Empowered native community, modified SIA: The case of hydaburg, alaska

This paper reviews a social impact assessment of Hydaburg, Alaska, to illustrate the modifications of non-NEPA SIAs in response to “empowered” Native communities. Hydaburg has been influenced by three organizations designed to promote greater self-determination: the Native Village Corporation, a Native municipal government, and the Native Sovereignty Movement. The Hydaburg SIA incorporated community-based research, cultural assessment, and advocacy mitigation to accommodate the demands of this“empowerment”. The paper suggest that modified SIAs of this sort are likely to become more prevalent as self-determination among Native communities increases.     

The impasse over limits to growth: A suggested course of research

An analysis of the long-term demands, supplies and costs for phosphorus is employed as an example of ‘worst case’ research. Worst case research attempts to bound the problems posed in The Limits to Growth relating to running out of minerals and other raw materials by studying the costs of obtaining such materials from some vast source such as common rock. Since the costs of extracting minerals from these near infinite sources are as high as they would go for thousands of years, they represent the upper limit or worst case outlook, especially since the estimated costs are based on current technology. Recycling, conservation and other possibilities are also examined. At least in certain cases it may be possible from such research to make clearer judgements about the questions of exhaustion posed by the ’limits to growth’ literature.     

Modeling population effects of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on a long-lived species

The 2010 Deepwater Horizon (DWH) oil spill exposed common bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) in Barataria Bay, Louisiana to heavy oiling that caused increased mortality and chronic disease and impaired reproduction in surviving dolphins. We conducted photographic surveys and veterinary assessments in the decade following the spill. We assigned a prognostic score (good, fair, guarded, poor, or grave) for each dolphin to provide a single integrated indicator of overall health, and we examined temporal trends in prognostic scores. We used expert elicitation to quantify the implications of trends for the proportion of the dolphins that would recover within their lifetime. We integrated expert elicitation, along with other new information, in a population dynamics model to predict the effects of observed health trends on demography. We compared the resulting population trajectory with that predicted under baseline (no spill) conditions. Disease conditions persisted and have recently worsened in dolphins that were presumably exposed to DWH oil: 78% of those assessed in 2018 had a guarded, poor, or grave prognosis. Dolphins born after the spill were in better health. We estimated that the population declined by 45% (95% CI 14–74) relative to baseline and will take 35 years (95% CI 18–67) to recover to 95% of baseline numbers. The sum of annual differences between baseline and injured population sizes (i.e., the lost cetacean years) was 30,993 (95% CI 6607–94,148). The population is currently at a minimum point in its recovery trajectory and is vulnerable to emerging threats, including planned ecosystem restoration efforts that are likely to be detrimental to the dolphins’ survival. Our modeling framework demonstrates an approach for integrating different sources and types of data, highlights the utility of expert elicitation for indeterminable input parameters, and emphasizes the importance of considering and monitoring long-term health of long-lived species subject to environmental disasters. Article impact statement: Oil spills can have long-term consequences for the health of long-lived species; thus, effective restoration and monitoring are needed.