Keeping the Country Clean (S5E03)

The EPA has essentially one mission, to keep the air, ground and water clean and make sure it stays that way. Adam Ortiz was a regional EPA director and says his former agency does a lot of work to make sure the environment stays clean.

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Transcription

David Martin: This is the good government show.

Adam Ortiz: We got to look out for, this country, this, this planet. We’re trashing it, too quickly. So, you know, the EPA was sort of like emergency response, on a grand scale in the 70s and early 80s. You know, the vast majority of what we do, more than 85% of our budget in our stance actually goes to, you know, clean up program roads and providing basic services not to enforcement.

You know, despite the vitriol that sometimes we hear on TV, the folks who show up to work at EPA have their hearts in the right place. Government, you know, requires, you know, showing up and holding ourselves accountable and being transparent about it. It’s a human enterprise. And the more that we engage another with other segments in a meaningful way, the more that will truly get things done.

David Martin: The Environmental Protection Agency, the EPA, on this episode, we’re going to hear about this government agency from, until recently, the former Mid-Atlantic regional director. Welcome to the Good Government Show. I’m your host, Dave Martin. The EPA is certainly taking a beating in the public square. Its detractors say it’s a bloated bureaucracy. It costs industry, too much. It strangles the ability of businesses to provide jobs and the goods we need.

However, the EPA fills a vital role in making sure our air, our land and our water are clean, clear and safe. But don’t believe me. Adam Ortiz spent the last four years of the EPA as a regional director. He oversaw projects and cleanup programs with a $2 billion budget. That may sound like a lot, but as he will tell you, there’s a lot of work to do.

And I got to talk about my favorite state, West Virginia, and he talks about the work the EPA is doing with some of those old coal dependent counties and towns. We thought it’d be instructive on the good government show to talk to people in government and find out what they do and how they do it. We wanted to find out if these government agencies we talked to are really necessary.

And more important, where does our money go? With the EPA facing potential staff layoffs and the hold up of funds targeted to a cleaner environment, I wanted to hear from someone at the EPA about the work that they do. As Adam Ortiz will tell you, it goes to a lot of places. It cleans up Superfund sites and converts old garbage pits.

It cleans up runoff into rivers, lakes and bays. And they do it with the stakeholders who want to do the right thing and keep the environment from getting worse. So after this, we get in the details with Adam Ortiz, the former EPA regional director.

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Welcome to the good government show I have with me. I’m very happy to have our guest today, Adam Ortiz, who is the current deputy secretary for the State of Maryland for their Department of Environment. But prior to that, he served as the regional administrator, for the, Environmental Protection Agency for the Mid-Atlantic region. Have I got your resume right?

Adam Ortiz: Yeah. So far, so good, Dave.

David Martin: All right. Thank you. Thank you. Adam, great to have you here on The Good Government Show. And we’re going to talk about the environment. We’re going to talk about how the environment gets cleaned and how you’ve, managed to help make that happen. So let’s start a little bit with your most recent role as the, regional administrator for the North, the Mid-Atlantic region, for the EPA, Environmental Protection Agency.

How long were you there and what did you do?

Adam Ortiz: Well, I served in the Biden administration. So, so almost the entire term that that he was in there and, we oversaw six states and the District of Columbia and seven federally recognized tribes. And, our job was to help states and localities, implement the, the, the laws, that help keep our environment clean, but also, going above and beyond to give them the support necessary to keep their neighborhoods clean.

So, so it was, it was rewarding. It was great. And I think we got a lot done.

David Martin: So let’s talk money because, you know, that’s one of the things that’s in the news right now is, you know, how much are we spending? How much are we spending? You know, the EPA has a total budget of around $10 billion. In your Mid-Atlantic region, you monitored or, you know, had a $2 billion budget. You know, I mean, that’s a lot of money.

How did you spend it? What’d you do with all that cash?

Adam Ortiz: Well, you know, under the headline, it is a little misleading, because that is a lot of money, but that’s not EPA’s money. So, that’s the people’s money. And, you know, the way that we give it out is that it’s, you know, mostly competitive and it’s, you know, pass through money to states and localities to, you know, mostly do major, environmental infrastructure projects, you know, stuff that we take for granted every day, like, drinking water systems, wastewater systems and, and folks may not know, but that could be a $100 million project.

So that money goes pretty quick, but it’s competitive. And, you know, we have scientists and technical folks and grants managers that make sure that the recipients are able to spend the money, that they have good projects, that they qualify. And then, and then we, you know, monitor that until the project is done and into the ground.

So this is, you know, just getting money to places that needed the most, to support, you know, the basic environmental protections that Americans expect.

David Martin: So let’s break it down. Let’s let’s get back to the basics. What is the EPA do? I mean, it was it’s a relatively new agency. Actually, former President Richard Nixon created the EPA. What’s the mission of the EPA?

Adam Ortiz: It’s really simple. It’s to protect human health in the environment. And in the 70s, when the agency was created and sort of the big landmark statutes, that govern our work. And, you know, people have to remember that, you know, executive agencies, we carry out the work of Congress, you know, in Congress. So, so the laws are created by Congress, and Congress is created by the voters.

