Siting America's geologic repository for high-level Nuclear Waste: Implications for environmental Policy

Siting a geologic repository for isolating highlevel nuclear waste up to 10,000 years is a controversial undertaking never before attempted in the United States. The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 exempted repository siting from important requirements for environmental review under the National Environmental Policy Act. In December 1987, the Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act identified Yucca Mountain as the first site to be characterized for a high-level nuclear waste repository. In light of the unproven nature of the technology being evaluated, the scientific uncertainties associated with Yucca Mountain, and the lack of proven methods for risk evaluation, the environmental policies for repository siting represent a significant departure from more traditional, comprehensive, and interdisciplinary environmental review for siting nuclear projects. The policies warrant further study by those interested in how present as well as future decisions about complex technologies may be made.     

Implications of environmental program planning for siting a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain,Nevada, USA

The US Department of Energy (DOE) plans to conduct site characterization studies at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, to determine if the location is a suitable site for a nuclear waste repository. In lieu of traditional environmental review in accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, the DOE is relying on an environmental assessment (EA) mandated by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 as the cornerstone of its environmental program for the Yucca Mountain Project. Because of statutory restrictions, the EA is not based on comprehensive baseline information. Neither does it address fundamentals of environmental analysis such as ecological integrity and assessment of cumulative impacts. Consequently, the present environmental program for Yucca Mountain reflects decisions made without complete information and integrated environmental review. The shortcomings of the program risk compromising the natural integrity of Yucca Mountain and invalidating future assessment of the ability of a nuclear waste repository located at the site to protect the environment. Significant improvements are needed in the repository siting program before it can serve as a model of how society can evaluate the long-term environmental consequences of advanced technologies, as has been suggested.     

Equity and nuclear waste disposal

Following the recommendations of the US National Academy of Sciences and the mandates of the 1987 Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act, the US Department of Energy has proposed Yucca Mountain, Nevada as the site of the world's first permanent repository for high-level nuclear waste. The main justification for permanent disposal (as opposed to above-ground storage) is that it guarantees safety by means of waste isolation. This essay argues, however, that considerations of equity (safer for whom?) undercut the safety rationale. The article surveys some prima facie arguments for equity in the distribution of radwaste risks and then evaluates four objections that are based, respectively, on practicality, compensation for risks, scepticism about duties to future generations, and the uranium criterion. The conclusion is that, at least under existing regulations and policies, permanent waste disposal is highly questionable, in part, because it fails to distribute risk equitably or to compensate, in full, for this inequity.     

Scientific certainty and the laws that govern location of a potential high-level nuclear waste repository

Recent studies have questioned the ability of the Department of Energy to successfully construct and operate a high-level nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, USA, consistent with current Environmental Protection Agency standards and Nuclear Regulatory Commission regulations. Questions focus on whether demonstration of compliance with the agency's standards is based too much on numerical calculations and analyses that the Department of Energy must conduct to project the long-term performance of the repository. Unless these questions are resolved, the licensing of the repository could be withheld or delayed by litigation. This article reviews the extent to which laws that govern the siting of high-level nuclear waste repositories require scientific certainty in any findings about the environmental consequences of locating a repository.     

Education on environmental law

Summary The current views on whether environmental law is a subject of study at the Universities is discussed in this paper. The author traces the development of environmental law, and maintains that legal science is one, and that it has been grounded into branches for teaching and research purposes. A case for the teaching of environmental law at the universities is made. A teaching programme is suggested which brings out the relationships of environmental law with ecology, social science, economics, management science, technology and other branches of legal science.Born in Argentina, with a Doctor of Law from the University of Buenos Aires. Has held professorships in Water and Mining Laws, Agrarian and Mining Law, Natural Resources Law, in several universities in Argentina. He was a visiting professor in the period 1967–71, at Delft Technological Institute, The Netherlands.From 1969–70, he was Secretary of State for Water Resources of Argentina, and in 1970, Vice-Chairman of the UN Committee on Natural Resources. Consultant on Environmental Law for FAO in 1970. He is at present (1980–82) President of the International Water Resources Association.He has been a member of the IUCN Commission on Environmental Policy, Law and Administration since 1978, is President of the Inter American Commission on Environmental Law and Administration, and Regional Governor (Latin America) of the International Council on Environmental Law.In 1978 he was awarded the Elizabeth Haub Prix on Environmental law.He is author of several books and papers on environmental, natural resources and water laws. These include Code on Natural Resources (Province of Corrientes Argentina, 1980) and co-author of Code on the Renewable Natural Resources and Environmental Protection, Colombia, 1974.     

