RE: How can we help people find environmental information?

["Terry A. Greene" <tgreene@jsi.com>]

I wanted to support Paul Orum's call to implement "key identifiers."
It only makes sense.

Many other suggestions also make sense, such as organizing the data
so that it is useful to answer questions people ask.  This is hard,
because the data are collected for a regulatory purpose, but progress
is being made and "key identifiers" would help the agency to organize
their databases into formats more tailored to public information
needs.

No matter how good the databases or their presentation, the need
will remain for real people (information, advocacy, and scientific
specialists, etc.) to provide assistance in sorting through the
data, making it fully understandable, and effectively putting it
to use. Libraries and other nonprofits are great allies to tap,
provided they are adequately supported in doing so.

A problem with directing the public or librarians to the EPA, is
that they can get lost and discouraged trying to reach the right
person for assistance.  I'd encourage a policy across EPA, used by
some offices, that whenever any EPA staff member receives a pubic
information request, that they take responsibility for making sure
that the individual gets the information they need, rather than
simply passing them along.  It means the staff will have to learn
to negotiate the EPA and its data sources, but that could be a
good thing in and of itself!