David Martin: So people to.

Adam Ortiz: You know, to carry out the will, you keep.

David Martin: You keep bring it back to the people. So it’s all our fault here, there.

Adam Ortiz: Not at all. We’re we’re, you know, we’re all on the same team. And, so back in the 70s, you know, things were really bad. And, some of us who were around in the 70s, remember, you know, we couldn’t see the skylines to our cities because smog and air pollution was so bad. Cancer rates were escalating quickly.

All sorts of health indicators. Rivers were catching on fire.

David Martin: Lake Erie caught fire.

Adam Ortiz: Yeah. Late Lake Erie, the Cuyahoga. But actually rivers all across the country had caught on fire. There were a few that caught the attention of the three networks, back then, but that was not uncommon. So that’s that’s a problem. You know.

David Martin: There was a there was a I don’t know if you remember it. I’m older than you. There was a famous television ad where people were throwing garbage in the street, and there was a, Native American in a canoe, stood on the sideline and, you know, shed a tear for the garbage that was, you know, at his feet.

And that was a problem throughout the country.

Adam Ortiz: I do remember that ad you see myself with you, my friend.

David Martin: Maybe years old is funny. I don’t think so, but okay.

Adam Ortiz: Well, we’re both aging well.

David Martin: Yes, yes.

Adam Ortiz: But that ad and a lot of people remember it, you know, was just a time where it was like, whoa, whoa, hey, you know, we gotta we gotta look out for, this country, this, this planet, we’re trashing it, too quickly. So, you know, EPA was sort of like emergency response, on on a grand scale in the 70s and early 80s.

And now, you know, the mission is still the same. Protect human health and the environment. But it’s, you know, that stuff, you know, making sure that we’re controlling chemicals that are going into waterways, that people can turn on the tap and drink out of it safely, and that sewage is treated, before it’s put in our streams and rivers.

But, but there’s a lot more stuff going on. There’s literally tens of thousands more chemicals to keep an eye on. There’s, you know, much more industry. There’s almost four times as many cars on the road. So there’s many more points of pollution, into our environment because the population and the economy have grown so much, not to mention climate change.

So it’s a big job. And, you know, people talk about the size and, you know, in, you know, in the suggestion in the, in the budget, question that you, you brought up early on, you know, we’re still catching up and cleaning up, problems from ten, 50, a hundred years ago, in addition to trying to make sure that we’re not introducing, you know, more, pollution into the environment, that’s a public health.

So it’s a big country. It’s a big environment, and it’s a big job. For environmental agencies.

David Martin: There is an argument that the EPA creates too many restrictions that they put in too many, too many guardrails that they stifle the ability for individual companies and people to do the things they want that they, limits, business and they ultimately hurt people’s, pocketbook. Just because there are too many rules and regulations. How do you respond to that?

Adam Ortiz: Well, there’s ample evidence to the contrary. I mean, right now, our economy is the biggest, that it has ever been. We have almost full employment. We have an incredibly sophisticated market. And, you know, this country is as robust and sophisticated economically than it’s ever been. And at the same time, it’s also cleaner than it’s been, since before the Industrial revolution.

You know, we can do both things. You know, we’re Americans, man. We’re freaking can secure these things out. You know, we can grow and invent things and manufacture things without poisoning. You know, people in the process are poisoning the environment. I think, you know, we can do both of those things. So there’s ample evidence to the contrary.

And I’ll tell you, I’ve been, you know, a regulator, you know, quote unquote, regulator and environmental protection for, almost two decades now. And by and large, industry is totally on board with what, you know, we’re doing. They always say, hey, we want to follow the rules. We want to be good neighbors. You know, we want to do things right.

So, you know, I would say that, you know, the vast majority of industry, you know, gets it. You know, they want to have good relationships with their workforce. They want to have good relationships with the cities and counties, that they’re located in, you know, and they want to be stewards. I mean, they’re also they also fish. They also have kids that play in playgrounds, you know, and, you know, so I think that there is an ethic.

So that’s like an oversimplification, that’s used for political purposes that just doesn’t bear out in reality. This is you know, environmental protection is really just a responsibility. You know, we just all have to be responsible, and clean up any messes that we make. And, you know, when we can, you know, it’s just like we don’t take our garbage, put it in a bag and throw it over the fence in our neighbor’s backyard.

We’re responsible for taking care of it. And that’s really what it’s all about. So, so most of that is just, you know, in, in the words of a famous recent Paul, recently in power politician malarkey, you know, we can do both of those things. And the the strength of the economy, I think, is a testament to that.

David Martin: I want to talk about some of the things that you, worked on directly, for regular listeners of The Good Government show, they will know I have a fascination, with all things West Virginia. You know, it is a it is largely especially in Appalachia. It was a very coal dependent economy. And I know that some of the projects you’ve worked on are, you know, a surface coal mining and brownfield, revitalization.

Tell me how you’ve spent some of the $2 billion to help the folks of Appalachia.

