The Environmental Protection Agency's Region 6 took inappropriate steps to withhold information from the public, according to a new EPA inspector general report.

EPA staff intentionally stopped documenting discussions to avoid responding to the Freedom of Information Act requests, the audit states--namely, FOIA requests from Citizen Action New Mexico having to do with documents about mixed waste landfill monitoring wells located on Sandia National Laboratory.

The region also mislead CANM because it did not inform the watchdog group that the EPA "found some of CANM's concerns valid" and withheld some documents, the report adds.

In addition, a project engineer marked an oversight review as "confidential," making the document's distribution restricted under national security classification rules.

But, the document contained no classified material whatsoever, the audit says, adding that EPA regional counsel said that the document was not classified in April 2009.

Region 6 Administrator Al Armendariz said he disagreed with OIG recommendations and requested that the matter be elevated. No information was withheld from the public and in any case documents were exempt from FOIA, Armendariz asserts in his official audit response. "Region 6 also denied violating national security, public involvement, and records management policies," the audit adds.

For more:
- read EPA OIG report 10-P-0100 (.pdf)
- read this Secrecy News blog post about the report.

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