said, to get new insights from "nearness" analyses of existing but
hitherto tabular data.
He briefly described several areas in which GIS technology will evolve in the
next few years:
• We will move from the ability to bring a couple of data sets together to
easily bringing many together.
• New software tools will allow indexing of many different data representation
modes—maps, photos, drawings, tabular data, etc.—in a GIS data base, making
it easier to incorporate two or more data modes in a single analysis.
• Icon-based, point-and-click interfaces will be used increasingly to make it
easier to access die tools and the data sets.
• "Data switchyards" will be employed to reorganize GIS data base structures
"on the fly" so they can be used with different kinds of software tools.
• Most GIS processing will be performed on networks of small, very powerful
workstations rather than large, central computers.
Dangermond concluded with his vision of GIS as a mechanism for bridging
many of the organizational and communications problems that inhibit com-
prehensive, integrated approaches to environmental problem solving. The
traditional sectorial approaches are not going to work for us in the future, he
said, and sharing of data through GIS-based joint analyses can be instrumental
in bringing about a cross-organizational mindset. Our public and private
organizations should be restructured around the use of maps to promote integrated
analyses and to "roll information up" for easier decisionmaking by management.
"GIS, to me, is a means of bringing people together to work on these complex
problems," he said, "to address crime not just with police, to address air pollution
not just with EPA but in a more comprehensive way. The questions is: Who's
going to do it? It's very risky to step out. I believe that it's time we begin to
take a stand for integrating information, and I believe that will provide us the
basis for more integrated thinking in our sciences and among our policy people."
"This is what I call information
integration—disparate data
types, often collected by
different sciences and different
disciplines, being brought
together to give us visualization
and guidance about where to do
certain things, from a strategic
standpoint."
"Geography can be the common
key that allows us to interrelate,
or have inter-operability among,
the existing investments [in
environmental data sets] today
and also in the future."
"You, as professionals, will lay
the footprints for how the
methodologies will be
established and effectively
employed in the next decade, the
next century. In other words,
we're about to go into an
adventure, you and I, to
discover how we can use
information effectively in policy-
making"
23
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Program Breakout Panels
Improving Information Use
Rice: "We'd like these panels
to be as interactive as possible
to give you a chance to
contribute...,! think this can be
a stimulus for all of our
thinking about where we
should go with information
management."
Kay: "We're going to be
pouring information into [an
environmental indicators
system], and then when we get
information out of the system
everyone is going to assume it
is accurate—because it came
from the system. I think we
have to be very careful about
the quality of the information
we put in."
Kay: "We recognize that in
many instances the States have
priorities that are different,
perhaps, than what our
national program offices may
think is necessary. At the
Regional level, we attempt to
achieve a working relationship
and some balance in that. I
think there is a good sense of
awareness at EPA of trying to
achieve that good working
relationship with our States."
24
William W. Rice
Deputy Regional Administrator
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region VII
(General Moderator)
Panel Members
ENVIRONMENTAL INDICATORS AND STRATEGIC PLANNING
Moderator: Morris Kay, Regional Administrator, EPA Region VII
3. Clarence Davies III, Asst. Administrator, EPA Office of Policy, Planning
and Evaluation
Stanley L. Laskowski, Deputy Regional Administrator, EPA Region HI
Erich W. Bretthauer, Asst. Administrator, EPA Office of Research and Development
AIR
Moderator: Jack McGraw, Deputy Regional Administrator, EPA Region VIII
Gerald Emison, Director, EPA Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards
Roger Westman, Bureau of Air Pollution Control, Allegheny (PA) County Health
Department
Don Theiier, Director, Bureau of Air Management, Wisconsin Department of Natural
Resources
William A. Spratlin, Director, Air and Toxics Division, EPA Region VII
WATER
Moderator: Frank Covington, Deputy Regional Administrator, EPA Region V
Douglas "Dusty" Hall, Environmental Protection Manager, City of Dayton, Ohio
