Integrating Environmental Restoration and Ecological Restoration: Long-Term Stewardship at the Department of Energy

With the ending of the Cold War, several federal agencies are reclaiming land through remediation and restoration and are considering potential future land uses that are compatible with current uses and local needs. Some sites are sufficiently contaminated that it is likely that the responsible federal agency will retain control over the land for the foreseeable future, providing them with a stewardship mission. This is particularly true of some of the larger Department of Energy (DOE) facilities contaminated during the production of nuclear weapons. The use of the term “restoration” is explored in this paper because the word means different things to the public, ecologists, and environmental managers responsible for contaminated sites, such as Superfund sites and the DOE facilities. While environmental restoration usually refers to remediation and removal of hazardous wastes, ecological restoration refers to the broader process of repairing damaged ecosystems and enhancing their productivity and/or biodiversity. The goals of the two types of restoration can be melded by considering environmental restoration as a special case of ecological restoration, one that involves risk reduction from hazardous wastes, and by broadening environmental restoration to include a more extensive problem-formulation phase (both temporal and spatial), which includes the goal of reestablishing a functioning ecosystem after remediation. Further, evaluating options for the desired post remediation result will inform managers and policy-makers concerning the feasibility and efficacy of environmental restoration itself.     

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.     

Balancing environmental and industry sustainability: A case study of the US gold mining industry

Mandatory insurance requirements and/or mitigation fees (royalties) for mining companies may help reduce environmental risk exposure for the federal government. Mining is examined since the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Toxic Release Inventory reveals that this sector produces more hazardous waste than any other industrial sector. Although uncommon, environmental expense can exceed hundreds of millions of dollars per development. Of particular concern is the potential for mines to become unfunded Superfund sites. Monte Carlo simulation of risk exposure is used to establish a plausible range of unfunded federal liabilities associated with cyanide-leach gold mining. A model is developed to assess these costs and their impact on both the federal budget and corporate profitability (i.e., industry sustainability), particularly if such costs are borne by offending firms.     

Sustainable brownfields redevelopment and empowering communities to participate more effectively in environmental decision-making

The mitigation and reuse of contaminated land is a central element of environmental risk management practice in high-income nations. In the United States, with approximately 1500 Superfund sites (National Research Council, 1991), over 400,000 hazardous waste sites (Environmental Research Foundation, 1993) and an indeterminate number of sites that are qualitatively less contaminated, generally known as 'brownfields', there is ample opportunity for environmental professionals interested in becoming actively involved in such work. The reuse of previously developed plots of land is an important environmental risk management strategy as well as a primary trajectory for advancing communities through local decision-making that seeks economic, aesthetic or recreational advantages. This edition of Local Environment will explore this topic from a variety of perspectives.     

Acid Volatile Sulfides,Equilibrium Partitioning,and Hazardous Waste Site Sediments

/ Information provided by acid volatile sulfide (AVS) andequilibrium partitioning (EqP) theory is described, including two caseexamples, relative to hazardous waste site sediments. AVS and EqP are toolsin the toolbox, which can serve three main functions: screening,prioritization, and assisting in explaining observed effects. They should notbe used in isolation for decision making, particularly at hazardous waste orother sites where the sediments are contaminated by materials such as coal,coke, and pitch.KEY WORDS: Acid volatile sulfides; Equilibrium partitioning; Sediments;Hazardous waste     

Restoration,stewardship, environmental health,and policy: understanding stakeholders' perceptions

In recent years there has been considerable interest in the health of humans and the environment, restoration of contaminated or otherwise degraded lands, and in long-term stewardship of public lands. Unfortunately, it is unclear whether governmental agencies and the public hold similar views about the meanings of these concepts, making policy decisions about restoration and stewardship difficult. In this paper, I explore how the public conceptualizes restoration and stewardship by examining the relative rating of several attributes of restoration, stewardship, environmental health, ecological health, environmental restoration, and ecological restoration. People were interviewed in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA, near the Department of Energy's Los Alamos National Laboratory. The ratings of attributes of environmental health and ecological health reported in this paper can be used to understand how the public understands these concepts. The attributes rated most highly by the subjects were more similar to definitions in the scientific literature for these terms than they were to those used by the Department of Energy. For environmental health, the highest rating related to human sanitation, while for ecological health the highest rating was for maintaining functioning ecosystems. Reduction of exposure to hazardous substances was rated the second highest for both environmental and ecological health. The wise use of natural resources, preservation of natural resources, and hazardous waste site cleanup were rated the highest attributes of stewardship. These data suggest that both expert and nonexpert perceptions about restoration and stewardship should be incorporated into environmental management decisions.     