Adam Ortiz: Yeah, well, I’m glad you’re asking about this. I also love West Virginia. I live in Maryland, so I’m not far. I’ve done a lot of hiking there for my entire adult life and being able to work, in the state and and in partnership with the state, with the communities had been an honor, when I was at EPA.

And it’s, a remarkable place, you know, again, despite the political rhetoric, there’s arguably been no, no better friend to West Virginia than EPA. You know, the vast majority of what we do, more than 85% of our budget in our state actually goes to, you know, clean up programs and providing basic services, not to enforcement.

You know, there’s just something.

David Martin: So 85% of your budget goes to cleanup.

Adam Ortiz: Yeah, cleanup. And, supporting systems like wastewater systems and drinking water systems like those are the big the and the cleanup, Superfund cleanups, brownfields cleanups. Those things are super expensive. If you’re going to get them right. And that’s where most of our resources go in that, you know, I can tell by the incredulity in your tone of your voice that most people don’t realize that, like the enforcement piece is important.

We do that. But that’s not enough because we got a lot of cleanup to do, man. And especially in West Virginia, where, you know, a lot of, you know, a lot of beautiful places had been truly sacrificed, you know, before there were, you know, environmental protections. There’s literally hundreds and hundreds of surface mines as folks are at a computer, like, pull up a Google satellite map and zoom in and you’ll see these large swaths of, land that look like the moon, hundreds of them.

And then brownfields or brownfields are contaminated land contaminated parcels where there was dumping or industry or manufacturing of some kind, where materials weren’t handled responsibly. And those, parcels are too toxic to be redevelop or for, for people to, to do stuff on. So, so those cleanups are, are critical and only the federal government can do them because states like West Virginia, where there’s, lower, lower incomes across the state losing population, and the expense and the risk, in cleaning up these is just beyond the reach.

David Martin: So I went to a place and it was it used to be the Raven Crest mine. It was a mountaintop removal site, in Madison West outside of Madison, West Virginia, Boone County. And they turned, the top of the mountain into a lavender farm. And now they’re there, have lavender products, and they put people to work, and they’ve branched into other areas.

Is this this kind of stuff that, EPA gets involved in?

Adam Ortiz: Yes. And, and, you and I both have a friend in common in the operators of that lavender farm.

David Martin: Jocelyn. Yes.

Adam Ortiz: It’s very, you know, it’s very cool. And innovators. So that’s that’s exactly the kind of stuff. I mean, we so, you know, we are, you know, people don’t think of it this way, but it is true. We are also in, economic development agency because we will go into the brownfield lands in coordination with the, the local stakeholders and the local municipalities to clean up these places, so they can be redeveloped or reused for agriculture or for parks or for, cleaner industries.

But yeah, that lavender farm, is a great example. People have been looking at other ways to creatively reuse the mountaintop mines, but it’s it’s a drop in the bucket. Just there literally are hundreds and hundreds of them that are just still sacrifice zones.

David Martin: There are any brownfield projects in West Virginia that you that come to mind that you can point to where you spent your money wisely and made a difference?

Adam Ortiz: Oh, there’s a couple, so, a really cool one is in, a city called Beech Bottom. It was an old, I forget precisely. The manufacturer. I think it was a battery manufacturer on contaminated land. It was right on the Ohio River. So, great location for shipping. And that’s where, you know, a lot of industries are on the rivers because it was easy to ship and transport stuff nowadays.

You know, people can still transport stuff. But we had to get those places back online. So we, in partnership with the community in the state, we cleaned it up and there was a, an electric pontoon boat manufacturer that took over that facility. So that’s a cool thing. Another great example is.

David Martin: How was the electric pontoon on the water?

Adam Ortiz: Yeah. And it went past like you wouldn’t think, but it went really fast and it was really quiet. And who doesn’t love a pontoon boat, especially if you can get a, a cooler, a beer onto it?

David Martin: I was yeah, yeah. It’s like it’s like a moving bar on a pontoon boat. When I was, when I was down at West Virginia, I was watching the, out of the, one of the guys was like, you got to move here. You gotta move here. He say, look, there’s a lake. You could put your boat there. Look, there’s a river.

You could you could go on that boat there. You could put your boat here.

Adam Ortiz: So fat Man will remember my number, man, I’ll be you.

David Martin: Okay. I found, this doing some, you know, reading about you, a Superfund site in Pennsylvania. It was, in Berks County. It was, Crosley Farm. Our old friend Christian is a county commissioner in Berks County. You spent a few million dollars putting this together. Tell me how this was money well spent.

Adam Ortiz: So if I’m not conflating it with another project, I believe that this was a farm where, for years, the farmer, for 20 bucks, would let anybody come in and dump whatever they wanted.

David Martin: Yeah.

Adam Ortiz: In, in a certain part of the farm that wasn’t in use. And, a lot of heavy metals, PCBs, all sorts of toxic material that, got into the water table. So, you know, when in, like, tier $2 billion question, you know, that’s an expensive cleanup. How do you just the engineering.

David Martin: I think I saw the figure 10.9 million to do the cleanup at Crosley Farm. Does that sound right?

