This study assessed current profiles of organochlorine pollutants in sediment of Escambia Bay and River in northwest Florida, United States (US), which experienced catastrophic environmental collapse in the 1970s as a result of unregulated industrial and domestic sewage releases. Fifty-seven composite sediment samples were collected with a ponar grab sampler. Organochlorines were extracted with United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) Method 3550 and concentrations were determined with USEPA Method 1668A for polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), USEPA Method1613B for polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and dibenzofurans (PCDD/Fs), and USEPA Method 8081A for 4,4'-dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT), 4,4'-Dichlorodiphenyldichloroethane (DDD), and 4,4'-Dichlorodiphenyldichloroethylene (DDE). For PCBs, 12 (21%) out of the 57 samples exceed the Florida threshold effects level (TEL) of 21.6 µg/kg and no sample exceeds the Florida probable effects level (PEL) of 189 µg/kg. The 17 PCDD/F congeners that are considered to have significant toxicity have a mean of 1.9 µg/kg and a range of 0.022–11 µg/kg. The mean total toxic equivalence value (TEQ) of PCDD/Fs and dioxin-like PCBs for the sediments is 2.6 ng/kg. About 56% of the samples exceed the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) TEL for total TEQ, 23% of which also exceed the NOAA TEL, implying that these total TEQ toxicities can impact sediments adversely. DDT was detected in 25% of the samples. All but one of the detections were in the river and adjacent wetlands. The detected DDT concentrations exceed the Florida PEL (4.77 µg/kg) except for one sample that only exceeds the TEL (1.19 µg/kg). The common DDT degradation products, DDD and DDE, were not detected in the river and wetland sediments.

Environmental Practice 00: 1–13 (2015)

The smallest possible National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) document is one that cannot be made more streamlined. A NEPA document could not be more streamlined than to present eight elements of essential information as outlined in this article. Neither an environmental assessment nor an environmental impact statement would include a distinct, separate no-action alternative. Instead, today’s situation would be extended to the same point in the future, for purposes of comparison, as are the action alternatives. NEPA documents for projects would not develop alternatives to the proposal. Instead, NEPA documents would only develop alternatives that accomplish the same thing as intended by the proposed alternative. An environmental assessment would have no alternatives except for mitigating actions not already included in the proposed action. NEPA documents would not include exhaustive lists of possible environmental and other social and cultural consequences. Instead, relevance would determine which of these aspects are analyzed and compared (though under current NEPA regulations it seems that relevance determinations should be included in NEPA documents). Ultimate streamlining uses plain language. It meets all minimum legal requirements. It takes the fewest pages and should take the least time. It is the least amount of work that can produce the desired outcome.

Environmental Practice 16: 309–315 (2014)

Recently I was faced with an issue that has been a subject of discussion since I joined. Each time, it is answered for a new cohort of members, but we somehow do not seem to maintain that corporate knowledge or convey it effectively.

This article presents the findings of an online survey and interviews with National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) professionals on their opinion on the essential and most important components of agency NEPA programs. A list of NEPA program components was developed based on a review of books, articles, and papers on ways to improve the NEPA process. Results of the online survey indicate that all of the listed elements are considered important for an agency NEPA program to be successful. No program element was ranked lower than 3 (“somewhat important”). The highest-ranked element (1, “critically important”) was senior management support for the NEPA process. Interviews with senior NEPA specialists confirmed that senior management support for the NEPA process was critical, and that other critical components flowed from that support. Senior managers were interpreted as being the agency’s senior NEPA manager or the senior manager at each facility, installation, or command. Education was most frequently identified as how agency NEPA staff could develop and maintain consistent senior management support for the NEPA process. The interview sample size was small, and further research could be conducted with other agency representatives to identify additional successful methods to develop consistent senior management support for the NEPA process.

Environmental Practice 16: 1–9 (2014)

In the late 20th century history of American historic preservation, public or social/council housing occupies a unique space. For over 20 years, American policy in this area, representing an investment of billions of taxpayer dollars, has been dominated by high-profile efforts to “transform” the downtowns of major American cities such as Chicago, Atlanta, and Houston by demolishing public housing projects that were located in the city outskirts when originally built. These efforts have engendered significant debates about historic preservation at every level of government and have produced federal policy decisions on the part of the United States (US) Departments of Housing and Urban Development and the Interior, which have facilitated the demolition of hundreds of thousands of units of public housing in America, which in most cases has not been replaced on a one-for-one basis and which is no longer affordable for the poor or near-poor. In the majority of cases, the National Park Service has supported extensive demolition of historic public housing projects, or at best, only token preservation of them. The role of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which has never listed a public housing project in its annual list of “endangered” historic sites, has, at best, been to remain organizationally silent and, at worst, to partner with organizations such as the US Green Building Council and the Congress for the New Urbanism, organizations that would not exist in their present form without the use of public housing as a petri dish for their condescending neoliberal conceptions about how other people, particularly poor people, ought to live.

