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Ecosystems Information and Assessments Subcommittee FY-1995

The Information and Assessments Committee (EIAC) was convened to provide advice and recommendations to the Administrator, and EPA, as it develops a strategy to implement a Community-Based Environmental Protection (CBEP) approach. Specifically, the EIAC was charged, by the EPA Administrator, to focus on the information and science requirements needed to successfully implement a CBEP approach.

Three committee meetings were held during FY 95. These meetings provided an opportunity for the Committee to dialogue with program office representatives regarding current, and planned, CBEP activities. The Committee was also afforded the opportunity to provide comment and advice to the Agency as it started development of both Information and Science Strategies to support CBEP.

What follows is a summary of the major recommendations provided to the Agency, by this Committee, during the course of the past year.

GENERAL ISSUES

The issues explored by the Committee were specific to two of the Agency's newly evolving strategies to support CBEP:

The Committee provided advice and recommendations to the Agency, as these Strategies were evolving. Much of what has been recommended by the Committee has been woven directly into the Strategies already.

The Committee was also asked to focus on two additional issues:

These two issues were kept in mind throughout the Committee's deliberations. Responses to those issues can be found throughout the Recommendations of the Committee.

FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS

The Committee concluded the Community-Based Ecosystem Approach is a valid direction for EPA to pursue and organize/reorganize itself. It concluded that, although EPA is indeed on the right track in pursuing a CBEP approach, if it is to succeed in implementing it, it needs to consider reorganizing many of its current functions to reflect more accurately a multi-media, place-based management process. They also included a note of caution: The Agency's current single-media approach has had various successes over the years and should not be cast aside. The Agency should make every effort to commence the process of building an appropriate management infrastructure to support CBEP efforts. These efforts should be aimed at enhancing, not supplanting, its current single-media structure.

The Committee also concluded that the issue of the 80% would be woven into all the deliberations regarding Science and Information. The tools in these areas are meant for the whole, not a portion of the community. The tools would be valid for use by a community, whether EPA was at the table, or not.

Finally, the Committee concluded that EPA's current Science and Information Strategies are, indeed, on the right track. If communities are to succeed in implementing CBEP, the Agency needs to provide as many tools as possible, as well as providing technical and scientific expertise to support their efforts. CBEP will bring the Agency closer to communities. The trend in the federal government is less federal involvement, more community/local empowerment. By providing tools to do the job, EPA will find itself closer, not further away, from communities.

The recommendations made by the Committee fall into one of the following categories:

GENERAL

Along with its traditional role as a Regulatory Agency, EPA must be flexible enough to accept other roles, as necessary. Traditionally, the federal government has assumed a lead role, if not the lead role, in most inter-governmental or governmental/ community partnerships. As the Agency drives towards a Community-Based approach to ecosystem protection and management, it must recognize that leadership roles may very well be already identified and assumed by private industry, state, local, or other federal agencies.

EPA must recognize, that along with its traditional role as regulator and enforcer, it must be flexible enough to assume other roles as circumstances and needs dictate. These roles include, but are not limited to: Active Leader/Driving Force; Facilitator/Coach; Funder; Broker; Conceptualizer/Planner; Cooperator; Participant; Catalyst; Partnership Builder; Encourager; Coordinator; Educator; Technology Facilitator; and others as identified by the "place" or Community.

The single-media regulatory and management process has, and still does, serve the public and the environment well. Adopting a Community-Based approach will enhance, NOT REPLACE, specific media programs and regulations. It is crucial that EPA sell the CBEP approach as the next step in environmental protection, but a step that needs to be taken in tandem with the existing regulations and standards developed to protect each medium. It also must acknowledge that its focus should go beyond the current chemical contaminant, to that of biological protection. The Agency is beginning to conceive itself as responsible for more than human health and how it is influenced by chemical contamination. Along with this comes the need to be more than a regulator.

EPA has Media Experts, and it also has several broad Approaches/Initiatives, such as Common Sense, that are intersecting. EPA should consider taking its people and moving them around. This would mean taking some of its product-line people (media experts), and giving them Regional responsibilities. Similarly, where Regional people are concerned, the process would be reversed. EPA would suddenly find that everyone understands each others point of view.