Chemical Warfare Materiel: Unique Regulatory Issues

In those states that have not included CWM as hazardous materials in their RCRA programs, the RCRA requirements for management of hazardous waste would not strictly apply to any of the CWM. The Army has historically implemented procedures requiring that chemical warfare agents be managed as RCRA hazardous waste regardless of the concentration, physical form, or configuration of the agent. Such application of strict hazardous waste requirements to management of potentially nonhazardous CWM can result in remedial costs well out of proportion to potential human health and environmental benefits. Recent development of chronic toxicity values for the CWM has opened the door for development of cleanup and waste management standards for waste streams or media containing small residual amounts of CWM. Implementation of this health-based approach to management of CWM remediation wastes may, in part, help to reduce potentially unnecessary hazardous waste management costs for the nonhazardous CWM.     

Hazardous waste sites,stress, and neighborhood quality in USA

Summary Seven neighborhoods adjacent to hazardous waste were surveyed. The authors found that respondents did not rate their neighborhoods as highly as Americans as a whole, but, like most Americans, they did rate their present neighborhood better, or the same as, their previous one. The adjacent hazardous waste site was mentioned as distressing more often than any other neighborhood characteristic. Yet in four of the seven neighborhoods, dilapidated buildings and streets, odors and smoke from sewage treatment plants and factories, noise from trains and traffic congestion, or another neighborhood characteristic was mentioned as more stressful than the hazardous waste site. It is argued that govemment needs to be more aggressive about understanding community viewpoints before proposing multi-million dollar hazardous waste remediation plans that could be resisted by a community.Professor Michael Greenberg and Dr Dona Schneider are regular contributors to this Journal. All three authors work in the Department of Urban Studies and Community Health, and support the New Jersey Graduate Program in Public Health at Rutgers University.     

Creating successful partnerships with hazardous waste providers

Baxter Healthcare's Cardio Vascular Group (CVG) has formed a partnership with Advanced Environmental Technical Services (AETS, formerly called AETC), an 18-year-old environmental services company based in Flanders, New Jersey. With annual revenues of nearly $100 million, AETS is the largest privately owned environmental service company of its kind. Creating a partnership with providers of hazardous waste services has become necessary for many companies that find themselves downsizing and focusing their limited resources on their core businesses. More than merely waste haulers, hazardous waste management companies are being called on to train employees, develop environmental budgets, and even serve as on-site waste managers. AETS and Baxter Healthcare's CVG have created such a partnership and have successfully reduced Baxter's hazardous waste production by 56 percent since 1992. The lessons learned from this partnership are reported in this article.     

Animal Burrowing Attributes Affecting Hazardous Waste Management

/ Animal burrowing is critical to the formation of soils and contributes to the interface between geological materials and organic life. It also influences the management of hazardous materials at nuclear waste facilities and elsewhere. For example, residues and waste products from the production of nuclear weapons are released onto the ground surface and within engineered burial structures. Soil bioturbation has exposed radionuclides and other hazardous materials to wind and rain, thereby risking inhalation and injury to humans and wildlife on and off site. Soil bioturbation can expand soil depths and spatial distributions of the source term of hazardous waste, potentially increasing chronic exposures to wildlife and humans over the long term. Ample evidence indicates that some of the large quantities of hazardous materials around the world have been released from soil repositories, where they have also contaminated and harmed biota. Key burrowing parameters influencing these outcomes include the catalog of resident species, and their abundance, typical burrow volumes (void space created by soil displacement), burrow depth profiles, maximum depth of excavation, constituents and structural qualities of excavated soil mounds, and proportion of the ground covered by excavated soil. Other important parameters include rate of mound construction, depth of den chambers, and volume of burrow backfill. Soil bioturbation compromised the integrity of some hazardous waste management systems using soil, but the environmental impact remains largely unknown. Designers and operators of waste management facilities, as well as risk assessors, need to understand how burrowing animals influence hazardous waste storage.KEY WORDS: Burrowing; Environmental impact; Radioactivity; Risk; Soil bioturbation; Hazardous waste     

Sydney tar ponds: some problems in quantifying toxic waste

Information on the type and amount of hazardous and toxic waste is required to develop a meaningful strategy and estimate a realistic cost for clean up of the Sydney Tar Pond site which is located on Cape Breton, in the province of Nova Scotia, Canada. The site covers the area of the decommissioned Sysco (Sydney Steel Corporation) plant. The materials of concern include BTEX (benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylenes), PAH (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons), PCB (polychlorinated biphenyl), and particulates laden with toxic metals, such as arsenic, lead, and others. The originally nontoxic materials such as soil, blast furnace slag, and vegetation, as well as surface and ground waters, which were subsequently contaminated, must also be included if they fail tests prescribed by environmental regulations. An extensive sampling program must be undertaken to obtain data for an accurate estimate of the waste to be cleaned and disposed of. Apparently, 700,000 tons of toxic waste, which is believed to be present on the site, may represent only a fraction of the actual amount. The clean-up of the site is only part of the solution. Toxic waste has to be disposed of in accordance with environmental regulations.     

