On August 5, the EPA launched a new Web page seeking comments from the public on water quality issues. They have a blog set up for the public to post comments and share ideas on the topic. On August 7, the EPA sent out a notice to the press (at least that was when mine came in). Unfortunately, this blog page is scheduled to close down August 28.

So, to me, this seems to be an effort to limit public comment. They should have given the page 90 or 180 days of life in order to gather comments. Newspapers might publish the announcement but newspaper readership has been shrinking. The EPA does have quite a few visitors and to the agency’s credit, they did put an announcement on the home page as long as you wait to let the top of the page cycle through all four announcements. I think most people are looking for something in particular and don’t wait for that to complete. Magazines and associations have newsletters but most of them have cycles of once a month. Magazines are usually monthly and the content is put together 2 to 3 months in advance. So, chances are that most of the people that respond would be those that frequently go to the EPA’s home page.

As of this writing (August 10), there are 14 comments on the page. I will be interested to see just how many comments they do get by the 28th. Let me make it a little easier for the few that ready my musings to get to the blog page. Click on or copy and paste http://blog.epa.gov/cwaactionplan/2009/08/05/welcome-to-the-clean-water-action-plan-blog/#comments into your URL address bar to go directly to the blog page.

So what do they want to know? According to the site, Cynthia Giles, who is the assistant administrator for the Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance, was tasked to get back to Lisa Jackson with ideas to increase information transparency, strengthen clean water enforcement performance, and expand our use of technology to increase efficiency. She had 90 days from July 2 to complete the task. To be fair, I am sure that is why she is only allowing a few weeks to comment.

I hope that people do respond and post some great ideas to the blog page. I also hope that Ms. Giles reports that she is gathering some great ideas from the public and believes it would be a great step in improving transparency by letting the blog run another 6 months to give magazines a chance to go out and solicit their readers to provide additional comments. It just seems to be a rush to get things done and there is too great a chance for errors and missteps when things are rushed.