“Just Another Hoop to Jump Through?” Using Environmental Laws and Processes to Protect Indigenous Rights

Protection of culturally important indigenous landscapes has become an increasingly important component of environmental management processes, for both companies and individuals striving to comply with environmental regulations, and for indigenous groups seeking stronger laws to support site protection and cultural/human rights. Given that indigenous stewardship of culturally important sites, species, and practices continues to be threatened or prohibited on lands out of indigenous ownership, this paper examines whether or not indigenous people can meaningfully apply mainstream environmental management laws and processes to achieve protection of traditional sites and associated stewardship activities. While environmental laws can provide a “back door” to protect traditional sites and practices, they are not made for this purpose, and, as such, require specific amendments to become more useful for indigenous practitioners. Acknowledging thoughtful critiques of the cultural incommensurability of environmental law with indigenous environmental stewardship of sacred sites, I interrogate the ability of four specific environmental laws and processes—the Uniform Conservation Easement Act; the National Environmental Policy Act and the California Environmental Quality Act; the Pacific Stewardship Council land divestiture process; and Senate Bill 18 (CA-2004)—to protect culturally important landscapes and practices. I offer suggestions for improving these laws and processes to make them more applicable to indigenous stewardship of traditional landscapes.     

NEPA AND A STATE'S ROLE IN WATER RESOURCES MANAGEMENT1

ABSTRACT The National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, has been called a revolutionary piece of legislation. It has changed, and is still changing the traditional ways of governmental decision-making. NEPA has strongly influenced the field of water resources management. An environmental statement can now be seen not as a document to support or justify a plan, but an objective assessment of what environmental costs and benefits are involved. New York State has seized upon NEPA as an important feature of its environmental quality management programs and has used the opportunity to comment upon draft environmental statements under NEPA to increase its influences upon Federal decision-making. The Department of Environmental Conservation coordinates and synthesizes all comments and provides one unified State response on a statement. At the State level, lacking a comprehensive “little NEPA”, an extensive environmental analysis program has been built by utilizing a wide spectrum of Federal and State Laws and administrative regulations.     

Regulatory requirements and tools for environmental assessment of hazardous wastes: Understanding tribal and stakeholder concerns using Department of Energy sites

Many US governmental and Tribal Nation agencies, as well as state and local entities, deal with hazardous wastes within regulatory frameworks that require specific environmental assessments. In this paper we use Department of Energy (DOE) sites as examples to examine the relationship between regulatory requirements and environmental assessments for hazardous waste sites and give special attention to how assessment tools differ. We consider federal laws associated with environmental protection include the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), the Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA), as well as regulations promulgated by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Tribal Nations and state agencies. These regulatory regimes require different types of environmental assessments and remedial investigations, dose assessments and contaminant pathways. The DOE case studies illustrate the following points: 1) there is often understandable confusion about what regulatory requirements apply to the site resources, and what environmental assessments are required by each, 2) the messages sent on site safety issued by different regulatory agencies are sometimes contradictory or confusing (e.g. Oak Ridge Reservation), 3) the regulatory frameworks being used to examine the same question can be different, leading to different conclusions (e.g. Brookhaven National Laboratory), 4) computer models used in support of groundwater models or risk assessments are not necessarily successful in convincing Native Americans and others that there is no possibility of risk from contaminants (e.g. Amchitka Island), 5) when given the opportunity to choose between relying on a screening risk assessments or waiting for a full site-specific analysis of contaminants in biota, the screening risk assessment option is rarely selected (e.g. Amchitka, Hanford Site), and finally, 6) there needs to be agreement on whether there has been adequate characterization to support the risk assessment (e.g. Hanford). The assessments need to be transparent and to accommodate different opinions about the relationship between characterizations and risk assessments. This paper illustrates how many of the problems at DOE sites, and potentially at other sites in the U.S. and elsewhere, derive from a lack of either understanding of, or consensus about, the regulatory process, including the timing and types of required characterizations and data in support of site characterizations and risk assessments.     

