Q&A: Tech's role in protecting the environment

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By Danielle Dunne

(IDG) -- Kimberly Nelson, CIO and assistant administrator for the Office of Environmental Information, talks about technology's role in protecting the environment.

Darwinmag.com: The EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) has a pretty extensive Web site, with a history of providing important information to the public. How are you going to balance providing that information with making sure that none of that data can be used to harm the country?

Nelson: That's an unfortunate circumstance that we are all faced with after September 11. For the thousands of people who use this information productively, we have to worry about that one person who may not do so.

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We are currently in the process of doing a complete inventory of all the information this agency has. We are doing that inventory so we can make decisions about the information we place on our Web site. In the future, I think you are going to see Web sites designed in such a manner that there are various levels of security for accessing certain information.

How does the EPA use Internet technology to achieve its goals like reducing pollution?

Much of the pollution that occurs today does not come from large industry, because a good deal of that is controlled and regulated. A lot of the pollution that occurs today comes from you and me. We get those points across to the public in terms of how we can better manage our waste streams and reduce our driving habits by using the Internet.

The power of the Internet is that it's there, it's not costly to put up, it doesn't waste paper and it's there for anybody who decides that they are interested in that topic. If you want to learn how to compost, go on a Web site and learn how to compost.

The Internet is an incredibly powerful tool to get at people who do want to make a difference in the environment. By using the Internet, we don't have to try to figure out who are all the people in the country who want to know how to compost and then get a publication to them. We can make sure that if they are interested they always have the most relevant information.

How will the Web and the use of Internet technologies change the way the EPA works?

We want to be able to document where this agency is in terms of protecting the environment. We want to baseline our current environmental condition, and then share with the public those things that need to be done to improve that environmental condition. And some of those things may be things that we've used through our regulatory program, but many of those things may be things that people can do voluntarily.

What are some of the other ways the EPA is effective?

Throughout this country there are volunteers, who work every day, every weekend. We need to make sure those people, who are working so hard at the volunteer level, have the right tools and the right information so they can measure their own successes and that we can help support them in terms of measuring the improvements they are making.

In the future, my goal would be to make sure that the right information is available to people, so they can make the right decisions. That might be managers and employees within this organization who have to make decisions everyday about [resources]. Where do they spend that dollar if the have an extra dollar to spend? What program do they put it in to make sure it is most effectively spent? Or it might be those volunteers out there. How do those volunteers decide where their time is best spent?

What else do you have in mind for the future?

Because of where we are going in the future with the use of technology, we have to work more on issues like data standards, and approaching solutions in more of a standardized fashion. It didn't make as much of a difference when we had paper processes, but the more we move to electronic processes, the more important things like data standards, common definitions, and standardized sets of information become. Because if we want to share information between agencies -- and we are going to have to do that for homeland security and other reasons -- then we have to learn to do things together. I see that starting to happen a little bit, but that kind of activity has to occur a whole lot more over the next few years.