Another EPA library shut down, drawing widespread criticism

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has begun shutting down its national library network by closing regional research libraries in Chicago, Dallas and Kansas City and reducing access to collections in New York, Boston, Seattle and San Francisco. While those actions had been expected, the EPA has also closed its chemical pollution and toxic substances resource library in Washington, DC, a move that caught observers off guard. According to documents released on Oct. 30 by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, the EPA closed the Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic Substances Chemical Library on Oct. 20 with no public announcement. Internal emails between EPA staff suggest that much of the chemical library's collection was being dispersed to other libraries haphazardly, and that the closure of the library was done hastily. One email from an EPA library staff person complained about the "scattered disbursement, short time frame and minimal communications coming from on high." The closure of the chemical library is part of the Bush administration's plan to "modernize and improve" its network of 26 libraries by streamlining its operation. The plan, which cuts the library system's budget by 80 percent, includes closing some physical spaces and digitizing library holdings. The EPA did not comment on how soon the Chemical Library's materials would be available in digital format, but the EPA's library plan warns that "some disruption to access" to library collections might occur "until funding for dispersion is available." Critics worry that access to information will be difficult and elusive, even after the library materials are made available online, and could severely threaten scientists' ability to thoroughly research the effects of chemicals before approving them. Bill Hirzy, a senior scientist with the EPA for 25 years and vice president of the National Treasury Employees Union, which represents EPA employees, believes the library closure has dangerous implications for public health. In a recent letter seeking help from Congress, EPA scientists said their ability to respond to emergencies would be reduced by the library closures. The agency's own enforcement arm predicts that the library closures will hurt its ability to crack down on companies that pollute because it will be harder to retrieve reports and information without the librarians who have an institutional knowledge of where materials are kept. "If you want to handcuff the agency, you cut its resources, its research abilities and enforcement," said John J. O'Grady, president of the American Federation of Government Employees' Local 704 in Chicago, which represents 400 EPA employees. The result is an agency that can't enforce the environmental protection laws it is designed to enforce, O'Grady said. "This is really hitting EPA at its very heart," said Lynne Bradley, director of government relations at the American Library Association's Washington office. "Taking away access to information is like putting dynamite in the foundation of a building that you want to demolish," Bradley said. "It is like imploding the EPA from within." An internal June 8, 2006, memo from Lyons Gray, the EPA's chief financial officer, to top agency officials, indicates that the agency plans even deeper cuts next year, including at laboratories where much of the agency's research takes place. If labs are closing, employees say, everything is on the table. In that memo, Lyons wrote that the agency must "identify opportunities for consolidation and streamlining." That includes cutting the labs' costs by 20 percent over the next five years and closing an unspecified number of them.