The Flow Of The River

Branch Out in the New Year

I’m going to be out for a while. My next post won’t be until January. But for those of you with real Christmas trees, let me suggest you start the New Year out right.

If your tree ends up in a landfill every year, why not try something new and let someone compost it for you? Earth 911 is a national non-profit foundation that, among other things, promotes recycling. They have compiled a directory where you can find out if there is a tree composting program near you. All you need is your ZIP code.

That’s a good first step to having a happy New Year.

The Best Thing I Ever Did (Before I Got Married)

It’s rare, but occasionally you meet people you immediately ‘click’ with. I found two such friends my first year in graduate school. However, as graduation approached, we realized we were heading off in different directions. They were going to California and I was moving to Washington DC. We agreed that we needed to do something to stay in touch with each other.   

Our solution was the best thing I’d done in my life, up to that point. We formed a club. We called it the ‘ExCom’ from a school project involving President Kennedy’s use of an Executive Committee, or ‘ExCom’, during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The three of us made a pact. We would pay monthly dues to the 'ExCom'. We must use those dues once a year to visit a National Park site together. It had to be a different site every year.  Dues started at $20 a month. About a year later we reunited on the hiking trails of Bandelier National Monument. We spent most of the time talking about girls.

Since then, dues have trebled, the hikes got longer (then shorter), and the conversations have evolved. Hot discussion topics such as weddings, job offers, mortgage rates, and day care have all come and gone. The word ‘retirement’ was recently uttered for the first time.

And something else has changed. A few years ago we amended our by-laws so that when our kids reach age 10 they are invited to join the club. So far, they have all done so. The original ‘three guys’ are now three Dads and four kids.

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This year we went to the Everglades. We paddled through spider-infested mangrove tunnels (see photos, and, yes, those are spiders), camped on ancient shell mounds, and witnessed thousands of Ibis start their morning commute.

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Over the past twenty years, I’ve shared some spectacular landscapes and wildlife with two great friends. Now my kids have the opportunity to enjoy the outdoors. To learn that hiking to a glacier in Montana beats sitting on a couch watching Hannah Montana.

They are also learning about relationships - that being a friend can mean making, and keeping, a long-term commitment. So far, I think they get it. On the way home from Florida one of my daughters turned to me and said, “I’m going to make sure the 'ExCom' goes on forever.” I think it just might.

On The Right Track

I’ve been listening to holiday music this week. It reminded me that philosopher Mitchell Silver noted a problem with the popular song “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town.” The song says, Santa “knows if you are sleeping, he knows if you’re awake, he knows if you’ve been bad or good, so be good for goodness’ sake.” The last phrase, asserts Silver, is not logically consistent with the song’s premise. To be consistent the last part should say something like, “so be good if you want lots of presents.” If you were just “good for goodness’ sake,” then pleasing the omniscient Santa would be irrelevant.

The fact is people do good things both because they feel compelled to and because they think it is the right thing to do. Translating that for how EPA should behave means: tough enforcement and facilitating environmental stewardship go hand-in-hand.

At the same time EPA has been setting records regarding enforcement we are also tapping into the natural desire many companies have to protect Mother Nature.

A good example of this is the National Environmental Performance Track program. The program encourages businesses to be good environmental stewards by recognizing facilities that go beyond minimum legal requirements.

And Performance Track members are getting results. Since the start of the program in 2000 the nearly 500 participating facilities have, in aggregate, reduced:

• water use by more than 5.2 billion gallons;
• greenhouse gas emissions by 310,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent;
• hazardous waste by 52,000 tons;
• non-hazardous garbage by 1.2 million tons; and
• emissions of sulfur oxides by 43,000 tons.

And Performance Track members improve their bottom line as well. For instance:

• PPG Industries in Meadville, Pennsylvania saves more than $500,000 annually by reusing 100,000 tons of waste glass per year;
• Honeywell Engines, Systems, and Accessories in Tempe, Arizona saves nearly $150,000 per year because it now generates six ounces of oil per unit tested compared to 30 gallons before; and
• Baxter Healthcare Corporation saved more than $9 million between 2001 and 2003 by reducing its energy use per unit of production.

If you know of a company that has a facility that is interested in partnering with EPA to go beyond compliance, give our bell a jingle at 1-888-339-7875. That would make us all very jolly.

