United States Environmental Protection Agency
May 1993

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FOREWORD
The EPA, States and other Federal agencies with Interests In the Great Lakes share a common data
dilemma which Is accurately summarized tn thefollowlng excerpt takenfrom Vice President Gore's
book Earth in the Balance. "Our current approach to Information resembles our old agricultural
policy. We used to store mountains of excess grain in silos throughout the Midwest and let it rot,
while millions around the world died of starvation. It was easier to subsidize growing more corn
than to create a system for feeding those who were hungry. Now we have silos of excess data
rotting while millions hunger for the solutions to unprecedented problems.'' To remedy this
situation, we need to accomplish two objectives. First, we must begin to understand the specific
information required to make effective decisions on ecosystem management and target our
resources accordingly. Secondly, recognizing our need to internalize the information we are
already collecting, we need to develop systems that provide consistent, undemanding procedures
for accessing our existing information, and the information analysis and presentation tools to turn
that Information into knowledge.
The Great Lakes Information Strategy Plan (ISP) has moved us toward the first of the above
objectives by identifying the priority Information needs for the Great Lakes. We are beginning to
meet the second objective by initiating the Great Lakes Envirofacts Pilot Project which will address
the highest priority Information need, the "Determination of chemical loadings by lake, by
tributary, by airshed and by facility.''
The specific goal of the Great Lakes Envirofacts Pilot Is to put multiple-source, toxic chemical
loadings Information Into the hands of State and EPA staff that make decisions about environmen-
tal protection tn the Great Lakes. Great Lakes program partners can provide significant direction
to the project through active participation, resulting in a system that can directly support our
environmental protection business In the Great Lakes.
We wish to facilitate your participation In the Great Lakes Envirofacts Pilot Project by providing
desktop hardware and software tn order to help you determine your detailed requirements for a
full-scale Great Lakes Envirofacts.
We lookforward to your continued support and participation In efforts to develop capabilities to
meet our environmental challenges tn the Great Lakes.
United States Environmental Protection Agency
Great Lakes National Program Office
Christopher Grundler, Director
May 1993

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INTRODUCTION
In October and November of 1992, the EPA Great Lakes
National Program Office (GLNPO) distributed a docu-
ment entitled "Great Lakes Information Strategy - Infor-
mation Needs Summary." That report summarized the
initial results of our effort to collect the highest-priority,
unmet information requirements of the Multi-Agency Great
Lakes Program (GLP). As the Information Needs Sum-
mary was distributed, we asked our Program Partners for
confirmation of the information needs and an indication of
their relative importance. The purpose of this report is to
capture the results of the information needs confirmation
process, and to outline the expected next steps in the Great
Lakes Information Strategy process including develop-
ment of the Great Lakes Envirofacts Pilot.
CONFIRMATION OF INFORMATION
NEEDS

In the spring of 1992,
GLNPO and the EPA Of-
fice of Information Man-
agement (OIRM) began the
development of the Great
Lakes Information Strategy Plan (ISP). The primary
objective of an ISP is to develop a strategy for the
development of integratable/shareable information sys-
tems that can give program managers the information
required to formulate and adjust strategies for managing
the Great Lakes.
One of the important first steps in this process was the
collection of GLP information needs. Key environmental
managers from the Great Lakes States, tribal groups,
USEPA and other Federal Agencies were interviewed to
determine what information they required to effectively
manage their programs under the Great Lakes 5-Year
Strategy. Information needs were gathered with the ex-
pressed intent of prioritizing future systems development
efforts based on the unmet information needs of highest
priority to the GLP.
In October 1992, GLNPO published the Information
Needs Summary detailing the results of the executive
interview/information need collection process. Concur-
rent with the distribution of that report, members of the
U.S. Policy Committee and participants in the executive
interview process were given the opportunity to confirm
whether the information needs collected were in fact criti-
cal to the GLP. Additionally, these Program managers
were given the opportunity to add unmet information needs
that the ISP failed to uncover, and to edit the language of
the listed information needs as appropriate.
RESULTS
The final prioritization of in-
formation needs is based on the
responses to the request for
confirmation, additions, and
edits of the information needs
collected through the ISP
process. Thirty-five responses were received from seven
Great Lakes States, six Federal agencies, one Tribal
organization, and one non-profit organization. The re-
spondents represent a good cross-section of the Great
Lakes Program partners, and their input was used to
prioritize the Program's information needs.
There was general consensus among the Program partners
that virtually all of the initial information needs were
important to the GLP, although some were clearly more
critical than others. The information needs most often
confirmed by the respondents as critical to the Great Lakes
Program are listed as the top priorities for systems devel-
opment. Subsequently, those information needs least often
cited as being critical to the GLP are at the bottom of the
priority list. The complete list of 30 GLP information need
priorities is included in this report as Appendix A1. The top
five information need priorities for the Great Lakes Pro-
gram are listed below:
Top 5 GLP Information Need Priorities:
4) Sediment criteria standards

