ouest Editorial

Environmental Indicators:An Integral Tool for the Futureof Environmental Management

James R. Bernard, Project Manager

State Environmental Goals and Indicators Project

IntroductionEnvironmental indicators - the direct or indirect measures of environmental quality that can be used to assess conditions

and trends in the environment's ability to support human and ecological health - are becoming essential and integral tools inenvironmental management.

The State Environmental Goals and Indicators Project has identified over 2,000 environmental indicator practitionersrepresenting over 200 different project at the federal, state, regional, place-based/ecosystem, estuary, and coastal levels. Nongov-ernmental organizations and corporations are also using environmental indicators in annual reports.

Twenty-seven states are undertaking an environmental indicator project or process; 12 states having completed state of theenvironment reports. A recent survey of75 state environmental management agencies by the Project found that 71 percent of therespondents were involved in environmental status and trends reporting.

These statistics represent more than a short-lived phenomenon. The use of environmental indicators is becoming a funda-mental component of environmental management.

Yet, environmental indicators are not a new concept. In fact, a great deal of thinking about environmental indicators andaggregated groups of indicators, or environmental indices, was undertaken in the early 1970s, but subsequently set aside.

How did we move away from measuring the environmentand - more specifically - why didwe lose sight of environmen-tal indicators?A perspective that acknowledged theinterconnectednessof humans and environmental systems, alongwith the idea that the whole was greater than the sum of the parts,was gradually replaced by a stream of single-medium, single-issue,prescriptive environmental laws and associated regulations.Broadly-trained environmental professionalswent to work ingovernment agencies or in corporations and were instructed toservice specific permitting functions. At the same time, nongovern-mental organizations struggled to keep up with a rapidly growingand hierarchical environmental bureaucracy.

Program efficiency was measured on paper in numbers ofpermits issued, compliance and enforcement actions taken,instead of by what was actually happening in the environment.The environmental monitoring data embedded within thepermitting process was obscured by data management systemsthat only grudgingly yield information that could be used incharacterizing overall environmental conditions.

An institutional culture characterized by constrainedsingle-medium programming accompanied by jurisdictionalturf fights and lack of communication symbolized the discon-nection of environmental professionals from the environment.There was a steady profusion of acronyms for environmentalprograms that tended to obscured the environmental issuesthemselves and made them more arcane and inaccessible todecisionmakers and the public.

Environmental management practitioners were not ableto solve the conundrums of the difference between naturalresource management and environmental protection; thedifference between reactive versus proactive approaches tosolving problems; and the difference between regulatory andother, softer approaches to government intervention.

In contrast, today, there are a number of factors -laws,policy initiatives, agreements - that are driving the need for

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more and better environmental information for accountabilityand decisionmaking.

* The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency'sNational Environmental Goals Project will soon releaseEnvironmental Goals for America with Milestones for 2005,which will suggest long-range goals and propose environmen-tal progress indicators with ten-year target levels. This projectwill provide environmental indicators and data that will beused to track results covering the major environmental issueswith which USEPA is concerned.

* The Government Performance and Results Act of 1993requires that federal agencies establish long-term "outcome" goalsand plans to achieve them, along with performancemeasures forinitial implementation in fiscalyear 1997.

* The National Environmental Performance Partner-ship System, an agreement between USEPA and the Environ-mental Council of the States signed in May 1995, establishes a"Performance Partnership Agreement" process for states andtheir respective USEPA regional offices to negotiate an annualset of environmental goals and indicators instead of traditionalworkplans. Five states - Colorado, Delaware, Illinois, NewJersey, and Utah - have developed agreements for this fiscalyear and all states are expected to join in the partnershipsystem during their fiscal year 1997.

* The President's Council on Sustainable Develop-ment recently published national goals and indicators forsustainable development in Sustainable America - A NewConsensus for Prosperity, Opportunity, and a HealthyEnvironment for the Future.

* ISO 14000 is the promulgation of a new set ofstandards for environmental management by the InternationalStandards Organization, aimed at organizational evaluationand product evaluation. Sections of ISO 14000 dealing withEnvironmental Management System Standards and Environ-mental Auditing Standards are expected to be approved in

STATE ENVIRONMENTAL MONITOR - June 3. 1996

Guest Editorial

mid-1996. The overwhelming benefit ofa standard of this typeis that it will allow corporations to be environmentallyproactive and ahead of the regulatory curve; to eliminate thematerials, processes, and wastes that subject a company toregulations; and to subject the competition, particularly off-shore competition, to a similar set of environmental principles thatu.s. companies have been dealing with for many years.* Redefining Progress, a San Francisco-basedpolicy institutefocusing on national economic issues from a sustainability -perspective,will be developing a national indicators programmodeled in part on the Sustainable Seattle initiative.

