Are we expecting too much? What are the alternatives to EPA

[Mike Meuser <meuser@mapcruzin.com>]

I just ran across this article, "Critics Say Environmental 
Protection Agency Needs Independent Oversight".  Read for
yourself at 
http://ens-news.com/ens/sep2000/2000L-09-26-15.html 

It made me take pause and reflect on what we ar hoping
for.  Perhaps we're expecting too much.  Given my
experience with EPA "brick walls" when trying to access
data, unresponsive and defensive EPA employees who
supposedly are there to serve the public, EPA instigated
barriers to public participation that I have personally
experienced at military base conversion meetings and
forums, I wonder if EPA has the capacity, the focus to
do this work.

Perhaps we are spinning our wheels in yet another dialogue,
program, whatever instead of putting our energies where
they can do the most good.  Maybe the best we can expect
is for EPA to gather data, not communicate it in any
meaningful way.  Maybe the answer is to use FOIA often
and repeatedly to get at the data EPA has collected at
the public's expense and then communicate it through
an already in-place infrastructure like RTK Net or form
a new "People's Environmental Protection" infrastructure
to communicate the information.  Become a conduit between
the data and the people.

Mike