When Bad Measures Are Good

Ever since China started siphoning oil from the world market there has been a surge of interest in developing oil and gas wells in the American West. It’s important we find domestic supplies of energy, but that needs to be done in a way that protects our air, land, and water.

With this in mind, EPA’s Regional Office in Denver started measuring their performance in helping to eliminate or reduce the environmental impacts of new drilling and exploration. That’s not an easy thing to measure. They decided to measure the number of significant environmental improvements that occurred in project plans after EPA got involved in project review. That’s kind of a stinky measure because it doesn’t tell you if EPA caused the improvements and it doesn’t tell you anything about what effect EPA’s action has had on the air, land, or water. On the other hand, it’s an easy measure to track.

In 2006 there were 55 significant environmental improvements to western projects after EPA got involved in the planning process. This year, through the third quarter, the number was only 18. Whoa, at this rate we’ll end the year with less than half the improvements we got last year. We know the number of new projects hasn’t gone down. Are we falling down on the job? What’s going on?

Click image to enlarge. Copyright © EnCana Corporation. All rights reserved

What we think is going on is that folks learned from EPA last year the sorts of things that can be done to make these projects better and they are now designing the projects better from the get-go. For instance, last year EPA helped review the Jonah Infill Development Oil and Gas Project. At first, EPA concluded the project would result in many days where air quality in a nearby wilderness area would be impaired. Working with our partners, such as the Bureau of Land Management, the project was modified so that it would result in “0” days of impairment. The final Jonah project is now a standard by which most subsequent oil and gas developments are judged and folks are writing to this standard from conception.

Despite the fact the measure shows we are doing worse, we are getting a much better result because projects are now more protective in the first place. Should we throw this bad measure out? No. No measure is perfect. Measures are there to remind us we have something important we need to focus on. Until we have a better measure, this measure beats no measure at all. The key is to look beyond any measure and ask, “what are we really trying to achieve here?”

Guest Blog: Getting Your Foot in EPA’s Door

My name is Dave Bend, I work for EPA’s National Center For Environmental Innovation. As a recent graduate of the EPA Intern Program (EIP), Deputy Administrator Peacock asked me to discuss how EPA is expanding its leadership pipeline. I am going to focus on entry-level opportunities at the Agency, with a special emphasis on the EIP (bias acknowledged).

Prior to joining EPA, I was a teacher in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley. I distinctly remember walking by EPA’s Headquarters on a summer vacation and wondering, “How can I work there? What does it take to get inside those doors?” I hope this posting helps those of you out there asking similar questions.

I was drawn to EPA because I found its mission—protecting human health and the environment—deeply compelling. What could be more challenging? What could be more rewarding? I have found that my EPA colleagues share a similar commitment to the agency’s mission. If you do as well, read on!

The crown jewel of the Agency’s professional development programs is the EIP (again, bias noted). As a participant in the EIP you have the opportunity to complete several rotations within EPA, as well as a two-month detail to one of EPA’s regions or laboratories.

I was hired by the National Center for Environmental Innovation’s Evaluation Support Division (ESD) in September 2005. I spent my first year at the Agency with ESD before rotating to the following offices:

• Smart Growth
• Clean Air Markets Division
• Government Accountability Office’s Applied Research and Methods Division (EIPs can complete rotations with states and other federal agencies)
• Region 9’s (San Francisco) Environmental Justice Program

As you can see, rotations allow you to witness the breadth of EPA’s work, while also providing an opportunity to develop an extensive network inside and outside of the Agency.

Although I am partial to the EIP program, there are also many other excellent ways to begin working for the agency including the: Presidential Management Fellowship Program, Student Career Experience Program and the Federal Career Intern Program. Additional entry-level opportunities are available here. Keep in mind that all of these options are in addition to positions posted on USAJOBS.

I hope this information helps turn your interest in working for EPA into a reality. Let me know when your start date is and I’ll meet you at the front door!

Reality Check

This week EPA won the highest possible award for excellence in management. Every EPA employee should be proud of that. However, lest anyone get too comfortable, let me return to one of the areas that is still a challenge for this Agency.

Back in September I pointed out that we seem to be chronically late in crafting some of our most important rules. At that time we were, on average, 69 days late per important rule. Here we are three months later and we’ve gone in the wrong direction. We are now, on average, 76 days late (see graph).