Although some people might perceive this as a threat , it's also an opportunity. This switch of personnel would enhance their resumes, and their qualifications. Experience in private industry indicates that such a process makes people grow, and it makes programs more successful.

Somewhere along the line, the system has to be made to work. As budgets get slashed, EPA must find some way to protect and save some segments of CBEP. It has great potential for success. It's regulatory responsibilities notwithstanding, EPA's desire to do its job of protecting the environment by empowering communities through information, science, education, etc., is probably one of the most potentially significant initiatives EPA has started in many years. Do not let it fall by the wayside simply because of money.

CONSTITUENCY INVOLVEMENT & BUY-IN

EPA must recognize that a CBEP approach cannot be implemented, nor can it be supported, without direct buy-in from the sites' communities. Initial investments to directly connect with a community, gain their trust, and form a partnership with them will be required if this concept is to work. EPA can't do it alone, nor should it. Public participation and buy-in must be part of the planning process while the project is still on the drawing board.

No matter how inclusive a "place-based" process is, established governmental organizations are only part of the process. Community, or public, participation is key to the ultimate success of any protection or prevention effort. EPA should stress, at all levels, the importance of public buy-in and participation. Having communities take responsibility for ownership of a place, as well as giving them a sense of involvement and a decision-making ability, from the beginning, will enhance the prospects for long-term involvement and success.

Along with a sound scientific process, valid research, and quality information/data, the success of any environmental assessment is also predicated on the public's willingness to accept the findings of that process. EPA needs to make public participation a part of the assessment process. It should explore efforts such as Sustainable Seattle, and Oregon's State Clean Water Strategy, as examples of successful public participation efforts in environmental assessments.

The Agency should follow the example of other organizations, such as:

1. USGS's National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI). Once a provider of data, USGS now facilitates dialog among players, pays for travel to have stakeholders come together and talk about ongoing efforts, and, in many cases, reinforces what they are doing at local levels. The federal agency role becomes one of facilitating dialog, rather than developing standards. This allows the creation of a commonality of process, procedure, and standards that are promoted through state councils, across geographic information user groups, and across grass-roots associations that are engaged in these data collection activities. Buy-in is from the ground, up.

2. The Model of the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) should be studied and emulated. Grants awarded to States that allow networking with their local constituents, by setting up Regional Workshops, should be encouraged.

3. Users' Conferences of information, tools and methods should be considered. Feedback is provided during conferences, and people get stimulation and share knowledge. It's a good environment to learn how place-based/community-based programs are implemented and supported. Conferences, whether EPA-sponsored or EPA-involved, create a perception of progress, which is important to maintaining interest and enthusiasm. Methods are improved through human interaction. A bonding and networking occurs among the people who are diverse and interested in different places, but commonly interested in the methods for taking care of their place. You create an enthusiasm that "place-based" is the way to go.

4. Philanthropic Partnerships should be considered as a way to support Conferences. You need to avoid everyone having to pay for their own transportation and lodging, because it creates a skewed distribution of participation. Not all State, Local Government, and NGOs/Grass Roots Organizations can afford to attend Conferences. There are other "non-governmental" sources of money that can assist in maintaining the diversity of participation required.

EPA should identify the themes necessary, that would be more topical in nature, to the concept of "Take Care Of Your Place". What are the parameters this would involve? How do you organize the organization before applying a methodology? How does the Agency answer people's questions about tools, methods, information, etc. How does it answer questions such as: "Is it a Watershed?" "How do we organize ourselves...geographically; "thematically?"; "What is this concept of 'Take Care Of Your Place'?"

An Awareness Program could be developed in partnership with other current educational programs. Many secondary school programs, such as those in Detroit and Dallas, are currently involved in "Take Care Of Your Place" efforts. They are ready and willing to "Take Care Of Their Place" right now. A campaign that doesn't take a political position, but simply educates the need for local involvement, is something EPA could, and should, do. EPA could then build in the Methods and the Data Sources that shows someone how to "Take Care Of Their Own Place".

Role models educate, motivate, and use peer pressure positively. Programs like OSHA's Voluntary Protection Program, and EPA's own Project XL, are examples of Role Model efforts with good potential. Similar Role Model efforts fit very well within the theme of "Take Care Of Your Place". It's a low resource commitment for the Agency because it depends, to a large extent, on examples, partners, etc.

