Pacific Spirit Marine Institute
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Rep Bart Gordon, chairman Committee on Science and Technology said in his opening statement, “EPA executed a failed process for modernizing their library network.”
Rep Brad Miller, “The most generous interpretation is incompetence – that EPA managers grossly mismanaged their library system.” Miller also said it may take years and a lot of money to set things right again.
When the EPA closed its largest regional library in Chicago it sold all of its fixtures, valued at more than $40,000.00 for less than $350.00. I’m not sure anyone can that is surprising information.
The Office of Enforcement and Compliance (OECA), will be left holding perhaps nothing more than thin and polluted air when it’s time to prosecute Eco-felons. 1. Information access; especially to original documents. 2. Worry that the centralized system EPA is espousing may not meet tight court-imposed deadlines. 3. Cost. And, how it will be funded?
One of the more interesting notes of irony is that apparently the agency did not anticipate copyright restrictions as they apply to making digitized copies of some material.
In February a federal arbitrator found the EPA guilty of unfair labor practices and acting in bad faith in its national series of library closures. The EPA was ordered to bargain with affected public employee unions before making any further changes in its library network. On more slice of irony, the EPA acted without benefit of any employee input regarding the actions it has taken.
The GAO, Government Accountability Office found the decision to close the libraries wasn’t justified and it deprived the public, EPA staff, state and local agencies and academics of valuable environmental data.
Labels: Brad Miller, EPA, EPA libraries, GAO
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
EPA Library GAO report
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
While the polar icecaps are dwindling it seems the EPA’s libraries are too!
The folks over at Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility think the Bush administration may be trying to ‘lobotomize the EPA’. EPA libraries serving 15 states have been closed in recent months Chacago, Dallas, and Kansas City, Mo. Restrictions to access have been placed on 4 other EPA libraries affecting 16 other states. Washington DC EPA headquarters 2 libraries were closed in October.
With environmental issues reaching critical mass why is the EPA closing and restricting access to information so desperately needed by the science community?
The EPA claims it’s part of modernization. Vast repositories of information will sit , for perhaps years if not forever, waiting to be digitized. While that information sits, it will remain unseen and unused.
Some are saying science journals are being tossed into dumpsters. This is information that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to compile. An EPA spokesperson says they are recycling ‘non-unique documents’.
Non-uniquie? We can find that information somewhere else, but where else? How long would it take to find it and can we afford to waste time looking for something wemay not even know exists if we can’t see it?
Congress has not approved these closures. The EPA library budget is $2.5 million per year. Estimated savings would be $7.5 million from the closures. Nice work if you can get it! A tidy 5 million dollar savings per year AND control over access to information by both the EPA Staff, and the public!
What’s up?
The EPA’s 26 libraries contained as many as 500,000 books with irreplaceable research and studies which took decades to assemble.
Humpty Dumpty fell off the wall, and we do not have decades to put him back together again.
Labels: Cuts, EPA, EPA libraries, Speak no Evil
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
Government Fingers EPA Library for Cuts