Jim Williams, Director, Missouri Division of Geology and Land Survey
Stephen R. Wassersug, Director, Hazardous Waste Division, EPA Region III
Michael Evans, Carroll County (MD) Health Department
Bill Wiley, Arizona Department of Environment
Karol Erickson, Washington Department of Ecology
David Fierra, Director, Water Management Division, EPA Region I
HAZARDOUS WASTE
Moderator: James Marshall, Director, Office of External Programs, EPA Region II
Jeffrey Denit, Deputy Director, EPA Office of Solid Waste
James Miller, Waste Management Division, EPA Region IV
Valerie Sikes, Financial Assurance Analyst, Georgia Environmental Protection Division
Robert Morby, Chief, Superfund Branch, EPA Region VII
TOXICS INFORMATION INTEGRATION
Moderator: William W. Rice, Deputy Regional Administrator, EPA Region VII
Charles Elkins, Director, EPA Office of Toxic Substances
William Fariand, Director, EPA Office of Health and Environmental Assessment
Brent Bradford, Deputy Director, Utah Division of Environmental Health
Irwin L. Dickstein, Director, Air and Toxics Division, EPA Region VIII
-------
in Environmental Programs
Environmental Indicators and Strategic Planning
Terry Davies, EPA's Assistant Administrator for Policy, Planning, and
Evaluation, pointed to two important EPA initiatives that emphasize the
Agency's commitment to using environmental indicators: the new strategic
planning process, which requires use of indicators; and the task force to
develop a Center for Environmental Statistics, which would assist in
improving data and its use in deriving indicators,
Stan Laskowski, Region Ill's Deputy. Regional Administrator, cited three
major challenges EPA faces in developing and using environmental
indicators: to develop Agencywide policies for the development,
management, and implementation of monitoring; to provide standard
reference materials, technical manuals, and guidance, and to accredit
laboratories; arid to adopt standard methods and common "core" indicators
that can be monitored consistently by agencies at all levels of government
nationwide. These challenges will be addressed by EPA's newly established
Environmental Monitoring Management Council, which will foster
consistency and simplicity in monitoring methods and analysis across all
environmental media.
Erich Bretthauer; Assistant Administrator for Research and Development,
announced that EPA plans to commit $40 million to indicators research
over the next three years;—$30 million for an Ecological Institute to develop
new indicators, and $10 million for evaluating and standardizing existing
indicators. To build on the available expertise, ORD will work actively with
EPA's Regional Offices, State agencies, and other Federal agencies in
developing and implementing indicators, Bretthauer promised.
In summarizing the key points of the presentations, Moderator Morris Kay
highlighted the importance of quality assurance in developing and using
environmental indicators. Without stringent quality control measures, he said,
we will not truly know whether our decisions are sound and our actions
effective, even when the quantity of the data appears adequate.
Davies: "For policy purposes, the
reading you get as to whether
you're doing any good, whether
you're having any effect in the
real world, is encompassed in
environmental indicators."
Laskowski: "We need public
support for what we do, and we
have to be able to explain to the
public what our measurements
mean and that they are consistent
from one part of the country to
another."
Bretthauer: "We've been working
rather aggressively over the last
year and a half to put in place
the agreements that are necessary
with the other Federal agencies
and State agencies that need to be
involved in this program."
Air
Gerald Emison, Director, OAQPS, presented "AIRS 101," a thorough
overview of EPA's new Aerometric Information Retrieval System. He noted
that, while AIRS is a major step forward for EPA and the States in terms of
air data systems, the system can only be as good as the quality of its data.
County air planner Roger Westman called for additional EPA emphasis on
comprehensive emissions inventories, which can be important sources of
information for local and state air quality managers. Don Theiler urged
continued attention to data quality and timeliness and looked ahead to systems
that are updated in "real time," always giving decisionmakers the latest
monitoring results. He also stressed that EPA must use State data responsibly,
citing instances where news media have misinterpreted Wisconsin data
supplied by EPA.
Westman: "We must get out of
doing special-purpose emissions
inventories and into doing
regular, comprehensive, accurate
inventories."
