Maintaining a healthy environment is an immense responsibility. As the world's human population grows and
contaminants accumulate in the environment, the responsibility looms even larger. In fact, it often takes both
the EPA and the Service to detect the problems and begin to solve them.
The responsibilities of these two agencies are often complementary; providing for the protection of both
human health and safety and fish and wildlife resources. Because EPA’s mandates are broad, and necessarily
focused on immediate human health threats, it is often the Service’s responsibility to concentrate on the
protection of fish, wildlife, and their habitats.
