Making or breaking waste facility siting successes with a siting framework

Waste facility siting successes depend on many linked factors of facility design and impacts, site characteristics, and community beliefs and values. A facility siting framework is constructed to combine important elements and cause–effect linkages that affect the siting outcome. The framework consists of three main components: (1) core elements of facility design, effects, and community beliefs, attitude and response; (2) contributing factors of site and community characteristics, community beliefs and values that affect the interpretation of the facility and its effects; and (3) siting management interventions to manage the process and facility impacts. The framework is applied in an unsuccessful and a successful siting case to determine the key elements that contribute to siting outcome: (1) thorough need justification for the facility from the proponent's and the community's perspective; (2) careful facility design and prediction of the impacts and to select impact management compensation measures; (3) screening and selection of communities where the beliefs and values are compatible with the type of facility and its effects, (4) cooperatively selected impact reduction (i.e., prevention, control, and mitigation) measures followed by compensation and incentives; and (5) intensive process management to balance the community characteristics and values with the proponent's efforts to plan, design, assess and manage impacts, and ultimately, gain approval of the facility. The siting framework provides a comprehensive and robust structure of key factors that contribute to siting outcome and, therefore, provides the tool to identify, evaluate, and design siting interventions to enhance the chances of successful siting outcome.     

An analytic network process approach for locating undesirable facilities: an example from Istanbul, Turkey

Locating an undesirable facility is a sophisticated problem, for the evaluation procedures involve several objectives and the solution to the problem calls for some compromises to be made between probable conflicting criteria. This paper addresses the problem of undesirable facility location selection using the analytic network process (ANP), a multi-criteria decision-making technique. The ANP technique enables us to consider both qualitative and quantitative criteria as well as the interdependencies and feedbacks. A number of criteria (benefits, opportunities, costs and risks) and their sub-criteria are considered for siting a new facility with which this study has dealt. The questions of what criteria would be considered and what the interdependencies between these criteria and their weights would be were discussed and determined via interviews with some competent authorities of the Istanbul Municipality and of two environmental organizations. Four representative locations were evaluated and the most convenient one was selected. This was followed by the sensitivity analyses of the results.     

An introduction to issues of habitat fragmentation relative to transportation corridors with special reference to high-speed rail (HSR)

Potential environmental impacts on wildlife result from siting and construction (short-term impacts) and habitat removal and fragmentation (long-term impacts) as a consequence of transportation corridor construction. Especially in rural districts, wildlife migration corridors and dispersal orientation are altered or destroyed and wildlife populations and their gene pools are isolated. This significantly weakens the wildlife community. Prudent selection of construction corridors reduces fragmentation impacts by maximizing preserved fragment sizes, and by running parallel to, not through, natural areas. Corridor width determines the degree to which wildlife movement is restricted except that culverts, underpasses, overpasses, and one-way gates, can aid wildlife in cross movements. Minimum underpass dimensions for large wildlife should be no smaller than 14 ft×14 ft and should include natural substratum inverts. Rail corridors have four characteristics that minimize adverse environmental impacts. The railbed is dry, ballast fillters runoff, there is little runoff beyond the toe of slope, and drainage ditches serve to control sheet flow and erosion, sediment movement, and uncontrolled channel flow. Rail corridors usually occupy smaller land areas because they are narrower and are more feasible to elevate so as to allow free movement of wildlife across the corridor.     

Using citizen science in environmental justice: participation and decision-making in a Southern California waste facility siting conflict

Uses of science by environmental justice (EJ) activists reflect struggles to challenge professional scientific expertise, achieve fair outcomes, and effectively participate in decision-making processes. This qualitative research analyses the relationship between citizen science and EJ in a new waste facility siting conflict in urban Los Angeles, namely connections between citizen science and four dimensions of EJ: fair distribution, respect and recognition, participation in decision-making, and community capabilities. Citizen science is one tactic in EJ, yet little research investigates its role in a new facility siting conflict, particularly in relation to multi-faceted EJ goals. The research reveals opportunities for individual empowerment and community capacity building using citizen science, and a small measure of improved respect and recognition for participants who brought their own knowledge, research, and voices to the table. At the same time, the work identifies limitations on citizen science to improve local participatory procedures and decision-making, which also constricted the achievement of outcomes most desired by the EJ group: to prevent approval and construction of the new waste facility. This paper argues that uses of citizen science contributed to partial achievement of EJ goals, while hindered by governance processes that call for public participation yet shield decision-makers from substantive engagement with the volume or content of that participation.     