Environmental Practice 18: 192–204 (2016)

The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) clearly has a role to play in how projects with a federal nexus prepare for climate change. To help agencies improve their consideration of climate change, the Council on Environmental Quality in February 2010 released the NEPA draft guidance, which addresses both emissions and the effects of climate change on agency actions and the affected environment. We analyzed every available final environmental impact statement (154 total) released in July 2011–April 2012, and found that very few incorporated the climate adaptation elements of the 2010 draft guidance. Even the environmental impact statements with the most attention to climate change adaptation considered the effect of climate change with respect to only a limited number of the elements of the affected environment, failed to fully compare the various alternatives, or used short,qualitative statements rather than full analysis based on the best available science. We explore the possible reasons for this and present recommendations for overcoming these obstacles.

Environmental Practice 16: 52–76 (2014)

As 2011 comes to an end, and my rotation as lead editor comes to a close, I reflect on the progress and changes made at the journal in terms of publications, as well as the management structure. The editorial office of the journal has been effective at implementing a two-year round of changes to both the management and the visual look for the journal, with the assistance of Cambridge University Press and the National Association of Environmental Professionals (NAEP). In the March 2011 issue, we introduced the new cover designed by Cambridge University Press, as well as a new table of contents with a diverse selection of manuscript categories for our authors. We have an active editorial board of 15 members who represent a healthy mixture of scholars and practitioners from across the United States. These folks have all reviewed or written manuscripts on an annual basis for the journal. We hope to expand the editorial board to include more international representation over the next couple of years.

Have you ever puzzled over a section of the Council on Environmental Quality's (CEQ's) regulations, wondering whether you are the only one who does not understand it, or cannot understand how it could be followed exactly as it is written? You are not alone.

Today we are living in a “go green” society where citizens recognize that the impact of what they eat, wear, and buy affects the earth. The terms green, sustainable, and eco-friendly have become buzzwords and hot topics in today's popular culture. Different variations of carbon-footprint calculators may be found on the Internet for individuals to use in order to determine how their lifestyle choices impact the earth. Companies hand out promotional canvas bags and reusable metal water bottles to persuade the public to reuse rather than to perpetuate consumption. So let's face it—it's hip to be green. Yet, as increased awareness of the drastic world climate change grows, we begin to realize that we need to not only make better personal decisions, but also alter how we build and plan for the future. The desire to build and live in an environmentally friendly way has planners, developers, architects, and government officials making sustainability standards a top priority when designing cities and neighborhoods for future development.

Does it “significantly affect the quality of the human environment” to bulldoze an Indian cemetery? To knock down a fine old building? To allow development that changes the character of a low-income or ethnic neighborhood? If a project subject to review under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) may do any of these things, should an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) be prepared? If not, why not? Cemeteries, old buildings, and neighborhoods are among the environmental components sometimes called “cultural resources.” Impacts on them must be considered in judging impact intensity in an Environmental Assessment (EA) under NEPA. According to the NEPA regulations, an EA needs to establish—among many other things—whether “cultural,” “historical,” or “scientific” resources are likely to be affected, and if so, how serious the effect will be. How can NEPA analysts most efficiently do this? The first problem is to establish what to consider. “Historic resources” as defined in the National Historic Preservation Act certainly need to be addressed, but the NEPA regulations refer separately to “cultural” and “scientific” resources; several federal legal requirements besides NEPA and the National Historic Preservation Act identify classes of other-than-historic cultural resources for consideration. The next problem is to identify cultural resources and decide if they may be affected. This requires doing something that makes some NEPA analysts uncomfortable—talking with concerned people. Finally, determining impact intensity seems simple, at least with historic resources, because the regulations implementing Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act discriminate clearly between effects that are “adverse” and those that are “not adverse.” However, equating “adverse effect” under Section 106 with “significant impact” under NEPA would have disastrous practical consequences. The other types of cultural resources are not burdened with the definitional oddities of Section 106, but measuring impact potential on each of them presents its own challenges. A defensible methodology is proposed—again, based on consultation with concerned parties.