With thousands dead in lower Manhattan and the United States at war, it was common in September for environmental reporters to think their beat had become irrelevant, or even uninteresting, to the U.S. media and their audience.

Not too fast. Failure of vision. We’re including in this issue a list of story leads that originally appeared in the TipSheet — suggesting some of the important ways in which terrorism and the war on it hit the environment.

Simply put, our built environment consists of all kinds of systems that can kill us or save us: chemical plants, nuclear plants, drinking water plants, dams, pipelines, large buildings, and more. Environmental reporters have been writing about chemical safety, dam safety, and the like for years. Today, those subjects have become suddenly less remote and obscure. We are beginning to understand how we have built “weapons of mass destruction” into our very landscape.

“That’s fine,” skeptics may say, “but the U.S. government and American people have other things on their agenda now. Their minds are focused elsewhere.”

Not quite. In fact Congress and the Executive Branch are facing a number of key and unavoidable decisions even in the remainder of 2001 that will have profound impact on the environment. And the terror attack should stand as a reminder that we need to face up to many more environment-related decisions we have long avoided and ignored.

But it is true: there is a danger that big decisions will be made when nobody will be paying attention. That’s supposed to be why we have news media.

This year alone, Congress may pass an energy bill, outline a farm bill, whisk through “Fast-track” trade treaty authority, kill or revive a pipeline safety bill, and perhaps even start acting on new issues like chemical safety. All of these bills have profound environmental implications. And all that is before any effort to take up a clean air bill.

Since September 11, the White House and executive agencies have made major environmental decisions — on access to safety information and payment for powerplant security, for example. EPA had originally planned to make a hefty number of major decisions in coming months — on clean air, genetically modified food, arsenic, feedlots, and more. There’s every reason to think many of those decisions will still be made. The question is whether they will be covered.

What may blow them off the front page, in the end, besides the war itself, could be other environmental news that is sexier. Perhaps the cropduster scare in mid-September should not fade from the headlines before journalists have reported what EPA, USDA, or the FAA will be doing to keep us safe. Nor, perhaps, should the hazardous-cargo-hauler licensing scare fade before we have reported more on safeguards the states and feds may apply there as well. But these things did fade, without follow-up, because we had an anthrax threat with a Jennifer Lopez angle.

Challenges also mount in the freedom-of-information arena. Federal agencies have already begun blacking out previously public information about chemical risks to communities, pipeline safety, dam locations, and the like. Journalists hold enormous responsibility in balancing the public’s right-to-know against legitimate security reasons for withholding information.

Remember that somebody will be getting rich from this war. It falls to the more responsible media to shine a light on possible war profiteering or other forms of opportunism against the public interest. Energy Secretary Spencer Abrahams earns kudos for his prompt jawboning against price-gouging in the gasoline market. But the environmental media will need to stay vigilant if a partisan agenda is being advanced in the name of wartime expediency.

The new emphasis on global coalitions may write new chapters also in the stories of the bioweapons and climate treaties, where the United States had previously gone it alone.

There inevitably will emerge the pre-dictable “war-is-bad-for-the-environment” stories that have come along with conflicts like those with Iraq and Serbia. Journalists sometimes fail to look skeptically at the way environmental issues mask other agendas (and we are not saying peace is an unworthy agenda to pursue).

But with thousands dead in the World Trade Center attack, and war now the measure of what is “normal,” the quest for greener bullets (an actual recent story) may seem a little absurd.

Joseph A. Davis

The federal government went into a virtual lockdown of online information about environmental hazards the week of October 8, 2001, as the nation went to war against terrrorism.

• The Nuclear Regulatory Commission shut down its entire Web site on October 11, putting up an announcement that it was reviewing all material on the site.
• The Army Corps of Engineers the same week took offline its National Inventory of Dams, and undertook review of other information it publishes online about the nation’s water infrastructure.
• The Environmental Protection Agency, a week earlier, pulled from the Web RMP*Info, which gives some data on chemical and industrial plants that could pose risks of poisoning, explosion, or fire to surrounding communities. The data that were online had already been sanitized to prevent use by terrorists (See related article in the September 2000 issue).
• The Transportation Department’s Office of Pipeline Safety pulled maps of the nation’s oil and gas pipelines.
• The Centers for Disease Control pulled a report on vulnerabilities to chemical terrorism.

The justification for the blackout was that the information could help terrorists find the most vulnerable targets in the nation’s infrastructure.

