EPA's Great Lakes Office Gets New Head

EPA has a new chief for its regional office that serves the midwestern Great Lakes states. The former regional administrator, Mary Gade, left in May, saying she was forced to resign because of her efforts to get Dow Chemical to remove dioxin contamination in two Michigan rivers (C&EN, May 12, page 9). EPA announced last week that Lynn Buhl is now head of the agency's office covering Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin. For nearly two years, Buhl served as EPA deputy assistant administrator for enforcement and compliance assurance at the agency's headquarters in Washington, D.C. Previously, she was deputy secretary of the Maryland Department of Natural Resources and acting secretary of the state's environment department, where she helped reform its program for cleaning up contaminated sites. Because of environmental activists' fierce opposition to Buhl, the Maryland Senate rejected Buhl's nomination to be the state's secretary of the environment in 2003, marking the first time the state's lawmakers denied a governor's pick to head an agency.