CONCLUSIONS
The robust response to the
effort to prioritize the GLP
information needs indicates
that GLP managers take seri-
ously their requirements for
information. The majority of
information needs identified through the ISP process re-
flect the cross-program, multi-media philosophy of the
Great Lakes Program. The top five information needs:
loadings, environmental indicators, risk identification, sedi-
rr>
Great Lake* Information Strategy t May 1003

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ment, and ambient monitoring all clearly require integrated
information that crosses both Program and environmental
media boundaries. This is a clear indication that the Great
Lakes Program is moving positively toward operating
from an wholistic, ecological platform, rather than from
the traditional single-media or programmatic base.
Of course, hidden behind each of the multi-media informa-
tion requirements, is the need for clear, quality-assured
data from each of the media programs and across agency
boundaries. The primary reason that the GLP does not
currently have information systems to adequately address
our strategic information needs is not the lack of technol-
ogy to develop systems, but a lack of data to support such
systems. Therefore, to facilitate the development of useful
information systems, GLP Partners will have to cooperate
in collecting high quality information on a timely basis. To
fully integrate GLP data, and to maximize use and sharing
of data, our major data collection activities must be
coordinated to ensure consistency in the types of informa-
tion collected and to ensure consistency in our data man-
agement practices.
NEXT STEPS
Over the remainder of 1993, the GLNPO will focus on
three major efforts under our information strategy includ-
ingsystem prototyping, integrationof GreatLakes monitor-
ing and inventory efforts, and data access and visualiza-
tion.
SYSTEM PROTOTYPING
The Information Need Priori-
ties List (Appendix A) will be
used to prioritize systems de-
velopment and in formation col-
lection efforts for the Great
Lakes Program. Those inform-
ation needs at the head of the list will become the top system
development priorities. The feasibility of systems devel-
opment will be based primarily on the existence of suffi-
cient data to support such systems. Instances in which data
quantity and/or quality is insufficient to support high-
priority systems development efforts will obviate the ne-
cessity for improved data collection efforts.
In Calendar Year(CY) 1993, GLNPO, in conjunction with
OIRM and EPA's Office of Water, will take the first step
in the systems development process under the Great Lakes
ISP. This effort will focus on toxic loadings, the highest
priority information need for the GLP. The long-term,
multi-year goals of this effort are to produce an integrated
system for the assessment of toxic chemical loadings to the
Great Lakes from all of the environmental media sources,
and to explore the technology required to make this system
available for use on the desktops of the Program Partners.
In 1993, our systems development efforts will be focussed
on delivering The Great Lakes Envirofacts Pilot, which
will enable users to access facility/point-source informa-
tion (e.g. Permit Compliance System, Toxic Release In-
ventory, etc.) for all eight Great Lakes States, as well as
environmental monitoring information for a specific geo-
graphic area and view it in a spatial context.
Based on the existence of a rich, multi-media, dataset from
the Green Bay Mass Balance Study (GBMB), the Green
Bay/Fox River watershed is the proposed geographic
extent for the environmental monitoring information for
this Pilot. The five Great Lakes Areas of Concern that are
the focus of EPA's Assessment and Remediation of
Contaminated Sediments (ARCS) study are also being
considered due to the quality of the resultant sediment data.
Great Lakes Envirofacts will be designed by environmen-
tal professionals from State and Federal programs to
empower GLP staff members to access, analyze and
communicate Great Lakes information from the desktop.
This system will also be used to evaluate users' technical
requirements for information systems, and ultimately to
facilitate the development of a system that supports envi-
ronmental protection and management on an ecosystem or
geographic basis. Lastly, data quality feedback mecha-
nisms will be established to facilitate correction of data
quality problems.
ENVIROFACTStGATEWA Y
The Great Lakes Envirofacts Pilot will build upon
and test the utility or the Envlrofacts/Gaieway concept devel-
oped by OIRM for solving geographic data access problems.
ENVIROFACTS Is a relational database containing
downloaded Information from El'A's databases Including
TRIS, FINDS, PCS, and CERCL1S, Other EPA databases
(AIRS, ROUS, STORED "UJ be added as soon as possible.
GATEWAY fc a common user interface, or user
access tool, allowing environmental Information to be easily
retrieved from * variety of relational databases Including
Envirofacts. Perhaps most Importantly Gateway will allow
geographically referenced retrieval and analysis of the infor-
mation from the users' desktop.
Great Lakes Information Strategy t May 1903