“This has received so much publicity that we decided to take [the information] down,” Jim Makris, Environmental Protection Agency emergency preparedness coordinator told the Washington Post. “We’re trying to decide whether it was the proper thing to do.”

But many of the facilities under the blackout had for years been the subjects of media and public criticism for their safety performance, and the blackout raised issues about how they could be held accountable and whether vulnerable populations would even know that they were at risk.

For example, a pipeline fire that killed 12 near Carlsbad, New Mexico, in August 2000 prompted a number of media reports, including one published July 22, 2001, in the Austin American-Statesman, which pointed to “lax oversight” by states and the federal Office of Pipeline Safety, and a “culture that allows pipeline companies to regulate themselves.” (http://www.austin 360.com/aas/specialreports/pipelines/). Pipeline maps, now withheld, would be a basic tool for reporters wanting to invest-igate hazards in their own communities.

The safety of the nation’s commercial nuclear power plants had been an issue for decades, even before the Three Mile Island incident of 1979, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission had actually earned some credibility in its efforts to keep them safe. But in the weeks before it blacked out its Web site, anti-nuclear groups had pointed out that many plants had flunked mock terror-attack exercises, and some had not even held them.

When federal agencies began pulling from the Web previously published information about environmental hazards that terrorists could exploit, it prompted stories October 3 in The Charleston Gazette and Wall Street Journal, and October 4 in The New York Times.

The top page of the NRC’s Web site displayed the following message:

“Our site is not operational at this time. In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has taken the action to shut down its Web site. In support of our mission to protect public health and safety, we are performing a review of all material on our site. We appreciate your patience and under-standing during these difficult times.”

But other agency sites at least initially displayed no messages explaining why the data was inaccessible. Even as late as October 12, someone clicking on EPA’s links to its own RMP*Info page, would get a mysterious “Not Found” error message, even though withdrawal of the information had already been explained in national newspapers.

The events of September 11, and these government reactions to them, threw into stark relief a debate that had been simmering for years. The public, one side argued, has a right to know about hazards it faces, so that people can protect themselves and push government and industry to reduce hazards.

Those who argued for less public access to hazard information had often justified their position by saying the information could be used by terrorists to find the targets that would hurt the most people. If that argument had ever seemed remote or hypothetical, it took on tangible reality September 11.

Federal concern over chemical plant safety took off following the 1984 leak in Bhopal, India, which killed at least 2,000. The chemical right-to-know provisions in the 1986 Superfund law and 1990 Clean Air Act were meant to avoid the need for government to enforce industrial chemical safety by law and regulation.

The theory was that sunlight would correct the problem, making regulation unnecessary. Even today, there is no legal requirement that chemical plants screen employees or lock their gates, much less adopt safer operational procedures.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers pulled its National Inventory of Dams from the World Wide Web the week of Oct. 8, adding to a growing blackout of information about environmental hazards in response to terrorist attacks.

The Inventory, a database of about 80,000 U.S. dams, identifies their physical characteristics, owners, and responsible government agencies, but does not include any information about how safe they are. Until this month, the data could be queried online, downloaded in its entirety, or ordered in CD form.

Bob Banks, manager of the Inventory, said the Corps had taken latitude and longitude information on the dams off the web within a few days after September 11. Such information would be useful to an airplane pilot looking for a particular dam. Banks said the Web shutdown was intended to be a temporary measure while the Corps evaluated the safest way to present the information in light of ongoing terrorist threats.

Banks said reporters who wanted to use the inventory could make individual requests, and did not need to file a Freedom of Information Act request.

National Inventory of Dams data is also available to reporters through the National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting (NICAR), according to Brant Houston, director of Investigative Reporters and Editors, NICAR’s parent organization. Houston said NICAR planned to continue making the data available to reporters despite the Corps Web blackout.

Reporters or others could use the Inventory primarily as a way of identifying and locating all the dams in a particular state or region. If they wanted to determine how safe those dams were, they would have to seek that information elsewhere.

The origins of the National Dam Safety Program can be traced back to at least 1972, when failure of a privately owned tailings dam in Buffalo Creek West Virginia killed 125 people and Congress passed the National Dam Inspection Act.

Under the Dam Safety Program, all federally owned, operated, or regulated dams are required to have and Emeregency Action Plan. Such a plan would map out the downstream areas that would be swept by flash floods in the event of dam failure, and spell out responsibilities for notifying and evacuating people at risk.

According to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), many state-regulated dams lack Emergency Action Plans, as shown in the box on page 6.