Can David and Goliath Get Along? Federal Land in Local Places

It is often unclear what the role of a local jurisdiction is with regard to land use management on nearby federal properties. Yet federal lands clearly impact nearby local communities. The US Department of Energy (DOE), with over 100 sites across the United States with varying degrees of environmental contamination, may be in a very difficult position with regard to relationships with local government about land use. Yet few, if any, studies have examined DOE land use issues. This study asks: (1) In general, how do local planners feel about federal government relationships with them? (2) Do local planners feel differently about the DOE than they do about other federal agencies? (3) What reasons explain any differences observed in answer to the second question? To answer these questions, local planners were interviewed from communities adjacent to non-DOE federal properties, and their responses compared to those of planners located near DOE facilities in the same regions. Findings showed that compared to other federal agencies that own land in the same regions, the DOE is relatively poorer at actively involving local officials in land use decisions at its sites. Primary reasons are the historic legacy of a culture of secrecy, focus on mission, and especially the lack of experience, training, or mandates in local planning cooperation. Findings also suggest that this attitude is markedly stronger in areas west of the Rocky Mountains. Recommendations for improved federal–local communications include the development of a vision for local government involvement that is supported by top levels of management and filtered effectively to the site level.     

A Paradigm of International Environmental Law: The Case for Controlling the Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes

The production of large quantities of wastes globally has created a commercial activity involving the transfrontier shipments of hazardous wastes, intended to be managed at economically attractive waste-handling facilities located elsewhere. In fact, huge quantities of hazardous wastes apparently travel the world in search of “acceptable” waste management facilities. For instance, within the industrialized countries alone, millions of tonnes of potentially hazardous waste cross national frontiers each year on their way for recycling or to treatment, storage, and disposal facilities (TSDFs) because there is no local disposal capacity for these wastes, or because legal disposal or reuse in a foreign country may be more environmentally sound, or managing the wastes in the foreign country may be less expensive than at home. The cross-boundary traffic in hazardous wastes has lately been under close public scrutiny, however, resulting in the accession of several international agreements and laws to regulate such activities. This paper discusses and analyzes the most significant control measures and major agreements in this new commercial activity involving hazardous wastes. In particular, the discussion recognizes the difficulties with trying to implement the relevant international agreements among countries of vastly different socioeconomic backgrounds. Nonetheless, it is also noted that global environmental agreements will generally be a necessary component of ensuring adequate environmental protection for the world community—and thus a need for the careful implementation of such agreements and regulations.     

Land classification used to select abandoned hazardous waste study sites

The biological effects of hazardous substances in the environment are influenced by climate, physiography, and biota. These factors interact to determine the transport and fate of chemicals, but are difficult to model accurately except for small areas with a large data base. The requirement for a large data base may be reduced locally if the regional influences of these factors were predetermined from existing data. Knowledge of the regional factors would also relax the restriction to considering only small areas. This paper advocates consideration of regional characteristics of the environment in the early stages of waste management strategy development. It presents as an example a procedure for selecting study sites from candidate-abandoned hazardous waste dumpsites in the southeastern United States. It uses small-scale maps of low resolution from the National Atlas to delineate the boundaries and to determine the environmental characteristics that prevail over units of land within the region. A computer map-overlay and graphic approach is used to facilitate the grouping of land types. Abandoned hazardous waste dumpsites found within land types that best represent the region are surveyed for selecting a study site. It is expected that environmental impact data obtained from a representative site would be useful for predicting impact potentials in similar remotely located areas within the same general region.     

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT EVALUATION OF HAZARDOUS WASTE DISPOSAL IN LAND1

Since the publication of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring in 1962 there has been a rapidly growing public concern over widespread contamination of the environment with hazardous wastes. In recent years scientific findings on the ecological effects of various hazardous substances have posed several important questions. What exactly are hazardous wastes? Can these substances be disposed of in a technically feasible, economical, and safe way with assurance that they have been permanently eliminated from the ecosystem? What compositional alterations or movements of the hazardous wastes occur in water, soil, or air systems? What effect will these wastes have on the water, soil, or air systems? What effect will these wastes have on the water, soil, or air properties? Consequently, a University of Louisville study has developed a relevant definition of hazardous wastes for the Environmental Engineering profession together with priority of concern rating systems to delineate the degree of environmental impact imposed on a total ecosystem by a hazardous waste and the feasibility of disposing of hazardous substances at specific landfill sites. It is felt that refinements of the priority of concern rating systems offered here may provide a sound basis from which procedural decisions may be structured to establish future national hazardous waste disposal sites.     