Theiler: "EPA really must bring
to the States and Locals the
advantages of working with them
in setting up these systems....
This has to be more than just
saving money. EPA must also
begin to use this data
responsibly."
25
-------
Program Breakout Panels
Improving Information Use in Environmental Programs
(Continued)
Wiley: "Don't make major data
management decisions without
us. Keep us informed,"
Evans: "We at the local level are
in a much better position to tell
EPA what good data is than EPA
is in to tell us what good data
is."
Water
Presentations by the first three panelists provided local, State, and Federal
perspectives on using Geographic Information Systems to support
groundwater programs: Dusty Hall on the City of Dayton's Wellhead
Protection Program; Jim Williams on the Missouri geological survey's
enforcement of regulations on drilling private water wells; and Steve
Wassersug on EPA Region El's region-wide assessment of groundwater risks
and pollution trends. The second group of panelists—Michael Evans, Bill
Wiley, Karol Erickson, and Dave Fierra—addressed data sharing goals, roles,
and obstacles. Panelists and audience members discussed the need for more
information about available data; standards for minimum data sets to support
decisions; greater consistency and linkage among existing data systems; and
breaking down the institutional barriers between media programs.
Sikes: "Through the monumental
cooperative efforts of EPA
Headquarters, the National
Governors Association, the
Regions, and the States, RCRIS
is an improvement over Us
predecessor, and this partnership
must continually strive to
understand and protect each
participant's needs and goals."
Hazardous Waste
EPA's Jeff Denit reviewed the rationale, history, and current status of RCRIS,
the new data system that soon will replace HWDMS. Jim Miller from EPA's
Region IV office provided a more detailed description of RCRIS and its
capabilities and described the four-state pilot implementation conducted in
Region IV in May and June. Valerie Sikes from Georgia hailed the State/
EPA partnership in developing RCRIS, and she urged strict adherence to
the configuration management process. Memoranda of Understanding must
be executed, she said, to ensure that States have a say in determining what
data they will provide to EPA. Bob Morby gave a status update on CERCLIS,
EPA's national Superfund data management system.
Bradford: "The area of risk
management has become the
driving force, in our State, in
environmental management. That
then forces us into the business
of information integration,
particularly with respect to toxics.
Without it, I don't think we can
do our jobs properly."
26
Toxics Information Integration
Chuck Elkins, Director, OTS, described the status and plans for the Toxics
Release Inventory System (TRIS), EPA's general-access data base of
information reported by industry in accordance with SARA, Title III
requirements. Bill Farland discussed the Integrated Risk Information System
(IRIS) and ORD's plans for expanding access outside the Agency. Brent
Bradford identified several areas in which the State of Utah has a critical
need for access to information on toxic chemicals, including risk-based
permitting and siting of new facilities. Irv Dickstein cited three uses of toxics
information in EPA Regional Offices: compliance reviews and inspection
targeting; geographical studies;- and risk screening. Wide-ranging audience
contributions included descriptions of toxics information activities in
California, Georgia, and Nebraska.
-------
Panel: The Conservation Foundation
Great Lakes, Great Legacy?
Lessons From a Bi-National State-of-the-Environment Report
Dr. Jeff Leonard, Vice-President, Conservation Foundation
Richard A. Lirofif, Senior Associate, Conservation Foundation
Dr. Ian Jackson, Consultant to the Institute for Research on Public Policy,
Ottawa, Canada
The panel reviewed the process, findings, and implications of a two-year
joint U. S.-Canadian study of the condition of the environment in the Great
Lakes region. The study report, Great Lakes, Great Legacy?, released in
October 1989, was co-written by the Conservation Foundation and the Institute
for Research on Public Policy of Canada. This report called for urgent,
unprecedented action by Federal, State, Provincial, and local governments in
both countries to reverse the degradation the study found to be threatening
the long-term environmental health of the Great Lakes.