A Place-Based approach to environmental protection and management requires a clear methodology/framework for implementing the process. It should include: Information/Data needs; The Science required; Identification of Stakeholders and their Roles; and The effects of National and Local policies. A clear communication of vision and methodology, to stakeholders, is critical to the success of CBEP. A way to communicate these things is by providing Stakeholders with a Handbook/Primer of CBEP Methods and Approaches. Stakeholders include, but may not be limited to: Citizens, Entrepreneurs, Scientists, Academics, Politicians, Professionals (Planners), and the Regulated Community (Industry).

EPA has identified the need to develop a Regional Handbook, so that the EPA Regions and the Program Office people really understand the approach of "place-based". But, a different kind of book, as an instrument for the locals, is also required. These two Handbooks will address the needs of two distinct audiences, a Community audience (Stakeholders), and a Bureaucratic audience (initially EPA people, and ultimately State and Tribal). The Bureaucratic audience needs a Handbook that has a set of written, explicit or implicit rules that they operate under. Those rules are static and not easily changeable. Stakeholders, on the other hand, are not EPA officials. The stakeholders are the people who own the place. They are the citizen groups and the industrialists, the local city planner and the soil conservationist, and the farmer. They're the ones to take ownership for managing the environment in their own place. Each group needs a Handbook, but tailored to each group's needs.

EPA should convene a CBEP "Specialist" Meeting, or Symposium, where real practitioners are brought together for consultation. No more than 6 experts should be invited. They would be people who have really done Community-Based Environmental Protection. To get something useful in the way of a Handbook, as a Handbook of practice, EPA has to get the expertise and Practitioners, and EPA has to spend a lot of time with them. Get hold of the people who actually do it, and ask them how its done.

SCIENCE IN SUPPORT OF CBEP

1. Communicate Case-Histories through a "Clearinghouse of Case Histories of What People Have Tried". This would cut down on duplication of effort. It would also provide a means of having Communities understand how Science could be used as they attempt to "Take Care Of Their Place".

2. Focus attention on enlarging the pipe that connects "Ever-Better Descriptions" to the decision-making frameworks at multiple levels (local, county, state, etc.). For example, Toxic Release Information is available, as is the GIS technology to analyze it. Most tools currently available are based on single points, not looking at a whole community and getting cumulative affects. Trying to get to that point: taking the TRI data, making it understandable, making it mean something so you can convey it to the decision-makers at the local level, is where the big gap still exists.

3. EPA should consider supporting various Pilots, across several geographic regions of the country, focused on enlarging the pipe between better descriptive science and the problem solving that is rooted in local circumstances. They would be "Petri Dishes" for the evolution of that larger "pipe". Promote competition between different endeavors and different geographic regions across the country. With comparative analysis, the Agency could then identify those things it would be willing to pay to implement. This would give EPA the best available of all worlds, within the resource limits it has. EPA's Science Strategy seems to have the flexibility to support such an effort, and should take advantage of this flexibility.

4. EPA needs to focus more scientific effort at linking Science to the Decision-Making Process. Exploration, at the science level, on the use of GIS and Modeling, and how to link them together, should be reinforced. EPA has indicated that a unifying principle is lacking. The Framework of time and space, linking time and geography, time through modeling and geography, together, is a struggle in the general science community. If that could be brought together in some way, it would fit right into the Framework of Community-Based Planning.

As large-scale ecosystem efforts such as the Chesapeake Bay, the Great Lakes, and the Gulf, continue to be developed and supported by EPA, it should also develop the means of disseminating, to all interested parties, the methodology used to develop the assessment models, as well as the methodology used to engage the partners and the technology used to support these efforts. As other similar efforts start to develop across the country, the processes used in the past can be used by others to work on theirs.

EPA should also foster the development and sharing of models to support much smaller "place-based" efforts. The processes used in large scale efforts may not be appropriate to small community/site projects. As EPA identifies successful methods employed at the smaller sites, the means to disseminate this information and the technologies used, must also be developed. This can only encourage other communities to engage in similar efforts and foster the development of their own "place-based" protection or prevention efforts.

