RE: librarians as advocates for common sense environmental information

[James Marple <jesl@carolina.net>]

Tom
  Your suggestion that EPA management should be able to see where they could protect their budget with aggressive action to improve services does not address the proven ability of private interests to 'dispose of' persons who would use powers of office to effect significant reform. While my memory is hazy on names I remember clearly the powerful testimony of witnesses in the Savings & Loan hearings. I was informed by insiders that this 'killed' the careers of those who were not lackeys of the profiteers that reaped billions. 

I can accept that EPA management might act as a whole to provide access to all information, even supplement what they take in with their own views of planning alternatives that have been ignored or misrepresented. I find it difficult to imagine that, considering the lack of Press and therefore public support for courageous individuals in government, key managers will offer their head on the chopping block by pushing such exploration. The notion that you can't do good if you aren't in power has been exploited by profiteers to keep politicians and agency managers in line since America's founders devised our excellent but still flawed system of government.

My views of the inner workings of federal bureaus have led me to see them not as impersonal entities but as pyramids of power weakly cemented together by bonds of professionalism and personal integrity in a rough balance with pressures of ambition and corruptive influence. I see an aggregation of diverse individuals often battling within a loose-knit framework, not a tower of strength derived from total unity of purpose. Because of this view I may be too ready to accept that the mercenary army serving profiteers is able to manipulate key data collecting/disseminating elements so that leaders and the public see what this band of thieves wants seen. Manufactured chaos provides opportunity.

My few political comments advocate better choice of local politicians as a first step in curing the data contamination problem, just as my watershed planning focuses on source control. My narrow view: A lack of model comprehesive watershed management plans incorporating latest and best planning and design technique is sufficient proof that those who practice to deceive do this deep within our major agencies