When we started tracking this metric, I hoped that just by measuring timeliness, we would improve. That didn’t happen. I then decided to identify those rules that were the most late and put special emphasis on getting them done. (We called them ‘Gummy Bears’ since they seemed to raise especially sticky issues.) I hoped the additional attention on these several rules would accelerate their schedules. That didn’t happen. Finally, I decided to personally invest some time in addressing a few of the Gummy Bears that were the most late. I spent time getting up to speed on the substance and meeting with folks to see if we could achieve a break through. The result of that effort: nada.

What next? I’m contemplating that. Potential options are to increase the volume (put even more attention on these few rules) or bring out even bigger guns (get, for instance, the Administrator more involved). Whatever we do, we can’t just bask in the glow and comfort of what we’ve done. Accountability means enjoying our successes and facing up to where we aren’t doing as well as we hoped. This is one area where we need to do better.

What's Cooking?

Some time ago I picked up the book What’s Cooking in Our National Parks, a collection of the ‘best’ recipes submitted to the National Park Service by park visitors.  Ooh, what a mistake.  One of the typical offerings:

Sweet and Spicy Wieners

5 oz. can cocktail wieners
3 oz. grape jelly
2 oz. yellow mustard

Mix together and heat in a pot.  Serves 3.

I would submit that preparing such a dish in one of our National Parks would be an insult to nature.  But that’s just me.

So, what’s cookin’ at EPA?  I just started my quarterly management meetings with senior staff this week and I’m pretty excited about what is going on.  More than ever, people are identifying possible ways to improve how we do business.  After just two meetings, here are some things people are working on:

• Region 5 is discussing with Region 7 how to integrate meteorological, topographic and other information off the Web to better target inspections of animal feedlots.  They do this in the office before going out in the field.  The result should be much greater reductions in pollution in critical watersheds and the faster recovery of natural habitats.

• Region 7 is learning from Region 9 how we can make sure old diesel engines that EPA helps ‘retire’ aren’t ‘resurrected’ someplace else such as Mexico.

• Our enforcement office is determining how some EPA regions are able to more evenly spread out our enforcement related referrals to the Department of Justice.  If we are able to do this across the agency, we could take faster action against scofflaws.

What’s cookin’ at EPA?

Continuous Improvementelli

1 oz. inquisitiveness
1 oz. persistence
3 oz. perspiration
Dash of innovation

Mix and never stop mixing.  Serves 300 million.

Indicator Species

My family hiked around Roosevelt Island last Saturday. Roosevelt Island lies across the Potomac River from Georgetown near downtown Washington DC. Over time we’ve noticed something about the rocks on the island compared to rocks we see up in the Shenandoah Mountains: fewer lichen. Lichen (pronounced LIE-kin) is that weird often crusty green, yellow, or brown fungus that commonly grows on rocks or trees (see picture). In the mountains we saw lots of lichen. In town we see less. How come?

It turns out lichen are highly sensitive to pollution. Most species can’t tolerate much sulfur dioxide, for instance. This makes them a great ‘indicator species’ for air quality. In lieu of monitoring for air pollution, you can look around at the amount and type of lichen and get an indication of what’s in the air. Got lichen? Then the air is probably clean. Haven’t got it, then it’s probably dirty.

Of course, there are other indicator species for measuring air quality, water quality, soil contamination and so on. But is there an indicator species for good management in the federal government?

Yes, there is. It’s the eagle. Every year since 1988 a few federal agencies receive the President’s Quality Award, the “highest award given to Executive Branch agencies for management excellence.” Each winner gets a trophy, an eagle made of crystal. That makes these eagles a pretty good indicator. If there is an eagle hanging around an agency, chances are it’s well-managed.

Crystal eagles are good, but one crystal eagle soars above the others. It is awarded for overall excellence. To get this eagle, an agency must demonstrate exceptional management across the agency, not just in a particular area. It is darn rare. Since 1988 it has only been awarded once . . . until an award ceremony last night, that is.

I’m happy to announce that at sunrise this morning a new crystal eagle is roosting at EPA and she is no ordinary eagle. She represents the competence and hard work of managers across all of EPA. She indicates we are doing lots of things right.

Crystal eagles are important. More eagles at EPA means, in the long run, more lichen on rocks, more fish in the water, and less waste in our landfills.

Congratulations to all our managers on a great year, you have set a new standard of excellence!