The Army Environmental Policy Institute (AEPI) facilitated the development of the first formal “Army Environmental Strategy,” publishing the document in 1992 with signatures from the Secretary of the Army and Chief of Staff of the Army. This strategy is enduring, as it articulates the Army's vision to be “… a national leader in environmental and natural resource stewardship for present and future generations, as an integral part of all Army missions.”

Since 1940, Native Americans have been required to apply to the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) to obtain eagle carcasses or other parts. An increase in tribal populations and a revitalization of cultural practices has increased the demand for eagle parts and led to delays in filling requests. In a cooperative effort with the USFWS, the Pueblo of Zuni Indian Tribe recently revived the ancient Zuni practice of live eagle husbandry in order to both maintain this cultural practice and make eagle feathers more widely available to tribal members. This is being accomplished in a manner consistent with modern raptor husbandry techniques, but in a Zuni-based context. Environmental professionals have assisted the project greatly, especially concerning the life history and behavioral needs of the birds and the implications for eagle conservation. Although we have explored and decided against the idea of breeding captive eagles so that their young may be released into the wild (because it goes against traditional Zuni beliefs), this is certainly a feasible option for other, similar facilities and would be strongly supported by the USFWS, conservation groups, and wildlife professionals.

Dr. Lynton K. Caldwell, Professor Emeritus at Indiana University; Bloomington, Indiana, was one of the primary thinkers involved in writing the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA). He worked closely with the staff of the late Senator Henry Jackson (D, WA); Senator Jackson, together with the late Senator Edmund Muskie (D, ME), was a major leader in moving NEPA through the Congress to the desk of the late President Richard Nixon (R). President Nixon signed the bill into law on January 1, 1970.

Forty-one years ago, in 1969, the air in St. Louis was fouled by emissions from a variety of smokestacks. Meatpacking plants, power plants, chemical plants, and other manufacturers discharged without restriction. Sanitary sewer plants pumped sewage treated to basic levels directly into the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers, as well as local feeder streams, where it mixed with liquid discharges from manufacturing interests. Landfills accepted whatever people no longer wanted, and people who didn't want to wait for trash pickup just tossed garbage and waste out the window of their car.

I don't know about you, but to me the world in which we live appears to be faster and more full of information than in years past. The pace of information being provided to us is increased by modern conveniences like television and the Internet. While it is amazing the speed with which we can receive information, I am concerned that the information is not getting processed properly. In some cases, I am convinced that the information provided is faulty.

This autumn, President George W. Bush belatedly held international meetings to discuss global climate change. It may have been a calculated gesture from a leader whose political stock has been plummeting for some time. But the move underscored the dramatic shift in the debate over global warming. Mostly ignored for years, climate change had burst into view again between 2005 and 2007 for a number of reasons: the release of a major scientific report that the Arctic was melting; the unprecedented natural devastation on US soil of Hurricane Katrina; two more years of record heat in 2005 and 2006 followed by an ongoing severe drought in 2007; the release in early 2007 of a gloomy Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment of climate change; a renewed environmental and climate change movement symbolized by the popularity of Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth; and, of course, the sweep of the Republican Congress that had featured climate change deniers like Senator James (“it's a hoax”) Inhofe (R-OK).

The early inclusion of tourism, especially skiing, in the economy of Whitefish, Montana, set it on a different path from many other Western towns that relied only on the boom-and-bust cycles associated with extractive industries. Towns that stayed committed to logging or mining relegated themselves to economic oblivion or increasingly severe natural resource degradation. Whitefish, a place that gradually increased tourist business in response to the decline of traditional industries, fared much better both economically and environmentally. Whitefish's history provides insight into the impacts of a place selecting tourism in order to sustain community development. Whitefish's choices produced some problems; minimum wage jobs prevailed and the town's growth led to increased real estate prices. Overall, however, the millions of dollars that poured into local businesses, the solid economy that grew as the number of visitors increased, and the quality of life in Whitefish proved that the incorporation of tourism had positive impacts on the community. Understanding how tourism has developed differently across the Rocky Mountain region will be an important component in thoughtful planning for the future.

Public involvement in the planning process is a prerequisite for democratic outcomes. Environmental issues regarding impacts of sound tend to be limited to mere exercises in noise estimation and guideline values. Such information is difficult for the layman to understand, and such a lack of understanding produces shortcomings in the democratic process. In addition to decibel calculations interpretable by experts, the sonic environment also can be described in more accessible ways. This article reports on a concrete planning case, the widening of the railway through Åkarp in southern Sweden, where the usual calculations of equivalent noise and maximum noise are undergoing critical analysis. In order to complement the noise description, a new measurement has been devised, “high noise time,” which is equal to the total time per 24 hours in which trains pass through a place without stopping. The frequency and duration of the passing of trains may be a better measure of disturbance than the maximum noise peak per passage or the equivalent (average) noise level distributed over 24 hours. Film technology also has been developed as a method for recording the frequency and duration of train passage.

Environmental Practice 9:119–127 (2007)

Uneasy Alchemy: Citizens and Experts in Louisiana's Chemical Corridor Disputes. Barbara L. Allen. 2003. The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA. 224 pp. $55 cloth, $22 paperback.

Earth Day 1970 is generally recognized as the beginning of the modern environmental movement in the US. Of the many issues that have emerged since then, one of the most complex and polarizing is what has become known as “environmental justice,” the belief that a disproportionate percentage of environmental risk is borne by persons with little or no political power, mostly minority and low-income groups.

How does a small-budget, regional non-profit organization really have an impact on the world's biggest environmental problem?