Development of a product entails moving from abstract, not user-friendly tools that are not documented, to clear, user-friendly, documented ones that are. Within the context of what EPA science is currently doing, incentives need to be included in its modeling support mechanisms. Part of the issue is creating a market for those tools. People can then begin to think of modeling as a product, not as a process. And the moment things go into a product world, standards for them evolve, and they become competitive. EPA needs to determine how to get some of their current modeling efforts into private market mechanisms. Then two things happen: Responsibility for distribution of the methods goes to the supplier, and; the tools get better, because companies start competing.

Although access to information is important to successfully implementing CBEP, many times, when you give people information, they don't always know what to do with it. They need access to a Team that can come in for a certain period of time and assist in performing an assessment. This is something EPA can do right now! It can draw from its Laboratories where efforts at developing the Risk Paradigm expertise is currently ongoing. EPA also needs to ensure that its Science is relevant to the decisions needing to be made at the local levels. It needs to make sure that relevant decision-making questions are being brought to its scientists. Multi-Disciplinary Teams is one way to make sure this happens.

In line with EPA's development of multi-disciplinary teams, EPA should consider using its laboratories as specialized "Place-Oriented" research institutions that would be "eco-wise" to specific geographic locations. Since EPA's laboratories are geographically scattered across the country (e.g. Athens, GA; Corvallis, OR; Las Vegas, NV; etc.) it would be quite possible for each laboratory to house a multi-disciplinary team specializing in those geographic areas. They could be designed as Centers of Excellence for "place-based" environmental assessments and ecosystems management.

Communities must be brought into the process that is used to develop ecosystems indicators and the process of "place" assessment. The more inclusive this process is, the more credibility will be gained. Communities must be part of the process that determines what the "health" of any given "place is, as well as determining what is important to maintain.

INFORMATION ACCESS & DISSEMINATION

EPA needs to adopt and utilize the standards of the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) as a "rallying point" for ensuring that many disparate data coordinating activities of government are in fact being properly coordinated.

Information produced, published, and distributed by EPA, is important. There may be debate about the scale and resolution. There also may be a debate about what EPA does, as opposed to other people in the Federal Government (such as the FGDC), and specific methods. But it is very important for EPA to get its data out. If EPA comes out with new data or models, there is great demand for them. The information will be used immediately, so EPA needs to get it right. Some prepackaging of data, whatever the scale, or cooperation to prepackage with other Agencies, to get the data out, is of great value. Other to consider, include:

1. EPA should, as its highest priority, make accessible those unique data sets that no other Agency has the capability to collect (i.e. Facility Identifier/Locational Data).

2. Community people want local data for their watershed, or "place". But they also want to know, at a National level, what "trends" might be changing. EPA can, and should, give more than just data to local communities. It should also indicate what the trends are, what the changes are, and the relevance of those changes at the National level.

1. Continue to promote established technologies such as GIS and Remote Sensing. Furthermore, where possible, EPA should promote the development and implementation of these technologies beyond the state level. If "place-based" efforts are to succeed, the tools necessary to assess possible problems, as well as the means to determine possible solutions, must be available to appropriate partners. In the past EPA has promoted such efforts, and should do so again.

2. Give Stakeholders and Communities the benefit of the doubt. If data is made available, local people can, in fact, make sense of it, integrate it, and on a scale that makes sense to them and their problem. It is not an unsolvable problem at that level. At a minimum EPA should stop being a barrier to them. Let them make the decision as to what it's worth, and how much effort to go to, make it useable.

The need for integrating Federal Agency efforts has been identified by many. There is a major distinction between providing access, and providing data. Providing access simply points to data that was integrated by other players. If there is a minimum set of data that ought to be accessed, in an integrated form, no one has planned to do this, yet. Many Agencies have indicated that it needs to be done, that it's not their mission, and that, perhaps, EPA should. Efforts such as the Toxics Release Inventory are examples of what the Agency can do in providing citizens access to environmental information. EPA needs to be proactive in continuing to build access bridges to environmental information by other government entities and citizens alike.

The optimal way to accomplish this is to start with people who already have the capacity, and have EPA engage in outreach and teaching. It is a relatively cost-effective way of making sure there are resources, and points of contact, at the Community level, to make use of the information. EPA could help to train intermediaries such as libraries, community based organizations, some schools, and universities. These are sites where there is a ripple effect of expertise, where skills and knowledge can be passed on through the building up of capacity of those intermediaries. Additionally, EPA should consider implementing a small grants program and deveMMENTS LINK -->

 

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