Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) filed a data quality petition with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers August 20, 2003, alleging a monthly status report does not meet OMB or the Department of Defense's data quality guidelines Background The challenged document is a monthly status report for the Upper Mississippi River-Illinois Waterway (UMR-IWW) System, which provides team members, partners, stakeholders and other interested parties with regular information on important events and activities associated with the UMR-IWW System Navigation Feasibility Study. The study investigates the feasibility of navigation improvements on the Upper Mississippi River and the Illinois Waterway over a 50-year planning period. Challenge PEER asserts that the data, model and economic parameters in the monthly status report fail the quality, objectivity, utility and integrity standards of the data quality guidelines. Specifically, the organization highlights two proprietary, non peer-reviewed economic models that are operated and maintained only be the Corps. The report relies on the information produced by these economic models. PEER contends that the dissemination of this information "substantially and negatively affects the ability of any reputable scientific study to address any issues concerning the economic or environmental analyses of the potential navigation system infrastructure investments." Because the models have not been peer-reviewed, PEER contends that dissemination of the report should stop and the contents disavowed until a formal peer review is completed. Under the OMB and DoD guidelines, "objectivity" refers to accurate, reliable, and unbiased information. Information can be presumed to be of acceptable objectivity if it has been subject to formal, independent, external peer review. PEER Lawsuit PEER filed a lawsuit against the Corp December 9, 2003, because the agency did not respond to PEER's request for reconsideration in the 60 working days provided under data quality guidelines. The suit asserts that because of this failure to respond, PEER exhausted all administrative mechanisms. In the suit, PEER makes the same arguments for non-compliance with the data quality guidelines as the original challenge. The suit asks the court to declare the Corps' actions unlawful, and force them to comply with the guidelines by "completing an independent peer review of the information, data, analyses, and conclusions of the subject document 'before it is disseminated', that the Department of Defense immediately disavow and withdraw from distribution the published Monthly Status Report." Additionally, PEER requests that the Corps be prohibited from disseminating any further information about the UMR-IWW System Navigation Feasibility Study. PEER is a non-profit organization that protects the government employees who protect the environment. The organization has thousands of members, some of which are employees in the Army Corps of Engineers and others who are affected through their work in the UMR-IWW System. According to the organization this qualifies PEER as an affected party and allows it to seek a correction in the information. For more information on the upper Mississippi and Illinois rivers controversy, see the Dec. 12, 2003 Washington Post article.