Adam Ortiz: That sounds right. I mean, just think about it. Think about, like, finding the places where things are dumped. That’s a lot of sampling of the land. Then getting down into the water table or the aquifer to figure out, you know, how much of it has been contaminated by a toxic plume, and then doing the underground engineering to control that from leaching, into other groundwater?

Or the streams or rivers, because, you know, a lot of that stuff will pop up. You know, water will pop up in a creek or spring someplace else. That’s where a lot of the expenses and that’s a lot. You know, that’s a good example of that’s something somebody was doing. 50, 60 years ago. I think the farmer was taking that material.

And here we are. You know, all these decades later, before you and I were born, he was doing this and were cleaning up after this guy, you know, who made maybe a few thousand bucks, letting his neighbors dump stuff. But, yeah, there’s, like, literally there’s 1300 projects like that around the country. Places, sites like that. Only about 100 of them are in remediation.

So when I say that, like expanded remediation. So cleaning up, you know, and in the process of like, okay, we’ve assessed what the problem is, this is how we clean it up. And then to get the bulldozers or the, pumps or the equipment into the ground. So that’s, you know, that’s a tiny percentage of, you know, the liability that’s still out there.

So people should not be looking to cut EPA. They should be finding ways to help expand it to get these communities cleaner and back online in a more economically viable and healthy.

David Martin: So I’m going to talk about a project that, I’m sure is near and dear to your heart, Chesapeake Bay. I’m a sailor. It is one of the premier selling spots, in the United States, if not the world. This was right in your backyard. You know, what did you do there?

That’s an open ended question. What did you do in the Chesapeake? Yeah.

Adam Ortiz: My gosh, how much time do you do it? Do you have enough bandwidth?

David Martin: It’s a podcast. You could go as long as you like.

Adam Ortiz: Well, you know, in a nutshell. So the Mid-Atlantic region, which was where I served, as the EPA administrator, you know, probably 80% of, the land mass there was part of the Chesapeake Bay watershed. And, to those folks who weren’t familiar with with this part of the country, you know, it’s the largest estuary in the world.

Eight states, drain, into it. And, and it was, you know, it was the, you know, the fish market of the country, in the early part of the republic. And, by the 1980s, the oyster population, the crab population had been decimated. You know, bacteria, E.coli and all sorts of streams and rivers.

It was on swimmable, unsustainable and, a big, economic disaster, frankly, for the, for this part of the country. So, so the states got together and EPA, in the 80s and said, okay, we got to work together and clean it up. So I came along in, 2021, as, sort of the captain of that effort and, and to try to get it going in the right direction.

And overall, the bay had slowly been stabilizing, and getting better. But at the same time, we have growing population, we have more sprawl development. We still have more pollution inputs. And then thousands and thousands, tens of thousands of farms as well, in the watershed. So my goal was to, you know, to work with the states to get them to step up, step up more and, and I did that by using the powers of the EPA, the, the regulatory and enforcement powers, but also the grant making and the incentive and the policymaking and that sort of softer stuff.

So make a long story short, when I got there, the states were suing each other and suing the EPA. But by the end, we were working together, and we stepped up the investment and the amount of farms and industries, that were putting conservation measures into place. And by the time I left, just a few months ago, the Chesapeake Bay received its highest grade in 22 years for for health.

And that’s just because people were working together. But it wouldn’t have happened if, you know, EPA, in its leadership role, was able to convene the states and hold us all accountable with, with some tough love.

David Martin: So you, you or Mr. EPA tough love, is that correct?

Adam Ortiz: That. Yes. Yes. The I’m tough guy, but I’m a softy. Okay. And so got a lot of love Dave.

David Martin: All right. Good good good good. Let’s talk about drinking water for a moment. Is our drinking water safe? Is it clean? Are you optimistic?

Please show. Yes. Yes, yes, by and large. Okay. And having said that.

Adam Ortiz: And and there are, there are, there are threats. And it’s, and this goes to the role of EPA being able to provide that funding to places that are struggling to keep up their drinking water operations, and those generally are poorer cities and more rural places that have drinking water systems, and don’t have the operation and the technology to deal with, with, with the threats.

And so what are the what are the principal threats? You know, lead is always a threat. And, I mean, many of us remember Flint, Michigan, and what happens when you don’t have a good operation and you aren’t watching it. So we’re trying to excel at the agency, and I hope it’s continuing under the current administration is accelerating, the removal, and replacement of lead pipes.

A but B, emerging contaminants. And this is, you know, again, like, the federal government struggling to keep up with, the threats and the liabilities that are around us. The, these new, this new generation of chemicals, it’s around us. It’s in our clothing, it’s, you know, in our cookware. It’s and probably, you know, 60% of the products that we use on any given day, has been found, in all sorts of places, contaminating, drinking water, not always at, at high thresholds to the health, but we’re still getting our head in our science around it.

And, and that’s an expensive one. We’re finding it, in farms. We’re finding it, in suburban and urban places where there was dumping or manufacturing, where the stuff got into the water table. So, it’s a work in progress, but by and large, people can turn on the tap. There’s still a lot of reporting and oversight, and that’s the job of the EPA and the state agencies.