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INTEGRATION OF GREAT LAKES
MONITORING AND INVENTORY EFFORTS

0



R/V Lake Guardian
Several major Great Lakes monitoring efforts will
begin in 1993 and 1994 including Great Lakes EMAP
(Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Pro-
gram) and the Lake Michigan and Lake Superior
Lakewide Management Plan (LaMP) monitoring ef-
forts. The GLNPO will also be initiating implemen-
tation of its' new monitoring strategy in the 1993 field
season. The information collected through these
individual efforts must be collected and stored in a
coordinated fashion to ensure that data from one
project could be directly compared to or integrated
with data from the other efforts.
To facilitate the coordination and eventual integration
of Great Lakes monitoring data, the GLNPO will
work with the project teams responsible for the
monitoring efforts with the goal of developing a single
data structure and a set of data collection standards
that could accommodate all of the forthcoming Great
Lakes monitoring data. As one of the early steps in
this process, we will test the Water Systems Modern-
ization (WSM) data structure developed by EPA's
Office of Water for its' ability to handle these data.
Testing of the WSM structure will take place under
two separate tasks. First, GLNPO will host several
requirements analysis sessions for the monitoring
teams to determine the types of data they intend to
collect and the requirements for data storage. The
WSM data structure will then be analyzed for its
ability to accommodate these data. The requirements
analysis process will also provide an opportunity to
analyze each monitoring effort to recommend steps to
increase ability to integrate with other significant
efforts. In a second, concurrent effort, the existing
GBMB and ARCS data sets will be modelled into the
WSM database. This will allow the GLP to assess the
effectiveness of the WSM structure for housing Great
Lakes monitoring data and to develop a data structure
that facilitates the use of monitoring data.
Grvat Lakes Information Strategy 9 May 1903
H

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DATA ACCESS & VISUALIZATION
Computer and data management
technology are advancing rap-
idly. As machines and communi-
cation links become faster, many
exciting capabilities are appear-
ing on the horizon for Great