Moderator Jeff Leonard introduced the presentations by noting that the
Conservation Foundation views the Great Lakes as a microcosm for problems
that are facing the world and that he hopes the messages of the study will be
heeded globally. The problems are the same as those now faced in many
other places, he said. While there is little raw sewage going into the lakes
any more and few factories with unpermitted discharges, other problems are
looming—such as the effects of agricultural and urban run-off, and the
concentration of past pollution into small areas such as lake-bottom sediments
and derelict toxic waste dumps.
Rich Liroff provided an historical and geographic overview of the Great Lakes
Region and then reviewed the study's major findings. General trends
discovered—mainly through analysis of existing data—include the increasingly
significant effects of air pollution (including acid precipitation) and the
biomagnification of toxics in the food web. The study also indicates; he said,
that exposure to pollution in the waters of the Great Lakes causes
developmental problems for many species as well as having the more familiar
carcinogenic effects. According to the report's authors, the policy implications
of these and the other findings include: the need to improve public health
warnings concerning fish taken from the lakes; the need for enhanced research
on the threats to public health; the need for more explicit consideration of
environmental impacts in planning for economic development; and the need
to move beyond end-of-the-pipe control of pollution in the region. Liroff
stressed the need to to take an integrated, multi-media approach to restoring
and protecting the environmental quality of the Great Lakes.
Ian Jackson, representing the Canadian point of view, addressed the
implications of the study for environmental information management. The
experience gained in the study indicates the importance of taking an ecosystem
approach as a framework for environmental decisionmaking. Present
information systems are not well-equipped to support this effort, though. Many
data sets are available, but they are organized by environmental medium and
there are no tools and little experience to integrate them. Much of the solution,
he suggested, will lie in taking a more integrated approach to collecting new
data in the future. "I think many scientists are going to have to ask themselves
what the value of their monitoring resources, as now focused, would be in
alternative uses," Jackson said.
Leonard: "We hope that this
experience serves as a positive
model in the United States for
bilateral and multilateral
cooperation. It helps lead the
way for us to realize
increasingly that protecting our
Environment, and particularly
the world environment, is a
global task and must be met
with U. S. leadership and active
cooperation at the international
level."
Liroff: "All of these data were
out there—there were the other
data, the mink data, the fish
data, the bird data—a little bit
here, a little bit there. It took
this project...to bring all that
information together to help
identify some of the common
findings among these disparate
bodies of data"
Jackson: "Not merely are
different jurisdictions measuring
different things in different ways
at different times for different
purposes—quite often they don't
really know what they're
measuring."
27
-------
Panel
Public Access to Environmental Information
Elkins: "It is not good public
policy to deprive all the
legitimate and intelligent
second-time users of our
information of its benefits just
to guard against an occasional
misguided user."
Poje: "The Federal
environmental protection
agencies and their namesakes
at the State and Local level
have a much more important
role than collecting
information. They have to
present that information in
such a way that it lives in our
communities."
Bass: "We have gone beyond
the Us versus Them. We are
now at a stage of a great deal
of opportunities for
cooperation. This is a whole
new arena, something unlike
anything we've come through
in terms of working together.
We have a common mission,
and that is: how to effectively
get information out to the
public."
Garie: "It would be nice if
environmental agencies
became known as the 'Show
Me' agencies, that we were
able to actually show people
how we made our decisions.
We truly believe that those
decisions are made using good
data—now it's time for us to
show others. And hopefully
that will help us to establish, or
reestablish, some of the trust
and credibility that we need as
we're serving the public."
28
Edward J. Hanley, Moderator, Deputy Assistant Administrator for
Administration and Resources Management, U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency
Charles Elkins, Director, Office of Toxic Substances, U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency
Gerald Poje, Environmental Toxicologist, National Wildlife Federation
Gary Bass, Executive Director, OMB Watch
Hank Garie, Assistant Director, Division of Science and Research, New Jersey
Department of Environmental Protection
"The public doesn't want simply our press releases and our meetings," moderator
Ed Hanley declared in opening the session. "They want direct access to the
data we process describing their environment and their natural resources." While
acknowledging the "real and enormous practical problems" with public access to
EPA's data, Hanley said that the time has come to consider the subject seriously
and determine whether the obstacles can be overcome.
