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profile
The People's Watchdog

Robert Martin is probably the most controversial government official you've never heard of. Still, in dozens of pollution-scarred communities around the country, from Colorado to Pennsylvania, citizens hail him as a godsend. However, to Christine Todd Whitman, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), where Martin serves as national ombudsman charged with investigating public complaints, he is a nettlesome pest. In recent months she has moved to strip Martin of his title and transfer him to an undefined position in another department, and even tried to forcibly remove his office files.

"Whitman is not just gagging him, she's ending the conception of the citizen's advocate from the EPA's checks-and-balances system," says Tom Devine, legal director of the Government Accountability Project, a public-interest group. In fact, if not for a federal judge's temporary restraining order in January, the ombudsman's position at the EPA would have been eliminated. (As Audubon went to press, a hearing on the matter was scheduled for April 5.)

Martin, a soft-spoken 44-year-old and a member of the Makah tribe, has been the EPA's national ombudsman since 1992. "At the time, I didn't know what I was getting into-and neither did EPA," he deadpans. The ombudsman's job is to examine complaints about landfills, waste facilities, chemical and oil spills, and other threats to public health. Most of the several thousand toll-free calls he receives a year (800-262-7937) are resolved with a quick referral to the right authority in an EPA field office.

What incites the ire of agency higher-ups is when Martin exposes foot-dragging or sloppiness in the cleanup of EPA-designated Superfund sites--former industrial or military locations now highly contaminated with toxic waste--in residential communities. Residents who feel their concerns have been ignored can turn to Martin. As both an investigator and a mediator, the onetime lawyer holds public hearings to review many perspectives: from industry and EPA officials to technical experts and neighborhood residents. Although his efforts are sometimes met with resistance, Martin stands by his record. "I'd say 75 percent to 80 percent of my recommendations are followed by EPA, despite all the ruffling of feathers," he says.

Still, Whitman has tried to transfer him to the Office of Inspector General, a move that EPA spokesperson Joe Martyak insists "will give him greater autonomy." Martin isn't buying it; if the transfer goes through, he will no longer have a staff, a budget, or the authority to choose what cases to investigate. Many in Congress agree: More than two dozen members, from both parties and including conservative Republicans, have publicly called on Whitman to keep her hands off Martin. "His job is to ask tough questions and be the bad guy," says Sean Conway, press secretary for Senator Wayne Allard (R-CO), who credits Martin with spurring the EPA to rid a Denver neighborhood of radioactive waste left buried by a chemical company. "His job is not to be a rubber stamp for EPA."

For Martin, who descends from a line of chiefs going back a thousand years, the battle over his job strikes at the core of his personal identity and sense of civic duty. "Benjamin Disraeli once said, 'Justice is truth in action,'" he says. "So making truth in action is consistent with who I am."

--Keith Kloor

river restoration
Navigating a New Plan

Springtime on the Missouri. Snow-melt and spring showers send water coursing through the river's braided channels, chutes, and sloughs, cueing the spawning of pallid sturgeon and creating sandbars where interior least terns and piping plovers flock to nest.

But nature's rhythms don't actually apply there anymore. Seasons are moot on the Missouri and, as a result, populations of sturgeon, terns, and plovers are dangerously low. For 40 years the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has been using dams to keep water levels high enough for commercial navigation. In response to lawsuits challenging this practice, the corps has spent the past 13 years reviewing the document that guides it. On the table now are six alternatives for managing the river, ranging from taking no action whatsoever to restoring spring flows. The corps must choose one option by May.

"As we've changed the Missouri from a free-flowing prairie stream to dammed reservoirs and straightened channels, we've significantly altered the ability of native species to survive and thrive there," says Mike Olson, a biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which warns that restoring a more natural ebb and flow is the only hope for many imperiled species, and the only way to comply with the Endangered Species Act. The National Research Council (NRC) agrees, declaring that the hydrological status quo would cause the "irreversible extinction of species."

Barge traffic, which transports just 0.3 percent of the region's grain, would unquestionably face a few weeks of unnavigable waters during low summer flows. The economic impact of such an interruption, however, has been a subject of intense debate. "It's like asking Wal-Mart to close its doors from September 13 to December 31," says Randy Asbury, executive director of the industry- and agriculture-driven Coalition to Protect the Missouri River, which contends that cropland lost to spring flooding would further damage local economies.

Data from the corps, however, indicate that 99 percent of the Missouri's flood-control ability would be preserved. The corps also estimates the value of the region's recreation industry--which would continue to grow thanks to healthier wildlife and improved conditions for boating, fishing, and birding--at $85 million. The commercial navigation industry faces a loss of $2 million to $3 million, says the NRC.

"Science is on our side. There's no question about that," says Chad Smith, director of the Nebraska field office for American Rivers, which heads a coalition of conservationists that includes Audubon chapters and councils in river-basin states. "But change is always controversial. The corps has been doing things the same way, day in and day out, for 40-plus years. It's not something they can undo easily." For 30 days after the release of the final plan, members of the public can voice their opinions through www.savethemissouri.org.

--Jennifer Bogo

More in our Print Edition

Slippery Slopes
Threats to Mountain Habitat

Full of Bully?
Comparing Teddy Roosevelt and George W. Bush

To read these articles, buy the May-June 2002 issue of Audubon.