EPA's Pursuit of Technology

Mark Hamilton, the Environmental Protection Agency's senior information management officer, has a lot of ideas about how technology can serve the agency's strategic plan to meet its mission.

First there's nano-technology. Speaking at the Industry Advisory Council’s Executive Session on May 7, Hamilton said the EPA is incorporating the use of technology with its operations teams to better track the status of natural disasters. Hamilton used the example of a recent encounter with an EPA field employee, who was assigned to cover the Port of Long Beach in Los Angeles, Calif. The employee was driving a mobile laboratory van when Hamilton approached him and asked to check out the inside. The employee explained to Hamilton that the EPA was using nano-sensors spread over the water’s surface to detect and isolate oil spills, work that used to be done visually from a helicopter â€" a practice that is "not too useful at night,” Hamilton said.