Chuck Elkins forcefully advocated "recycling" of environmental data, just as we
increasingly recycle solid wastes. In too many cases, he said, our information
efforts have followed the same trends as "no deposit, no return" soda bottles—
only the "owner" gets to use it. If we are truly stewards of environmental
information as opposed to owners, as was suggested elsewhere in the conference,
then we have an obligation to recycle it so others can also benefit. He suggested
that EPA may be acting like an overly protective parent in its fear that sharing
data with the public will lead to frequent misunderstandings and misuses.
Gerald Poje urged the audience to change hats from their roles as environmental
managers and look at the issue from their viewpoint as citizens in their communi-
ties. There are many legitimate reasons for public concern about their local
environment, he said, citing drinking water quality, food contamination, and acid
rain effects among other examples. "Owners" of the environmental data at EPA
and elsewhere have to think like average citizens, Poje stressed, if we are to get
beyond the barrier of fear that people are going to do something with the data
that government officials would not like to see.
Gary Bass pointed out that upcoming changes to the Paperwork Reduction Act
will mandate a change in the way Federal organizations must act'as information
providers, making agencies responsible for disseminating information regardless
of its format. He noted five things that will be needed to get agencies like EPA
into the public access arena: resources; improved agency commitments and in-
ternal communications; increased public participation in planning of access routes
to the information; clearer common definitions of terms such as "access" and
"user-friendly;" and exploration of different channels for distributing information.
Hank Garie outlined three needs for improved information sharing with the public.
Agencies must: use the data they collect in making sound decisions, employing
tools like GIS to increase integrated decision-making where possible; commit to
a philosophy of openness to the public, characterized by transparent decision
processes based on dialog with affected communities; and develop mechanisms
for sharing relevant data in understandable ways. Garie described New Jersey's
efforts to use GIS as a public communication tool in assessing human exposure
to chromium contamination around Jersey City.
-------
Closing Remarks
EPA Pledges Continued Action
Charles L. Grizzle
Assistant Administrator for Administration
and Resources Management
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Charley Grizzle formally closed the conference by pledging five actions that
EPA will take to sustain the momentum established during the 1989 National
Environmental 'Information Conference:
1, Conduct more extensive long-range IRM planning, the indispensable
foundation for wise investments by EPA and the States.
2. Continue the capacity-building efforts of the State/EPA Data
Management Program, including:
•• Providing training to States in the use of individual EPA systems
and also in broader IRM activities; and
• Providing technical assistance to ensure that EPA's data sharing
partners are realizing all the benefits of existing systems.
3. Encourage additional participation by EPA's national program offices
in the State/EPA data sharing initiative, to ensure a consistent,
unified, multi-media effort.
4. Continue three initiatives of importance to EPA and the States:
• Through EPA's recently established Systems Development Center,
provide the technical and fiscal means for developing and enhancing
systems of value to the wider environmental community;
• Establish appropriate standards .and policies to guide and facilitate
data integration; . ,
As the focus of the State/EPA Data Management Program shifts to
data integration, retain the commitment to the Phase I goals of timely,
accurate, and complete data in all of EPA's national systems. "
5. Form a Federal/State team to determine what specific actions are
needed now to consolidate the gains made so far and capitalize on
the energy and and interest generated during this conference.
"Data sharing partnerships
must become a program office
priority, not just a data
management priority."
"We have the technology and
the expertise. Now we must
also have a change in our
mindset in order to achieve
real progress."
"I challenge you all to leave
here with a renewed resolve
to ensure that the information
pillar of our environmental
mission is sound. Our
success depends on it."
