A government report has found federal agencies collect a lot of data on water quality, but don’t always share the information in a way that can help the environment. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
A government report has found federal agencies collect a lot of data on water
quality, but don’t always share the information in a way that can help the
environment. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
The investigative arm of Congress, the General Accounting Office, looked at how
federal agencies and state governments gather water quality data. It found the
different agencies are either not coordinating their efforts or have difficulty
doing that. That’s because: 1) agencies collect the same data for different
reasons; 2) they use different methods; 3) each agency is unaware what the
others are collecting; and 4) coordinating the information is just not a big
priority for them. The problem is collecting water quality data is expensive,
so duplication is a waste of taxpayer money.
The General Accounting Office is recommending Congress designate a lead agency
to coordinate the water quality data and establish clear standards so everyone
is measuring the same things in the same way.
For the Great Lakes Radio
Consortium, this is Lester Graham.