EPA Opens Laboratories to Outside Researchers

EPA’s research facilities will be open to academic and private-sector scientists under a program announced last week. The agency has unique research laboratories, such as its chambers for exposing humans to controlled levels of air pollutants, a meteorological wind tunnel, and a coral research facility, says Lawrence W. Reiter, acting director of EPA’s National Risk Management Research Laboratory. Researchers who wish to use these facilities do not necessarily have to collaborate with the agency on projects, but their experiments must produce data that will further the public good, he says. EPA hopes that its many research facilities, which are scattered across the U.S., will attract scientists working on ecological and human health issues and foster professional interaction with agency researchers, Reiter says. More information on the program is available at http://www.epa.gov/facilities_network.