The use of recreation planning tools in U.S. Forest Service NEPA assessments

U.S. Forest Service managers are required to incorporate social and biophysical science information in planning and environmental analysis. The use of science is mandated by the National Environmental Policy Act, the National Forest Management Act, and U.S. Forest Service planning rules. Despite the agency’s emphasis on ‘science-based’ decision-making, little is known about how science is actually used in recreation planning and management. This study investigated the perceptions of Forest Service interdisciplinary (ID) team leaders for 106 NEPA projects dealing with recreation and travel management between 2005 and 2008. Our survey data show how managers rate the importance of social and biophysical science compared to other potential ‘success factors’ in NEPA assessments. We also explore how team leaders value and use multi-disciplinary tools for recreation-related assessments. Results suggest that managers employ a variety of recreation planning tools in NEPA projects, but there appears to be no common understanding or approach for how or when these tools are incorporated. The Recreation Opportunity Spectrum (ROS) was the most frequently used planning tool, but the Visitor Experience and Resource Protection (VERP) framework was the most consistently valued tool by those who used it. We recommend further evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of each planning tool and future development of procedures to select appropriate planning tools for use in recreation-related NEPA assessments.     

进口废塑料环境保护管理研究

随着塑料资源的大量消耗,废塑料的利用引起了社会的高度重视。工艺简单,投入成本少,入行门槛低导致部分废塑料加工利用企业技术水平低、管理模式差、环境污染重。为规范进口废塑料行业,通过调研统计、实验分析、咨询论证和研究了进口废塑料环境保护管理规定,对进口废塑料企业的规模、设备、人员和管理等方面提出了要求,为进一步规范提升进口废塑料行业提供技术支撑。     

Guidelines and Techniques for Improving the NEPA Process

/ The Council on Environmental Quality's (CEQ's) principal aims in implementing the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) are (1) to reduce paperwork, (2) to avoid delay, and most importantly (3) to produce better decisions that protect, restore, and enhance the environment. This paper presents four strategies for improving the NEPA process along with tools that can be used to implement each strategy. The tools include guidelines for project management and problem definition, tips for acquiring existing information and identifying issues of public concern, worksheets on how to identify and analyze potential impacts on resources, ideas for enhancing NEPA documents, and a NEPA process checklist. The tools can be used at various stages of the NEPA process and provide a toolbox of guidelines and techniques to improve implementation of the NEPA process by focusing the pertinent information for decisionmakers and stakeholders. KEY WORDS: National Environmental Policy Act; NEPA; Environmental impact assessment; Ecosystem management     

Ecological planning: A review

Beginning with the passage of the National Environmental Policy Act in 1969, the federal government of the United States has enacted numerous pieces of legislation intended to protect or conserve the environment. Other national governments have also enacted environmental legislation during the past two decades. State and local governments have also adopted policies concerned with environmental planning and management. Multiple laws and overlapping governmental agency responsibilities have confused development and resource management efforts. A comprehensive methodology that integrates the legal mandates and the agency missions into a common and unified framework is needed. Ecological planning offers such a method. Application of the method allows planners and resource managers to better understand the nature and character of the land and/or resource and therefore make better decisions about its appropriate use or management. The steps taken in an ecological planning process—1) goal setting, 2) inventory and analysis of data, 3) suitability analysis, 4) developing alternatives, 5) implementation, 6) administration, and 7) evaluation—are outlined and explained. Hand-drawn overlays and computer programs as techniques for handling ecological planning information are compared. Observations and suggestions for further research are offered.     

