American Statistical Association (ASA) Section on Statistics and the Environment (ENVR) Last Modified: 99-Mar-06

An important new area for environmental statistics is now "open forbusiness." The Environmental Protection Agency's Center for EnvironmentalInformation and Statistics was launched in August of 1998, and is now up andrunning. The Center (naturally called CEIS, an unpronounceable acronym) is thenew one-stop source of data and information on environmental quality, status,and trends. CEIS is officially located at EPA headquarters in Washington, butis more easily visited in cyberspace by surfing to http://www.epa.gov/ceis andletting your finger do the clicking.

There are three main areas that are accessible from the web site. TheEnvironmental Profiles offer information on air quality, drinking water andsurface water quality, as well as the management of hazardous waste and toxicchemicals in a state or county. You can also learn about the quality of thedata. The Digital Library of Environmental Information allows you to searchand link to selected EPA reports on environmental quality at the global,national, regional and state level. Our Environmental Atlas offers custom mapsat the touch of a button. (O.K., you need to touch the correct button). Youcan also find full-color national and state maps produced by EPA and otherscovering a wide range of environmental topics.

Since the web site is new, it is constantly evolving to produce new, moreuseful information for you. The best way to really see what is available is tocheck us out. Tell us how you like it. There is a comment form on the website, and we do read and listen. For those of you more comfortable with thehuman explanation of what the CEIS is all about, you can join me in the specialroundtable luncheon on this subject at the Joint Statistical Meeting this Augustin Baltimore.

On occasion, ENVR gets a request from a government agency to suggest thenames of statisticians to serve on a particular advisory board. The Sectionis now going to maintain a list of members who are willing to serve, inorder to be able to comply with such requests in a timely manner. If youare interested in providing such service, please email a short (oneparagraph) biographicalsketch of yourself, and keywords describing your expertise, to thePast-Chair, Noel Cressie, ncressie@stat.ohio-state.edu.

When there is a request to suggest names, we will first review thebiographical sketches and keywords to identify appropriate names. Those people will becontacted by email to ascertain availability and willingness beforetheir names are submitted to the government agency.

The winter conference call for the Executive Committee of ENVRwas held on February 8, 1999. Loveday Conquest (Chair) opened themeeting by welcoming both new and returning members of the committee.Newly elected officers are Barry Nussbaum (Chair Elect), KatherineEnsor (Program Chair Elect), and Katherine Campbell (Treasurer).

A large portion of the call was devoted to discussing the manypublications of the Section. ENVR is committed to maintaining highvisibility by having at least one column in every issue of the AmStatNews. Philip Dixon (Publications Chair) has scheduled many interesting columns for the rest of 1999, including a call for proposals for JSM 2000, the JSM 1999 program, and reports on conferences of interest to our members.

The web page (www.pnl.gov/statenvi) has been updated to reflect thecurrent elected and appointed officers, but structural changes are on the way. Philip and Rick Bates (Webmaster) will be restructuring theweb page to increase visibility of the accomplishments of our members.More specifically, the student travel award competition, the distinguished achievement medal awards, and those of our members whoare Fellows of the ASA will be prominently displayed on the web page.

The Newsletter is published annually with the timing chosen to allowreceipt one month prior to the JSM. For the next issue, Lance Waller(Newsletter Editor) has organized a major discussion on ecologicrisk assessment. There will also be articles on the JSM 1999 program,and a call for proposals for JSM 2000.

We also take this opportunity to invite authors to submit their workto the Section's Proceedings. Authors who present work at events sponsored by the Section are eligible to publish in the Proceedings,even if the presentation was not at the JSM and the author is not amember of the section.

The JSM 1999 program was another major topic of discussion. RobertO'Brien (Program Chair) has organized a very exciting program ofthree invited sessions (on Spatial Statistics, Environmental Equity,and Chemometrics), two topical sessions (on Forest Inventories andStatistical Software), and four contributed sessions (on SpatialModeling, Environmental Modeling, Environmental Sampling, andEnvironmental Statistics). Katherine Ensor has organized six veryinteresting Roundtable Luncheons on EPA's Center for EnvironmentalInformation and Statistics, Ecological Risk Assessment, EnvironmentalEquity, Environmental Policy, Particulate Matter, and EstimatingUncertainty. Look for details in the June issue of AmStat News!

Several other items were discussed. Katherine Campbell reportedthat as of September 1998 the Section was operating with a smallannual surplus and over $6000 in the treasury. David Marker (Liaison Officer) reported on plans to initiate contacts with otherprofessional organizations working on environmental issues. Barry Nussbaum is pursuing continuing education opportunities for the Section. Noel Cressie (Past Chair) and Loveday Conquest talkedabout upcoming conferences that are co-sponsored by, or are ofinterest to, the members of the Section. The Ninth Lukacs Symposiumon "Frontiers of Environmental and Ecological Statistics for the 21stCentury" will be at Bowling Green State University on April 23--25, 1999.Details are forthcoming for a workshop on spatial modeling.