浅论县(区)级环境监测站的现状和发展

本文分析了县（区）级环境监测站在我国加入WTO及政府机构改革后所存在的问题和面临的生存困难。指出当前该级别环境监测站存在的主要问题是缺乏管理，缺乏经费以及技术力量的逐步下降，在此基础上，文章提出了包括加强队伍建设，提高管理水平，进行标准化建设和实施QA／QC等诸多的合理化建设及良好的发展思路。     

Understanding the roles of customers and suppliers in quality assurance and quality control

Quality assurance (QA) and quality control (QC) are basic components of a TQEM program. All too often these functions are loosely defined and used interchangeably. Yet, the quality of outputs and services strongly depends on the caliber of the communications between the “customer” and the “supplier.” A clear understanding of customer needs and expectations is essential to selecting and applying suitable QA and QC. Planning, implementing, and assessing all play a major part in the quality of final outputs. A clear understanding of the customer/supplier relationship and the functional roles played by each is essential to a successful TQEM program. This article identifies, clarifies, and simplifies the quality management responsibilities of the customer and the supplier. The ideas presented are applicable in all work environments, including research and development (R&D).     

Glassceramics obtained from industrial waste

Large areas of Latvia are contaminated with industrial waste: metallurgical slag, fly-ash, etching refuse, peat, and coal ash as well as glass waste which often contain dangerous substances. From the environmental point of view this waste should be neutralised. As this waste also contains valuable chemical compounds, it can be considered as a raw material for the generation of new materials. One method of utilisation is to produce recycled materials — street plates, decorative tiles, or floor tiles. Dense sintered glassceramics with a water uptake of 0.34–3.23 wt.%, a final density of 2.93–3.05 g/cm³, and a bending strength of 80–96 MPa have been created from industrial waste. The mast chemically durable glassceramics contained clay additions. Thus, the material containing only waste had a durability (mass loss) of 3.02% in 0.1 N HCl, while the composition containing 30% clay addition had a durability of 0.2% in 0.1 N HCl.     

Superfund,Hedonics, and the Scales of Environmental Justice

Environmental justice (EJ) is prominent in environmental policy, yet EJ research is plagued by debates over methodological procedures. A well-established economic approach, the hedonic price method, can offer guidance on one contentious aspect of EJ research: the choice of the spatial unit of analysis. Environmental managers charged with preventing or remedying inequities grapple with these framing problems. This article reviews the theoretical and empirical literature on unit choice in EJ, as well as research employing hedonic pricing to assess the spatial extent of hazardous waste site impacts. The insights from hedonics are demonstrated in a series of EJ analyses for a national inventory of Superfund sites. First, as evidence of injustice exhibits substantial sensitivity to the choice of spatial unit, hedonics suggests some units conform better to Superfund impacts than others. Second, hedonic estimates for a particular site can inform the design of appropriate tests of environmental inequity for that site. Implications for policymakers and practitioners of EJ analyses are discussed.     

The Tribal Environment: Solid Waste in Indian Country

The issue of solid waste management in Indian country is multidimensional in scope because it affects more than just regulatory concerns. There are more than 550 federally recognized Alaska Native and American Indian Tribes in the United States. Tribes are sovereign nations that have a special relationship to the federal government and a unique legal status. The environmental problems faced by tribes are many, and it is only fair that tribes, as sovereigns, specify the levels of protection on their lands. The one-size-fits-all regulatory approach to environmental problems and solid waste management in particular does not work and often leads to conflict between tribes and the federal and state governments. Inherent tensions also exist between tribes and various levels of government concerning jurisdiction of lands and managing solid waste. These intergovernmental relationships are often complex and present unique challenges to all. More research needs to be done on targeting resources to meet the capacity-building needs of tribes, as well as the overall environmental management needs of Indian country under the federal trust obligation. Successful intergovernmental relationships can be fostered through partnership arrangements between tribes and federal, state, and local governments. In the area of solid waste such partnerships have worked. It requires that all levels of government deal with tribes with careful consideration of their cultural, historic, and socioeconomic aspects, which are often intertwined.