Introduction

[Anne Pamperl <anne.pamperl@hhss.state.ne.us>]

Hello, my name is Anne Pamperl. I work for Nebraska Health & Human Services (HHS) in the Monitoring and Compliance section of the Drinking Water Program. I'm rule manager for 3 different rules - VOCs, radionuclides, and radon - and my responsibilities include presentations/question answer sessions at water operator, city council, and public meetings; informative mailings; answering questions from the public and water operators that I receive by mail, phone, or e-mail; etc. I'm participating in this forum because I'm the one who prepared HHS's comment letter on the EPA's draft public participation policy in April.

I'm interested in learning more about new ideas for public participation that may be beneficial to Nebraska's Drinking Water Program in our public outreach efforts. I'm also interested in learning more about what EPA plans to do in the future, in particular its plans for reaching the general public. I'm also hoping for clarification on how the final policy will be applied to States as what I'm reading here at the dialogue is different from what the draft policy says.

My interest in public participation policy and practice is primarily in the area of rule making, so I will have more to say when this topic is up for discussion.

I look forward to learning a lot in the next two weeks and greatly appreciate the opportunity to participate in this dialogue.