But, you know, there’s always threats on the horizon. If we are in villages.

David Martin: How difficult is it to work with corporations? You know, people that may not necessarily jump to mind as environmentalists like, you know, coal mining companies and, you know, fossil fuel companies. How difficult is it for the EPA to work with these folks to, you know, make sure everyone’s doing the right thing?

Adam Ortiz: You know, by and large, it’s, there’s more collaboration and cooperation than I think people would assume. And part of that is because the laws or the laws, man, you know, we know that the laws or the laws, the permits or the permit, you got to meet these requirements, otherwise you’re going to get in trouble. And the governments, you know, have to do that job.

And if governments don’t do that job, whether it’s a locality or a state or the federal government, we get sued. You know, and we lose. So, so by and large, corporations are compliant with existing laws. There’s bad actors and, you know, it requires resources and good operation to get to the bad actors, build the case, hold them accountable, and, you know, and get them to do the right thing.

And it’s not, you know, take them to court and make them do the right thing or go out of business, you know, but that’s, you know, that’s a smaller percentage overall where the challenges is doing the new stuff, like so, you know, we know that greenhouse gases, are not under control, that, you know, severe weather events are increasing.

And that requires, you know, there’s only some so many laws on the books now, because of today’s politics to control carbon. So, you know, having, as state and local states and localities step up, that, you know, that industry is finding a way to work with them to meet those goals. And many are, but some are not.

And there are voluntary actions, just like, you know, we can do voluntary things at home that some corporations are doing and some are not. But it gets toxic the higher that you go in the atmosphere, it gets toxic, you know, higher we go in our political atmosphere where things get oversimplified, where the big industry groups, you know, demonize, folks who were just trying to, you know, keep us safe and healthy and clean.

And, and that has a negative effect throughout the chain. But I would say, you know, I network with hundreds and hundreds of them and regulatory matters, community, interventions. You know, there’s a lot of folks in, in those industries that are trying to do the right thing. They don’t always do it. You know, but the more that we work and hold each other accountable with tough laws, toughness necessary, sometimes we.

David Martin: Get back to the tough level. Let me ask you a question about something. This is, you know, here’s what I do. Whenever I go to a bar or restaurant and somebody hands me a drink with a plastic straw and, and I take the straw out ahead and back to him, and I said, I’m giving this back to you.

Don’t give people straws unless they ask for them. And some of my friends go, what a jerk. And some of the waiter, waiters and waitresses look at me go, what a jerk! And someone go, oh, thank you. I agree. I mean, does that make a difference?

Adam Ortiz: Of course it does.

David Martin: And one of the things we can do on a personal level.

Adam Ortiz: Well, you know, that’s sort.

David Martin: Of keeps it the straw back.

Adam Ortiz: Well, you know, we all have power. You know, we, you know, there’s and, you know, the environment’s a big thing. It requires a big team working together. And, you know, at the federal level, the federal folks have to use their, their powers and their influence, and our leaders in Congress have to constantly, you know, be the, be leaning and and doing their job.

States and localities have roles as well. And personally, we do too. Is one straw, you know, going to rivers climate change? No. But is it helping kids, you know, is it also.

David Martin: Keep does it litter?

Adam Ortiz: Is it helping? You know, you know, keep, you know, more plastics in microplastics out of the environment. But what can people do? Just everyday decisions. You know, that’s, we’re empowered to make choices, when we’re at the grocery store or shopping online, you know, there’s there are more sustainable products. There’s stuff around the house that can be used or reused.

There’s, you know, thrift stores and there’s, you know, ways to, to, to share, and borrow things, among, you know, in different communities, there’s choices in the appliances that we choose in vehicles that, are more efficient. You know, all those things add up, you know, and people are getting more educated. The market is responding, and that means that we all have power.

David Martin: What would you like people to know about the EPA that they probably don’t know?

Adam Ortiz: You know, that, you know, despite the vitriol that sometimes we hear on TV, the folks who show up to work at EPA have their hearts in the right place, and they’re bringing their gifts and talents to protect people in ways that many of us take for granted. So just to appreciate that, you know, the quality of life that we have is maintained by people that are carrying out the work of the people.

That’s the most important thing. The enforcement role is an important role, like EPA has to do its job. But, most of the people listening to your program when they flush the toilet or, turn the tap on or, you know, consume a product or have something in their garage, it’s been made safe because of the laws and regulation actions that EPA carries out in coordination with the states.

So a lot of the quality of life that we enjoy, in this country is not done by accident, it’s done by intention, by folks in the in the public sector working with the private sector, and consumers, but there’s good people behind our quality of life and they need your support.

David Martin: All right. We’re going to get into your philosophy of government. And that’s going to come up right after this.

Once you wrap up this episode of The Good Government Show, give a listen to our friends over at Good News for lefties. This daily podcast highlights news stories that show there’s more good news out there. Other people in government are really trying to do the right thing. That’s good news for lefties. Listen, we’re listening now.