Transnational environmental problems — The United States,Canada, Mexico

Summary The paper examines the problems associated with transboundary environmental pollution. While briefly recording the efforts of international organizations in this area, the main content of the paper is concerned with an analysis of problems arising between the United States and Mexico, and between the United States and Canada. The paper also discusses new organizational forms that have been developed to bring transboundary issues to a higher policy-making level.Professor Wilcher entered the academic profession after a career in government service. He holds Masters Degrees from West Virginia University and the University of Pittsburgh and a Doctoral Degree from West Virginia University. He is currently Assistant Professor of Political Science at The Pennsylvania State University, New Kensington Campus. He is the author ofEnvironmental Cooperation in the North Atlantic Area published by the University Press of America.     

Subject indicators to present the nature and limit of environmental studies in US graduate schools

Summary The purpose of this paper is to examine subjects to show the nature and limit of interdisciplinary communication in existing environmental programmes in US graduate schools. Ultimately, this analysis may provide more effective communication with the general public. Following comparative historical reviews of both the sciences and the human activity for environmental protection, and a content analysis of empirical documents used by the public, a mushroom computer model has been produced. This model is based on organizational behaviour theory and contains the following 15 subjects which were originally introduced before the lack of communication resulting from curriculum failure in the 19th century: philosophy, politics, economics, architecture, sociology, biology, medicine, agriculture, ecology, public health, mathematics, physics, chemistry, geology, statistics. The subjects should foster effective communication with the general public, leading to more effective environmental protection.Dr Hong S. Kim is at the Environmental Studies Program, California State University, Fullerton, USA. He received a PhD from the Administration and Management Program at Walden University, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. His numerous papers are focused on environmental pollution analysis, environmental impact assessment, environmental management, and environmental law. He has written a book entitledEnvironmentology which is forthcoming.Dr James P. Dixon is the Chairperson of Health Services at Walden University, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55401, USA. He was recently Professor of the Department of Policy and Administration at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA. He was also past President of Antioch College (1959–1975). His many publications are concentrated in the areas of organizational development, public health and preventive medicine, and administration of human service organizations.     

The eclipse of NEPA as Environmental Policy

Previous evaluations of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) have focused on the effectiveness of its procedural requirements in improving the quality of decision making with respect to environmental matters. Subsequent growth of other environmental regulation and the changing role of Environmental Impact Statements in the decision-making process should also be considered. The many federal and state environmental laws passed in the 1970s have, by defining the nature and acceptability of environmental impact and prohibiting unacceptable impacts, superseded the substantive role of NEPA in environmental protection. Although the EIS continues to serve as a focus for public debate regarding proposed government actions, such debates usually center around social or economic rather than environmental issues. NEPA has thus been superseded by other environmental laws, and its role in the decision-making process today has little relation to its earlier environmental significance.     

Riverbanks and the law: The arbitrary nature of river boundaries in New South Wales,Australia

Key aspects of environmental management exist within a legislative framework. The Rivers and Foreshores Improvement Act 1948 (NSW) and several Regional Environmental Plans created under the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 (NSW) make reference to ‘the top of the bank’ for defining areas of protected land adjacent to rivers, within which development consent may be required. It is an arbitrary term and its use within the Rivers and Foreshores Improvement Act 1948 (NSW) leads to confusion. This paper examines the range of definitions of ‘the top of the bank’ in respect of natural watercourses and aims to provide a more lucid and effective definition that will clarify existing ambiguities in legal interpretation. The paper examines the historical origins of the phrase ‘top of the bank’, finding that stereotyped Eurocentric views of what a river ‘should look like’ have impaired the legal definition for Australian rivers, thereby influencing common law and the development of statutory definitions. Judicial applications of the phrase ‘top of the bank’ are examined from a geomorphological perspective, demonstrating the misconceptions of the term in a legal context. The paper identifies the existence of widespread support for the need to protect land adjacent to rivers in the interests of environmental, economic and social sustainability. It concludes by calling for legislative reform that is both tailored to the individual site and consistent with overarching goals at the catchment scale.     

