RE: Question for 21 September: Can we trust the EPA?

[Nina Powers <npowers@Home.com>]

Let me preface this by stating that I fully support the National
Environmental Policy Act(NEPA) and the creation of the EPA in
1970. Getting pesticide regulation out of the USDA that protects
Agriculture, and under an Agency that is supposed to protect
human health and the environment was a step in the right direction
for all taxpayers. 

That said, EPA in the past few years is not focused enough on their
mission. Lobbyists and political pressure may be the problem, but
EPA leadership must be aggressive in carrying out their mandates.
EPA operates on tax dollars paid by mothers that believe their
children have a right to health in the United States. EPA has lost
knowledgable staff, often to the payroll of polluting industry.
Dr.Lynn Goldman recently left her position as head of the EPA's
Office of Pesticide Programs for Johns Hopkins School of Public
Health, and her press releases regarding the inadequacy of our
regulatory agencies to assess the environmental insults that 
endanger public health concerns me. Who better to know that EPA
is overwhelmed? Then to add to all the pressures on EPA, a Senate
committee is proposing to cut EPA's budget:

http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/b1ab9f485b098972852562e7004dc686/ab6c165c993b28f98525695b004b1381?OpenDocument

I think another problem is EPA relies too much on data being 
provided by others. Since EPA doesn't test pesticides, but relies
on data submitted by the manufacturer of the pesticides for risk
assessment, this tends to invite bias.

This recent article in the New York Times does not help build a 
foundation of trust for information used by EPA. Yet, I will
continue to turn to EPA, because I trust why the Agency exists,
pressures and staff changes.

September 22, 2000
>
>Environmental-Safety Tests Are 'Falsified'
>By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.
>
>
>DALLAS, Sept. 21 — The federal authorities said today that thousands of
>environmental safety tests conducted at Superfund locations, landfills and
>other hazardous waste sites from 1994 to 1997 will have to be repeated
>because the company that performed the tests falsified the results.
>
>The test results mean that some sites thought to be safe from carcinogens
>and other contaminants might hold harmful materials, the federal authorities
>said, though they emphasized that none of the sites so far retested had been
>found to be a health hazard.
>
>Federal prosecutors announced today that 13 former employees of the
>London-based company, Intertek Testing Services, had been indicted by a
>federal grand jury in Dallas and charged with up to 30 counts of fraud and
>lying to the government. Prosecutors said that the test results were
>falsified to save the company time and money.
>
>All 13 employees worked for an Intertek subsidiary, Environmental
>Laboratories, in Richardson, Tex. But documents unsealed today also show
>that former employees have told investigators that similar problems existed
>at the subsidiary's laboratory in Houston.
>
>The most senior Intertek official indicted was Martin Dale Jeffus, 52, of
>Greenville, Tex., who until 1997 was the subsidiary's vice president for
>North American operations. If convicted on all counts, Mr. Jeffus could face
>as much as 155 years in prison and a $7.5 million fine, prosecutors said.
>Phone calls today to Mr. Jeffus's home went unanswered.
>
>Intertek tested soil, water and air samples for carcinogens and other
>pollutants, mostly for environmental consulting and engineering firms and
>for the federal government and state governments.
>
> From January 1994 to December 1997, when the authorities said much of the
>fraud occurred, the company performed tests on more than 59,000 sample
>projects, including many from Superfund sites and military facilities,
>generating $35.7 million in billings.
>
>The officials said they were unsure how many distinct locations the samples
>were taken from, because some sites may have generated hundreds of sample
>projects. One Environmental Protection Agency official said it was likely
>that more than 1,000 sites were involved.
>
>In some cases one-quarter to one- half of the tests were invalid, the
>authorities said.
>
>"The tests were falsified on a grand scale," said Paul E. Coggins, the
>United States attorney for the Northern District of Texas. "None of the data
>coming out of this Richardson lab can be relied on. Too many employees and
>ex-employees have told investigators that the falsifications were routine
>and commonplace. We almost certainly have some property owners who don't
>even realize today that this lab did the test."
>
>The investigation is continuing, Mr. Coggins said. "We've got a strong team
>of investigators and prosecutors, and they're in this for the long haul,
>because no matter how you cut this, this lab was really gambling with the
>environment," he said.
>
>Officials with the Environmental Protection Agency said that a "significant"
>number of sites had already been retested and none has so far shown an
>immediate health hazard or environmental danger. They also said that most of
>the time, other laboratories would have been hired to do the same tests as a
>standard safeguard. The indictment listed the test sites as being
>predominantly in Texas and the western half of the nation.
>
>Yet agency officials could not say what percentage of the sites have been
>retested, and they said it may be impossible to retest some because of
>subsequent construction.
>
>"One of the very difficult problems presented when people commit criminal
>acts like this is that you have to go through a very laborious process of
>tracking everything back," said one agency official involved in the matter.
>"First, we go find out every place this lab was used, then you have to see
>how extensively they were used. We have to find out how much this lab was
>relied on, because typically you would not rely solely on one lab."
>
>The federal government's criminal investigation into Intertek was publicly
>disclosed in late 1998, and by then all of the Intertek subsidiary's six
>laboratories had either been sold or closed, the company said.
>
>A spokeswoman for the company said today that Intertek officials knew of no
>other current or former employees who had been notified that they were
>targets of the federal investigation, nor had the company itself been
>notified.
>
>Intertek said that it had voluntarily disclosed problems at the Richardson
>plant to the agency in January 1998, and the spokeswoman said the company
>had "absolutely" no idea at that time that federal authorities suspected any
>wrongdoing or problems with the company's tests.
>
>But the authorities said the government had also begun making inquiries
>after one government customer grew suspicious several years ago. The
>customer had sent a sample to be tested, and the results came back showing
>that only two of nine compounds that actually were present had been
>detected.
>
>Intertek said that after it informed the government of the problems it tried
>to gain acceptance to the E.P.A.'s voluntary disclosure program, which would
>have granted it legal protection in exchange for full disclosure of
>wrongdoing.
>
>But one federal official said the company's disclosure was "wholly
>inadequate and understated," and the agency denied the request.
>
>The Intertek spokeswoman said the company did not know why the agency had
>rejected its request to join the program.
>