So we are back with Adam Ortiz, who is the former regional administrator for the Mid-Atlantic for the EPA and the current deputy secretary for the State of Maryland Department of the environment. All right. Here we go. We’re going to get to your the heart of your thinking on government. What is good government, what makes government effective.

Adam Ortiz: So, you know, we serve the people. Of course we do. You know, the danger of government is that it becomes too insulated, that it’s not always in touch with the people. And that’s a criticism that’s heard a lot. So it’s incumbent on, those of us in, the public sector, but also, you know, citizens and residents to have a spirit of engagement that is important to get out of the offices, that it’s important to show up, that it’s important to listen to people and engage in meaningful dialog.

So, you know, my mantra in, all the places I’ve worked in all the teams is to engage, like engage, engage with the tasks problems. You know, our job is to take on the tough stuff. And, we can’t do it alone, you know, sitting in, in, in, you know, in an office, you know, someplace in a cubicle.

You can do some stuff. But you need more hands on deck, you know, engage the stakeholders, the communities that are affected, the industries, that are related to, so I believe that it’s a team effort, that, you know, we are, in fact, on the same team, you know, whether you’re a consumer or a resident or member of industry, you know, we all have a responsibility for the environment.

The government, you know, requires you’re showing up and holding ourselves accountable and being transparent about it. And then I found, that when people do work together, when you’re transparent, about about it and open, things get done, you figure things out, you know, and what we see today is the opposite. You know, we see people not coming together.

I think people come together in, in, in small ways every day. But, you know, there’s a philosophy now that we have to blame each other, that we can’t trust each other, that, that people are out to get you, and that, you know, the problems that exist, you know, should be, you know, ignored and that, we don’t know, require committed people, you know, to show up and figure them out, to, retreat from, you know, integrity and telling the truth and, in transparency, I think is problematic and is, and is a poison in our ability, to perform good government.

So, so I, you know, it’s a human enterprise. And the more that we engage in other with other teammates in a meaningful way, the more that will truly get things done.

David Martin: What’s the role of the people? What should they do? How should they how should they hold government accountable? How should they? If they don’t like what they see, what should the people do? Yeah.

Adam Ortiz: Same philosophy engage. Here’s something on the news. Check it out. You know, somebody tells you something that’s upsetting. Check it out. Do your homework. And reach out. And, you know, there’s lots of paths to the public sector. So, you know, if you’re if it’s a certain agency or, you know, the stoplight is out or, you know, whatever the issue is, you know, you can try to go to that agency, but if you can’t, you’ve got, you know, state representatives that will return your call.

You got federal representatives that return. You can return your call. Most government agencies now are pretty, pretty transparent online. Instagram accounts, Facebook accounts, you know, lean in, and it’s not to throw rocks, you know, but to solve problems. If people show up trying to help get a system to solve a problem, usually get a good response.

David Martin: So what drew you to public service? Was this something you always, wanted to do?

Adam Ortiz: You know, I, I get satisfaction personally at, at of helping and doing things that are bigger than myself. And, and I’ve just been rewarded, in every stage of my career, that, you know, I don’t, you know, I certainly don’t have the answers all of the time. Or maybe even most of the time.

But saying that, you know, when I work together with with other people, we do come up with the answers. In my my very first public service job. Well, I was a beach lifeguard in Ocean City, Maryland. That was my first. My first job on my first, public office was as small town mayor and as a small town mayor.

The most satisfaction I got was actually getting to know every single person in this 1400 person town and all the different perspectives, all the different countries, all the different races, all the different political bands. And at the end of the day, pretty much everybody is pretty cool. You know, they all did the same things. And that was just an honor to help bring people together to help improve that little corner of the world.

So I just get a lot of satisfaction about making a positive difference and leaving something behind, that makes somebody’s life a little better and somebody can pick up that baton and improve on the stuff that I did.

David Martin: So you started off as a mayor, who’s your political hero? And, you know, you’ve stayed in government. What inspires you to who and who or what inspires you to keep going?

Adam Ortiz: You know, well, it’s, you know, all these people that I touch on the ground and I love getting out. I love walking neighborhoods and meeting meeting with folks. So that’s that is an inspiration all the time. So I try to get out of this office as much as I can. Historically, my heroes are Robert Kennedy, senior.

David Martin: RFK senior. Okay.

Adam Ortiz: You know, particularly his, 1968 campaign, which I’m a student as, Abraham Lincoln of a bust of Abraham Lincoln on the other side of the office here. All right. Harriet Tubman, who’s a great Marylander, who I think was a remarkable public servant in lots of different ways. You know, I go to them to guidance, and there’s, you know, a lot of a lot of saints in, in the public service pantheon to draw upon.

So, so I try to be a student as much as possible of history in public service, because they always have something to teach us.

David Martin: You’ve been a mayor. You’ve worked on the county level environment. You worked at the federal level at the, EPA. Now you’re at the state government. What would you like people to know about government?

Adam Ortiz: That, it’s certainly not perfect. But it functions overall pretty well. That, you know, by and large, there’s good collaboration, between, different entities at different levels. We do hold ourselves accountable. There’s absolutely inefficiencies. Like a lot of those criticisms certainly have some truth to them. But most people who show up in a public service job, are doing it for the right reasons.