Public opinion and siting solid waste landfills in Kuwait

Siting municipal solid waste landfills in Kuwait had not considered public concerns about the location of such facilities. Kuwait Municipality has disposed urban waste in abandoned sand quarries for the past 20 years in an unplanned fashion. Due to this improper siting criteria, environmental and health problems have risen from old landfills that are located in residential areas. In an effort to help responsible decision-makers in assessing public support for siting landfills a structured, yet simple, questionnaire was designed and distributed to a random sample of heads of households. Statistical techniques were employed to examine trends and relationships between the sample public responses concerning landfill siting criteria. The findings of the research indicated that a significant percentage of the responding sample did not know about the various landfill impacts and less than 50% were aware of the negative impacts of landfills on the public health and the environment. The visual appearance of the landfill scored the lowest impact in the opinion of the sample public while the most important aspect in siting a landfill appeared to be its economic consideration. The research findings also directed attention to the important role that the media could play in increasing public awareness. Results from the cross-classification analysis demonstrated the existence of differences in awareness levels according to age, nationality, martial status, education, and occupation of the responding sample. Statistically, these differences were significant at the 95% significance level, as supported by the test of the χ-square.     

Environmental justice: A louisiana case study

The paper begins with a brief analysis of the concepts of environmental justice and environmental racism and classism. The authors argue that pollution- and environment-related decision-making is prima facie wrong whenever it results in inequitable treatment of individuals on the basis of race or socio-economic status. The essay next surveys the history of the doctrine of free informed consent and argues that the consent of those affected is necessary for ensuring the fairness of decision-making for siting hazardous facilities. The paper also points out that equal opportunity to environmental protection and free informed consent are important rights. Finally, it presents a case study on the proposed uranium enrichment facility near Homer, Louisiana and argues that siting the plant would violate norms of distributive equity and free informed consent. It concludes that siting the facility is a case of environmental injustice and likely an example of environmental racism or classism.     

Use of strategic environmental assessment in the site selection process for a radioactive waste disposal facility in Slovenia

The benefits of strategic environmental considerations in the process of siting a repository for low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste (LILW) are presented. The benefits have been explored by analyzing differences between the two site selection processes. One is a so-called official site selection process, which is implemented by the Agency for radwaste management (ARAO); the other is an optimization process suggested by experts working in the area of environmental impact assessment (EIA) and land-use (spatial) planning. The criteria on which the comparison of the results of the two site selection processes has been based are spatial organization, environmental impact, safety in terms of potential exposure of the population to radioactivity released from the repository, and feasibility of the repository from the technical, financial/economic and social point of view (the latter relates to consent by the local community for siting the repository). The site selection processes have been compared with the support of the decision expert system named DEX. The results of the comparison indicate that the sites selected by ARAO meet fewer suitability criteria than those identified by applying strategic environmental considerations in the framework of the optimization process. This result stands when taking into account spatial, environmental, safety and technical feasibility points of view. Acceptability of a site by a local community could not have been tested, since the formal site selection process has not yet been concluded; this remains as an uncertain and open point of the comparison.     

Management challenges of urban biosolids: narratives around facility siting in rural Ontario

The emerging challenge of managing increasing volumes of urban sewage has resulted in municipalities pursuing sustainable ways to manage urban biosolids and their by-products. Using content analysis of public debates, and situating the debate within science, policy and facility siting literature, this study examines claims and counterclaims relating to the siting of a biosolid processing facility in rural Ontario. The equivocal evidence on the health and environmental effects of biosolids resulted in a heated “expert versus lay” debate. The study critically evaluates the importance of trust and the shifting role of scientific evidence in politicised settings, while making relevant policy recommendations.     

A comprehensive set of resource use indicators from the micro to the macro level

Many of today's most urgent environmental problems arise from increasing volumes of worldwide production and consumption and the associated use of natural resources, including renewable and non-renewable raw materials, energy, water and land. Solid indicators to measure different dimensions of anthropogenic resource use are essential for designing appropriate policy measures for a sustainable management of these resources. Based on a brief review of the current state of the art of resource use indicators, this paper suggests a new set of complementary resource use indicators, combining existing measures for resource use. The suggested indicator set covers the core resource input categories of materials, water and land area and includes the output category of greenhouse gas emissions. This set can be applied consistently from the micro level of products and companies up to the macro level of countries and world regions. All suggested indicators take a life-cycle wide perspective on production and consumption activities. This set of indicators deals with the issue of the overall scale of the human production and consumption system. It can be regarded as the general indicator framework, based on which more specific indicators, for example, on different environmental impacts related to natural resource use, can be calculated.     

Legislative Approaches to Drought Management

Droughts are a natural scourge with extremely serious socio-economic consequences, leading not only to human suffering and misery, but also to grave environmental deterioration. Some of the impacts of drought may be curbed through technological, economic and legal measures. This paper deals particularly with the last of these.
Legal measures are grouped according to their objectives, such as: the mitigation of drought impacts; the regulation of water use; the control of production and distribution of goods and services; the regulation of the relationship between man and the environment; and the promotion of general socio-economic change.
While developed countries have been able to manage production factors and promote, enact and enforce regulatory legislation, most developing countries face serious restrictions either to managing drought situations or to enforcing any kind of legislation intended to deal either with the impact of drought or with the artificial situations reinforcing these impacts.     

