The leg bone's connected to...

Ah, it's been a while since my last post, but I suppose if you were really observant, you would have already figured that out.
I really wanted to touch on water today. Most people know of FEMA (federal emergency management agency), but do you know where it comes from or what it does? How about water quality? Who's in charge of that?
Allow me to break it down:
The president picks out all of the heads of the beauricratic agencies like FEMA, the EPA and even the USDA. These agencies then might have state agencies associated with them. In the case of FEMA, the president is the head of the agency, and the whole group of FEMA works as the body. As an engineer, I do a lot of FEMA mapping requests. FEMA doesn't have the resources to be everywhere all the time, so it relies on citizens to make requests as necessary.
The EPA is a different entity all together. The president still acts as the head, and the EPA still acts as the body, but it has "arms and legs" in every state. Here in California, there is the State Water Resources Control Board. It has 12 regional districts around the state which dictate how business can discharge water and which construction measures need to be in place in order to minimize mud and pollutants being washed downstream if it rains.
The system has a lot of room to be what I call "politicized". It's a beaurcratic process, for sure, but I assure you that it works most of the time, and water quality around the US is getting better than it was in the 70's.
But, there is also room for improvement in the political area. It's our duty as citizens to be aware how this process works so that if something goes wrong with our water, we know who to call. (Just to clarify - it's not a doctor!)