Structure and function of environmental programmes

Summary In this article, the need for integrated curricula in environmental science/studies programmes is reviewed. The required competencies/outcomes for understanding and solution of environmental problems, the requirement for interdisciplinarity and incorporation of innovative skills/methods into environmental curricula, examples of ways to integrate curricula, teaching methodologies and their rationales, impacts of environmental programmes, and academic support for programmes, are also examined in this context.Dr John Lemons is Professor of Biology and Environmental Science, and Chairperson of the Department of Life Sciences at the University of New England. He is also Editor-in-Chief ofThe Environmental Professional, the official journal of the National Association for Environmental Professionals.     

Environmental quality management in the united states in the 1980s and beyond: An appraisal

Summary This paper presents an overview of: (1) the institutional context of the environmental pollution sector of environmental quality management; (2) accomplishments and problems in some representative subsectors; and (3) prospects. The author describes levels of government within the US federal system and lists types of organizational structures, explains the division of responsibilities for managing environmental quality among legislative bodies/executive agencies, state and federal courts, and state public utility commission, and notes the significant role of nongovernmental environmental groups. In order to assess both the past performance and present status of environmental quality management in the United States, Bower cites some specific and generic problems in such subsectors as water quality, soil erosion, air quality, and hazardous wastes. He goes on to characterize recent approaches and their results using these observations as a basis for an appraisal of future prospects in the context of intermedia impacts and multiple modes of impact on various species. Remarks prepared for presentation at theColloque International, Les Politiques de l'Environnement Face à la Crise, Paris, 10–12 January, 1984. Blair T. Bower, a Registered Civil Engineer, is a Consultant in Residence at Resources For the Future in Washington, DC. He has worked extensively in the US and abroad on environmental quality management with such international organizations as the UN, WHO, OAS, and OECD. His current involvements include consultancies with the US National Oceans and Atmospheric Administration, Strategic Assessments Branch/Oceans Assessment Division; as Leader for Utilization of Coastal Water Problem Areas/Analyzing Biospheric Change Programme, International Federation of Institutes for Advances Study; and with the Office of Policy Analysis/US Environmental Protection Agency. An early supporter of integrated approaches to natural resource/environmental planning and management and to residuals disposal, Mr Bower is the author of many publications on a wide range of environmental topics and management options.     

Forest service experience with interdisciplinary teams developing integrated resource management plans

The National Forest Management Act and National Environmental Policy Act require the use of an interdisciplinary team (ID team) to do integrated resource planning for the National Forests and the concurrent environmental analysis. A survey sent to all National Forest planning officers (82% response) reveals the composition of the ID teams used in integrated resource and land management planning. More than half the National Forests ID teams met NEPA and NFMA compositional requirements. National Forest planners recount their experiences with these ID teams. Despite frustrations with many aspects of the ID teams, the planners strongly support the idea that ID teams are an important part of the land-use planning process and think that their use leads to better National Forest integrated resource plans.     

Innovation in environmental policy: the National Environmental Policy Act of the US and the Resource Management Act of New Zealand

On enactment, both the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), 1970 of the US and the Resource Management Act (RMA), 1991 of New Zealand received accolades for innovativeness. However, is such praise justified when these acts are explored through the literature on policy innovation? This paper suggests that it is. More importantly, recognizing how different attributes of innovation contribute to having a policy adopted suggests what the crafters of future environmental policies might do well to consider. It is critical to attend to the political climate in which a policy is being drafted.