Useless Arithmetic: Why Environmental Scientists Can't Predict the Future. O. H. Pilkey and L. Pilkey-Jarvis. 2007. Columbia University Press, New York. 230 pp. $29.95 paperback.

Humankind has a long history of seeking definitive answers to explain the complex systems operating on our home planet. Our tremendous success in calculating phenomena like atomic behavior and planetary movement has given us a false sense of confidence in our ability to calculate any and all phenomena. Our quest for definitive solutions to perceived problems has generated a sense of “physics envy” and driven many disciplines toward math-based predictive models. Orrin Pilkey and Linda Pilkey-Jarvis thoroughly discuss that our confidence in such models is misplaced. As a result, we are potentially increasing risk from natural hazards and have created a venue for ludicrous policy-based demands, such as certifying safety for tens of thousands of years at the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository.

Over the last couple of years, the toxic metals spotlight in the United States has shifted from lead to mercury. Today it seems that mercury is in everything, from contact lens solution to lab chemicals, medical equipment, fluorescent light bulbs, cars, McDonald's toys, and fish. The latter finding has now taken this industrial chemical closer to home. Are we poisoning our children and ourselves with a powerful neurotoxin by eating fish, breathing air, and perhaps even getting our cavities filled at the dentist's office? Is mercury a truly serious problem?

Canada has seen some community approaches to watershed management similar to network governance, citizen advisory boards, and participatory action mechanisms. These collaborative approaches are highlighted in scholarship, but are limited by context as implementation is not utilized well beyond local situations. The successes of Nova Scotia wetlands are generalizable, as they provide applicable knowledge about natural resource governance with limited federal guidelines, numerous exclusionary authorities, and new regional development tactics that are beneficial for many. In practice, this case study specifically explains the role of earnest, local, and inclusive participation that is well coordinated with multiple civic agencies.

Environmental Practice 14:143–153 (2012)

Over the past 30 years nearly every state has implemented a voluntary compliance program (VCP) to encourage development of lightly contaminated and abandoned properties also known as brownfields. Analyses of these policies consists primarily of either case studies or tabulations of site-specific characteristics such as the past, current, and future use of sites enrolled in programs. Often ignored in these analyses are the characteristics of areas surrounding these properties. This oversight is particularly problematic, because many commentators argue that VCPs encourage development in neighborhoods with strong real estate markets and predominantly White and wealthy residents while having little impact on poorer neighborhoods with primarily Black and Hispanic residents where brownfields tend to cluster. To date, however, little empirical research supports this claim. This article addresses this need by using tax-lot-level data in conjunction with data from the United States Decennial Census to examine the characteristics of the neighborhoods surrounding New York City properties enrolled in New York State's VCP: the Brownfield Cleanup Program (BCP). I conclude that, for the city in general, even when controlling for the spatial distribution of brownfield sites, properties enrolled in the BCP are disproportionately located in neighborhoods with wealthier and Whiter residents and high property values. These results, however, obscure significant variability because projects cluster in a range of communities.

Environmental Practice 11:245–255 (2009)

Federal water resources development planning and the associated environmental assessment processes have been very complex and expensive. Federal water resource agencies are reassessing approaches to planning, with the support of our leadership and legislators, which encourages National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) practitioners to apply the Council on Environmental Quality guidance to improve NEPA and to work with regulating agencies to streamline efforts and provide reasonable levels of information adequate for risk informed decision making.

Environmental Practice 18: 69–71 (2016)

In Environmental Practice 12(2), I discussed the mistakes in the Council on Environmental Quality's (CEQ's) regulations. In this second installment, I discuss the gaps in CEQ's regulations. Should the CEQ's regulations once again be considered for revision or reform or amendment, I suggest these mistakes and gaps as candidates for a starting place.

Remediation of aviation fuel present in the subsurface as light non-aqueous phase liquid (LNAPL) occurred from 1982 to 1996 at a facility in an industrial section of a small city in eastern Asia. An undetermined amount of the aviation fuel had leaked from underground storage tanks into the unconfined aquifer for an unknown, but extended, period. The release was discovered in 1981, and 57 monitoring wells were eventually constructed, along with a non-aqueous phase liquid recovery system. The recovery system was operated into the late 1990s, when pumping was discontinued because recovery rates had declined to negligible levels. Monitoring data were collected throughout the remediation period, but because of the large and unwieldy amount of data available, the temporal and spatial distribution of the non-aqueous phase liquid was difficult to visualize and the data were never carefully analyzed. Surfer 8® software was used to generate surface models representing non-aqueous phase liquid thicknesses. The significance of using Surfer 8® for the analyses is that it is an “over-the-counter” basic software package that is relatively inexpensive, very easy to learn, requires no special computer skills, and produces a product that is useful to policy makers and others with limited technical expertise. The surface models made it possible to visualize the effects of hydrogeologic factors on the migration and recovery of the non-aqueous phase liquid as well as other features of the contamination that previously had been unrecognized.

Brownfield redevelopment in many communities is now almost routine—a regular part of a larger community development strategy. Brownfield projects are treated in many instances as regular real estate transactions. Thus, for those brownfield properties in more attractive real estate markets, in communities with a high capacity for brownfield redevelopment, results are noticeable. This brownfield redevelopment scenario breaks down when applied to situations where there is low brownfield redevelopment capacity. Effective brownfield revitalization programs require substantial community support with public-private partnerships playing a critical role in building local brownfield capacity. The challenge lies in fostering these connections. This article reports on the findings from a case study in St. Louis, Missouri, that examined a regional effort to build brownfield capacity at the local level where community leaders brought together property owners and developers for a networking opportunity. Results show that direct intervention can help build brownfield capacity.