A few lessons could be learned from the September 11 tragedy at the World Trade Center. Humans change the environment — and build their own artificial environments (e.g. dams, power plants, or large buildings) — in ways that make people less or more vulnerable to catastrophe. The immediate cause might be terrorists — but could as easily be floods, lightning, tornadoes, “accident,” or faulty construction. The results could be equally disastrous.

More than simply posting guards on all these facilities (a fine first step), adaptive measures to make the facilities and people inherently less vulnerable to environmental disaster may be worth looking at. Here are some areas for environmental journalists to consider.

Drinking Water Systems

What tests does your local system do that could help screen for trouble? How often? Which contaminants could pass through your system and which could not? How tight is the physical security around your system’s sources, plant, and distribution system? How safely are chlorine and other chemicals managed?

• American Water Works Association: Jack W. Hoffbuhr (Exec. Director), (303) 347-6135, jhoffbuh@awwa.org; or Doug Marsano (Public Affairs), (303) 734-6138, dmarsano@awwa.org, http://www.awwa.org/091101/paa091101.htm. Includes threat identification checklist and list of state emergency and counter-terrorism contacts. The May 2001 issue of Journal AWWA had emergency preparedness recommendations for communities.
• New York Times: “The Water Supply: E.P.A. Years Behind Timetable on Guarding Water From Attack,” by Greg Winter, October 4, 2001, http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/04/national/04WATE.html, (also see Reading Racks, this issue).
• EPA Administrator Christie Whitman on October 5 announced formation of a federal-state-local task force aimed at protecting drinking water from terrorists. Bonnie Piper, (202) 564-7836, piper.bonnie@epa.gov. See release of 10/5 at http://www.epa.gov/epahome/newsroom.htm.
• Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies: AMWA holds its annual meeting October 28-31, 2001, in San Francisco, and security issues will be on the program. Michael Arceneaux (Dir. Pub. Affairs), (202) 331-2820, michael@amwa.net.

Nuclear Plants and Materials

Terrorists are only one of the disastrous hazards plants could face at home and abroad. Plant safety, evacuation plans, and disaster contingencies haven’t been the subject of press attention or public concern for a long time. Should they be? Is “inherent safety” possible at nuclear plants, and are Congress and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission doing enough to promote it?

• Do you know how your local nuclear power plant performed in the most recent anti-terrorist drill — if it had one? The NRC in 1991 required all licensed plants to undergo attacks by mock terrorists using fake weapons — but tried to drop the requirement in 1998, on the grounds that it was too expensive. Nearly half of the plants tested flunked, and some remain untested. Before the September 11, NRC had been trying to privatize the program — essentially letting utilities test themselves. Now all bets are off. Nuclear Control Institute: Steven Dolley, (202) 822-8444, release at http://www.nci.org/01nci/09/pr92501.htm.
• The IAEA on Sept. 21, 2001, adopted a resolution calling for beefed up design and physical security to prevent illicit use and sabotage of nuclear facilities and nuclear materials. IAEA (Vienna): David Kyd, [43-1] 2600-21270, info@iaea.org, http://www.iaea.org/worldatom/Press/.
• The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission urged all U.S. nuclear facilities to go to their highest level of security on September 11, 2001. NRC Press: (301) 415-8200, opa@nrc.gov, http://www.nrc.gov/OPA. NRC releases of 9/21 and 9/25/2001: http://www.nrc.gov/OPA/gmo/newsrel.htm. Background: http://www.nrc.gov/OPA/gmo/tip/fssecurity.html. (Ed. note: the entire NRC Web site has been taken offline pending security review. We do not know when these materials will again be available.)
• Shipments of high-level nuclear wastes could also be vulnerable. The Energy Department reacted to the September 11 attack by scrubbing a train shipment of high-level waste originally scheduled to go from New York to Idaho in summer 2001, but delayed by protests. Map of routes: http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/states/us.htm. List of links: http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/yucca/links.htm. Congressional Research Service: “Report for Congress: Transportation of Spent Nuclear Fuel,” updated May 29, 1998, http://www.cnie.org/nle/eng-34.html. Kansas City Star: http://www.sej.org/go/010926-1.htm. Check with officials in your state.
• The Nuclear Energy Institute (industry group) says U.S. plants are safe. NEI Press: Scott Peterson, (202) 739-8000 or (703) 644-8805 (after hours), media@nei.org, http://www.nei.org/doc.asp?catnum=2&catid=214&UpFront=true.
• Institute for Science and International Security (anti-proliferation think tank): David Albright, (202) 547-3633, http://www.isis-online.org/publications/terrorism/index.html.
• Union of Concerned Scientists: Paul Fain, (202) 223-6133, pfain@ucsusa.org. Backgrounder on nuclear reactor security,
• http://www.ucsusa.org/energy/br_safenplants.html.