29
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Appendix
Organizations Represented
State Agencies
Alabama Department of Environmental Management
Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation
Arizona Department of Environmental Quality
Arkansas Department of Pollution Control and Ecology
California Department of Health Services
California Environmental Affairs Agency
California Water Resources Control Board
Colorado Department of Health
Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection
Delaware Department of Natural Resources and
Environmental Control
District of Columbia Department of Consumer and
Regulatory Affairs
Florida Department of Environmental Regulation
Georgia Environmental Protection Division
Guam Environmental Protection Agency
Hawaii State Department of Health
Idaho Department of Health and Welfare
Illinois Environmental Protection Agency
Indiana Department of Environmental Management
Iowa Department of Natural Resources
Iowa Department of Public Health
Kansas Department of Health and Environment
Kansas Department of Wildlife & Parks
Kansas Geological Survey
Kentucky Department for Environmental Protection
Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality
Maine Department of Environmental Protection
Maryland Department of Environment
Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection
Massachusetts Executive Office of Environmental Affairs
Michigan Department of Natural Resources
Minnesota Pollution Control Agency
Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality
Missouri Department of Natural Resources
Missouri Soil Conservation Service
Montana Department of Health and Environment
Nebraska Department of Environmental Control
Nevada Division of Environmental Protection
New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services
New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection
New Mexico Environmental Improvement Division
New York Department of Environmental Conservation
North Carolina Department of Environment, Health &
Natural Resources
North Dakota State Department of Health
Ohio Environmental Protection Agency
Oklahoma Department of Pollution Control
Oklahoma State Department of Health
Oregon Department of Agriculture
Oregon Department of Environmental Quality
Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Resources
Puerto Rico Environmental Quality Board
Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management
South Carolina Department of Health and Environment
South Dakota Department of Water and Natural
Resources
Tennessee Department of Health and Environment
Texas Air Control Board
Texas Water Commission
Texas Water Development Board
Utah Division of Environmental Health
Vermont Agency of Environmental Conservation
Virginia Office of Natural Resources
Washington Department of Ecology
Washington State Department of Health
West Virginia Air Pollution Control Commission
West Virginia Division of Waste Management
West Virginia Division of Water Resources
Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources
Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality
National Governors' Association
U. S, Environmental Protection Agency
Regions I - X
Office of the Administrator
Office of Administration and Resources Management
Office of Air and Radiation
Office of Enforcement and Compliance Monitoring
Office of External Affairs
Office of General Counsel
Office of Inspector General
Office of Pesticides and Toxic Substances
Office of Policy, Planning, and Evaluation
Office of Regional Operations
Office of Research and Development
Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response
Office of Water
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at the Conference
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
(Continued)
••*
Great Lakes National Program Office
National Data Processing Division/National Computer
Center
National Enforcement Information Center
Other Federal
Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry
Bureau of Land Management
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
National Park Service
Office of Management and Budget
U. S. Army, Corps of Engineers
U. S. Army, Fort Huachuca, Arizona
U.S. Department of Agriculture • "
U.S. Department of Defense
U. S Department of Housing and Urban Development
U. S. Fish & Wildlife Service
U. S. Geological Survey
Local and Regional
Allegheny County (Pennsylvania) Health Department
Carroll County (Maryland) Department of.Health
City of Dayton, Ohio .
Kansas City, Kansas Fire Department
Lower Plane North (Nebraska) Natural Resources District
South Coast (California) Air Quality Management District
Wyandotte County (Kansas)
Native American
Americans for Indian Opportunity
Council of Energy Resource Tribes . ' .
Great Lakes Indian Fish & Game Commission
National Congress of American Indians
Northwest Indian: Fish Commission
International
Canadian Department of Environment
Centrum Voor Milieukundej Leiden University (The
Netherlands)
National Institute for Physical Planning and Construction
Resources (Ireland)
INFOTERRA Programme-Activity Center (Kenya)
International Register of Potentially Toxic Chemicals
(Switzerland)
Institute for Research on Public Policy (Canada)
Ministry of Local Government and Lands (Botswana)
Ministry of Housing and Regional Planning (Uganda)
United Nations Environment Programme
Public Interest
The Conservation Foundation
Environmental Defense Fund
National Wildlife Federation
OMB Watch
Academic and Research
Environmental Systems Research Institute
Harvard University
Kansas State University
Midwest Research Institute
State University of New York—Syracuse
'Trailridge Middle School
University of Cincinnati
University of Kansas
Washington University
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