It's good to know that with all its responsibilities, like dropping the ball in New Orleans, the Environmental Protection Agency is still doing a bang-up job in New York, and we don't just mean certifying the air at Ground Zero is A-OK.

We found out just how on top of things the agency was when a conscientious EPA man by the name of Jack Hoyt gave us ring to ask about Lincoln MacVeagh's item in last week's Press. The story detailed the NYPD's new, post9/11 policy of removing all the city's street signs and the MTArelated replacement of subway station signs with signs reading "Station Stop," as well as the "unbranding" of subway lines so that all trains would be known as the "X train."

It turns out the EPA had picked up on the item and was preparing to issue a public memoranda on how the removal of all the city's signage would impact their work.

Hoyt, though, with the savvy for which agency men are famed, wasn't certain if this was true, and called us to ask. It's been tough all around, we suppose, since the NYPD switched to that unlisted number.

Harry Siegel