Oil and Gas Pipelines

Recent articles suggest that state and federal agencies (such as DOT’s Office of Pipeline Safety) could do much more to improve pipeline safety. There are also some things pipelines themselves can do to reduce the threats terrorists could present. Despite their vulnerability, pipelines are safer than trucks and other modes of transport.

• The Senate on February 8, 2001, passed a pipeline safety bill (S 235), but it is stalled in the House, where some Democrats favor a tougher bill (HR 144). Congressional Research Service: “Report for Congress RS20640: Pipeline Safety: Federal Program and Reauthorization Issues,” http://www.cnie.org/nle/eng-66.html.
• DOT Office of Pipeline Safety: (202) 366-4595. List of information contacts: http://ops.dot.gov/request.htm. List of OPS Regional Offices: http://ops.dot.gov/rinfo.htm. Web site includes statistics and downloadable database on pipelines and safety incidents. The National Pipeline Mapping System has been taken offline and made unavailable to the public.
• Contact your state public service commission, utility regulatory body, etc. which regulates pipelines.
• Municipal Research & Services Center: Pipeline Safety Information for Local Governments, http://www.mrsc.org/pubsafe/pipesafety.htm.
• General Accounting Office: “Pipeline Safety: Progress Made, but Significant Requirements and Recommendations Not Yet Complete. GAO-01-1075 September 28, 2001, http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d011075.pdf.
• Association of Oil Pipe Lines: Raymond Paul, (202) 408-7970, rpaul@aopl.org. September 18, 2001, release: http://www.sej.org/go/010926-3.htm.
• Environmental Defense: Lois Epstein, (202) 387-3500.
• Austin American-Statesman: “Pipelines: The Invisible Danger — A Special Report,” by Ralph K.M. Haurwitz and Jeff Nesmith, July 22, 2001, http://www.austin360.com/aas/specialreports/pipelines/.
• Seattle Post-Intelligencer: “Pipelines: America’s Hidden Hazards,” By Michael Paulson, Paul Nyhan, Scott Sunde, and Phuong Le, August 12, 1999, http://seattlep-i.nwsource.com/pipelines/.
• SAFE Bellingham Project: Carl Weimer, (360) 733-8307, safebham@re-sources.org, http://www.safebellingham.org/index.html. Citizen group in Washington city where 3 people were killed in June 10, 1999, pipeline fire. Good set of links.

Chemical Plants

• EPA Report: “Chemical Accidents from Electric Power Outages,” http://www.epa.gov/ceppo/whatnew.html, Craig Matthiessen, (202) 564-8016, matthiessen.craig@epa.gov. There have been no reported terrorist attacks on any U.S. chemical plants. But “accidents” routinely kill, injure, and damage property. Chemical Safety Board chairman Paul Hill told Congress in 1999 that some 25,000 chemical releases, fires, and explosions each year kill an average of roughly 225 people a year. Industry criticized the statistics, and the CSB withdrew them this year — leaving the nation with no official estimates. Just under half the incidents involved transport of chemicals, rather than stationary plants. Nobody knows how many people were killed in the 1984 Bhopal disaster, but it was probably at least 2,000 — a clue to how disastrous an accident or terrorist attack could be.
• American Chemistry Council: Jeff Van, (703) 741-5802, jeff_van@americanchemistry.com, http://www.cmahq.com.
• Congress directed the Department of Justice to study site security at chemical plants and to assess their vulnerability to terrorism and ways to reduce it, but DoJ apparently has made little progress: DoJ media contact, Charles Miller, (202) 514-2008. The mandate was in the Site Security and Fuels Regulatory Relief Act of 1999. Perspective from OMBwatch: http://www.ombwatch.org/ombwatcher/current.html#chm.
• CDC’s Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry has published “Industrial Chemicals and Terrorism: Human Health Threat Analysis, Mitigation, and Prevention,” http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/OFP/terrorism/indterr.html (although the report was online 9/21/01, it had been taken down by 9/24/01). CDC directs media inquires to the Department of Health and Human Services, Tony Jewell, (202) 690-6343, hhspress@hhs.gov.

