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TECHNOLOGY: ENVIRONMENTAL DATA TO BE
STREAMLINED
(07-26-2004) - It sounds positively medieval in the
computer age: submitting handwritten reports to the government.
Yet that was how hundreds of businesses and agencies in
Michigan prepared monthly wastewater discharge reports - until the
state began using a new online system designed to rescue
environmental data collection from the technological Dark Ages.
"It was very cumbersome," said Bruce Merchant, wastewater
superintendent for the city of Kalamazoo. "We had to write the
numbers onto old computer forms that made four or five copies, so
you had to press real hard."
Michigan has joined the
National Environmental Information Exchange Network, a newly formed
system that makes it easier for government workers to compile,
submit and swap data collected under federal air and water pollution
laws.
Fifteen states are members, and the total is expected
to reach 35 this year, the Environmental Protection Agency says.
Federal and local agencies and Indian tribes also can take part.
Eventually, the network will be a vast reservoir of information
accessible not only to government officials, but also to scientists,
environmentalists and other interests.
"It does for
environmental data reporting what the Internet does for the general
public," said Kimberly Nelson, assistant EPA administrator.
The network will provide regulators with more accurate and
timely information and will be especially helpful during emergencies
such as floods, oil spills, even a terrorist attack, when officials
need rapid, up-to-the-minute facts and the crisis cuts across
different government jurisdictions, Nelson said.
New
Jersey's Department of Environmental Protection already is plugging
into the network to relay data about bacteria levels at its beaches
to the EPA. New Jersey, New York and Delaware plan to exchange
instant air quality information.
In the Pacific Northwest,
four states - Alaska, Idaho, Oregon and Washington - are using the
network to streamline collection and reporting of water quality data
needed for salmon restoration projects.
Antiquated reporting
systems have been a problem for environmental regulators across the
country. Industries such as banking and airlines have built computer
networks with common languages. But government computers were not
programmed to talk to computers at the businesses and agencies they
were regulating, nor their counterparts in other states or the EPA.
"It was like someone who speaks Japanese having a message
for someone who speaks Greek having a message for someone who speaks
Russian," said Mike Beaulac, assistant administrator with the
Michigan Department of Environmental Quality.
When Merchant
and his Kalamazoo crew prepared monthly reports required by their
federal wastewater discharge permit, they had to retrieve numbers
from in-house computers and write them down on forms, which were
then mailed to the Department of Environmental Quality.
DEQ
workers punched the numbers into their database, a tedious process
with error rates as high as 10 percent and backlogs of up to three
years. Then they re-entered the data into the federal computer
databank for the EPA's use.
"We basically had to do things
twice," Beaulac said. "Really dumb. We were thinking there just had
to be a better way."
Technicians from Michigan and several
other states worked with the EPA for five years to create the
network. The biggest challenge was creating a uniform computer
vocabulary that would not require participants to buy new systems.
In Michigan, Beaulac estimates the change will save the DEQ
$250,000 to $500,000 a year, mostly in reduced staff time. It is
already paying off in Kalamazoo, where Merchant said the monthly
reporting chore now takes about half a day of staff time instead of
two or three days.
The average citizen cannot log onto the
network. But membership will be granted to some private interests
such as academics and environmental organizations. And much of the
information will end up on Web sites that anyone can view.
"Letting people have the raw data so they can crunch the
numbers themselves and take off any spin that an agency might put on
it is an important check and balance in the system," said James
Clift, policy director for the Michigan Environmental Council.
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