EPA's 1st Ever Report on Environment

[Timber Loftis]

From today's BNA Newsletter:

EPA's Draft Report on the Environment
Notes Achievements, Needed Improvements

A two-year Environmental Protection Agency effort to assess the current state of the environment and human health indicates that significant air and water quality improvements have been made during the past three decades, but it warns that problems remain.
The agency's Draft Report on the Environment 2003, billed as the "first ever national picture" of what EPA has achieved during the past three decades to protect human health and air, water, and land quality in the United States, was released June 23.

EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman, who will leave the position within days, said the report describes what the agency "knows and doesn't know" about the U.S. environment and how it is changing.

She said the report and its accompanying 453-page technical document are intended to provide a roadmap for EPA policy and budget priorities.

"This draft report is a work in progress," Whitman said. "We will be actively soliciting feedback from a wide variety of those interested in the environment--from organized groups and experts to average citizens. We want to know how our effort can be improved."

Whitman said EPA staff began working on the report in 2001 and collaborated with more than 30 federal agencies and more than 30 states and private groups before releasing the draft version.


Human Health Indicators

EPA officials said a number of the draft report's findings have already been published by the agency in other reports exclusively focusing on a specific environmental media. Private groups, such as the Heinz Center and Pacific Research Institute, have published their own comprehensive reports on the U.S. environment.
"The human health indicators [section] is what I think sets this report apart .... We're going to be looking to see how we can build and make decisions based on that," she said.

The draft report said the overall health of the United States is generally good and improving. The death rates for cancer, heart disease, and stroke are at their lowest recorded levels. The U.S. infant mortality rate is also at an all-time low but remains the highest among 20 industrialized countries, the report said.

The report noted that many studies have demonstrated an association between environmental exposure and certain problems or diseases, but said such associations are not the same as "cause and effect."

The report also noted that existence of "significant data gaps" in understanding links between pollution and health problems. Whitman noted that childhood asthma has been increased in the United States, despite significant achievement in reducing air pollution.


Air Pollution

The Air Quality section of the report said pollution from six criteria pollutants--sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, lead, nitrogen dioxide, ozone, and lead--has decreased 25 percent in 30 years.
In addition to those pollutants, the agency has achieved significant reductions in toxic air emissions and acid rain. Wet sulfate deposition declined 20 percent to 30 percent nationwide from 1989 to 2001.

Those improvements, while notable, varied on a nationwide basis. EPA officials noted only slight decreases or increases in acid rain in certain "pockets" of the country, particularly in the eastern United States.

In 2001, more than 133 million people lived in areas where monitored air quality was at high levels for at least one of the six criteria pollutants, the report said.

Thinning of the Earth's ozone layer, associated with the use of chlorofluorocarbons, has increased during the past two decades, but may have peaked. Scientists believe that recovery is underway, thanks in part to the 1996 Montreal Protocol, the report said.

The ozone date is included in the "Global Issues" portion of the Air Quality Section. The report notes that ozone depletion and the issue of climate change "are separate environmental issues, but related in some ways."

"Specifically, some substances that deplete the stratospheric ozone layer also are potent and very long-lived greenhouse gases that absorb outgoing radiation and warm the atmosphere."


Climate Change Controversy

The omission of report language on climate change has stirred controversy during Whitman's last two weeks as EPA administrator. Whitman's tenure at the agency ends June 27 (99 DEN AA-1, 05/22/03 ).
An internal EPA memo, obtained by the National Wildlife Federation and first reported June 19, reveals that the White House removed climate change language from an earlier version of the draft report.

The removed language said that "climate change has global consequences for the health and the environment." It also made references to climate change studies, including the 2001 National Research Council report that suggested global warming was unusual and likely caused by human factors.

In response to EPA's initial draft, the White House proposed its own climate change language, which highlighted uncertainly among the scientific community on the issue.

The White House language said climate change "may have potentially profound consequences," but also noted that the "complexity of the earth system and the interconnections among its components make it difficult to document change, document is cause, and the develop useful projects."

That language also was omitted from EPA's June 23 report. According to the internal memo, EPA staff objected to the White House language because "it no longer accurately represents scientific consensus on climate change."

It said the agency would take "severe criticism from the science and environmental communities for poorly representing the science" on climate change.

Whitman downplayed any White House-EPA dispute over climate change, noting the original EPA language proposed was only two pages long.

Only three sentences were included in the final version. EPA provides a definition of the problem and refers readers to the Web site of the U.S. Global Research Program and Climate Change Research Initiative.


Water, Waste, and Land Concerns

The EPA report noted "real progress" in improving water quality, citing reductions in point-source pollution and the rate of wetlands loss. However, the report also concluded that most U.S. estuaries are in fair to poor condition, and face increasing threats from agricultural runoff, landscape changes, aging wastewater infrastructure systems and settlement of airborne pollutants.
The report found that scientific indicators for measuring and reporting inland water quality are often adequate at the state and local level but remain insufficient to provide a clear national picture.

EPA did note significant improvements in drinking water quality. The percentage of U.S. citizens using drinking water systems that meet all EPA health-based standards increased from 79 percent in 1993 to 94 percent in 2002, the report said.

Industrial releases of toxic chemicals, as reported to EPA's Toxic Release Inventory, have declined 48 percent since 1988, the report said.

Pesticide use has declined 15 percent since 1980, but some problems remain. Testing of foods for pesticide residues in 2000 found that 1.4 percent of samples exceeded regulatory limits, the report said.

A growing concern is the increasing amount of municipal waste generated in the United States, up 160 percent since 1960. "While the nation is generating more waste, its waste management practices have improved, particularly through increased recycling," the report said.

Land development has also significantly increased, but "there are varying estimates of developed land resulting from varying definitions and approaches to land use assessments," EPA said.

The rate of land development increased in the 1990s at a rate 1.5 greater than that of the 1980s, the report said.

According to data compiled in 1997, the United States contains 2.3 billion acres of land. More than 1 billion acres are grasslands and shrublands, 749 million acres are forests, 410 million acres are agricultural lands, and 98 million acres are undeveloped land.

The Draft Report on the Environment 2003 is available at http://www.epa.gov/indicators on the World Wide Web.

By Mike Ferullo

[ 06-24-2003, 09:51 AM: Message edited by: Timber Loftis ]