* The State Environmental Goals and Indicators Project,a cooperative agreement between USEPA and the Florida Centerfor Public Management, has cataJoguedthe environmentalindicators that have been published by federal and state govem-ments in the last five years, and currently is in the process ofproducing a comprehensive set of environmental indicators forstate use in environmental management systems.

In communicating environmental indicators todecisionmakers and the public, there is a trend to move towardpresentations that are paperless (i.e., documents on theInternet), nested, and interactive. The Canadian federal State ofthe Environment 1996 is being presented only on the Internet,replacing a hard-bound version produced five years ago. TheCanadians, preeminent in communicating environmentalindicators, offer nested sets of environmental issue statements,environmental indicators as fact sheets, and their supportingdata as technical bulletins to enhance outreach to stakeholders.In the area of environmental education, the British Columbiaprovincial state of the environment report is now an interactiveCD ROM that offers access to 150 environmental indicators.

The development of environmental indicators is alsomoving toward the ecosystem or watershed levels and towardthe development of social and economic indicators thatcomplement environmental measures.

Still, there are only a handful of states that have the basis forenvironmental indicator systems that can be used in environmentalmanagement decisionmaking. The cultural and bureaucratic shift tofully integrating environmental indicators into managementsystems is just beginning. Over the coming years, state environ-mental management agencies will develop complete environmentalindicator systems that will have multiple indicators to describe theenvironmental issues relevant to their legislativemandates, aswellas subsets of indicators for the public information and otherstreamlined sets of indicators (or perhaps indexes) that will provideaccountability for decisionmakers.

There are also signs that the shift will take time. Thestates and U.S. EPA, in developing Performance PartnershipAgreements, are developing environmental indicators andassociated measures of program performance in the context ofprograms that relate to individual environmental laws. Whilethis approach is pragmatic in a time of transition as a means tofacilitate grant flexibility, the effort to identify cross-mediaissues and overlapping environmental issues of concern tomultiple programs needs to be emphasized in developingsystems of environmental measurement.

As a broad generalization, natural resources agencies andenvironmental protection agencies do not communicate and

STATE ENVIRONMENTAL MONITOR - June 3, 1996

cooperate effectively. While there are examples of effectiveinteraction at the ecosystem level (the multi-faceted NationalEstuary Projects funded by USEPA are a positive planningprocess), there are artificial demarcation lines between themanagement of natural systems and regulation of pollutionthat impacts them.

Since data regarding species and habitat health oftensupport the most representative and evocative environmentalindicators, it is evident that natural resources and environmen-tal protection professionals need each other. For instance, thePacific Northwest Environmental Indicators Working Group,charged by "The Gang of Seven" (the heads of environmentalprotection agencies in the states of Washington, Oregon,Idaho, Alaska, the province of British Columbia, and theregional offices ofUSEPA and Environment Canada) to lookinto the feasibility of developing regional environmentalindicators, identified salmon as an overarching issue to bedescribed using indicators. Salmon are one of those "charismaticmegafauna" that seem to fascinatehumans. In the PacificNorth-west, salmon are a totem animal, a cultural icon representing therelative health ofnaturaJ systems. To develop successful environ-mental indicators for salmon, the Working Group will have to findmeasures for the four h's of salmon - hydro, habitat, hatcheries,and harvesting- combined with measures for water quality, landuse, forest health and other relevant data cutting a wide swathacross a variety of agencies and programs.

Similarly, human health data tied to environmentalmanagement data can support powerful environmentalindicators. Using geographic information systems as a tool, anumber of public health agencies around the country are tryingto link pesticides application data, emergency rooms visits,and census tract data to develop enhanced knowledge of howplacing stress on the environment impacts humans at the sametime. Linking public health departments to environmentalmanagement agencies through environmental indicators isanother growth opportunity to strengthen both.

How can the development of environmental indicatorsystems reconnect environmental management practitioners tothe environment, human health, and the natural resources thatare their responsibilities?

* Environmental indicators represent information asempowerment, enfranchising decisionmakers and interestedparties at all governmental levels.

* Environmental indicators are a politically neutral toolrepresenting the environment's status and trends that enable usto transcend partisan or ideological thinking.

* Environmental indicators are linked to ecological andhuman health concerns, with management actions described inan environmental context.

* Environmental indicators do not mean that less datawill need to be collected, only that indicators can advise whatdata are most essential in describing environmental issues.

* Environmental indicators mean that the continuum oftechnical and policy practitioners will be linked from thosewho physically monitor and sample the environment, to thosewho manage the data, analyze the data, develop indicators, usethem in policy development, and use them to make andarticulate decisions.

