Introduction - Science For Environmental Protection: The Road Ahead - page 7

In 2010, in recognition of the agency's 40th anniversary, a distinguished
group of environmental professionals representing government, nongovernment
organizations, and the private sector assembled to identify EPA's key achieve-
ments (Aspen Institute 2010). The list included removing lead from gasoline to
improve air quality and children's health, reducing acid rain to improve water
quality in lakes and streams, reducing exposure to second-hand smoke by identi-
fying environmental tobacco smoke as a human carcinogen, spurring improve-
ments in vehicle efficiency and emission control, testing requirements and en-
couraging “green chemistry”, banning widespread use of dichlorodiphenyltri-
chloroethane (DDT), encouraging a shift to rethinking of waste as materials, and
highlighting concerns about environmental justice. EPA scientists and engineers
have been at the center of each of those accomplishments, developing cutting-
edge tools for modeling and monitoring natural and engineered environmental
systems, designing regulatory approaches to encourage private-sector innova-
tion, and interpreting health and ecosystem science that is generated by external
sources to inform policy decisions (EPA 2012b,c).
EPA's role in advancing environmental science and engineering contin-
ues. The agency leads research and development efforts, such as codevelopment
of a system that provides early warning for water utilities to detect potential con-
tamination (EPA 2011c). The agency is leading efforts to transform chemical
toxicity testing by developing a cutting-edge computational toxicology center
via unprecedented trans-federal collaborations with the National Institutes of
Health (especially the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and
the National Toxicology Program) and the Food and Drug Administration (EPA
2012d). This interagency cooperation has resulted in the development of Tox21.
The agency also leads work with Canada to assess the condition and protection
of the Great Lakes (EPA 2009). EPA is the only major agency that is supporting
the development of new molecular methods for assessing viruses in groundwa-
ter, Cryptosporidium and other emerging pathogens in water, and microbial
source tracking tools for addressing impairment. And EPA continues to play a
leading role internationally in advancing the scientific understanding of conti-
nental-scale and global-scale atmospheric chemistry and transport with recent
efforts to refine models for short-term forecast applications and efforts to under-
stand how air-quality problems might be affected by long-term climate change.
Challenges Facing the Environmental Protection Agency
EPA scientists and engineers are addressing some of the nation's most
complex technical challenges, such as standard-setting for chemical pollutants,
dealing with emerging waterborne pathogens, and protection of air and water
resources. Owing to its legislative mandates, EPA investigations are often initi-
ated in response to a crisis or new information that identifies a hazard to human
health or the environment. Much of EPA's science has been reactive, addressing
problems after they have become widespread and focusing on cleanup or “end of