A comparative analysis of the psychosocial impacts of waste disposal facilities

This paper reports the results of a comparative analysis of the psychosocial impacts of municipal solid waste disposal facilities (both landfills and incinerators) in six communities in the provinces of Ontario and British Columbia, Canada. Telephone surveys were administered to random samples of residents living around each facility between 1990 and 1995 (total n=1203). The results of logistic regression analyses show that type of facility was the strongest predictor of residents' awareness, concern, and actions taken in response to site concerns. Essentially, residents living in close proximity to a landfill had a higher probability of reporting awareness, concern or actions than residents living around an incinerator site. There was little evidence of differences in reactions between Ontario and British Columbia (BC) residents, despite variations in provincial policies on waste disposal. The effects of other predictors, with the exception of involvement in the local community, were not consistent, supporting previous findings that the determinants of facility impacts are outcome‐specific. It is essential that environmental managers take this constellation of factors into account in the operation of existing, or siting of new, facilities.     

Public perception of locally unwanted facilities in Hong Kong: implications for conflict resolution

This paper aims to investigate factors affecting public attitude towards the siting of locally unwanted land uses (LULUs) and to explore the possible strategies to resolve such conflicts. Three questionnaire surveys were undertaken in communities with different siting experiences and socio-economic profiles. Over 750 individuals were successfully interviewed in each study district. The three communities were found to share similar risk beliefs but show variations in the level of awareness of and response to LULUs. In communities with a disproportionate share of LULUs, many residents did not trust the government in handling LULU issues and thought that the siting process was unfair. The results of the binary logistic regression analysis show that people are likely to oppose the siting of a LULU in their community if they have a negative siting experience, do not perceive the need, accord a high risk to the facility and have a low level of trust in government. The resolution strategies preferred by the public are greater public participation and effective mitigation of risks and impacts, rather than provision of compensation and incentives. All these call for policy-makers to be sensitive to local concerns, engage the public in the process, communicate risks effectively and foster trust building.     

Combining GIS with fuzzy multicriteria decision-making for landfill siting in a fast-growing urban region

Landfill siting is a difficult, complex, tedious, and protracted process requiring evaluation of many different criteria. This paper presents a fuzzy multicriteria decision analysis alongside with a geospatial analysis for the selection of landfill sites. It employs a two-stage analysis synergistically to form a spatial decision support system (SDSS) for waste management in a fast-growing urban region, south Texas. The first-stage analysis makes use of the thematic maps in Geographical information system (GIS) in conjunction with environmental, biophysical, ecological, and socioeconomic variables leading to support the second-stage analysis using the fuzzy multicriteria decision-making (FMCDM) as a tool. It differs from the conventional methods of integrating GIS with MCDM for landfill selection because the approach follows two sequential steps rather than a full-integrated scheme. The case study was made for the city of Harlingen in south Texas, which is rapidly evolving into a large urban area due to its vantage position near the US-Mexico borderlands. The purpose of GIS was to perform an initial screening process to eliminate unsuitable land followed by utilization of FMCDM method to identify the most suitable site using the information provided by the regional experts with reference to five chosen criteria. Research findings show that the proposed SDSS may aid in recognizing the pros and cons of potential areas for the localization of landfill sites in any study region. Based on initial GIS screening and final FMCDM assessment, "site 1" was selected as the most suitable site for the new landfill in the suburban area of the City of Harlingen. Sensitivity analysis was performed using Monte Carlo simulation where the decision weights associated with all criteria were varied to investigate their relative impacts on the rank ordering of the potential sites in the second stage. Despite variations of the decision weights within a range of 20%, it shows that "site 1" remains its comparative advantage in the final site selection process.     

Approaches and Methods of Siting Locally Unwanted Waste Facilities

The siting of waste facilities is a popular subject but one constrained by a tendency to advocate a single solution regardless of context. This effort to address the siting of waste facilities from a broader perspective describes three major siting approaches and a range of site selection methods. The application of siting approaches and methods in 10 waste siting examples are described, general conclusions are advanced and suggestions for further initiatives are offered.     

Development and Climate Change: A Mainstreaming Approach for Assessing Economic,Social, and Environmental Impacts of Adaptation Measures

The paper introduces the so-called climate change mainstreaming approach, where vulnerability and adaptation measures are assessed in the context of general development policy objectives. The approach is based on the application of a limited set of indicators. These indicators are selected as representatives of focal development policy objectives, and a stepwise approach for addressing climate change impacts, development linkages, and the economic, social and environmental dimensions related to vulnerability and adaptation are introduced. Within this context it is illustrated using three case studies how development policy indicators in practice can be used to assess climate change impacts and adaptation measures based on three case studies, namely a road project in flood prone areas of Mozambique, rainwater harvesting in the agricultural sector in Tanzania and malaria protection in Tanzania. The conclusions of the paper confirm that climate risks can be reduced at relatively low costs, but the uncertainty is still remaining about some of the wider development impacts of implementing climate change adaptation measures.     