Other Chemical Hazards

Chlorine is commonly used in large quantities as a disinfectant in the drinking water and sewage plants of most large and mid-size cities. A tank car of chlorine on a siding or in transit could create a lethal plume miles long that could kill tens of thousands of people.

• Chlorine Chemistry Council: Janet Flynn, (703) 741-5827, http://www.c3.org/.

Ammonia is a highly toxic gas used in large quantities in various forms as an agricultural fertilizer and industrial refrigerant. It is often pressurized, making it more dangerous.

• The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board in August 2001 published an EPA-prepared lay-language report: “Hazards of Ammonia Releases at Ammonia Refrigeration Facilities (Update),” online at http://www.csb.gov/info/ammonia.pdf.

Propane, which can be flammable and explosive, is used widely in residential, industrial, and agricultural settings, and large amounts of pressurized propane are commonly present at wholesale and even retail distribution points, as well as on the transport network.

• National Propane Gas Association: NPGA says that DOT contacted its Washington, DC, office after the September 11 disaster to urge extra precautions and security, especially for transporters near cities — but also for pipelines and storage facilities. See http://www.npga.org/.

Chlorine, ammonia, and propane are often present in large amounts near densely populated areas. Roughly half of all hazmat incidents are actually transportation accidents — a reminder of how the spread-out and undefended rail and road networks are particularly vulnerable.

Chemical Terrorism

The hazards became more evident after the March 20, 1995, attack by the religious cult AUM Shinrikyo on the Tokyo subway with the nerve gas sarin, which killed a dozen people and injured hundreds of others.

Check in with your state emergency authorities, local fire and police departments, and hospital emergency rooms, to find out more about their planning and preparedness for chemical terrorism incidents.

• National Domestic Preparedness Office: (202) 324-9026, ndpo@leo.gov http://www.ndpo.gov/. This multi-agency body, housed at the FBI, is supposed to coordinate, equip, and train state and local emergency responders for weapons-of-mass-destruction incidents.
• Henry L. Stimson Center: This foundation-funded think tank runs a Chemical and Biological Weapons Nonproliferation Project. Contact: Amy E. Smithson, (202) 223-5956, asmithson@stimson.org. Extensive background at http://www.stimson.org/cwc/terror.htm.

Building Design and Construction

After September 11, the structural collapse of large buildings can no longer be considered just a theoretical possibility. It may be possible to do a better job with smoke detectors, sprinklers, standpipes, and other fire systems. Evacuation without elevators should be fast, easy, and accessible to the frail and handicapped. Building materials need to have the lethality designed out of them. The asbestos once considered a safety feature in buildings is now considered a potential health threat. The glass windows that make buildings glitter can cut people when shattered. Too often building materials and furnishings are sources of toxic smoke during a fire. Ventilation systems are also key to safe and healthful buildings. Properly designed and maintained, they can protect people from threats ranging from formaldehyde to Legionnaires’ disease. Improperly engineered, they can be vehicles for biological and chemical agents, smoke, and carbon monoxide.

Do your municipality’s zoning, building, and fire codes impose effective safety requirements on tall structures? How safe are large buildings in your area?

• Engineering News-Record, “Experts Debate Future of the Skyscraper in Wake of Disaster,” (9/24/01), http://www.enr.com/news/enrbld_92401.asp.
• Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (Lehigh Univ.): (610) 758-3515, inctbuh@lehigh.edu, http://www.lehigh.edu/~inctbuh/. Chairman: Ron Klemencic, president of Skilling Ward Magnusson Barkshire, a Seattle engineering firm, (206)292-1200.
• The American Society of Civil Engineers has set up teams to study and report on implications of the September 11 disaster. List of experts: http://www.asce.org/emerg_document_pub.cfm. Press contacts: Jane Howell, (202) 326-5128 or Norida Torriente, (202) 326-5129.
• National Fire Protection Association (develops building and fire codes): Julie Reynolds or Margie Coloian, (617) 984-7275, http://www.nfpa.org/.
• American Institute of Architects: Mike Janes, (202) 626-7467, mjanes@aia.org. List of experts: http://www.aia.org/media/DISASTER/wtc.asp.
• DOE Sandia National Laboratory: “Architectural Surety(SM)” program, John German (press contact), (505) 844-5199, jdgerma@sandia.gov; or Rudy Matalucci (Technical contact), (505) 844-8804, rvmatal@sandia.gov; http://www.sandia.gov/media/archsurety.htm.
• Duke Univ. (Engineering): Prof. Henry Petroski, (919) 660-5203, petroski@duke.edu.