Lakes Program data users. Not only isaccess to
information becoming faster, it is becoming increas-
ingly user friendly. In order to take advantage of this
situation, GLNPO will continue to investigate, test
and demonstrate new technologies for information
access and data visualization. Elements of the Great
Lakes Envirofacts pilot system will be developed in
a modular approach, allowing incorporation of more
capable analytical tools as they become available.
The sources of Great Lakes information are distrib-
uted among the GLP Agencies, in Universities, envi-
ronmental organizations and private companies.
GLNPO is testing Wide Area Information Servers
(WAIS), GOPHER and other shareware/public do-
main protocols for providing broad access to Great
Lakes information from multiple sources. WAIS is an
information delivery system that is designed to allow
computer users of all expertise levels to search for and
retrieve data from numerous remote sources, stored
in different structures and formats.
The following excerpt from Earth in the Balance by
the Vice President speaks to the need for better
utilization of the information we are collecting. "We
have generated more data, statistics, words, formu-
las, images, documents, and declarations than we can
possibly absorb. And rather than create new ways to
understand and assimilate the information we already
have, we simply create more, and at an increasingly
rapid pace." The Great Lakes ISP, and other
initiatives, are focusing information collection efforts
on the data critical to Great Lakes ecosystem
management. The Great Lakes Envirofacts Pilot and
subsequent system developmentprojectswill provide
the tools needed to more effectively make environ-
mental decisions, and will improve our ability to
communicate the reasons for those decisions.
Great Lake• Information Strategy § May 1003

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For more information regarding;
Great Lakes	information
Great Lakes ISP documentati
'•INFORMATION NEEDS SUMMARY"
Please Contact:
Pranas	Pranckevicius312/353-3437
PhilStrobel	312/353-7996
Mailing Address:
	::	w	••	 : .
	• - .
' '
U. S. Environmental Protection Agency
Great Lakes National Program Office
77 West Jackson	Boulevar
Chicago, Illinois 60604
.
Great Lakes Information Strategy • May 1993
13

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Appendix A:
Great Lakes Program Information Need Priorities
1)	Chemical loadings by lake, tributary, airshed, & facility (incl: emissions inventory, agri & urban runoff)
2)	Comprehensive baseline and trends of environmental indicators by geographic location
3)	Ecological and human health risks (baseline & trends) and identification of the problem
4)	Sediment criteria standards
5)	Ambient monitoring: baseline and trends of toxic concentrations in the Lakes
6)	Ability to link deposited toxic substances to the source
7)	Chronic sediment toxicity data: Ecological significance and solutions
8)	Environmental impacts (performance indicators) of programs, by ecoregion and geographic location
9)	Quality of data: Methods, standards and consistency, adherence to QAPP, etc.
10)	State priorities and plans linked to 5 year strategy
11)	Baseline inventory of biological and ecological diversity (incl: species by location/habitat)
12)	Location and migration of contaminated sediments including spatial characterization
13)	Information about air quality (toxic contaminant levels)
14)	Catalogue of standard methods for monitoring, analysis, loadings calculation etc.
15)	Assessment of the functions of Great Lakes wetlands
16)	Geographic acreage data for habitats and specific habitat items (incl: GL wetlands inventory)
17)	Water quality information (in a single cross-program database) vs. water quality standards
18)	General program information (resources, priorities, objectives, milestones, money)
19)	Demographic information on health problems
20)	Technology/mechanisms to monitor habitats
21)	Better access to biological & ecological information on species and communities of concern
22)	Characteristics of wetlands impact
23)	Scientific literature database access
24)	Program effectiveness and impact information including Customer satisfaction and public perception
25)	Resource demand by organization/activity and $ available from Federal and outside sources
26)	Record of who is using which data and their assessment of quality
27)	Program cost effectiveness information
28)	Migration and impact of selected pollutants on the Great Lakes
29)	Shoreline erosion problems
30)	Available technology of customers by customer by location
Additional Needs Identified Through the Review Process:
Causes of use impairments
Levels of contaminants below which fish, wildlife, and humans are safe
The original list, as found in the Information Needs Summary document, contained some duplicate and overlapping
information needs. In the final list, the overlapping items were collapsed and redundancies were eliminated based on the comments of the
respondents. Some information needs, although related to the same topic (e.g. loadings), were left separate when they represented distinctly
different types of information. Several information needs were not clearly worded in the initial list which may have resulted in lower
prioritization (ex: #27 Cost effectiveness information, and #28 Migration and impact).
f? I	Great Lakmt information Strategy | May J 993

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