[GreenYes] epa expectations

[melissa terry <melissaterry@no.address>]

you know, the more people that write about this issue,
the more i'm convinced that we should think about the
epa in capitalist terms...that is, one of supply and
demand. 

while some epa offices may be sattelites that only
function on a skeleton crew, this IS a democracy whose
government is mandated by the population to meet
certain standards. 

we have to be supportive and keep 'em honest at the
same time. our regional epa office 6 has been fairly
active in our community with controversial water
quality standards, for which i'm grateful. and they've
funded a project i coordinate called Streams as Living
Laboratories (www.streams.ncat.org). and, their
national publications clearinghouse has sent me
hundreds of documents i need for public education. 

i only wish we had an epa rep in our community about
whom we could complain for their work hours...we never
see those folks at the grassroots level in
fayetteville. 

all that said, it's the age-old cliche that the
squeaky wheel gets the grease and it's only because of
people like karen that we have an epa in the first
place. 

just my two cents.

:}
melissa terry
fayetteville, arkansas



--- SPENDELOW Peter H
<SPENDELOW.Peter@no.address> wrote:
> Karen-
> 
> I would not criticize EPA because they will not
> participate directly in
> a children's educational program.  I think that role
> is much more
> appropriately handled by local government or state
> agencies or
> non-profit groups - not directly by a national
> environmental regulatory
> agency.  I don't think staff at EPA would disagree
> about the importance
> of environmental education.  It is just that other,
> more-local
> organizations would be more appropriate for directly
> participating in
> something like this.
> 
> For an example from Oregon, I know that our Oregon
> EPA office is tiny,
> taking up just part of one floor in our building. 
> My own agency, the
> Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, has 8
> floors of offices in
> our headquarters, and many regional offices too.  We
> have some staff
> designated for the type of participation you are
> looking for, plus many
> of our larger counties have environmental education
> programs -
> particularly for recycling education.  In some cases
> the governments
> have contracted with non-profit groups to provide
> this education.  In
> our state, we could probably help you with your
> festival, but there is
> no way EPA's Oregon office could do so and also do
> all the other
> important work that they need to do.
> 
> It is true that the EPA office in Illinois is much
> larger than our tiny
> Oregon EPA office, but the Illinois office is a
> major regional office,
> with responsibilities for environmental programs in
> 6 large states.  I
> think it would be best if EPA sticks to its
> larger-scale
> responsibilities and leave the direct public contact
> programs more to us
> local and state government people.
> 
> Peter Spendelow
> Oregon Department of Environmental Quality
> 
>
----------------------------------------------------------------------
> Date: Wed, 5 Feb 2003 13:57:15 EST
> To: greenyes@no.address
> From: Kking61101@no.address
> Subject: EPA's arrogance
> Message-ID: <23.2b727d87.2b72b88b@no.address>
> 
> --part1_23.2b727d87.2b72b88b_boundary
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
> 
> ..... This morning I called the EPA to ask if they
> would 
> like to participate. 
> 
> I was told that they are not interested because they
> are too busy and
> only 
> work Monday through Friday. I made it clear that I
> was VERY disappointed
> and 
> unhappy with the EPA! They are not interested in
> promoting environmental
> 
> education to over 5,000 children basically because
> it is inconvenient
> for 
> them. 
> 
> Karen King
> On the Waterfront, Inc.
> 
>
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