Environmental Practice 11:170–178 (2009)

Amtrak, which is the national provider of intercity rail transportation, moved over 30 million passengers in fiscal year 2011. Amtrak signed a consent decree with the United States EPA for Clean Water Act violations in New England in 2001. From a required Environmental Management System implemented under the consent decree, Amtrak developed a fledgling sustainability program. The program has moved carefully over the past 11 years, cautiously handling resources available for environmental management. Programs have been implemented to calculate and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, trial alternative fuels, and support customers wishing to reduce their impact on the environment. Ethical concerns have been addressed in the areas of environmental messaging and additionality of new program areas. These concerns have led to working guidelines focused on addressing ethical matters.

Environmental Practice 14:190–194 (2012)

Biofuels are more environmentally friendly than fossil fuels but not necessarily sustainable. This article describes the legal power of the European Union (EU)—and the use of this power—to promote the sustainable use of the biofuels by formally binding criteria. The sustainability criteria laid down in the Renewable Energy Directive (RED) is analyzed, and explained is how it differentiates among biofuels on the basis of their environmental sustainability related to their processes and production methods. The use of these criteria has the twofold goal of making it possible to reduce greenhouse gas emissions caused by the use of fuels and to prevent the conversion of land characterized by high-carbon stock and high biodiversity for biofuel production. The EU rules do not prohibit trade of nonsustainable biofuels. The RED and the Fuel Quality Directive prohibit member states from counting nonsustainable biofuels as part of the fulfillment of their renewable energy obligations, and the European Community guidelines on environmental support are depriving the suppliers of nonsustainable biofuels from getting economic support. These EU rules may effectively eliminate the interest of the business in placing nonsustainable biofuels on the EU market. Thus, the EU exerts exterritorial jurisdiction by the way of the sustainability criteria. Only those sustainability criteria related to agroenvironmental practices are without effect on biofuel production outside the EU. The possible incompatibility of the EU rules and sustainability criteria with the World Trade Organization rules is discussed briefly. Mentioned are other examples of extraterritorial EU environmental criteria/schemes and several indications on the acceptance of such transnational protection of the environment.

Environmental Practice 15:50–61 (2013)

Waste vegetable oil (WVO) collection from residents and its use in producing biofuel, which has many applications (e.g., as fuel for vehicles), have generated tremendous interest in Japan. Trials in this regard are mainly conducted in the so-called Biomass Town projects proposed by local governments. A Biomass Town project is the concept of establishing a sustainable, recycling-oriented society for recovering biomass, which is a recoverable energy source. In this study, nationwide studies were conducted to investigate the methods used by local governments to collect WVO in Japan; further, other investigations were carried out through circulating questionnaires to determine the best way in which to collect WVO from residents in Imizu City. These investigations found that each local government had exerted considerable effort to establish a system for collecting WVO from its residents, within their cultural and social limitations. Imizu City concluded that emulsion oil was a more profitable choice than biodiesel fuel for business, and that the generation of emulsion oil should be 600, 400, or 300 liters per day for two, three, or four workdays per week, respectively, for a monthly revenue of more than 40,000 yen, under the condition that the emulsion ratio is 80% kerosene and 20% WVO. The answers obtained from questionnaires revealed some basic information for the installation of an WVO ideal collection system, in the opinion of the residents.

Environmental Practice 13:1–12 (2011)

The management of developer-led pressures on the marine environment is archaeology’s last frontier. Long inaccessible and invisible offshore, advances in technology have today propelled the sunken past into the consciousness of commercial archaeology. Arguably among no other form of heritage assets are archaeology and environment so complexly embedded. Lessons from the recent past have increasingly compelled developers to incorporate surveys of maritime seascapes into environmental impact assessments (coastal construction, sealane deepening, aggregate dredging, wind farms, and oil and gas pipeline and fiber-optic cable laying). Qualitative decisions about what to protect in situ, avoid, or excavate requires an objective understanding of significance assessment in relation to risk. The high profile of the United Nations Organization for Education, Science and Culture (UNESCO) Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage exerts increasing pressures on governments worldwide to seek sustainable development. Demersal bottom fishing, World War II shipwreck hull oil leakage, and global warming are newly emerged risks that require expanded heritage recognition.

Environmental Practice 18: 184–191 (2016)

State transportation agencies, in an effort to show a lack of bias toward alternatives under consideration, often do not disclose their Preferred Alternative in the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), even if they are inclined to prefer a particular choice at that stage. Typically, the Draft EIS is released for review, comments are received, a Preferred Alternative is designated, the Preferred Alternative is disclosed with release of the Final EIS (where the comments on the Draft EIS are also addressed), a 30-day review period follows, and then a Record of Decision is published. The public has sometimes criticized this process as shutting them out of decision making. This article discloses the findings of questionnaires given to transportation agency officials in various states and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, reporting information on recent Draft and Final EISs for transportation projects. The objective was to determine what proportion of Draft EISs for transportation projects disclose the Preferred Alternative at that stage, and what proportion of projects allow the public to comment on a Final EIS and its Preferred Alternative determination. After identifying common trends, suggestions are made for improving the decision-making process in order to empower the public to be a full partner.

The Marmion Way Corridor portion of the Metro Gold Line Light Rail Transit Project is unique. It is part of the City of Los Angeles's Historic Preservation Overlay Zone within the residential Highland Park neighborhood. Highland Park is centrally located within a larger northeastern portion of Los Angeles that has a population of 300,000, of whom approximately 40% are living at or below poverty level.