What would the EPA need to classify?

Great Debates
1

Not to start a wide-ranging secrecy debate, but what legitimate things would the EPA, Dept. of Ag., and DHHS possibly have to classify?

2

Throughout the Cold War, the DoA had a classified section, consisting of analyists trying to determine the yield of Soviet harvests, so I’m kind of surprised they would have to reacquire that ability.
In any event, possibilities:

  1. DHHS - analysis, projections and defensive public health plans in case of domestic bioattacks.

  2. FDA - ditto.

  3. DoA - ditto, as concerns bioattacks on the US food supply, such as foot-and-mouth disease.

Sua

3

Forgot to mention …

The above is not an endorsement, but merely a proffered explanation. I’m no fan of government secrecy.

Sua

4

Anything for the EPA?

Or did they, in fact, do some investigations into the alleged dumping violations at Groom Lake (Area 51) whose results are now classified? I thought they weren’t given the go-ahead on that.

5

I work for a contractor that does lots of work for EPA, and one bit of information that is becoming harder to obtain is the precise location (lat/long) of water treatment plants. I guess there is a concern about terrorists getting wacky ideas about the water supply.

Also, certain programs at EPA involve the collection of confidential business information from industry (i.e., what chemicals does factory X use, and how much do they discharge into river Y.) EPA relies on security procedures to safeguard the (potentially) sensitive information that industries provide.