Other Critical Infrastructure

The PCCIP examined the following “critical infrastructure” areas: Information and Communications, Electrical Power Systems, Gas and Oil Transportation and Storage, Banking and Finance, Transportation, Water Supply Systems, Emergency Services, and Government Services. You can find information about PDD 63 at http://www.nipc.gov/about/pdd63.htm

• St. Louis Post-Dispatch: “Report on Protecting Vital Systems Generates Little Action in 3 Years,” by Bill Lambrecht, September 27, 2001.

Terror and the Electric Grid

Few today remember the outage of November 9, 1965, which blacked out 30 million users in the Northeast. It led to many technical improvements in the grid and ultimately formation of the North American Electric Reliability Council. But deregulation has led to a new power environment that is more dependent than ever on transmission lines, and where many local utilities are losing their self-sufficiency. The wholesale power grid, which was not built for this much inter-dependence, is emerging as a weak link.

Power lines — remote, spread-out, and undefended — are vulnerable to terrorist attack. But the grid is perhaps equally vulnerable to a number of other man-made and natural disasters: hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, transportation accidents, fires, etc. One possible solution advanced by industry — more transmission lines — could require federal siting authority that Western states tend to oppose.

• North American Electrical Reliability Council: Ellen P. Vancko (press contact), (609) 452-8060, evancko@nerc.com.
• Edison Electric Institute: Pat McMurray, (202) 508-5074, pmcmurray@eei.org, http://www.eei.org/future/reliability/.
• The “Electric Power Risk Assessment,” conducted by the Clinton White House’s National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee in 1997 looked at the vulnerability of the grid’s electronic control system to hackers. It concluded that physical threats ranging from ice-storms to “amateur sharpshooters” were more worrisome. See http://www.aci.net/kalliste/electric.htm.
• The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission announced September 14, 2001, that it would approve applications for passing along to electric ratepayers “”prudently incurred costs” for security upgrades. Will your local utility apply? FERC: Tamara Young-Allen, 202-208-0680.
• The disaster potential from outages is most felt by crucial users. See, for example, EPA’s September 2001 “Chemical Accidents from Power Outages,” http://www.epa.gov/ceppo/pubs/power.pdf. What about your local hospitals, nursing homes, tall buildings, server farms, police and fire agencies, etc. Are they prepared?

Dam Safety

What dams are near you? Are they upstream of populated areas? Have they been inspected and rated recently? Which are the high-hazard dams in your state? Do they have emergency action plans? How does your state measure up to the Model State Dam Safety Program? See http://www.fema.gov/mit/biennial.pdf.

• COE National Inventory of Dams: Bob Bank (Program Manager) (202) 761-4243, robert.bank@usace.army.mil, http://crunch.tec.army.mil/nid/webpages/nid.cfm. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers maintains information on approximately 76,000 U.S. dams in downloadable database and GIS form. (Ed. note: the NID has been taken offline at least temporarily, but reporters needing data can request it from Banks, or get it from the National Institute for Computer Assisted Reporting, Jeff Porter, (573) 882-2042, jeff@ire.org, http://www.nicar.org.
• Bureau of Reclamation Dam Safety Office: Bruce Muller, bmuller@do.usbr.gov, http://borworld.usbr.gov/dsis/. September 12, 2001, Burec release: Diana Cross, (208) 378-5020, http://www.usbr.gov/main/news/newsreleases/2001-09-12.html.
• Association of State Dam Safety Officials: Lori Spragens, (606) 257-5170, Lspragens@aol.com, http://www.damsafety.org/; Robert H. Dalton (President), (217) 782-3863, bdalton@dnrmail.state.il.us. States regulate about 95% of U.S. dams.
• Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA): http://www.fema.gov/mit/damsafe/. For the percent of high-hazard dams in your state which have Emergency Action Plans, see http://www.fema.gov/mit/damsafe/assistance.htm (data in table). In most states, less than half do.
• National Performance of Dams Program (Stanford Univ. Civil Eng. Dept.): Martin W. McCann Jr., (650) 723-9323, npdp@ce.stanford.edu, http://npdp.stanford.edu/.
• United States Society on Dams (formerly U.S. Committee on Large Dams): Larry D. Stephens, (303) 628-5430, stephens@ussdams.org, http://www2.privateI.com/~uscold/.