And everywhere I go, and it doesn’t matter if it’s, you know, federal level or a teeny tiny town, you know, I find that to be true. And also, people can always ask, you know, you know, with freedom of information, you know, you can ask any question you want, any government entity. And they have to answer that question unless it’s, you know, a national security matter or, or a personal personnel matter or something.

Right? So the power is always with the people. And every level of government, by and large, is willing to answer those questions and be a part of.

David Martin: What was, you know, just looking, the last four years at EPA. What was the best part of the job? And, you know, the follow up is what was the hardest part of the job?

Adam Ortiz: It was, really a remarkable time, because there was so much momentum and, you know, for, a moment, you know, Congress came together with the president and got a lot of stuff done, investing, in the country. And, you know, as I said, there’s, you know, still, you know, lots of Superfund sites and tens of hundreds of thousands of brownfields around the country.

But we began to show up and clean up places that had been long been neglected. And I had done 450 external engagements in my three years there. And, everywhere I went. And it could be the deepest blue place or the deepest red place. And I went to many, many Trumpy places where lots of people showed up in Trump hats and stuff.

And I still went around, shook everybody’s hand and said, hey, thanks for having me here. Thanks for working with us. And inevitably to a person I got, well, thank you for helping. Thank you for showing up. We’ve been working on this problem here in West Virginia or in Pennsylvania or in Maryland or in DC, you know, for decades.

And, you know, finally, you know, we have somebody here, in your team, you know, helping us fix this problem, you know, and that was the most satisfying thing. The toughest thing. It’s just the time, like, man, who was. I mean, you and I barely remember the 70s like it was yesterday, but, you know, right at the time just goes so fast in that.

And then also watching sort of the assault, we see today on, on the work force and on the good work that people have done is, is heartbreaking to say the least. But, but it was a privilege.

David Martin: Did you always see yourself, running for office in public service? Did you were you president of the student council?

Adam Ortiz: Well, I wanted to be a rock star or a baseball player when I was in high school. Neither of those have.

David Martin: Worked quite yet. But.

Adam Ortiz: Yeah, I’m going to walk on, though, to to, like, tryouts and,

David Martin: Maybe, maybe, you know what? You can throw the first pitch. Maybe the Royals will give you a shout. No, I.

Adam Ortiz: Haven’t done that. Yeah.

David Martin: All right, well, you know this a run for governor. All right. They’re they’re I think they’re they’re I think you could throw out the first pitch.

Adam Ortiz: No, but I’ve always I’ve always really cared. And and a seventh grade teacher actually really turned me on to to history and government and civics and, and that has, as always, been inspiring for me. And I’ve always wanted to help in some way. And I’ve and been able to help and people keep asking me to, to apply for jobs or positions.

And as long as I can do that, I’ll continue to do that. But, but I’m just I’m just glad to be of service. I find that deeply satisfying.

David Martin: So you’re in Maryland, so we will talk about Maryland crabs, as I’m sure. What is your what are your favorite dishes? But what else do you do for fun besides, crack crabs on the table with, newspapers underneath you?

Adam Ortiz: Well, I’m always waiting for a friend to invite me out on his boat, so come on.

David Martin: October, Saturday, whenever you’re ready.

Adam Ortiz: I’m, I’m a big outdoors person, so I do a lot of hiking and paddling. You know, I love the mountains. And there’s plenty of mountains out here, and, on the east coast. I am a musician, so I play in different bands and, foreign from time to time. So that’s a good, you know, good way to use different parts of my brain.

David Martin: So have you taken a hike through the new River Gorge, the newest national park in West Virginia?

Adam Ortiz: I certainly have, and I’ve whitewater rafted it with, with some of the park rangers there.

David Martin: I just I just walked one of the trails. Didn’t get to Whitewater. Sorry.

Adam Ortiz: Oh, yeah. Oh, you got to go back now.

David Martin: All right, all right.

Adam Ortiz: Next steps.

David Martin: Overall we talked about this a little bit, but what’s the what’s the most important thing you think that you did at EPA?

Adam Ortiz: I think the most important thing that I did this was a team effort in the Biden administration was focus on the communities that needed the most help. And there’s, you know, as we look around, a lot of this country is cleaner and more beautiful. But there’s, you know, some pockets that are stubbornly, polluted where life expectancy is, you know, 15 years or more or less than other places.

And that the air and the water in the ground, is dirty and unhealthy and people pay the price for it and public health. So we focused on those places. And again, all over the political spectrum, black and brown communities, urban communities, blue communities, but also white communities, rural communities, mountain communities. And that investment, and that is what is what we refer to as environmental justice.

Okay. Which is now a prohibited word, in the federal government and, as we speak, an entire, almost 200 employees have been, are about to be laid off, because they work on environmental justice, like, it’s like it’s a crime. But that we showed up in these places, whatever you call it, in disadvantaged communities and help people.

You know, get closer to the quality of life that many of us in the middle class have enjoyed for a long time. That has been, the most satisfying, it’s to see the team inspired, like, people really care that are doing this work, and see people work together and get things done and make a difference.

