Shutdown of EPA libraries worries scientists, advocates.... [View All]

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From McClatchy, via CommonDreams:

Published on Saturday, December 2, 2006 by the McClatchy Newspapers
Shutdown of EPA Libraries Worries Scientists, Advocates
by David Goldstein

WASHINGTON - Concerned about the kinds of pollutants spilling into your local rivers and streams and how they could affect your health?

As the Environmental Protection Agency closes some scientific libraries around the country, EPA scientists and other environmental advocates worry whether that kind of information could become harder to find.

They fear that the agency's plan to save money by replacing printed resources with digitized versions on the Internet could make information less - not more - accessible.

"Nobody is against modernization, but we don't see the digitization," said Francesca Grifo, a botanist and the director of scientific integrity at the Union of Concerned Scientists, an advocacy group for the environment and other scientific issues. "We just see the libraries closing. We just see that public access has been cut off."

The EPA has closed three of its 10 regional libraries, branches in Kansas City, Mo., Dallas and Chicago that serve 15 states. EPA officials said that no information would be lost and that public access would be improved rather than compromised.

"EPA is committed to ensuring the agency's library materials are available to employees, the public, the scientific community, the legal community and other organizations," Linda Travers, the acting assistant administrator of the EPA's Office of Environmental Information, said in an e-mail.

Travers said material from the closed libraries would be available on the agency's Web site (www.epa.gov) in January and was accessible now through interlibrary loans. She said EPA-produced documents from all 21 libraries in the agency's network that could be digitized would be accessible through the Internet within two years.

But the closing gives ammunition to scientists, open-records supporters and members of Congress who think that the Bush administration is weakening the EPA. An internal agency memo last summer spelled out plans to close laboratories, cut senior-level scientists and reduce environmental oversight.

Steve Kinser, a Superfund project engineer in Kansas City and the president of the local chapter of the National Treasury Employees Union, which represents the EPA's professional employees, said the developments had made him look forward to his retirement next year even more.

"Our ability to do our job is being tested at every turn," he said. "I don't know if I can say anything more plain than that.".........

The rest of the article is at: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/1202