Online
Network Helps Agencies Keep Tabs on the Environment
By John Flesher
Associated Press
Tuesday, July 27, 2004; Page A17
TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. -- 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 U.S. 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 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, 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
to their counterparts in other states and at 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 (DEQ).
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 DEQ.
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 reentered 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."
The EPA worked with technicians from Michigan and several
other states for five years to develop 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 on to 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.
© 2004 The Washington Post
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