INSTITUTIONAL ANALYSIS CRITERIA FOR WATER SUPPLY PLANNING1

ABSTRACT: This paper discusses the selection and use of criteria for an institutional analysis of municipal water supply conducted in anchorage, Alaska. Although not universally acepted or used. evaluation criteria for most technical fields have been established either formally or informally. Cost-benefit rtios, cost-effectiveness, and environmental impacts are examples of technical evaluation criteria that can be quantified relatively easily (although poorly in some cases). The field of institutional analysis has evaluative criteria that are much less readily defined than those of technical fields, in part because many of the criteria are not quantifiable and in part because the area of the study is new.     

An Analytic Network Process approach for siting a municipal solid waste plant in the Metropolitan Area of Valencia (Spain)

In this paper the Analytic Network Process (ANP) is applied to select the best location for the construction of a municipal solid waste (MSW) plant in the Metropolitan area of Valencia (Spain). Selection of the appropriate MSW facility location can be viewed as a complex multicriteria decision-making problem that requires an extensive evaluation process of the potential MSW plant locations and other factors as diverse as economic, technical, legal, social or environmental issues. The decision-making process includes the identification of six candidate MSW plant sites and 21 criteria grouped into clusters for the construction of a network. Two technicians of the Metropolitan Waste Disposal Agency acted as decision makers (DMs).The influences between the elements of the network were identified and analyzed using the ANP multicriteria decision method. Two different ANP models were used: one hierarchy model (that considers AHP as a particular case of ANP) and another network-based model. The results obtained in each model were compared and analyzed. The strengths and weaknesses of ANP as a multicriteria decision analysis tool are also described in the paper. The main findings of this research have proved that ANP is a useful tool to help technicians to make their decision process traceable and reliable. Moreover, this approach helps DMs undertake a sound reflection of the siting problem.     

Progress towards Environmental Justice: A Five-year Perspective of Toxicity,Race and Poverty in Michigan, 1990-1995 1

Much present research on the relationship between socio-economic factors and the siting of sources of environmental pollution has focused primarily on race and income. Using census data, timed-based data from multiple sources of pollution, and rates of cancers and low birth weight in the State of Michigan by zip code, we present a multivariate model that can distinguish the effects of race, income and other land use characteristics on: (1) the location of different sources of pollution; (2) progress toward clean-up of contaminated waste; and (3) how pollution is associated with measures of public health.     

Environmental performance policy indicators for the public sector: the case of the defence sector

The development of environmental performance policy indicators for public services, and in particular for the defence sector, is an emerging issue. Despite a number of recent initiatives there has been little work done in this area, since the other sectors usually focused on are agriculture, transport, industry, tourism and energy. This type of tool can be an important component for environmental performance evaluation at policy level, when integrated in the general performance assessment system of public missions and activities. The main objective of this research was to develop environmental performance policy indicators for the public sector, specifically applied to the defence sector. Previous research included an assessment of the environmental profile, through the evaluation of how environmental management practices have been adopted in this sector and an assessment of environmental aspects and impacts. This paper builds upon that previous research, developing an indicator framework--SEPI--supported by the selection and construction of environmental performance indicators. Another aim is to discuss how the current environmental indicator framework can be integrated into overall performance management. The Portuguese defence sector is presented and the usefulness of this methodology demonstrated. Feasibility and relevancy criteria are applied to evaluate the set of indicators proposed, allowing indicators to be scored and indicators for the policy level to be obtained.     

Compensation for risks: host community benefits in siting locally unwanted facilities

This article analyzes the recent negotiations connected with siting 24 solid-waste landfills in Wisconsin. We examine the association between the type and amount of compensation paid to host communities by facility developers and the size of facilities, certain facility characteristics, the timing of negotiated agreements, the size of the host community, and the socioeconomic status of the host area. Our findings suggest that the level of compensation after adjusting for landfill capacity is positively associated with the percentage of total facility capacity dedicated to host community use, positively associated with the percentage of people of the host area who are in poverty, and larger for public facilities that accept municipal wastes. Other explanatory variables we examined, whose association with levels of compensation proved statistically insignificant, were facility size, facility status (new vs expansion), facility use (countyonly vs multicounty), timing of negotiation, host community size, and the host area education level, population density, and per capita income. We discuss the policy implications of our principal findings and future research questions in light of the persistent opposition surrounding the siting of solid-waste and other waste-management facilities.