Distance may be measured many ways

[Marty Walters <marty_walters@terrasano.com>]

I'm just back from a tour of local libraries in an effort to track 
down reports from a particular Navy cleanup site in Hawaii.  
It strikes me how distant EPA, military lead agencies, and 
even our own state agencies are from folks just trying to find 
some answers about impacts in their neighborhoods.  The 
physical distance is certainly a major factor -- being 2500 
miles from EPA Region 9 means that I never meet the 
project managers face to face and I can't just ask for copies 
of documents.  EPA's minimal contact with the local military 
project managers means there are no role models for these 
local folks to follow with respect to dealing with the public.  
And I have a sneaking suspicion that assignment to 
cleanup sites in Hawaii and Guam are not big career 
boosters within EPA.  When we do get a visit from Region 9 
folks, they come for a couple of days and never meet or get 
to know the communities and people where Superfund and 
military cleanups are happening.  There's a world of cultural 
differences between San Francisco and the non-tourist 
areas of Hawaii but we're certainly not experiencing any 
listening tours here.  There is also a time difference -- our 
level of awareness of environmental problems lags behind 
the mainland, especially California.  We have to work harder 
to communicate issues specific to one regulatory program, 
like Superfund, in the context of overall environmental and 
public health.  Most people I work with have no 
understanding of the jurisdictional lines between regulatory 
programs and the corresponding decision making process, 
so I try to help them focus on how the decisions are being 
made and where communities can slot themselves into the 
process.

Getting back to my library search, I can now say with some 
authority that the vast majority of cleanup actions in Hawaii 
are not being documented in information repositories that 
are accessible to the average person.  I spend more time 
overcoming bureaucratic roadblocks than actually reviewing 
these documents and have the dubious reputation for being 
someone who can ferret out needed information from a 
bookshelf of uncatalogued documents with undescriptive 
titles.

Aloha,
Marty