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ouest Editorial

conditions and trends, thereby designing solutions thatinvolve integrated environmental management and pollu-tion prevention strategies that cut across traditionalenvironmental media lines. The promise of developingenvironmental indicators is that environmental issues andassociated data are identified and addressed together bypractitioners with different interests and priorities, enablingmore creative, innovative, and effective measures to bedeveloped and adopted.

Environmental indicators offer the opportunity toconnect decisionmaking with environmental trends. Environ-mental indicators are an integral tool that, combined with astrategic thinking and planning, can significantly enhance thefuture of environmental management. 0

* Environmental indicators can assist managers inlinking natural resources conditions and trends with environ-mental protection issues and problems to solve problems as awhole and not as narrow sets of interests.Conclusion

The promise of developing environmental indicators isthat the process will allow practitioners to step back andexamine all of the environmental issues and their associateddata together, leading to enhancement of all other environmen-tal management techniques and increased knowledge. This inturn will enable improved decisionmaking and development ofmore innovative solutions to problems. Properly done,environmental indicator systems can form the basis forincreased communication with and education of the public andthe media, and allow better communication within and amongstate environmental agencies.

The challenge of developing environmental indicatorsis to synthesize, simplify, and condense environmentalinformation so that we may better describe environmental

(The viewpoints expressed in this article do not necessarilyreflect the opinions of the State Environmental Goals andIndicators Project, the Florida Center for Public Manage-ment, or the Us. Environmental Protection Agency.)

------- News BriefsUSEPA ANNOUNCES INITIATIVES TO PUSH NEW

HAZWASTE CLEANUP TECHNOLOGIESIn a bid to aggressively promote new hazardous waste

cleanup technologies, USEPA's waste program has issued amemorandum to the agency's 10 regions defining varioustechnology-promotion initiatives, including an end to "unnec-essary regulatory controls" and fewer permitting requirements.

The l l-page memorandum was issued May 10 by ElliottLaws, USEPA's assistant administrator for Office of SolidWaste & Emergency Response, who notes that environmentaltechnology development and commercialization "are a topnational priority" for the Clinton administration. By issuingthe memo, Laws writes, the agency hopes to help in thetesting, demonstration, and use of innovative "cleanup andfield measurement technologies."

"EPA regional and headquarters managers should supportRemedial Project Managers, On-Scene Coordinators, and otherremedial action decision-makers in using new technologies,"and should promote such technologies even if they slow downcompletion of a cleanup project, according to Laws' memo.Managers should consider setting up "performance manage-ment and award systems" for project managers to encouragethe use of new technologies.

With regard to permitting, the memo calls for regions tostreamline their permit processes under the Resource Conser-vation & Recovery Act, and to consider using existingalternatives to RCRA Corrective Action; Research, Develop-ment, & Demonstration; and Subpart X permits. Laws alsoasks brownfield cleanup coordinators to use innovativetechnologies at those sites.

LOUISIANA SETS UP NEW COOPERATIVE POLLU-TION PREVENTION PROGRAM

The Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality istrying to attract business participation in a new state-widepollution prevention effort aimed at encouraging companies to

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undertake hazardous waste minimization projects relating toair, water, and other media.

The effort is being pursued under DEQ's EnvironmentalLeadershipPollution Prevention Program and will rely on stateregulatorsto monitor progress toward pollution prevention goalsthat a company signs up to meet. Interested companies must submita brief plan setting out reduction goals for selected wastes andcommit to sharing information about successful preventionactivities. In exchange, companies may receive permitflexibility and regulatory relief, issues the DEQ is nowexploring through a program advisory committee that ismeeting this month to discuss how best to attract businessparticipation.

DEQ's program follows up on a USEPA waste minimiza-tion effort launched in 1994 that laid out the agency's nationalgoals for reducing hazardous waste generation. DEQ's effortresulted from a partnership with Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil& Gas Association, the Louisiana Chemical Association,Louisiana Pulp & Paper Association, USEPA, and the state'sEnvironmental Task Force.

NORTHEAST AIR REGULATORS WILL ISSUE.OWNMERCURY STUDIES •

In the face ofUSEPA's problems issuing its controversialstudy of mercury air emissions, the Northeast States forCoordinated Air Use Management (NESCAUM) is developingits own studies of mercury's health effects and its depositiononto land and water.

USEPA is required to issue a study of mercury emissionsunder section 112 of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990.But, under intense fire from industry and members of Con-gress, the agency recently announced that it was delaying thereport until the latest data and a scientific peer review could beincorporated into its study.

Northeast state air regulators, however, are forging aheadwith their own reports on the controversial mercury issue and

STATE ENVIRONMENTAL MONITOR - June 3, 1996