Statistics at the EPA Barry D. Nussbaum, Chief Statistician Presented to COPAFS September 21, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Where Do We Get Our Data Monitoring Administrative Data –Permits –Required Submissions –We may be the league leader in this 2U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Uses of Data Like most agencies we never know who will use what for whatever I never met a datum I didn’t like BUT Data are neither good nor bad, but may be good or bad for a particular use U.S. Environmental Protection Agency3

Toxics Release Inventory A great example Annual reporting of toxics released, recycled, 20,000 reporting entities 650 toxic chemicals Size requirement No mobile sources Engineering estimates U.S. Environmental Protection Agency5

Other Uses of TRI Data  Financial Sector Used by some mutual funds for “social responsibility”  Labor Unions Used in contract negotiations  Internal Revenue Used for tax on CFCs  Internal Processing Reactions to filing led to lower releases U.S. Environmental Protection Agency6

Has anyone written about it Several books Many Research Articles (EPA funded 40) –Impact of information disclosure –Factors driving firms to adopt environmental policies –Effects of pollution prevention efforts –Relationship between parents and subsidiaries U.S. Environmental Protection Agency7

Some New Items Proving tests equivalent Data we can’t detect Bayes Social Media Geoplatform U.S. Environmental Protection Agency8

Equivalence of Tests Many of our regulations incorporate testing methodology What happens when someone has a better, cheaper, quicker test? Showing equivalence is the opposite of what we learn all through statistical studies U.S. Environmental Protection Agency9

Methods to Show Equivalence Two One-Sided t-test Tricky when a new method has some physical restrictions Equality of –Means –Variances –Covariances U.S. Environmental Protection Agency10

Non-Detects A problem, paradoxically Occurs in many of our programs Several Techniques –Half the Detection Limit –All the Detection Limit –Kaplan-Meier Techniques –ProUCL U.S. Environmental Protection Agency11

Our Foray Into Social Media Statipedia –A wiki Confident Correlation –A version of facebook From Yammer to Office 365 Suite –Collaborative tool U.S. Environmental Protection Agency12

GeoPlatform We map everything An opportunity to collapse our stovepipes –Water quality –Air quality –Hazardous waste –Geographic entities U.S. Environmental Protection Agency13

A New “Most Popular Question” 14U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Statistical Software SAS S-Plus BMDP MATLAB STATISTICA Mathematica Systat Minitab 15U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Gulf Oil Spill 16

EPA if Inland Water Coast Guard if Coastal Water 17

Gulf Oil Spill 18

EPA’s Main Roles Collect samples along the shoreline and beyond for chemicals related to oil and dispersants in the air, water, and sediment Support and advise the Coast Guard efforts to clean the reclaimed oil and waste from the shoreline Closely monitor the effects of dispersants in the subsurface environment 19

EPA Data Collection Air Quality –Air monitoring aircraft –Air monitoring on the ground Water Samples Sediment Sampling 20

Some tough questions at the table 21

Siting decisions, using statistics Monitor for air pollutants, such H 2 S, along the coast 6 sites collecting H 2 S concentrations near Venice, LA REALITY Limitations in time, $, and equipment Reduction in H 2 S site operation

Can you work with our data manager to retrieve all the historical H 2 S data from the Venice locations? What we need is a pretty basic analysis of where the values are highest. We are deploying a mobile trailer from region 5 to Venice and the V02 site has the best infrastructure. However, if its H 2 S distribution is lower than V03, V05, or V06, then we have a problem. Could this be handled by Tuesday? Region 5 is hitting the road and we need to determine the destination! July 4 th weekend:

V02 V04 V01 V05 V03 V06 Best infrastructure Highest peaks “Overall high” site: consistently higher than other sites We cannot count on V02 to represent the other sites for H 2 S Answer isn’t always clear cut. Do we want to protect the public from the occasional high “peaks,” or do we want to keep track of consistently high H 2 S concentrations ?

Presenting the Data In general, get it out fast Some description 25

…and look who has the answers 26

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