Is remarkable and you can’t put a price on that.

David Martin: This is called the Good Government Show. We always like to bring it back to good government. Give me an example of a good government project that you’re really proud of, that you were able to pull off at EPA and maybe just a small thing.

Adam Ortiz: So this was small and big. So back to the Chesapeake Bay and, to the boating adventures we’re going to have together. So yes. And, you know, one of the biggest reasons that the Bay has, has struggled to, to really rebound has been from, pollution from small farms, mostly, upstream in, in, northern Maryland, eastern Shore in Pennsylvania, and early on in the job, my very first public meeting was with the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau and, and we were in litigation with the states at the time, under a lot of criticism, to get to get the big effort on track.

And I said, hey, you guys, you know, this is a big challenge. I’m under a lot of pressure here. I want to work with you. And there’s just too much pollution coming out of Pennsylvania, you know? What do we do? And, you know, they said we agree, man. We want to work together with you. Where we could use your help with is, helping the state of Pennsylvania have a program for helping small farmers, control their pollution.

You know, it’s expensive to do it. A lot of farms, small family farms from the colonial era. So tiny places, a lot of Amish farms they can’t spend $100,000 on, controlling cow manure or, you know, you know, different types of technologies. You know, they can use some help. And that’s something we don’t have in this state. And that was an moment.

And back to your question about my my philosophy on governing, you know, showing up, engaging, listening. And that nugget was like, oh, I didn’t know that. Let’s work together on that. Let’s solve that problem. Let’s get past the blame game. And, you know, federal government, you suck. You don’t listen. Or farmers, you know, you don’t care about the none of that ended up being true.

When we got that nugget, I was like, let’s get to work on that. And we did. And, I won’t bore you with all the details, but at the end of the day, we worked with, Republican leaders in the state legislature, to provide that kind of assistance to small farmers. And, that program is now in its third year.

It’s I get the number. It’s at least 500 farms have been helped. Just small farmers doing things to, improve the sustainability and the conservation measures on their farm and the viability in the, and the health of their farm, in their livestock and their families that live on the farm. So that’s, that was a long answer to your very short, simple question.

David Martin: Well, we are we are trying to spread the word of good government in large ways and small. How are we doing?

Adam Ortiz: Doing great. I’m so glad this program, exists. I’m so glad that you let people tell their stories as we all learn from each other. You know something I see a lot. You know, the public sector, one big advantage it has over the private sector is there’s no intellectual property. If you have a good idea in, Toledo.

And then that’s, you know, helpful in Des Moines, you know, call it call your friend in Toledo and learn how they do that and borrow that idea. So, you know, perhaps, you know, I helped expose some people, some different ideas, as I’ve learned from others, on this program and in my public life. And, that’s what it’s all about.

It’s it’s a big team. We’re all in this team together, and we’re all here to listen and learn and support each other.

David Martin: Well, we hope that, we like to share best practices in any way we can. Adam Ortiz, the former regional administrator for the Mid-Atlantic region for the Environmental Protection Agency. Good luck in your new role as the deputy secretary for the state of Maryland and their Department of Environment. Good luck. It’s been a pleasure talking with you.

Thank you for coming on the show. And we’ll talk.

Adam Ortiz: Again. Thanks, Dave. I appreciate you everything that this program represents, and I’ll continue to be listening.

David Martin: All right. Good. Please do. And, the boat goes in the water in Long Island Sound in May, so come on up and we’ll we’ll do some sailing.

Adam Ortiz: All right.

David Martin: Man, my best friend is a friend of the boat. Right.

Adam Ortiz: Right on.

David Martin: Very good. Thanks for coming on. You got the good government show is sponsored by our. That’s. Oh, you are for our community. Get involved. We hear that all the time from government leaders. Our Cobra with your governments name and logo. Your staff and the people you serve are connected and part of your community. From any device. Your members provide reliable data and meaningful feedback.

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Get out and get engaged. That’s what Adam Ortiz, the former EPA regional director, says is important for everyone. Get out of the office, get outside and do something, all of us. And I’m glad to hear I’m not wasting my time returning plastic straws. Yeah, it’s one small thing, but if everyone did one small thing, those results would make a difference.

The EPA covers a lot of ground and they do it with one goal clean water, clean land, clean air. We all want that. It’s good to hear people like Adam do that every day for all of us. Well, thanks for listening to another example of how government works for all of us. Please like us and share us with your friends and our viewers right here where you’re listening and check out our website.

Good Government show.com for extras. Help us keep telling stories of good government and action everywhere. Join us again for another episode right here. I’m Dave Martin and this is the Good Government show.

The Good Government show is a Valley Park production. Jim Ludlow, Dave Martin, that’s me and David Snyder are the executive producers. Our show is edited and produced by Jason Stershic. Please subscribe then share and like us and reviews. That’s the best way to make sure we’re able to keep telling these stories of our government working for all of us.

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**This transcription was created using digital tools and has not been edited by a live person. We apologize for any discrepancies or errors.